Just when you were getting your mind around Social Computing, Forrester has concluded that Social Computing is a steppingstone along the path to the empowered era. At least that’s one of the findings you’ll discover in the new book Empowered, co-authored by Groundswell author Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler, published today by Harvard Business Review Press.

My research team’s charter here at Forrester is to “Predict and quantify growth and disruption in the tech industry.” That means we’re always on the lookout for the next big thing(s), whether that’s technology, economic, or business trends that will change the direction of the industry’s fortunes. So we spend a lot of time on primary research, understanding the requirements and priorities of key business technology constituencies like IT organizations, business leaders, and employees within businesses large and small.

And many of our clients in the tech industry do the same. I recently spent some time with Saul Berman and Ragna Bell from IBM’s Global Business Services team, which just completed its bi-annual Global CEO Study. It’s an impressive piece of research, with interviews of more than 1,500 CEOs from around the world about their challenges, goals, and values. One prominent takeaway for readers of this blog: sustainability and environmental concerns are NOT gaining ground on the priority list of global CEOs. Take a look at Figure 1: “environmental issues” are stuck in 7^th place on the list of the most important external factors impacting the CEOs’ organizations over the next 3 years. So while we in the sustainability community think we’re making headway in corporate boardrooms, this data doesn't show much progress over the last six years.

[Update: 3:15pm, 9-7-2010. Sigh. This is a US-only offer. My apologies to colleagues and friends in other countries. I'm told you can buy it on Amazon.com in other countries, at least in hard copy.]

Our new book, Empowered, is free on Kindle through September 10th. That means anybody with a Kindle or Kindle reader (iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, PC, or Mac) can download and read it for free forever.

My coauthor Josh Bernoff explains why we're not crazy to do this. It boils down to: We hope you read it and share your thoughts and your own HERO experiences with friends and colleagues. For my part, I'd be thrilled to hear directly back from you or read about your own HERO experiences in comments or posts or tweets or video narratives. Here's Josh's post: 

Starting today and continuing until this Friday September 10, you can download Empowered to your Kindle at no charge.

You want to know how to manage your company in the age of empowered customers, don't you? If you've got a Kindle, what's stopping you?

Now to the other question. Are we crazy?

Some people have told me that giving away Empowered on Kindle makes it seem worthless. Or that I'm giving up revenue.

My work at Forrester is focused on helping strategists at IT suppliers (vendors) align their development, positioning, and messaging with the big trends and disruptions in the industry. Mobility, cloud computing, globalization … trends at that high altitude. Over the last 3 years or so, that has included sustainability as it has appeared on and risen higher on the strategy agenda of companies around the world.

 When I meet with strategists at tech suppliers large and small, we talk sustainability both in terms of how the companies are cleaning up their own practices and processes, and what they are doing to help their customers do the same. SAP’s “exemplar and enabler” language captures these parallel efforts nicely. But it’s still a limited perspective, one that I characterize as the IT industry playing defense. “We are improving our energy efficiency!” says the collective industry voice, as if trying to deflect public criticism of energy-hog data centers, or mountains of e-waste, or PCs left running 7 x 24. And yes, absolutely, the IT industry and its customers have more work to do to make IT infrastructure and processes less wasteful and more responsible.