Stephen Baker and Heather Green at Businessweek took a rather unusual approach in putting together the magazine’s June 2 cover story: They took a look back at a story from three years ago called “Blogs Will Change Your Business,” and updated that piece to create “Social Media Will Change Your Business” for the current issue. Check out Baker’s video prologue and online intro to the story, which explains the thinking behind this approach. It’s a good retrospective on what’s really changed in the last three years. Jaded digerati types might find this all to be a bit breathless, but for a magazine with a much broader audience — this isn’t Wired or Fast Company after all — I think it’s a good overview.

You Twittering types will enjoy his Baker’s account of his conversion from skeptic to believer. (Follow him on Twitter at @stevebaker). He also plugs IBM’s new Many Eyes project, a very cool shared visualization site where you can upload pretty much any data set and generate appropriate visual representations — tag clouds, maps, what have you.

I’m always on the lookout for good material for “laypeople”: articles, videos, presentations and other resources that are designed to explain the significance and describe the impact of social media on brands, marketers, and consumers — and just as importantly, resources that help brands and marketing communications folks devise with-the-grain social media strategies. Any good suggestions you might have are welcome. Don’t assume I’ve seen it already!