800-CEO-READ Blog

Reading the Future

One of the thing we want to do is be the first to tell you about books you should be reading. We think we are doing a pretty good job. As I was paging through Fortune yesterday, I saw two books we recently highlighted.

They did a book review on Robin Wolaner's Naked in the Boardroom. And then 6 pages later, Anne Fisher gives alot of love to Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone. Both spots review each book favorably.

Here are some reminders and resources on the books:

Naked in the Boardroom

• Naked Truth Excerpts
• Business Blog Book Tour
• Toddcast Interview with Robin

Never Eat Alone

• Excerpt
• Keith's Never Eat Alone Blog
• Review - The Harbus

Nation of Rebels Review

I have been intrigued by Nation of Rebels by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter. I have only had time to read the introduction. While looking through my new copy of Paste Magazine, I noticed they did a review. This was written by Phillip Christman:

Fallen hippies trading in their Volkswagens for SUVs. To most of us it's very emblem of a sellout, but to Canadian philosophy professors Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, authors of the provocative Nation of Rebels, it's a logical progression. The book charges that by attempting to build a counterculture through purchases of "alternative" goods (VW bugs then, Range Rovers now), political radicals have turned their backs on unsexy-but-concrete ways of fighting injustice through the legislative process, while strengthening the power of consumerism (after all, someone made money off all those piles of Adbusters issues and rebel-fashion-accessories at the bottom of their closets). Wrong as much as it's right (the authors seem to think organic food is a showoff luxury item--preserving topsoil ain't a luxury, fellas), this book deserves a careful read.

If you pick up Issue 15, you will get a sampler CD with tracks from Aimee Mann, Glen Phillips (of Toad the Wet Sprocket fame), and Ani DiFranco. I subscribe just to get the great sampling of new music. They also have a sampler DVD in this issue.

WOMMA

Todd and I attended the WOMMA Summit yesterday. Todd stayed for the second day and I am sure will have tons to talk about.

I want to talk about the lunch keynote from yesterday. Guy Kawasaki is a great speaker. He has just the right combination of folkie street smart with a touch of MBA speak. One of the real tests of a good speaker is how much you takeaway from the speech. I took away many ideas. The conference was attended by an interesting cross sections of Fortune 500 folks and hybrid drivers. It was like what it must have been like during the early blog conferences.

The conference was knee deep in authors ranging from Jackie and Ben of Creating Customer Evangelists, to Emanuel Rosen of Anatomy of Buzz, to authors with books not yet published like Mark Hughes who has a book coming in July called BuzzMarketing. I think you will also hear us talking about Pyromarketing by Greg Stielstra.

Todd has been posting notes over on his blog.

Jack Covert Selects - Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing

Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing by Alex Wipperfurth, Portfolio, 288 Pages, $24.95, Hardcover, February 2005, ISBN 1591840783.

There are thousands of books about brands, brand management, and branding. Believe me, I have seen and read most of them in the last twenty years. I think Alex Wipperfurth takes a different path on his idea of branding with his new book called Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing.

This book has the best case study I have seen on Red Bull and how they allowed their customers to hijack their brand. Red Bull's first expansion outside of its native Austria was to Germany. The legal importation of Red Bull took five years for the government to approve. During this time, there was a huge black market in Munich for it. and people started asking why it was illegal. Rumors started to fly about effects of the drink (speed in a can?) to its source (bull testicles?). Upon approval in Germany, a concerned mother's group stepped forward and campaigned to have the drink banned. This organized resistance only made it that much more popular with young people. Wipperfurth believes the Red Bull's brand has "[early consumers] fingerprints" all over it. The important thing is that Red Bull let the myths and the controversy persist. This is a great example of letting your customers co-create the brand with you.

The author has a lot of other great thoughts too: he believes that one has to start with a compelling idea, and cautions companies that believe non-traditional methods are cheap. They are often multi-year projects with very specific plans and goals. At the end of the book, Wipperfurth lays out a framework for allowing a successful hijack. Consider yourself warned - let your company be hijacked. Really, it's a good thing.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE MONTHLY BOOK REVIEWS, PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO JACKAT 800-CEO-READ.COM

This week - 3/28/05

The weather is warming here in MKE. We are looking at temperatures in the 50's this week. We also want to congratulate Wisconsin and UW-Milwaukee on their runs in the NCAA tourney this year.

This week is going to be a little slower than most. Jack and I are going to be attending the WOM Summit in Chicago. I am going to try and line up some things while we are out. And I am certain we will have a thing or two to say about the conference. Rumor has it that there is no wireless, so we will be on tape delay.

What we do have is the Jack Covert Selects review of Brand Hijack. We have an audio interview with Eileen Shapiro and Howard Stevenson about their book Make Your Own Luck. We will be also posting another excerpt from an audiobook (hint: it was featured in WSJ on Friday).

The rest will be a surprise as always.

Have a great week!

A Whole New Summary

We post an awful lot of content on A Whole New Mind this week.

I wanted to pull it all together in one post for those who have come in and out during the week. It is also an opportunity to point out the other weblogs where we are running content. I am going to add a few additional link to some other content on the book.

800-CEO-READ Book Reviews

• Cathy Alper
• Lisa Haneberg
• Jack Covert
• Todd Sattersten
• John Moore
• Evelyn Rodriguez

External Reviews

• U.S. News and World Report
• Fort Worth Telegram-Star

Excerpts

• Revenge of the Brain [Wired]
• Story Portfolio
• Symphony Portfolio
• Empathy Portfolio
• Play Portfolio
• Meaning Portfolio

Audio Interview with Dan Pink

800-CEO-READ sponsors WOMMA Summit 2005

800-CEO-READ is a proud sponsor of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Summit 2005. We don't normally sponsor events, but we thought this was an unique event on a unique topic. The Summit is being held in Chicago next week and word has it that it is sold out. Around three hundred people will be attending the two day event.

For the event, we pulled together a library of books we think you should be reading if you are interested in word-of-mouth marketing:

Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnell, Jackie Huba

It is great, just read it. We are giving away 300 copies at the event. Ben and Jackie believe word-of-mouth is more than a product launch tactic. They think it should be your company's strategy.

The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen

How buzz works, what creates buzz and how to make it work for you.

The Influentials by Ed Keller and John Berry

This tells you how to find the people you are looking for--the people who will talk to and influence others. This is the book with all the data. The authors have been collecting data for 25 years and have painted a wonderful picture of this set of people is truly different and worthy of your attention.

The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing by George Silverman

Silverman thinks the best thing you can do is accelerate the purchase decision process and one of the best ways of doing that is connecting customers with prospects. This book is heavy on the B2B examples, but applicable to all.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Need I Say more.

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Word-of-mouth starts with a remarkable product or service. The key word is remarkable. People often mistake remarkable to mean amazing. Seth tells you remarkable is creating something someone wants to talk about and tell someone else.

Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin

This was the book that proved its own point. Seth made the book available for free online. There were 2,000,000 downloads in the first year. The book was an afterthought.

Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers

This is the theory title in the set. This book was originally written in 1962 and has become the textbook on diffusion. It is in its 5th Edition and has been updated with current cases.

The Cluetrain Manifesto by Dave Weinberger and company

"Markets are Conversations."

Brand Hijack by Alex Wipperfurth

Alex talks about what happens when you allow your customers to take over the maketing of your product. This book is to get you comfortable with that idea.

Whole New Mind: A Primer for the Conceptual Age

We are witnessing a shift from the “logical, linear, computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.” I wholeheartedly (and whole mindfully) agree with the premise of A Whole New Mind: Moving From the Information Age to the Conceptual Age by Daniel Pink. And while this isn’t the definitive handbook into personally delving into that new age, it is an excellent primer -- with caveats.

I had high hopes for A Whole New Mind. I wanted to fall headlong in love with this book but could only muster a strong "let's be friends" attraction. So maybe I'm still pining as I write this.

I was aching for a book I could recommend and hand out to individuals in a transitory phase in their life either due to circumstances foisted on them or by a gnawing pull to “find their purpose.” But the book leans too much on fire-and-brimstone arguments to totally motivate the unconverted. Pink claims we need to ask ourselves:

1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it better?
3. Am I offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age?

The implicit assumption is: Learn these “high concept, high touch” skills and you are guaranteed your safety net a bit longer. But folks whom successfully carve out a niche of “uncommoditizable” skills aren’t extrinsically motivated by fear of destitution. While Pink tells us that that the fusion of the right brain and left brain are merely metaphors for this conceptual age revolution – he overlooks a bigger metaphor: the passionate, intrinsic drive and motivation which stem from the more primitive, emotional part of the brain.

It’s hard to know whom Pink is writing for: the analytical “comfortable cadre…in for a big surprise” left-brainers whom he assumes are being kicked dragging and screaming into the Conceptual Age or the “creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers” that are somersaulting with joy that finally their due has come. Or both.

I can see why the latter would enjoy the book. Even if you think you already breathe this stuff day and night, I had a really great time reading the chapters on the six senses/aptitudes (design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning). Each of the six is worthy of a book in their own right, so I wasn’t expecting completeness here. They were the big treat in the book and, refreshingly, the persuasive tactics were gone in these sections.

It’s easy to assume that Pink is saying that right-brainers will eat the left’s lunch. But this isn’t a fighting match between the two. Pink is advocating an “androgynous mind” – one that integrates and fuses the left and the right, the feminine and the masculine archetypes. Still, the book leans towards being a pep rally for the right-brainers rather than truly integrating. In the end, the book's greatest appeal will be for those already convinced they need to embrace their whole mind and are seeking the larger contextual framework to fit their personal transformation into and the additional resources to add to their repertoire.

Ultimately though the left brainers most likely will feel not just left behind -- but left out. I'm not sure that the numbers jock whom form the so-called "SAT-ocracy", or what Pink refers to as L-directed workers will rejoice in this book.

I’m a recovering computer engineer (and scored well on the SAT). The day I sauntered into marketing my fellow geeks viewed my traitorous shift as “going over to the dark side.” The subjectivity and nuances of people were disdained as disgusting “politics.” The logical case that Pink presents to persuade the left-brained decision tree types certainly wouldn’t have budged me into action long ago. In fact, from a purely logical stance I could rip apart the logical arguments although I'll leave that to others (although Pink's "abundance" section is a winner).

But forget logic for a moment. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew full well what I was doing hiding in numbers, code, concrete forms and the formulaic. I could avoid the self-conscious discomfort I had with emotion, with softness and the vulnerability potentially exposed by dabbling in the realm of the receptive right mind. Pink insightfully points out that this reclaiming of our right brain follows the path of the archetypal mythic hero’s journey. But he never addresses the central fear of embarking on this journey: the journey’s seeming descent into hell. While I may be worried that my job will be shipped to Bangalore, I’m even more terrified of going into the abyss of my right mind. Left-brainers may avoid expressing feelings – but they definitely have them.

I concede that pain is powerful lever for change. But the pain that Pink continuously harps on is the potential loss of your livelihood. Are you an expensive commodity, in other words? He doesn’t mention the pain of being incomplete, of being lopsided, of feeling like an unfulfilled cog in a machine which any developmental psychologist could tell you is the final butt-kicking catalyst. In fact, anyone that has actually made a left-to-right-to-both/and transition can tell you this.

Pink’s own experimentation with a “drawing on the right side of the brain” yielded a bit more depth around the process of accessing and integrating the right brain. But Pink is already an established writer – not a financial analyst, computer programmer or lawyer. The book would have been enriched with at least one or two short case stories of people whom really tilted left sharing their own experience of integrating a few of the six aptitudes and, most importantly, how it’s enhanced their careers and lives.

The book consistently frames globalization as a threat and counters it by arguing that these right brain skills are ones that “low-wage foreign technicians have a more difficult time replicating.” But I ain’t convinced that a kick-ass inventive signature designer isn’t residing right now in Brazil or China. Sure my masseuse won’t live a continent away, but I wouldn't underestimate global talent and our communications capabilities. The Whole Minded thinker is ultimately a global citizen in a global marketplace that envisions the opportunities and possibilities too – not singling out its threats.

In the end, the book would have been much stronger read with more of these six chapter's breezy tone and less of the "do this right now or perish" argumentation that frame the opening and closing chapters. As my book reading time dwindles, I read to be stretched – not vindicated or validated – so ultimately this book didn’t provide quite enough mind-altering illumination for me. But, heck, those six chapters on the six "senses" of design, story, symphony, empathy, play and empathy were so much fun in and of themselves to be worth the price of admission.

Moving Pictures for Business People

After raving about The Office last week on my blog, I got the idea there might be some other TV programs and movies that business minded folks could both enjoy and learn from. To make our list, it needs to meet both criteria. I think many enjoy The Apprentice, but I think we can all agree that there is little to learn from the series (though they start each episode with a Trump truism).

So, let me start by wholeheartedly recommending the BBC version of The Office. The series is shot in a mock documentary style where we follow manager David Brent and his branch of a paper distribution company. The lessons range from the disasters of office romance to the effect that uncertainty has on a work environment to exactly (and I mean precisely) what bad management looks like. There are plenty of laughs, but I also found it serious and poignant at times.

Here are links for the first season DVD and the combo first and second season DVD.

I was explicit about BBC version, because tonight NBC is premiering their version of The Office. The track record for these sorts of things is not good. I will be watching and hoping they can come close to the original. You can see it on NBC at 8:30pmET tonight. I think it is moving to Tuesdays permanently starting next week.

Check out the Dan Pink Interview

I have just posted my Toddcast with Dan Pink. In the first two minutes, you'll find out what it means to be a contributing editor to a magazine. In the next two minutes, you'll find out what magazines you should be reading. I asked him about blogging. Oh, we also talked about the book.

BOOK REVIEW: A Whole New Mind

Book: A Whole New Mind
Author: Dan Pink

Reviewer: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

In A Whole New Mind, Dan Pink writes how right-brain thinking (artistic, empathic, and contextual) is replacing left-brain thinking (functional, literal, and analytical) as we evolve from the Information Age into the Conceptual Age.

Pink compellingly argues the left-brain powered business engine of the Information Age has resulted in an abundance of everything and in an environment where automation gains have become so efficient and so prevalent that we can now outsource previously un-outsourceable white collar jobs to Asia and beyond.

The crux of his argument is, “... we’ve progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we’re progressing yet again – to a society of creators and empathizers, of pattern recognizers and meaning makers.”

This society of creators, empathizers, and meaning makers signal the dawning Conceptual Age. And according to Pink, survival in this Age "... depends on being able to do something that overseas knowledge workers can’t do cheaper, that powerful computers can’t do faster, and that satisfies one of the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age.”

To make his argument resonate with both “R-directed thinkers” (right-brainers) and “L-directed thinkers” (left-brainers), Pinks divides the book into two sections. The first section is more factual storytelling (for L-directed thinkers) while the second section is more contextual storytelling (for R-directed thinkers).

When asked, through an email exchange we had, if he purposely designed the book this way, Pink responded...

"The first three chapters advance an argument -- and a rather hard-headed, linear argument at that. If I have any hope of convincing people -- particularly the people who are hardest to convince and most in need of convincing -- I felt I had to do it on their (L-directed) terms. The final six chapters are, as you say, more contextual. If folks don't buy what I'm saying in the first three chapters, they're not even going to make it to chapter 4. But if they do get there, I wanted to give them a slightly different ride."

A Whole New Mind is an important must-read business book. However, it is not without one major flaw. Pink posits everyone has the ability to develop R-directed aptitudes and to that end, he dedicates sections of the book to exercises, tools, and articles to help us improve our right-brain acuity. Great idea, but the execution is not so great because many of his suggested action items are online links which are either dead or dead-ends.

For example, Dan references a very intriguing design manifesto from Karim Rashid and he gives us the link to Karim’s website so we can learn more about it. However, I spent a good amount of time digging deep into Karim’s website and couldn’t locate his 50-point guide to life and design. (Drats.)

But this flaw shouldn’t stop you from reading A Whole New Mind. In fact, you should start reading the book if you find yourself agreeing with any of the following statements:

You’ve never truly understood what Tom Peters means when he screams, They say “Get an MBA.” I say “Get an MFA.”

You're a knowledge worker (in the Peter Drucker sense) and want to know what the future holds for the knowledge worker class.

You want to gain greater context into Richard Florida’s “Rise of the Creative Class” treatise.

You seek to know how best to firewall your professional-self from being displaced by the forces of off-shoring.

To summarize, Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind is an important book which deserves the immediate attention of every cubicle monkey and corner-office executive working in business today. It'll teach you how to thrive in the emerging Conceptual Age where "... the 'right brain' qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfullness, and meaning -- increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders."

BOOK REVIEW: The Art of the Start

Title: The Art of the Start
Author: Guy Kawasaki
Tag-line: The time-tested, battle-hardened guide for anyone starting anything
Pages: 217
Dog-ear score: 41: 217 (18.89%)
Reviewer: Rich...!

I know I'm late with this review, but I'm writing it hoping to influence those of you that, like me, originally considered reading this book then decided against it. Please reconsider.

Firstly, I'd like to stress that this is not just a book for start-ups, I've owned Missing Link for 7 years, and I believe that many of the lessons are of even more value to me now than they would have been then (I was far too pig-headed to listen at 23 anyway). It is, as the author suggests, a book "for anyone starting anything".

There are three main reasons for my recommendation:

1. This is the business book equivalent of related short stories. It's not one concept over-sold in 300 pages, it's 11 short stories of approx. 20 pages each. In some you will dog-ear 10-pages, in others just 1 or 2, but you'll never be bored.
2. The book is filled with mini-chapters (even shorter stories) these cover topics from presentation, which I disagreed with, to better email use. These chapters alone are worth the price of admission.
3. Guy Kawasaki writes really well, my favorite line in the book, "I'd rather be poor than play golf." Hell yeah!

Don't take my word for it though, head off to ChangeThis and download Guy's Art of the Start manifesto, or just watch this clip of Guy speaking, these will give you an idea of what your in for, but I personally can't recommend it enough.

Last word: Outstanding

The Last Personal Finance Book You’ll Need

There are some unfortunate genres, such as self-help books, that are littered with crap. Personal finance books are another field of dreck. Let’s not name names. But in the former I shy away from cheesy, desperate, unctuous, and superficial books; and in the latter I pretty much avoid…the same.

Good news. The last six months have been a very good time for finance books, with a new release capping this encouraging phase. Any discussion must start by touting Eric Tyson and his lovely Personal Finance for Dummies. This book certainly isn’t new, but it occupies a special place in my heart—not simply as the best of the (often dismissed) Dummies line, but as an excellent blend of wisdom and practicality and clear advice on how to proceed.

But what’s new? First off, three titles from Portfolio. Last year Jean Chatzky spoke to us about her new, excellent book Pay It Down: From Debt to Wealth on $10 a Day. Her publisher has wisely reissued her prior book The Ten Commandments of Financial Happiness: Feel Richer with what You’ve Got, which is another smart guide that addresses the key human and emotional aspects that lead to financial discipline, and health.

Add to this list the clever Bad Debt, Good Debt: Knowing the Difference can Save your Financial Life from Jon Hanson. Debt, says Hanson, is neither good nor bad. It simply is. Having too much is bad, while having a manageable level in terms of the overall picture is acceptable. His book benefits enormously from his perspective, as he shares how himself was plagued by the demons. He speaks as one who learned his lessons from hard experience. A smart and engaging read.

But the real deal is All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Plan by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi Warren.

Why? This book raises the bar for all other personal finance books by shifting the way in which it is discussed. These authors have a fundamental understanding of both the economic context driving household decisions, and the individual makeup that often leads people to poor choices. They deal with both threads, and in the process present the challenge of managing money proportionally in the scheme of life. Their core argument is that people must balance their financial life—to allocate wisely between essentials, wants, and savings. Sure, this sounds like common sense. But when is common sense common? And how many of us really do live by a consistent set of financial principles?

Principle is actually the key word here. For while the authors share a wealth of tips, many of their tactics, while wise, feel almost perfunctory, an almost tacit admission that so much financial advice is a mere intellectual commodity. These authors seem more comfortable drawing from a deep and abiding set of principles culled from experience. Mom teaches bankruptcy law at Harvard Law School; daughter is a former consultant and HBS grad. Together they wrote the The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-class Parents Are Going Broke, a brilliant book detailing the vast changes in the personal finance landscape of the past two decades. The rules have changed profoundly, they argue, for most Americans. Paying for the essentials of life, such a mortgage and health care has become a more difficult challenge for myriad reasons, among them a different attitude about lending standards.

Their background deeply informs this personal finance book. They understand the primary importance of establishing a budget that deals with first things first—the essentials of life that occupy a disproportionately high a percentage of spending for too many Americans. They focus their advice on achieving a balance of paying for essentials, for fun, and for savings. Their advice doesn’t offer trivial solutions to profound problems (by showing how to clip coupons for example.) It helps people stay focused on the most important financial issues that rule their life.

The enduring value of this book comes from a sensible, informed, and even passionate voice of reason about how individuals today can make the right financial decisions. Moreover, given the current march of the terrible bankruptcy bill in congress, the book couldn’t be more timely.

To read the intro to the book, click here. And, click here for an author Q&A.

1. What is ALL YOUR WORTH about? We lay out the new rules of money—the rules that have changed since your parents were young, the rules nobody talks about. Then we use those new rules to build a lifetime money plan, a strategy to get control over money once and for all. All Your Worth shows its readers how to get out of debt, how to cover the bills, and how to start getting ahead—all without needing to pinch pennies or carry a calculator. This book is about taking control right now and keeping control forever.
2. Who did you write this book for? This book is for anyone who worries about money. Whether you are knee-deep in past-due notices or you just don’t think you’re saving enough, we are here to help you figure out what is wrong and fix it. We think of this as the sleep-tight book because it shows you how to develop a workable plan that will chase worry away.
3. The main crux of ALL YOUR WORTH is the concept of “balancing” your money. Can you describe what that means? You’ve heard of a balanced diet, with enough of each of the basic food groups. Balancing your money follows the same general idea. When your money is in balance, you are spending the right amount in each of your major expense categories. You have money for what you need, like your house and your insurance. You have money for savings, so you can get ahead and start to build some real wealth. And you have money that’s just for fun, because life is about more than just boiled vegetables! A crash budget doesn’t work any better than a crash diet; getting your money in balance is about creating a sensible approach to managing your money that can last you an entire lifetime.
4. So what is the Balanced Money Formula?This is the bull’s eye, a model for a lifetime plan for your money:
   • 50% of your take-home income goes to your Must-Haves, like your mortgage, car payment, groceries and insurance.
   • 30% goes to Wants. This includes all the stuff you want -- but don’t really need -- like restaurant meals, new clothes, vacations, and new gadgets.
   • 20% goes to your Savings, which includes saving for retirement and all your other dreams, as well as paying off your old debts.
   
   We have had some really startling results when people have compared their own numbers to the Balanced Money Formula—they can see in one glance exactly where they are out of balance, and exactly what needs fixing.
5. How does “balancing” your money differ from other financial advice? A lot of advice books just talk about the edges, telling you to “Cut back here” and “Trim over there.” That’s a little like planning a diet by saying, “Cut out cookies” and “No sugar in your coffee.” This approach may (or may not) help for slight modifications, but it is not a real plan. We help you take stock of all your money, and then we help you build a money plan that is flexible enough to last a lifetime. This advice isn’t based on gut reasoning or lucky guesses; it is the result of over two decades of intensive research, drawing on the experiences of literally thousands of people from across the country.
6. What are the new rules of money? When your parents were young, odds were that if they got a decent job, bought a normal house and didn’t go nuts with spending, everything would turn out just fine. They could build up equity in their homes, save plenty of money, and retire in comfort—not because they were thriftier or smarter, but because the rules of money were different. Today, you have to be a lot smarter about money. There are big banks urging you to take on more credit card debt than you can manage, mortgage companies offering to lend you money to buy a house you can’t afford, skyrocketing costs for health insurance and college tuition, companies turning employees into “consultants,” and a lot more pressure to provide for your own retirement. In the new rules of money, you can’t sit back and hope that everything will work out; you have to take control over your financial future. That means you have to ignore all those big banks and mortgage companies, and you have to decide for yourself what you can really afford. Anyone who doesn’t master the new rules is standing in the middle of a six-lane superhighway, hoping not to get hit.
7. Who is affected by money worries? Last year, the number one New Year’s resolution was to get out of debt. Right now 44 million Americans make the minimum monthly payment on their credit cards, and over 60 million report that they worry about making ends meet. Deep down, every single one of these individuals is scared. Fear and anxiety about money can be found everywhere. High income and low income. Men and women. Single, married and divorced. Neighbors, friends and family. People everywhere are worrying. Can I get out of debt? What would I do if I lost my job? How will I send the kids to college? Can we ever buy a house? The details may change, but the gnawing fear that it won’t be possible to hold it all together, that it could all be taken away, haunts the nighttime hours of tens of millions of people. This book is based on mountains of research, and it tackles head-on the heart-pounding financial worries of ordinary Americans.
8. Various statistics show that money is the #1 issue that couples argue about and even get divorced over. What advice do you have for couples who fight over money? Number One Best Move: Fun money for you, and fun money for your partner. And then (and this is really important) no questions asked. You need a little free space in your life, and it is the same with money—you also need some free space in your wallet. So no matter how broke you are, you should budget a little fun money for each of you that you can spend however you want. She wants to spend hers on high fashion sandals and he wants to spend his on power tools; she wants to spend hers on archery lessons and he wants to spend his on silk underwear. It just doesn’t matter. Giving each other some free money will take the pressure off your relationship. Besides, people who are having a little fun are more fun to be around. (Try kissing a guy who is wearing silk undies!)
9. How does your new book ALL YOUR WORTH differ from your previous book THE TWO INCOME TRAP? The Two-Income Trap told the story of millions of decent, hard-working families who struggle financially every day, and it explained why today’s families are working harder than ever but still falling behind. The focus of The Two-Income Trap was on explaining the problem and presenting policy solutions. All Your Worth starts with a different question: What should people do to protect themselves and build a brighter financial future? This book is focused on practical advice that people can use in their own lives right here, right now.
10. This is your second book together as a mother-daughter author team. How did you come to start writing together? Elizabeth: I wanted to hold the baby! I had a ton of new research, and I was trying to make sense of all of it at the same time that I went to help Amelia with her tiny new baby. We talked about the funny rash on the baby’s neck for hours, but finally we started talking about the new data. Amelia started sitting at the computer writing notes and looking for other data online. The more she worked, the more I got to hold the baby—and vice-versa. We were well on the way to a book without even noticing.
11. How has your writing partnership changed your relationship? Our lives are knitted together in new ways. The tiny baby from the last book is a preschooler now, and another baby is on the way. That makes us both moms, and both concerned for the welfare of someone very small and vulnerable. We have two joint projects—this book and our earlier book, The Two-Income Trap, and both the books and the babies have brought us closer. We spend hours arguing and researching, rethinking and rewriting, but we always come back to the same point—each of us knows that the other’s heart is in exactly the right place.

Jack Covert Selects - A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age

A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age by Dan Pink, Riverhead Books, 240 Pages, $24.95 Hardcover, March 2004, ISBN 1573223085

Dan Pink wrote a very influential book a few years ago called Free Agent Nation whichcaused quite a stir. The concept made the cover of some business magazines. I believe his new book will join the previous book in many major business publications and I expect even non-business magazines. When Dan sent me the manuscript, I did the same thing I always do when I know nothing about a new book: I read the blurbs. There are four and they are by Po Bronson, Seth Godin, Tom Peters and Alan Webber, founding editor of Fast Company. That is a stellar collection, and this book deserves every brilliant word of praise it's getting.

A Whole New Mind looks at the right brain/left brain differences and shows how those historical issues are radically changing. As I learned during a weekend in Vermont with Tom Peters, Dan Pink also believes that: “The MFA is the new MBA.” Pink points out that design and traditional “right brain” thinking will be the course of the future. The first part of the book gives a primer on how the brain works with great stories from Pink on how his brain was scanned and stimulated and how the different parts of his brain responded. He then goes into pages and pages of supporting stories and examples from his extensive research. Excellent reading!

Pink states that we are entering the Conceptual Age and to prepare for it we need to improve six essential abilities. They are: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. These abilities are the chapter heading for the final six chapters. At the end of each of the chapters, Pink has a Portfolio which is a combination of tools, exercises, and further reading culled from his research and travels that can help you sharpen each sense.

I know it is early in the year of 2005 but this book is my leading candidate for the best of 2005. This is a true crossover book that will influence your business and personal life. I haven’t even mentioned how well it is written so I better just say: read this and learn.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN SUBSCRIBING TO THE MONTHLY BOOK REVIEWS PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO JACK AT 800-CEOREAD.COM

Berkshire Hathaway's Annual Letter to Shareholders

Every year Warren Buffet writes the Annual Letter to Shareholders for Berkshire Hathaway.

I think they are required reading for any business person. This is the rare chance to read what the Oracle of Omaha has to say on the year past.

Download here now.

Ants and Men

Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users has a great post on James Surowiecki's talk at SXSW. Surowiecki wrote The Wisdom of Crowds (one of the best books of last year).

A Whole New Mind

I have been feeling quite bored with the usual business stuff for some time. Bored with talk of efficiency, bored with most business books (like Johnnie), bored with the usual chatter on most of the 98 business blogs I read (and that stuff is infinitely more interesting than what’s in the magazines and books).

Bored. Uninspired.

It’s a bit worrisome, because I endeavor to be a great and well paid business writer and consultant. I can see the impact my lack of interest is having in my blog posts, too. Once or twice a week I psych myself up to say something that makes me think. These are the posts you like, too. The other days, I’m not giving readers anything special, and it shows. Sorry about that.

After procrastinating for a while, I cracked open the new book, A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. I agreed to do a review of it for Todd at 1800CEOREAD.com. That’s the only reason I opened the book. Had I not made the commitment, I likely would have never read the book. It would have sat in the stack with the other books I have been meaning to get to.

Thanks, Todd.

Here’s the irony. Had I not pushed past my apathy toward reading the book, I would not have learned why I am feeling bored and uninspired.

A Whole New Mind told me exactly why I was bored and, in fact, why my uneasiness makes sense.

Some of you are likely are feeling the same. The last thing you want to do is buy and read another nonfiction book. You’re burnt out on the usual business conversation. If this is you, then you NEED to read A Whole New Mind.

Here’s the quick gist of the book for those of you who have not read the other reviews or articles about the book:

Dan Pink believes that were are moving from the knowledge age to the conceptual age and that right brain aptitudes (art, empathy, inventiveness, meaning, etc) will determine whether we soar or stumble. He cites three reasons for this change: technology rendering some tasks/jobs obsolete, many left brain type jobs moving overseas, and an overabundance of stuff (we won’t seek stuff, we seek a deeper meaning in life). Pink makes his case in the first three chapters of the book. The rest of the book is spent sharing the “Six Senses“ we will need to excel in this new world: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. A Whole New Mind takes a fresh look on what it will take to succeed.

Here’s what I love about A Whole New Mind: The book is designed to make it easy for me to find what I need and move forward. There are six chapters, each dedicated to one of the six senses.” Each chapter is followed by a portfolio section containing ideas for how to apply the sense covered in the preceding chapter. For me, these portfolio sections are the best parts of the book! Yes, I need the upfront writing to understand the concepts, but then I want to move very quickly to how to develop and apply the aptitude. The design of the book makes it easier for me to get into action.

My one criticism of the book: I would have preferred that the portfolio sections be four times as long and the chapters one-fourth the size. Personally, I comprehended and bought into the concepts and ideas quickly and did not need all the extra pages of examples and clarification.

Here’s one of the portfolio suggestions for building and applying the sense called symphony.

”Celebrate Your Amateurness

It has become my ability to feel strong and confident in these situations. I feel free to move, to listen to my heart, to learn, to act even if that means I will make mistakes. If you want a creative life, do what you can’t and experience the beauty of the mistakes you make.”

I love this suggestion and it reminds me of two quotes:

”I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.“ Socrates

”It’s amazing what you can do when you don’t know you can’t do it.“ Timo Shaw (A wise friend of mine)

So how does this all relate to my boredom, and perhaps yours? The conversations, blog posts, books, and articles with which I have become uninterested are predominantly left-brained oriented. According to Pink (and my unconscious mind, apparently), our conversations need to change. What we talk about, spend time on, and write about needs to reflect the transformation that is underway.

I asked Dan Pink a few questions via e-mail. His responses are provocative, so I thought I would share them with you:

Haneberg: Five years from now, when you look back at the impact the book had, what do you see/hope for?

PINK: I hope that a few people, having read the book, have built businesses and a careers around fundamentally human abilities such as design, story, and empathy.

HANEBERG: In the March Issue of Fortune, they listed the 20 fastest growing professional jobs.

“Here are the 20 jobs likely to see an increase of better than 20%.“
Environmental engineers 54.3%
Network systems and datacom analysts 41.9%
Personal financial advisors 36.3%
Database administrators 33.1%
Software engineers 27.8%
Emergency management specialists 27.8%
Biomedical engineers 27.8%
PR specialists 27.8%
Computer and infosystems managers 25.6%
Comp, benefits, and job analysts 25.6%
Systems analysts 24.9%
Network and systems administrators 24.9%
Training and development specialists 22.3%
Medical scientists 22.1%
Marketing and sales managers 21.3%
Computer specialists 20.8%
Media and communications specialists 20.6%
Counselors, social workers 20.4%
Lawyers 20.2%

(http://www.fortune.com/fortune/subs/article/0,15114,1034778,00.html)

Do you agree/disagree with this list?

PINK: I don't either agree or disagree with this list, really. A lot of these jobs seem to be quintessential Conceptual Age professions -- personal financial advisors, counselors and social workers, training and development specialists, media and communications specialists, etc. But I take these sorts of estimates with a grain -- if not an entire box -- of salt. These estimates tend to be merely straightline projections of the present -- and therefore they utterly neglect surprise and human ingenuity. For instance, back in the 1980s, the BLS forecast lots of jobs for "data entry clerks" -- not envisioning that everyone from executives on down would have pc's on their desks and do their "data entry" themselves. In the early 1990s, the BLS, seeing that travel was becoming cheaper and more democratized, forecast lots of jobs for travel agents. But of course, they never envisioned the web. And they didn't -- couldn't -- have foreseen the rise of Orbitz, Travelocity, and so on. This is actually one reason I shied away from making explicit forecasts about particular jobs. I knew I'd be wrong. What's easier to foresee is the basket of abilities people will need. They'll need to do things that computers can't do faster, that overseas knowledge workers can't do cheaper, and that appeal to the non material yearnings of an abundant age. Ten years from now, I fully expect lots of people to be working in professions none of us have heard of today. (Sorry for the long answer. But it's a great, and important, question.)

HANEBERG: Individuals need to answer the three questions you reiterate in the Afterword of the book. Who do you see will the ones driving systemic change? In other words, which type of person/which group of people are best poised to be the catalysts for the transformation?

PINK: Hmmm. I'd generally place my bets on people who are intrinsically motivated -- people who do what they do not to secure riches or fame, but because they simply love it. Left brain or right brain, those are the sorts of folks who change the world.

There’s a shift going on. I can see this more clearly, now, after reading this book. We are moving from the knowledge age to age of high touch and high concept. When it comes to the usual business talk, we’ve been there, done that, got the shirt, and need to move on. Our minds and hearts need to move on.

A Whole New Mind is a great book and you should go buy it, especially if you don’t want to be left behind.

P.S. I have changed how I am looking at few things as a result of reading this book. I hope you notice the difference on my blog.

Whole People

Do you remember when you had hobbies? Think about it. What did you like to do back when you were a pre-teenager? Did you tinker with cars? Build things? Draw and paint? Write poetry? Sing and play guitar? Act in the school play? It was fun wasn’t it?

Of course only a few people are good enough to turn these activities into a career. And so, not being career level, we all dropped these extras. And why spend your time doing these things when there’s CSI , CSI Miami, CSI New York and NCIS?

I distinctly remember my son’s high-school band graduation banquet. These are talented kids, the cream of the crop. At the banquet they entertained us and themselves with skits, poems, parodies, and humorous musical numbers that they wrote and produced themselves. I don’t mean the cute little numbers where the parents all clap politely, but really excellent quality acting, writing, and performing. Then came the part of the banquet where they announced the future plans for these kids: engineering, actuarial science, law, pre-med, psychology, business….. These talented kids were doing what we all did before them, shelving their talents so that they could study hard, (big heavy text books) get high-prestige careers, and watch CSI.

Now about the book: Whole Mind says be both. Be the actuarial scientist who can draw, the lawyer who can tell a good story, and the computer programmer who has the ability to listen with compassion.

Go buy a copy of this book. In fact, go buy three or four because as you are reading it you will definitely think of one or more friends who really need to read this book. The people who need this book fit in two groups. One group includes the people who have been using their “whole minds” for a long time and because of this struggled to fit it. It will tell them, “rock on.” The other group includes the people who have been stuck in their left brain for the last 15 years. It will tell them to go back and pick up that guitar and that drawing pencil; it’s time to be your whole self.

While I love the book from the let’s be whole people perspective, I do wonder was society ever as lacking color as it implies. We were all there. Yes computer programmers ruled the world. But do you remember early computer programmers? Say in the early 80’s when “geek” wasn’t a compliment? They slept in sleeping bags near their desks, wrote code through the night, and took off on Friday afternoons to go out for pizza and a movie as a group. These were not left-brain-only people.

Also, I wonder about the future. Will my son who is getting his Phd in engineering and is a professional juggler actually get to blend his full talents? Will my daughter who can barely find her left brain really be valued? And will careers where you need to deeply use both right and left really be valued and paid more than those left-brain standards?

Only time will tell us. In the meantime, I’m drawing again.

Cathy Alper is this really cool person who does facilitation and team-building around the country.

The Startup Bundle

You might remember The Art of the Start Pitch Kit that we offered last fall.

Guy Kawasaki has a similar deal going with istockphoto.com. For the same price of $34.95, the Startup Bundle consisted of a copy of the book The Art of the Start and 28 download credits to.

I am a big fan of the istockphoto.com. You can download great photography and illustrations very inexpensively. You normally pay a buck or two for stuff that works great for presentations, newsletters, and websites. And once you buy it, you own it. It is all royalty free.

Check it out.

MUST READ: A WHOLE NEW MIND

There are a handful of books you have to read every year. Blink was the first one this year.

I think A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink is the second.

Pink proposes that the world is changing. We are moving from a left-brained, analytical society to a right-brained conceptual one. His piece in Wired two months ago lays out the the factors that are going to lead to this shift - Abundence, Asia, and Automation.

From there, he lays out the six senses you need to explore and develop to succeed in the Conceptual Age:

• Design
• Story
• Symphony
• Empathy
• Play
• Meaning

In each sense chapter, he has great stories on why each of these is important. What is even better is that every chapter ends with a portfolio of activities to improve that particular sense. We will be sampling these activities on the Excerpts blog.

This is one of those books that talks about where the world is going. It is very much like Free Agent Nation in that respect. This is a book you are going to be nodding your head as you read. You are already seeing signs of what Dan is talking about. For some, I think it is going to be really exciting book and another book that gives people permission to pursue the life they want to lead. I think it is that powerful.

This Week - 3/21/05

Good Morning.

Let me start this morning by saying it is pretty exciting to see two of our teams making it to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Wisconsin beat Bucknell yesterday and UW-Milwaukee (a 12 seed) is living a Cindrella story beating both Alabama (5 seed) and Boston College (4 seed). Both have tough games in the next round. Good Luck!

At 8cr this week, we are going to be overwhelming you will Dan Pink and his new book A Whole New World. We saw it back in December and immediately fell in love with it. We will be running reader reviews. I did any audio interview with Dan. We have a Jack Covert Selects on the book. We will also be running excerpts from the book. We are hoping that it will be impossible for you not to check this book out.

I will be posting a audio excerpt from Rick Pitino's Success Is A Choice. I thought that would go well with the NCAA tournament.

I also have a pile of books to look through today, so who knows what else we will be talking about before the week is out.

Have a great week!

Publisher Fights Online Piracy

This out of pwdaily today:

...Wiley has filed ten separate lawsuits alleging that defendants have illegally sold e-book versions via eBay, estimating the monetary value of the combined sales in the solid six figures.

The suit, filed in the Southern District of NY, alleges that defendants have sold either computer books or teacher's editions of textbooks--the versions not for sale to the public--as e-books or burned editions. The books were either sold electronically via peer-to-peer services or burned to CD's and then shipped to buyers. It's unknown how the titles were obtained; while some could have been illegally reproduced from electronic editions, it's also possible they were scanned from print books...

Unlike Napster, of course, these suits are against users, not the trading mechanism. Nor do they involve traditional trade titles. But Wiley said this move could open up a new frontier of awareness, if not cases, of a problem they think unlikely to disappear. "You can encrypt an electronic book," Kaufman said. "But try encrypting a print book," adding, "We need to nip this in the bud, and not just with a Wiley lawsuit but with many other publishers' lawsuits."

[from "A Wiley Suit, And Publishing's Lars Ulrich?" by Steven Zeitchik]

Fortune 75: Best Books

In the introduction to The Smartest Books We Know, Jerry Useem says:

FORTUNE offers the ultimate reading list: 75 books that teach you everything you really need to know about business.

I am not sure about this list. You can judge for yourself, but it seems like Fortune wanted to purposely create a different list than people are used to seeing. I think they accomplished that, but I am not sure I like the result. We are working on getting Jerry to come by and talk about how they came up with the list.

I have published in the complete list in the extended entry (if you are in RSS, click through to the entry). You can click on the category headings to see the write-ups from Fortune.

Fortune 75: Best Books

Booms and Busts
The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith (1955).
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay (1841).
Funny Money by Mark Singer (1985).
The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street's Bullish '60s by John Brooks (1973).

The Corporation
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar (1990).
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras (1994).
Chainsaw: The Notorious Career of Al Dunlap in the Era of Profit-at-Any-Price by John Byrne (1999).
Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Louis V. Gerstner (2002).

Decision-Making
Annapurna: A Woman's Place by Arlene Blum (1980).
The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam (1972).
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick (2000).
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (1974).
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy (1969).

Economics
Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy by Joseph A. Schumpeter (1942).
Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets by Robert Kuttner (1996).
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (Chapter 12) by John Maynard Keynes (1936).
Pop Internationalism by Paul Krugman (1996).
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776).

Ethics
Den of Thieves by James Stewart (1991).
The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald (2000).
Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing by Joseph L. Badaracco (2002).
The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind (2003).
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1875).

Globalization
Beijing Jeep: The Short, Unhappy Romance of American Business in China by Jim Mann (1989).
Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen (1999).
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando de Soto (2000).
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright (2000).
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power by Daniel Yergin (1991).
Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age by Sebastio Salgado (1993).

Investing

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America compiled by Lawrence Cunningham (1997). Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2001).

The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel by Benjamin Graham (1949).
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis (2003).

Leadership
Never Give In: The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches edited by grandson Winston S. Churchill (2003).
On Leadership by John Gardner (1990).
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch (1988).
Personal History by Katharine Graham (1997).
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr. by Ron Chernow (1998).

Negotiating and Managing
A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr (1995).
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker (1966).
Remember Every Name Every Time by Benjamin Levy (2002).
Taken for a Ride: How Daimler-Benz Drove Off with Chrysler by Bill Vlasic and Bradley A. Stertz (2000).
Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever (2003).

Office Politics
Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller (2003).
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind (2004).
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (1513).
Something Happened by Joseph Heller (1974).

Power
Father Son & Co: My Life at IBM and Beyond by Thomas Watson Jr. and Peter Petre (1990).
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Keister (1998).
Indecent Exposure: A True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street by David McClintick (1982).
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini (1993).
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro (1974).

Project Management

American Steel: Hot Metal Men and The Resurrection of The Rust Belt by Richard Preston (1991).

The Billion-Dollar Molecule: One Company's Quest for the Perfect Drug by Barry Werth (1994).
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner (1990).
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (1986).

Strategy
The Art of War by Sun Tzu (circa 500 B.C.).
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden (1999).
Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian (1997).
Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew S. Grove (1996).
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (2000).

Technology and Innovation
The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television by Evan I. Schwartz (2002).

New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America by Richard Tedlow (1990).

They Made America: Two Centuries of Innovation from the Steam Engine to the Search Engine by Harold Evans (2004).
Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton with John Huey (1992).
The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the 19th Century's On-line Pioneers by Tom Standage (1998).

Wall Street
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein (1996).
Morgan: American Financier by Jean Strouse (1999).
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lef«evre (1923).
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein (2000).
Where Are the Customers' Yachts? by Fred Schwed Jr. (1940).

Work and Life
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (2001).
Reclaiming the Fire: How Successful People Overcome Burnout by Steven Berglass (2001).
The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work by Arlie Russell Hochschild (1997).
Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel (1974).