800-CEO-READ Blog

Thirty Thousand Pounds....

of business books. [To the tune of Harry Chapin's song.]

When I returned from vacation today I found a desk overflowing with mail, most of it books. In fact, I received over 60 books just last week.

I have lots to talk about concerning the books we received, but right away I wanted to point out one weird occurrence. I received 1) a copy of Why Good People Do Bad Things, and 2) a copy of Why Good Things Happen to Good People (coming out in May). Strange...

If you're in Milwaukee, come see Suze Orman.

On Friday night, March 9th Suze Orman will be in Milwaukee. Our sister company, Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops (the local independent) will be bringing her to Alverno College to talk about her latest book, Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny.

You may know Suze from CNBC's the Suze Orman show. Feel free to meet her in Milwaukee.

Refuting some of the classics

This has potential to start a bit of dialogue. There's a recently published book out there refuting some of the big business books such as Good to Great and In Search of Excellence.

Phil argues that he has...

...seen so much nonsense—unsupported claims by famous gurus and self-described "thought leaders," sweeping assertions based on poor data, and simplistic stories that claim to be rigorous research. Worse, most people—including many very smart managers, consultants, and journalists— can't tell the difference between good and bad research. The Halo Effect is an attempt to raise the level of discussion in the business world, and to sharpen our skills of critical thinking about management.

The discussion is starting over at USA Today, CIO and CFO.

Authors on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report

Just found this:

Publishers say that particularly for the last six months, “The Daily Show� and its spinoff, “The Colbert Report,� which has on similarly wonky authors, like the former White House official David Kuo, have become the most reliable venues for promoting weighty books whose authors would otherwise end up on “The Early Show� on CBS looking like they showed up at the wrong party.[From the NYTimes.]

One well-known, Nobel prize-winning business author you may have seen on The Daily Show is Muhammad Yunus. Keep reading on why publishers are trying to get their authors on the Daily Show and Colbert Report.

The Three Letter Word

Yesterday, Kate was talking about kicking ass.

Today, I am going to go the other way and talk about Bob Sutton's new book No Asshole Rule. I have gotten to know Bob over the last year and I think he is onto something with the book. The genesis for the book was a short piece he submitted to Harvard Business Review for their annual breakthrough ideas section. He got more response for that piece than any of the other four articles he wrote for the periodical. Bob figured he was onto something.

The title puts off a lot of people (including Jack) and the media conflicted over whether they should cover the book. Inc. Magazine had the courage to cover the book and did a nice Q&A with Bob. Fast Company also gave it a first look.

I have been concerned by the growing use of profanity in society at large, but don't find myself bothered here. The term captures the severity of harm these individuals inflict on people. Bob calls a spade, a spade (or an asshole, an asshole as the case may be).

Here is the unexpected part that I think is going to make the book do well. I think the title makes people think you are going to get this light, fluffy book full of rants about bad people. Bob instead delivers the same research based approach he does in all his books. Readers are going to be surprised by the weight of the material. The story people are going to tell other people is "you shouldn't work with assholes and No Asshole Rule has the evidence for why you should get rid of them."

Kicking some _______.

Todd and my lunch conversation yesterday turned towards work [as tends to regularly be the case]. The specific subject being this -- the blog. He brought up a post by Kathy Sierra over at Creating Passionate Users on helping your users kick ass.

"Where there is passion, there is a user kicking ass..." and by "kicking ass" we mean "being really good at something."

It leads to the question, how can you become the teacher? Or what I'd call, the enabler [read in deep Hollywood announcer voice]?

What I'm curious about is how can we help you kick ass and rock your customers' world? Todd and I both decided we do a fair job of giving you the facts but what else can we be telling you?

On a side note, here's another post from Kathy I found insightful on adding randomness to your service/product.

A conversation

Our crew of 13 has bi-weekly meetings where we take an hour or two of our day to talk about what's going on in our world. The goal being shared knowledge--which can only make us smarter.

In another effort to become smarter, last week we had the pleasure of being taught by Erika, author of Growing Great Employees. Yesterday's bi-weekly conversation touched on how people had used Erika's helper points. Let me back up by further explaining our day with Erika.

Beforehand, we each had to complete an anonymous assessment on our fellow crew members. As Rebecca mentioned, we were each placed into one of four categories: Amiable, Driver, Expressive, and Analytical. What is interesting about Erika's research (and that of Proteus) is it's not an evaluation of your personality or a litmus test for whether you're a good person, rather it's a social style. It's how you interact with others -- one of, if not the, most important elements to any career and, even, life.

Yes, you could say that it simplifies people too much by categorizing them into four parts. [Honestly, I would have found this a compelling argument going into the day.] But it's not that simple. What the day and the book give you, as our ChangeThis editor-on-the-loose so eloquently described during yesterday's pow-wow, is a common language.

It enables two people to understand where on the "social styles map" the other sits and ultimately, what they need to do to meet halfway. It's kind of like travelling in a foreign country. If you head off to Spain (which I'll be doing in a week!...not to rub it in) and keep speaking English, with the hopes that people will start to understand you, it just (a) frustrates you even more because they're not understanding you; (b) makes you look like an idiot; (c) makes the other person become equally frustrated and even less helpful. That's when it becomes more effective to seek out a common language -- whether it's hand signals and body language or an attempt at the foreign language. That's what understanding social styles does -- it gives you a universal set of hand signals with which you can connect.

I encourage you to check out Growing Great Employees. At the very least, it'll make you a bit more aware of the social styles of those around you. At the best, it'll give you tips for how to make for better and more effective communications. I'll qualify this recommendation by telling you that I'm an amiable so I like when people are happy and the team's on board. I hope the same for your team.

[UPDATE]
FYI: Erika's running a blog over here. I forgot to mention that yesterday.

Made To Sell

Made To Stick has spent the past couple of weeks on the Wall Street Journal's Bestseller List. I think you are going to start seeing it appear on some of the other lists in the next month. The buzz for the book continues to build. Here is some of the Made To Stick buzz captured all in one spot:

• BusinessWeek - Taking An Idea, Making It Stick
• Inc. Magazine - Dan and Chip Heath: Marketing Made Sticky
• Fast Company - The Smart Set-up
• Washington Post Book Review by Barry Schwartz - In 'Sticky' Ideas, Less Is More
• Los Angeles Times Saturday Read - These brothers sure know how to get a message across
• Jack Covert Selects - Made To Stick
• Todd's Must Read - Made To Stick
• 800ceoread Podcast - Made To Stick Interview with Dan Heath
• ChangeThis.com - Talking Strategy by Chip and Dan Heath
• Brand Autopsy - Sticking With Made To Stick
• Duct Tape Marketing - Made To Stick Podcast
• IT Conversations: Chip Heath

Oh, and I almost forgot the column they are writing for Fast Company now. A little hint for you: It is time to read the book.

Dead Kings and Queens

I watched the CNBC Business Excellence Awards the other night. I know some of you are going to say I need to find a hobby, but I would not have been able to bring you this little nugget.

Sallie Krawcheck of Citigroup was named Business Leader of The Future. During the puff piece on her, she said:

"I don't tend to look at dead kings and queens and try to draw leadership lessons from them. They aren't as real and tangible to me."

So, Elizabeth I CEO and Napoleon on Project Management would not be titles you would find on her bookshelf.

Obsolete Forms of Entertainment

I was looking through my new issue of Paste Magazine. Paste covers the indie scene, writing mostly about music, but more recently expanding into movies and books.

It was an ad from music label Saddle Creek that made me chuckle:

SADDLE CREEK NEW MUSIC

FULLY BACKWARD COMPATIBLE WITH
YOUR EXISTING MUSIC COLLECTION.
CUSTOMIZABLE TO ADAPT WHAT-
EVER SILLY NEW TECHNOLOGICAL
GADGETS COME DOWN THE PIKE.
WILL NOT BECOME OBSOLETE LIKE
OTHER FORMS OF ENTERTAINMENT,
SUCH AS READING BOOKS

Note: Jack would tell you not to waste your time with Paste. The real music junkies read Uncut or Mojo.

8cr's Social Styles workshop

Yesterday our team partipated in a Social Styles workshop, led by Erika Andersen, author of Growing Great Employees and founder of Proteus International.

By the end of the day we had mapped ourselves out across four social styles: Analytical, Driver, Expressive and Amiable. Now, understanding our social weaknesses and strengths, we have new ideas for how to interact with one another and develop a stronger workplace. It was a really valuable experience, one we'll be talking about for a while.

See more photos from the workshop here: www.flickr.com/photos/800ceoread/

A captivated audience

Taken by Kate at our event with Dan and Chip last week.

Visit our Flickr site to see the rest of the photos!

www.flickr.com/photos/800ceoread/

Our valentine to you...

Happy Valentine's Day!

We thought about sending you a valentine or two but decided to give away our e-book, Nine Minds on Marketing [clicking this link will download the pdf]; you may recognize it from our Boss' Day sale. Compiled and written by the talented Andrea Learned; you'll discover the insights uncovered of the pickings of nine marketing minds.

-----

You'll hear from:

1. The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling
   by Annette Simmons
   
2. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the New Customer
   by Michael J. Silverstein
   
3. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
   by Donald A. Norman
   
4. The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business is a Stage
   by B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore
   
5. The Trendmaster’s Guide: Get a Jump on What Your Customer Wants Next
   by Robyn Waters
   
6. The Marketing Playbook: Five Battle-Tested Plays for Capturing and Keeping the Lead in Any Market
   by John Zagula
   
7. Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a Powerful Business Advantage
   by Fred Senn
   
8. PyroMarketing: The Four-Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them for Life
   by Greg Stielstra
   
9. Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Saavy to Sell Just Causes
   by Katya Andresen

-----

Here is an excerpt from Andrea’s essay, “Make Marketing Superfluous�, inspired by reading The Experience Economy and talking with the authors, Pine and Gilmore, founders of Strategic Horizons, LLP.

----

Here’s another tidbit from “Zen and Countertrends�, written after Andrea read The Trendmaster’s Guide and spoke with Robyn Waters, former Vice President of Trend, Design and Development for Target.

----

Happy Valentine's Day! Click here to download your copy of the e-book (our valentine).

p.s. feel free to share the marketing love; here's the link: http://www.800ceoread.com/blog/9MindsonMarketing.pdf

Six new pieces

The latest ChangeThis manifestos are up. You'll find:

1. One on ideas that stick by the Heath brothers who brought you Made to Stick.
2. Another on corporate strategy by Christina Arena who you may know from The High-Purpose Company
3. Learn to make it real and know your customers with Julien Smith and when you're done, you can stop by and say hello to him over here.
4. Click here to check out Bob Prosen's thoughts on making people accountable
5. Navigate competitive advantage with Mitchell Gooze
6. Discover why having a specific path is not always necessary; purposeful drift can be quite successful.

Enjoy!

What You Need To Know About The Airline Industry

In this passage from Boeing Versus Airbus, John Newhouse is elegant and efficient in his description of aircraft industry's product tiers, important equipment specifications, and overall history of the industry. I have been fascinated by the duel between these two companies and Newhouse tells me more in 700 words than I have read in countless articles.

Airliners, like T-shirts, com in different sizes—small, medium, large, and extra-large. But they have more variety than T-shirts, because the suppliers build each of their products into families ; in turn, the family members, the airplanes, vary somewhat in size, range, and other characteristics, the better to fill each of the airline market's crevices.

The low end of the market is covered by two single-aisle airplanes, Boeing's 737 and Airbus's A320. They are roughly the same size, seating up to 190 people. Both are exceptionally successful, having exceeded the most optimistic forecasts of their respective companies. The 737 is older and has been steadily improved over the years. But the A320, a newer slightly larger and more comfortable aircraft, is outselling the 737, not least in the low-cost market that Boeing had monopolized. In December 2004, the surge in orders for A320's from low-cost carriers caused Boeing to shake up its sales force and replace its chief salesman, Toby Bright.

The biggest revenue earners are airplanes with 200 to 300 seats. For many years, Boeing had this so-called middle market largely to itself with the 757, a long single-aisle airplane, and the double-aisle 767. The narrower and less comfortable of the two, the 757, could seat up to 239 passengers, while the more popular 767 carries 218 to 304, depending on the version. The extended-range version of the family became the most profitable of all Boeing aircraft (a distinction widely but wrongly thought to belong to its 747 jumbo). This airplane's other distinction lay in becoming the first long-range, transatlantic, twin-engine airliner. It was quietly followed by the A310, which was less popular.

Then, in the mid-1990's, Airbus moved aggressively into this Boeing fiefdom with the A330-200, a new medium-size airplane that quickly became very popular with airlines for moving both people and cargo. The heavy demand for the A330-200 drove Boeing out of the middle market, the richest segment. In October 2003, it announced that too few orders for its single-aisle 757 had dictated a decision to end production of the aircraft by the end of that year; the news foreshadowed serious job cuts. As for the 767, its days, too, were clearly numbered.

Between these middle-sized vehicles and the high-end jumbo lay a hole in the market for which Boeing and Airbus began competing vigorously in the 1990s. Boeing entered with the 777, a high-quality and very popular airplane. The 777 in a standard configuration with seats between 300 and 370 passengers. Its launch customer, United Airlines, began flying it in 1994. Airbus's counterpart aircraft in the market, the A340, began life commercially a bit earlier, with Air France and Lufthansa, in March 1993.

Predictably, these minijumbo—the 777 and he A340—became minifamilies of aircraft with varying ranges and other features. Each of the two product lines flourished for a time, until the 777 began to take control of the market. It is judged marginally more comfortable than the A340 (and most other aircraft) and is believed to have slightly lower operating costs. In most ways that matter, teh 777 is much the better airplane.

More important, the 777, in its early standard version, may have trailed the A340, but Boeing had thoughtfully begun to design and build an extended-range member of the minijumbo family before Airbus got going with a similarly long-range A340. This meant that competitive edge in what became a highly profitable market for the longest-range versions of the big airplanes belongs to Boeing.

The market's extra-large segment—the high end—has belonged to Boeing since the late 1960's, when it built and began selling the 747, an airplane that was two and a half times larger than the 707, the next biggest LCA. Thirty years later, Airbus, perhaps unwisely, chose to overtake and even oust Boeing from the market by building a new and even bigger airplane. This superjumbo, the A380, had been scheduled to begin its commercial life with Singapore Airlines, the launch customer, in the spring of 2006. But Airbus, aware that the airplane couldn't meet performance guaranties, pushed the delivery date back to the fall of that year, and then was obliged to postpone it for a few additional months. The airplane's prospects were becoming unclear.

Improv-e it.

There are a lot of different ways to improve public speaking. You could "buy Knockout Presentations, a book by speech coach Diane DiResta for $19.95 [$15.96 through us] or three CDs from hypnotist Tom Nicoli for $59.77. At the other extreme, you can spend $1,995 and three days on an American Management Association seminar or hire a coach who charges about $9,000 for six months of personalized guidance." [I can't find the link but the article was in the 2.6.07 edition of the WSJ: "Improv Troupe Teaches Managers How to Give Better Presentations"]

Or, for an interesting twist, you could try your talent out with improv via Chicago's famous Second City. Each year they teach run a presentation-skills workshop for $595. It's so high in demand that in 2007, the workshop will be presented five times.

As one actress and director explained, learning improv works because "'Skills, methods, philosophy and ideas we use to create successful scenes on stage...are the same skills required for successful communications in business.'"

Books for 20-somethings: Part 2

I've posted an excerpt from My Reality Check Bounced! The Twentysomething's Guide to Cashing In on Your Real-World Dreams. It's an interesting look at the issues facing new recruits and fresh-out-of-college employees.

See our excerpts blog here: www.800ceoread.com/excerpts/

My Reality Check Bounced! has some valuable lessons about getting out of ruts, losing the excuses, and living life the way you claim to want to live it, geared specifically toward 20-somethings.

Jack Covert Selects: Simple Solutions

Simple Solutions: Harness the Power of Passion and Simplicity to Get Results
By Tom Schmidt and Arnold Perl, John Wiley, 210 Pages, $22.95 Hardcover, February 2007, ISBN 0470048182

Not every business book needs to change the world or even teach us something brand new. Here, the authors offer a new way of looking at leadership: “Most importantly…is the underlying philosophy of leadership as something (a) that can be learned; (b) that is a practical, powerful way to building relationships; and (c) that gets results.� Sometimes the best ideas are simple, yet insightful.

Let me give you an example of how this book can alter your way of looking at your business, right now. I think that these questions are a great template for change.

“Here are some examples to practice asking breakthrough questions:
• What would have to be true for us to lower production costs for this product by 50%?
• What would have to true for us to sign up 5,000 new customers next year?
• What would have to be true for employee turnover to be zero?
• What would have to be true to produce accurate financial statements within two days of
month’s end?
• What would have to be true for customer service to respond to each customer call within 3 seconds?

Perhaps the solutions are simple, but the authors have a lot of cred: One is President and CEO of FedEx Global Supply Chain Services and Senior Vice President of FedEx Solutions (whew) and the other in a lawyer and a civic leader who helped bring the Grizzlies to Memphis and supervise the construction of FedExForum. All in all, these guys offer us a valuable book about breaking complex problems into manageable components.

Jack on IBM and Business Development

From Jack....

I am currently reading The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. He tells an interesting story about what Tom Watson, the founder of IBM, attributed IBM’s success to. He is said to have answered:

IBM is what it is today for three special reasons. The first reason is that, at the very beginning, I had a very clear picture of what the company would look like when it was finally done. You might say I had a model in my mind of what it would look like when the dream—my vision—was in place.
The second reason was that once I had that picture, I then asked myself how a company which looked like that would have to act. I then created a picture of how IBM would act when it was finally done.
The third reason IBM has been so successful was that once I had a picture of how IBM would look when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized that, unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there.
In other words, I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one.
From the very outset, IBM was fashioned after the template of my vision. And each and every day we attempted to model the company after that template. At the end of each day, we asked ourselves how well we did, discovered the disparity between where we are and where we had committed ourselves to be, and, at the start of the following day, set out to make up for the difference.
Every day at IBM was a day devoted to business development, not doing business.
We didn’t do business at IBM, we built one.

As I look at this again and again, I realize that I have built 8cr and, before, my record store differently. I wonder if that is a function of living in the late 20th century and the early 21st vs. Watson’s early 20th?

What stuck after Made to Stick

Our first LeaveSmarter event was a sticky success!

On Tuesday about 60 people braved sub-zero temperatures and gathered at the Eisner to hear Dan and Chip talk about Made to Stick. After the presentation, we passed around pads of sticky notes and asked people to write down “What Stuck� with them from the event.

Here are some of their responses:

• Inspire to action
• Create a curiosity gap
• Corporate mission statement simplicity
• Tell a story
• Effectiveness of storytelling in business and parenting, biblical concept
• #s don’t make the message portable!
• Use the unexpected – use a simple story
• SW Airlines implementing the mission throughout the employees mind
• Ideas with visual messages seem to stick
• World Bank example
• Be unexpected
• Short story telling
• Stories sell ideas

Read on for more “What Stuck� responses.

• Break a pattern – unexpected – keep it simple, concrete
• Test explaining the ideas you wish to present with your spouse
• Concrete
• Southwest tag line method
• Create knowledge management
• How could anyone think that was Happy Birthday!
• The springboard story
• The curse of knowledge and tapping out songs as a simple, clear way of
• communicating how difficult communication is
• Zambian Internet example rocks!
• Jared – “Visuals stickâ€?
• Storytelling
• CEO’s statement of intent
• Keep your message simple
• I need to reframe messages to my staff
• Unexpected & uncommonsense stick!!
• Simple idea

We plan to do this again at our next event with Ben and Jackie, authors of Citizen Marketers. Stay "posted"!

Jack Covert Selects: What Got You Here Won't Get You There

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter, Hyperion, 200 Pages, $23.95 Hardcover, January 2007, ISBN 1401301304

Marshall Goldsmith is huge in the world of executive coaching, so understand that the person this book is written to is not the mail room clerk. It is her supervisors’ supervisor. It is the person with some success under their belt. As a guy who has had some success in my life, I especially understood and appreciated what this book taught me.

The point of the book is actually the title and subtitle. He states:

“The problems we’ll be looking at in this book are not life-threatening diseases (although ignored for too long they can destroy a career). They’re not deep-seated neuroses that require years of therapy or tons of medication to erase. More often than not, they are simple behavioral tics—bad habits that we repeat dozens of times a day in the workplace—which can be cured by (a) pointing them out, (b) showing the havoc they cause among the people surrounding us, and (c) demonstrating that with a slight behavioral tweak we can achieve a much more appealing effect.�

One of the keys to a good business book can be found in the Table of Contents. This book is not different. The four sections are titled: The Trouble with Success; The Twenty Habits That Hold You Back from the Top; How We Can Change for the Better; Pulling Out the Stops. If you go into a bookstore to check this book out, just look at the twenty habits. They were a scary eye opener for yours truly. I used up one hi-lighter on this book and found way more bad habits I have and need to change than I care to admit. The nice thing about this book is that you can identify the flaws you didn’t think you had and fix them without anybody knowing you had a problem. Now that is a huge benefit. All in all, this is an important book.

Market Inefficiencies

I have been walking around with a October issue of Fortune in my bag for months. There is a special section in the 10/30/06 edition called Secrets of Greatness. The Q&A with Michael Lewis is what has kept in my bag. The economist-turned-author has written Liar's Poker, Moneyball, and most recently The Blind Side.

This shows what a good journalist can do with the right questions. I think the lead-off sets a great tone for the whole piece:

The stars of your books typically find ways to capitalize on market inefficiencies. Is contrariness necessary for greatness?

True greatness requires an ability to respond to challenges and overcome difficulties and suffer and endure - and to think under pressure and act under pressure. America is built on ambition. And there are these little arenas of ambition in the country. There's Hollywood. There's Wall Street. There's Silicon Valley. There's Washington in politics. There's professional sports. And those arenas of ambition - they tend to become ossified. When someone walks into one of those arenas and takes it on, I find that very appealing and healthy.

Jack Covert Selects: Cut to the Chase

Cut to the Chase and 99 Other Rules to Liberate Yourself and Gain Back the Gift of Time by Stuart R. Levine, Currency/Doubleday, 180 Pages, $19.95 Hardcover, ISBN 9780385516204

Business books range from fables to advanced project management titles. I tend to especially appreciate books that have a practical side, books that have instant takeaways. Some critics may say they have only takeaways. I don’t think that accusation is a slight. Books that can give you quick and instantly applicable data are hard to do. Trust me, I have seen the other side of this coin and it is grim.

Stuart R. Levine wrote a book I like called Six Fundamentals of Success a few years ago. The germ for this book came when he was going live on the Today Show promoting his previous book and Matt Lauer leaned in and said, “You know what really drives me nuts? When people come into my office for a five-minute conversation and, an hour later, they’re still there! Why can’t they cut to the chase?�

Well, Levine offers ways to do just that. He breaks the advice into the following categories: Start now, Think clearly, Speed up, Watch out, Be Direct, Meet smarter, Move forward, Cut back—my favorite, and finally, Find Balance. The chapters within these sections are literally a page or two long. Levine’s writing style is very direct. For example, for “Your time is your time� he offers this paragraph:

“Weed out activities that are wasting your time. Every Monday, review your calendar and your “To Do� list. Make a list of activities—including long-standing commitments—you might be able to remove from your schedule. Think about new ways to invest your time. Sign up for a class. Take on a “stretch� project. Spend more time with your family. When you encounter people who tend to eat up your time with little payoff, look for ways to minimize your involvement with them. Respond by e-mail rather than phone to keep interactions short. Have an assistant or team member handle some of the load. Look to add activities into your schedule that are more valuable or offer a better payoff to you and your organization.�

There are more than a few takeaways in this paragraph. I understand that many are common sense, but, you know, every time I look at this book, I find something new. Bet you will too. This is a book that needs to sit on your desk, and when you have a minute, pick it up and learn.

Jack Covert Selects: Change or Die

Change or Die: Overcoming the Five Myths of Change at Work and in Life by Alan Deutschmann, Regan Books, 241 pages, $26.95, Hardcover, January 2007, ISBN 0060886897 (ISBN 13: 9780060886899)

A book arrived on my desk this month that I couldn't ignore. The title, Change or Die, and the cover are striking, and the author's name, Alan Deutschmann, rang a bell. It took me a moment, but I remembered the cover story from Fast Company, an article about people's stubbornness toward change. Even with the strongest motivators the odds are nine to one that we’ll actually do it. That’s 9:1, folks.

Given my fondness for stories, I enjoyed the fact that Change or Die is full of real stories that support its case—strong, historical examples of how even the strongest threats don’t motivate people to change. Like why people prone to heart disease maintain unhealthy diets, why criminals continue to commit offenses, and why many companies, even when faced with extreme employee dissatisfaction, can’t seem to revise their management strategies.

Of course, Deutschmann doesn’t want readers to just curl up and accept the odds. He comes up with a way to go about changing, using what he deems the three “R�s: Relate, Repeat, and Reframe.

THE FIRST KEY TO CHANGE: Relate
You form a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope…

THE SECOND KEY TO CHANGE: Repeat
The new relationships helps you learn, practice, and master the new habits and skills that you’ll need…

THE THIRD KEY TO CHANGE: Reframe
The new relationship helps you learn new ways to think about your situation and your life.�

One of the most interesting things about Change or Die is that its intended audience is ambiguous—without remembering the Fast Company article, I would have wondered whether it should fall under business, change management, self help, or even current events or history. But now I see that it’s all of those things and more; it challenges all readers to do exactly what its title says—change…or die. Change or lose. Change or miss out. And really, how much longer can we afford to do any of those?

Most Influential (Business) People Who NEVER Lived

Aren't you getting tired of all these lists? People's Most Beautiful People. Forbes Richest People. The Fortune 500.

Here is one that really matters though - The 101 Most influential People Who Never Lived. Never lived? These are characters from books, movies, and companies that have shaped the world we live in. I have pulled out the ones businesses created, ones the created a lot of money for business, or ones that were reflections of business.

Numero Uno on the list is the Marlboro Man. The authors write:

Previously marketed by Phillip Morris tobacco as a ladies brand of cigarette called Mild as May. Marlboro's new image boosted sales from $5 billion in 1955 to $20 billion by 1957, and by 1972 it had become the top cigarette brand both in the nation and the world. In 2000, its market share was 35 percent of U.S. sales, outselling the six next most popular brands combined.

On the rest of the list, you'll find:

#43 - Barbie
#44 - Buffy The Vampire Slayer
#60 - Batman
#64 - Superman
#67 - Kermit the Frog
#78 - Joe Camel
#85 - Luke Skywalker
#93 - The Great Gatsby
#95 - Willy Loman

Harvard Business Review's Big Ideas for 2007

Harvard Business Review publishes a list of breakthrough ideas each year. Bob Sutton doesn't think breakthrough is the right word for them, but I think there are a few definitely worth paying attention to this year.

Duncan Watts' piece on Accidental Influentials is going to create interesting discussions with the word of mouth marketing community. Watts says "Our work shows that the principal requirement for what we call "global cascades"—the widespread propagation of influence through networks—is the presence not of a few influential but, rather, of a critical mass of easily influenced people, each of whom adopts, say, a look or a brand after being exposed to a single adopting neighbor."

Geoffrey West from the Santa Fe Institute says size matters when it comes to innovation. Read the piece. There is too much there to try and summarize. He talks about power-laws, metabolic rates of cities, and theoretically unbounded creative growth for large organizations.

And I am not sure I agree with Philip Longman's conclusions of a continued rise in patriarchal families and conservative thought. He basically says conservatives are the ones having larger families and they in turn are going to produce more children who will grow up to care about these issues.

There are a total of 20 ideas. You might find some others that work for you.

Jack Covert Selects: Oil on the Brain

Oil on The Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline by Lisa Margonelli, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 290 pages, $26.00, Hardcover, February 2007, ISBN 0385511450

In 2005, I was late to the game on a great book, Travels of A T-Shirt In The Global Economy. It flew under the radar of most everyone until it was named as a finalist in the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year competition. The book is a wonderful narrative and describes Pietra Rivioli's journeys to find out where her $12 T-shirt came from. There is another book out this month which has the same wonderful characteristics.

Oil on the Brain is written by journalist Lisa Margonelli. She became fascinated with oil’s grasp on American society. Margonelli talked to people in the industry, and the more she talked, the further away she felt from the real things that influence energy production. In the book, she walks the reader back through the entire process by which gasoline gets into your automobile’s tank.

The book starts at the end--at Twin Peaks Petroleum. Owner Michael Gharib owns the independent gas station in San Francisco and says he makes more money selling water than gasoline. Industry statistics say he loses over $11,000 a year in "merchandise shrinkage." For Michael it was worse—a manager stole $70,000 over an 18-month period. Margonelli skillfully weaves into the first chapter the history of the gas station (the first open in 1907), our true desires (cup holders are higher priority than fuel economy) and how little we process how much we pay. Consider this:

If you ask people whether they're being hurt by high gas prices, they will answer emphatically. Between 2003 and 2005, the price of gasoline increased by an average of 77 cents a gallon—really a huge jump. But when the Harris poll asked people to estimate how much more they were spending per month on gas than in previous years, answers for the difference between 2003 and 2005 added up to an increase of $3 per gallon. They overestimated gas price increases by nearly four times.

Margonelli's travels only get more interesting. She rides with fuel delivery driver Roger who can't drive over 50 miles an hour for fear of losing his license, visits the "molecular butchery" (e.g. refinery) in Carson, California, and flies to Chad to find out how oil will change the tenth poorest country in the world. It is the combination of fascinating statistics and real people in the industry that creates such a compelling narrative. It is How Things Work in the form of a Grisham novel.

So, here is the way I see it. There are five spots on the FT/Goldman Sachs 2007 list. The question now is what the other four will be.

Adventure sports, Mother Nature's fury, and a lesson on tents

I love adventure sports (jumping out of planes in Arizona, canyoning paragliding in Switzerland, white water rafting in West Virginia, rock climbing in Colorado [despite my fear of heights]). You can imagine my excitement when I saw that the co-founder of JanSport, Skip Yowell, was publishing a book: The Hippie Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder & Other Mountains.

<-- That's the cover

Last year at BEA, I picked up an excerpt and got a free JanSport backpack (not a bad deal).Jack and Todd had to listen to me quote the excerpt and laugh to myself all the way home. Skip's stories are fantastic.

Once, back in 1971, JanSport was trying some grassroots marketing for a new A-frame tent they had just developed. The best way to get coverage: let news people try out the product. Skip, several colleagues (from JanSport: Murray, Jan, from REI: Gary Rose and Dave Chantler) and a photographer from the Seattle Times adventured out on a three-day, 21-mile cross-country ski trip in the Washington mountains.

The first night, Mother Nature proved to be in a terrible mood and treated them to a blizzard. Even the fire inside their JanSport tent would not stay lit. So they did what any camper would do when stuck in a blizzard, huddled together and hoped for the best.

About three o'clock in the morning the zipper on the tent door broke, launching the door flap into an immediate and rapid spasm. The wind-whipped snow gladly swirled inside the new opening. Then, the tent pole which had secured the door was yanked from its moorings and began to spin around like a helicopter propeller blade. Jan thought our tent was trying to kill us.

That's just the beginning. They managed to somewhat secure the tent, trying to keep the snow from joining the huddle. Ice quickly befriended the inside walls of the tent crushing any hopes for a quick shut eye.

No, it wasn't a walk in the park (nor did they get the media coverage they wanted) but the team took something away. They realized the A-frame tent was not the best it could be and sought to create an even better model.

[There's a long story here on the creation part.]

In the end, that blizzard led to the invention of the first dome tent. I'm sure you've seen one. Nearly every tent made these days is in the same form. Amazing what one night of Mother Nature's fury can do and the story doesn't even stop there.

What I've read of the book, I really, really enjoy. I highly suggest checking it out if you're interested in the starts of JanSport and some well-written stories.

Enjoy your weekend!

The Black Swan - Few and Far Between

I just started reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan and I think it is wonderful. The former Wall Street trader writes about outliers in the world (9/11, 1929 Market Crash, etc). He says Black Swans have three characteristics: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability. Taleb says we are not wired for these sorts of events and that concentrating on what we know (rather than what we don't know) makes us even more susceptible to Black Swans.

Taleb gained quite a cult following with his 2003 Fooled by Randomness. You can get spun up on the first book by reading the New Yorker article Malcolm Gladwell wrote called Blowing Up or this Q&A from New Scientist.

For fans who read the original hardcover, you might want to check out the paperback version. Taleb added 75 pages, rewriting an entire chapter and adding extensive endnotes.

More on this one soon...