800-CEO-READ Blog

5 Books That Changed My Perspective

We've been talking about how to help people, how to focus on what's positive and helpful in the current state of our world, rather than grumbling over the things that are both out of our control and truly uncertain. One of the ways we can do that is by starting a conversation that starts at a personal level...by talking about our own experiences and the books that have shaped our lives.

We've also heard a lot about change, lately. Below I list 5 books that changed my perspective on something; not all have a business angle, but each does have something universal to offer readers.

1. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, 1st edition

If you're discouraged by the dark cloud of political rhetoric that has settled over the U.S. for the past, oh, two years, I recommend reading Whitman's introduction to Leaves of Grass as a reminder of why we should care so deeply about our country and government:

"...but the genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislature, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors...but always most in the common people. Their manners speech dress friendships--the freshness and candor of their physiognomy--the picturesque looseness of their carriage...their deathless attachment to freedom--their aversion to anything indecorous or soft or mean [...] their delight in music [...] their good temper and openhandedness--the terrible significance of their elections--the President's taking off his hat to them and not they to him--these too are unrhymed poetry. It awaits the gigantic and generous treatment worthy of it."

2. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience by Yi-Fu Tuan.

This is an incredibly accessible and enjoyable book about the cultural significance of geography and physical orientation. Tuan explores the ways people have historically made sense of their surroundings. For instance, he examines why we form attachment to "home," how time affects our sense of space, and why certain cross-cultural similarities exist among groups that have had no exposure to the habits and values of others (e.g., our proximity to others, or the prominence of right-handedness). I read this book as part of a grad school project on "sense of place" in virtual environments, and it has changed the ways I perceive the space around me and my values with regard to architecture and place.

"What sensory organs and experiences enable human beings to have their strong feeling for space and for spatial qualities? Answer: kinesthesia, sight, and touch. Movements such as the simple ability to kick one's legs and stretch one's arms are basic to the awareness of space. [...] Space assumes a rough coordinate frame centered on the mobile and purposive self. [...] Purposive movement and perception, both visual and haptic, give human beings their familiar world of disparate objects in space. Place is a special kind of object. It is a concentration of value, though not a valued thing that can be handled or carried about easily; it is an object in which one can dwell."

3. Emergence: Labeled Autistic by Temple Grandin

Reading Emergence was like a thousand light bulbs turning on in my world. I grew up with a mentally disabled family member, but until I read Temple Grandin's words about what it felt like to be overwhelmed by her existence, I did not fully appreciate the complexities of the minds around me. Grandin has also contributed greatly to our understanding of the animal world, and has worked as a scientist to develop more humane ways of interacting with animals.

"But as a child, the "people world" was often too stimulating to my senses. Ordinary days with a change in schedule or unexpected events threw me into a frenzy, but Thanksgiving or Christmas was even worse. At those times our home bulged with relatives. The clamor of many voices, the different smells--perfume, cigars, damp wool caps or gloves--people moving about at different speeds, going in different directions, the constant noise and confusion, the constant touching, were overwhelming. One very, very overweight aunt, who was generous and caring, let me use her professional oil paints. I liked her. Still, when she hugged me, I was totally engulfed and I panicked. [...] I withdrew because her abundant affection overwhelmed my nervous system."

4. Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi

Of the few voices we have from this dark period in our world history, Primo Levi's is perhaps the most renowned and penetrating. Survival in Auschwitz is his memoir of the 10 months he spent in the death camp. He details the subcultures that develop within even the most degrading of circumstances, reflects on our instincts and desire to overcome in the face of utter hopelessness, and creates an arresting, almost visceral reading experience that helped me understand, in my sheltered experience, what millions of people endured through no fault of their own.

"If we were logical, we would resign ourselves to the evidence that our fate is beyond knowledge, that every conjecture is arbitrary and demonstrably devoid of foundation. But men are rarely logical when their own fate is at stake; on every occasion, they prefer the extreme positions. According to our character, some of us are immediately convinced that all is lost, that one cannot live here, that the end is near and sure; others are convinced that however hard the present life may be, salvation is probable and not far off, and if we have faith and strength, we will see our houses and our dear ones again. The two classes of pessimists and optimists are not so clearly defined, however, not because there are many agnostics, but because the majority, without memory or coherence, drift between the two extremes, according to the moment and the mood of the person they happen to meet."

5. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

I know we give the Heath brothers a lot of love here at 800-CEO-READ, but I hope that my selection demonstrates the transformative nature this recent business book can have on the way you do your work. As a relative newcomer to the world of business books, Made to Stick will forever stick (no pun intended) in my mind as one of the first and most influential business books I have read on communication. I can't tell you how many times we referenced ideas from Made to Stick while working on The 100 Best. And while we recognize that the book borrows definitions and terms from other places (most notably, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell), Made to Stick is the only one that lays out a practical and useful way of putting these ideas to work.

"No special expertise is needed to apply these principles. There are no licensed stickologists. Moreover, many of the principles have a commonsense ring to them: Didn't most of us already have the intuition that we should "be simple" and "use stories"? It's not as though there's a powerful constituency for overcomplicated, lifeless prose. But wait a minute. We claim that using these principles is easy. And most of them do seem relatively commonsensical. So why aren't we deluged with brilliantly designed sticky ideas? Why is our life filled with more process memos than proverbs?

Sadly, there is a villain in our story. The villain is a natural psychological tendency that consistently confounds our ability to create ideas using these principles. It's called the Curse of Knowledge. (We will capitalize the phrase throughout the book to give it the drama we think it deserves.)"

Now, we'd like to ask you: What are the books that changed your perspective? How can they help others?

A Time to Read

The inherent purpose of any business book is to be useful to the reader. It is a genre of tools and solutions, with business practitioners, consultants, professors and journalists all adding to the stew of ideas and insight.

Not many of us can sit down with Warren Buffet for the weekend, picking his brain on matters of business and life, but all of us can curl up on the couch with a copy of The Snowball by Alice Schroeder and have an intimate, 976 page conversation with the man. Mr. Peter Drucker has passed on, but you can still sit across the table from him at an Italian Restaurant with a copy of Inside Drucker's Brain.

Because books follow reality, though, there has been a flood of titles released recently to cover, assess, dissect and capitalize on the current economic crisis, tinting our economic lenses a little (a lot) darker. Publishers are currently scrambling to release even more, and release them ever more quickly (Time just had a great piece on this phenomenon). A lot of those already released are wonderful reads, such as David M. Snick's The World is Curved and Charles Morris's The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, and there are equally fascinating titles on the way, like Micahel Lewis's Panic. These kind of books fascinate me, but they're not going to help you solve any of the day to day problems you might be facing. (Unless, of course, you're the President of the United Stated or head of the IMF, in which case, read these books now!)

The fact is that the problems in the economy are above most of our paygrades. The solutions, on the other hand, are not. Each of us can make our companies and communities better. And there have been just as many books published on these issues this year as any other. If you're exhausted by the bad news glaring back at you from the nightly news, shut off the television and pick up one of the following books:

Saving the World at Work by Tim Sanders, Currency

The Necessary Revolution by Peter Senge, Bryan Smith, Nina Kruschwitz, Joe Lauer & Sara Schley (Jack Covert Selects)

We Are the New Radicals by Julia Moulden

Creating a World Without Poverty by Muhammad Yunus (Jack Covert Selects)

The Tactics of Hope by Wilford Welch

Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki (Jack Covert Selects)

Reality Check doesn't necessarily seem to fit with the other titles, but I included it because Guy believes that if you start a busines, you should start one that's going to change the world, and because the book is hilarious which will keep the reader in a positive state of mind.

And finally... now, as always, is also a time to focus on family, and Patrick Lencioni's new book, The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family, can help with that. Lencioni was interviewed about the book by LA Times' book blog, Jacket Copy, yesterday.

Any other sugggestions?

Build your culture with free audio

Zappos is a company that focuses foremost on company culture. By doing so, they believe that things like great customer service and branding will naturally evolve. They're not alone in this thought. The book Tribal Leadership, by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright professes that same idea.

Tony Hsieh, the CEO at Zappos, believes in the idea so much, that he's offering a free audio version of the book at his company's site. In a press release, he states, "We'd be thrilled if free access to the audio version of Tribal Leadership on our site encourages others within organizations to focus on attaining great cultures as well. Ultimately, everyone benefits from a happier, more energized, more satisfied and more productive workforce."

To receive the free audio book version of Tribal Leadership, visit Zappos.com.

Enough already!

For the last few weeks we have been pummeled, along with all of you, by this Category Five financial hurricane. We got sucked in writing post after post about what you could be reading if you wanted to better understand financial collapse. I stopped reading the newspaper because every headline contains some synonym of "worse". Industry watchers are telling me that business books are down somewhere between 15% and 20% compared to last year.

We are fed up (no Bernanke pun intended) with the bad news.

The folks at 800-CEO-READ gathered today to figure out how to move from this paralyzing mode of helplessness and get back what we do well: helping people. We have some ideas in the works, which will include opportunities for you to participate.

Watch the blog over the next week for more on our efforts to break the cycle and make our way back to some normalcy in the world of business.

Pecha Kucha Night #3 - Slideshow - October 28, 2008

Thanks to everyone who came out to Pecha Kucha Night #3 last night. We had a blast, and we hope you did too!

Here is a slideshow of photos from last night. The presenters were great, and the Sugar Maple was an excellent venue to work with.

You can also view the photos on our Flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/800ceoread/

The good teacher named Failure.

One of example of failure Bob Sutton mentions in Weird Ideas That Work is that of IDEO's invention process, specifically Skyline, a toy development department.

This week he ran across a another organization's failure rate. That of, The Onion's. On a This American, Ira Glass talks to The Onion about their creation process. that tells of The Onion's failure rate. They aim for 18 stories each week; to get there, they start with around 600 ideas!

A link to This American Life.

. . . . . . . . . .

Related: Seth also blogged about failure today.

Authors Guild, AAP & Google Reach an Agreement

A groundbreaking settlement has been announced in the Authors Guild v. Google case, which charged Google with copyright infringement in it's drive to digitize the world's books on Google Book Search. The Chairman of The Association of American Publishers says of the settlement: "This settlement clearly took a long time to negotiate, and rightly so--it is breathtaking in scope, groundbreaking for publishers and authors, and trailblazing for intellectual property in general." Read the rest of his statement here.

From the press release:

The agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form, by significantly expanding online access to works through Google Book Search, an ambitious effort to make millions of books searchable via the Web. The agreement acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright owners, provides an efficient means for them to control how their intellectual property is accessed online and enables them to receive compensation for online access to their works.

If approved by the court, the agreement would provide:

MORE ACCESS TO OUT-OF-PRINT BOOKS: Generating greater exposure for millions of in-copyright works, including hard-to-find out-of-print books, by enabling readers in the U.S. to search these works and preview them online;

ADDITIONAL WAYS TO PURCHASE COPYRIGHTED BOOKS: Building off publishers' and authors' current efforts and further expanding the electronic market for copyrighted books in the U.S., by offering users the ability to purchase online access to many in-copyright books;

INSTITUTIONAL SUBSCRIPTIONS TO MILLIONS OF BOOKS ONLINE: Offering a means for U.S. colleges, universities and other organizations to obtain subscriptions for online access to collections from some of the world's most renowned libraries;

FREE ACCESS FROM U.S. LIBRARIES: Providing free, full-text, online viewing of millions of out-of-print books at designated computers in U.S. public and university libraries; and

COMPENSATION TO AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS AND CONTROL OVER ACCESS TO THEIR WORK: Distributing payments earned from online access provided by Google and, prospectively, from similar programs that may be established by other providers, through a newly created independent, not-for-profit Book Rights Registry that will also locate rightsholders, collect and maintain accurate rightsholder information, and provide a way for rightsholders to request inclusion in or exclusion from the project.

Under the agreement, Google will make payments totaling $125 million. The money will be used to establish the Book Rights Registry, to resolve existing claims by authors and publishers and to cover legal fees.

More information:

Google, AAP, Authors Guild: Joint PUBLIC FAQ

Settlement Documents

Settlement Website

Authors Guild Website

*Hat tip to Bullish on Books

Two Lists

The Arizona Republic printed a list of recommended finance and business titles from Jeffrey L. Coles'--finance department chair at Arizona State University. They are:

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein, John Wiley & Sons, 1998

Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies by Tim Koller, Marc Goedhart & David Wessels, John Wiley & Sons, 2005

Irrational Exuberance by Robert Schiller, Currency, 2006

Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors by Michael Porter, Free Press, 1998

Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China by John Pomfret, Holt Rinehart and Winston, 2007

CIO Insight has picked ten leadership books they feel "capture what it takes to lead." They are:

Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value by Bill George, Jossey-Bass, 2004

Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls by Noel Tichy & Warren Bennis, Portfolio, 2007

Leading Change by John Kotter, Harvard Business School Press, 1996

The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All by Michael Useem, Three River Press, 1999

What Were They Thinking?: Unconventional Wisdom about Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer, Harvard Business School Press, 2007

Leadership Passages: The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader by David L. Dotlich, James L. Noel & Norman Walker, Jossey-Bass, 2004

Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution by Michael Hammer & James Champy, HarperBusiness, 2004

The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker, HarperCollins, 2006

Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators by Patrick Lencioni, Jossey-Bass, 2005

A Leader's Legacy by James Kouzes & Barry Posner, Jossey-Bass, 2006

And Kindle Sales Skyrocket

From Oprah.com:

This summer, Oprah received a gift that she says changed her life. "It's absolutely my new favorite favorite thing in the world," she says.

Meet the Amazon Kindle™, a wireless portable reading device with instant access to more than 190,000 books, blogs, newspapers and magazines. Whether you're in bed or on the train, Kindle lets you think of a book and get it in less than a minute.

Keep reading here.

Innovation.

John Kao talked about it last year. Richard Elkus mentioned it last week. And, on Friday, NPR discussed it with Judy Estrin, author of Closing the Innovation Gap and former Chief Technology Officer at Cisco.

Listen in as Judy talks about the innovation gap, what it is and how the economy is affecting it.

Tune In: Muhammad Yunus on Charlie Rose tonight

I thought I'd follow up on Dylan's praise of Charlie Rose. Tonight Charlie is bringing in Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner for his efforts in microlending and author of both Banker to the Poor and Creating a World Without Poverty. Joining them will be Michael Milken.

Tune in.

Authors in the Press

Marci Alboher of The New York Times recently conducted a Q&A session with Guy Kawasaki via email. One exchange for you entrepreneurs:

Q. What is your advice to entrepreneurs seeking funding or growth opportunities if the credit and capital markets continue on their current course?

A. My advice is that they melt wax into their ears and go forward. If they are waiting for wonderful credit and capital markets, they probably aren't entrepreneurs. They're much more likely to be consultants and bankers looking to quickly flip a company.

Kawasaki's latest book, Reality Check, is being released this week by
Portfolio. The book's 94 chapters span 500 pages, but Guy is an extremely entertaining author and it's a surprisingly easy read. The book was one of October's Jack Covert Selects.

Geoffrey Colvin has an article in the October 27 issue of Fortune adapted from his new book, Talent Is Overrated, which was itself an expansion of his popular cover story for Fortune in 2006. The article makes the argument that discipline and training breed the skills that drive greatness, not innate talent--if such a thing even exists:

A number of researchers now argue that talent means nothing like what we think it means, if indeed it means anything at all. A few contend that the very existence of talent is not, as they carefully put it, supported by evidence. In studies of accomplished individuals, researchers have found few signs of precocious achievement before the individuals started intensive training.

To view a video by the author that sums up his ideas in 4:02 minutes, go here. He also has a guest post on the Fortune Blog.

For the latest "Creative Disruption" installment in Forbes, Scott D. Anthony, lead author of The Innovator's Guide to Growth, teamed up with Clayton Christensen, author of the best-selling Innovator's Dilemma and two more books this year--Disrupting Class (about education) and The Innovator's Prescription (about health care). They tell the story of Proctor & Gamble's Align group, which teamed with Innosight (a consulting firm the authors are affiliated with) and launched it's IBS medication online instead of the way P&G traditionally introduces products--in a huge box store.

Usually P&G product managers go big with a launch at a big chain like Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) backed up by a promotion and ad campaign costing tens of millions of dollars. Work with Innosight, including a two-day workshop, helped the Align group reframe its approach to one that was more "invest a little, learn a lot." Instead of trying to come up with a definitive answer about Align's potential, members of the group identified which assumptions would have to be true to create a business about which P&G could get excited. Two questions they zeroed in on: Would doctors promote the solution? Would consumers take the probiotic every day?

The article mentions that P&G's CEO "[A.G.] Lafley expects business units to allocate up to 30% of their innovative resources to disruptive innovation." Lafley himself has a great book on innovation out this year entitled The Game-Changer, co-authored with the brilliant Ram Charan.

And finally, if you haven't been keeping up with Charlie Rose lately, you're doing yourself a disservice. He had David Snick, author of The World Is Curved, on last Thursday's show (after 2008's Nobel Economics Prize recipient Paul Krugman). Other recent guests include Paul Volcker, Henry Paulson, Ace Greenberg, and, last Monday, a panel of John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins, Jeffrey Immelt, Anand Mahindra , Meg Whitman and James Wolfensohn. Good stuff. If you're trying to stay current with and understand the depth of the issues our economy is facing, stay up a little later each night and watch Charlie Rose.

Learning from Neil Young

Stew Friedman, over at the Harvard Business Publishing Blog, shares leadership lessons he gained from Neil Young's music. Stew's the author of Total Leadership.

We met the guy who invented the VCR.

Richard Elkus is his name. And well, he didn't invent the VCR himself but he led the team that invented the VCR. He flew into Madison to speak about his book, Winner Take All, for one of our LeaveSmarter events.

And leave smarter we did. Richard is incredibly knowledgeable about an array of subjects. When watching him speak, you can see the gears turning in his head, pulling together the dispersed pieces of knowledge he possesses to deliver a well-thought explanation of the subject at hand.

Here's a clip of his presentation. In this segment he talks about the question that's on everyone's minds -- where's the economy going? (Side note, turn the volume up a bit; no microphone on this video.) For another view, here's Richard on CSPAN.

Thanks for joining us, Richard. Hopefully the taxi found you.

On True North

Peter Sims is the co-author of True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership.* He's also on the roster over at The Speakers' Group who had sat down and asked Peter a few questions about True North, his collaboration with Bill George and innovation. You can read the interview here.

* Jack wrote a Jack Covert Selects on the book last year.

Do you eat Stonyfield Yogurt?

GOOD magazine devoted 32 pages to business in their November/December issue. To start the section off is an interview with Gary Hishberg, dairy king, founder of Stonyfield Farm and author of Stirring it Up: How to Make Money and Save the World. Here's a link to the interview.

Also, check out the manifesto Gary wrote for ChangeThis.

This past month we've been working on our yearly magazine, In the Books (our second edition is due out in January!). My research project was on sustainability and business and the business books written about that intersection. One of those books was Stirring it Up.

In the interview, GOOD asks Gary what's the holdup in companies pursuing sustainability? Gary answers that the selling point of sustainability is not "your company is better morally if it's sustainable"; rather it's, your company can be more profitable when it is sustainable. Morality doesn't sell. Increased profits does. As Gary tells it:

We need to shine a very bright light on the inherent un-profitability on depending on non-renewable fuels and conventional agribusiness. Waste is really too expensive now. The concept of waste doesn't even exist in nature. Nevertheless, we've allowed it because it's been cheap. The reality is that all businesses use non-renewable fuels, all businesses generate waste. But waste can be food; waste can be energy. It will have to be for us to have any hope for our children. The idea of waste is a flawed concept. We have to re-engineer our thinking.

In architecture, exists the study of biomimcry. The idea of copying various elements of nature to build stronger (and more varied) structures. Gaudi did this in Barcelona with many of his buildings, churches and parks. In business, understanding nature and copying its lessons is a good starting point to begin re-engineering our thinking about sustainability, as Gary suggests.

It's a good day for a ... Good Office

Kate is our token "What if?" employee, always coming up with ideas for ways to host events, run a meeting, or arrange our workspace. Many of her ideas are terrific--like hosting our annual Author Pow-Wow at the Catalyst Ranch in Chicago--and some are a little bit "out there"--like putting all of our desks on hydraulics so we can move up and down and across our office.

Today, this article on CNN (check out the photos) got me thinking about the different ways we can make our work lives healthier and ease the strain on our bodies, eyes, and minds, as well as our natural environment.

Oh, and to tie this post back to a business book...a few weeks ago our friend Cathy S. at HarperCollins sent us The Good Office: Green Design on the Cutting Edge, published by Collins Design. The Good Office is a beautiful photography book accompanied by short essays and information about architectural groups dedicated to bridging the gap between the working world and the environment.

The Good Office provides examples of sustainable design that creates "a more positive space for both the environment and the worker." We might not all be able to work in beautiful "green" buildings, but there are small steps we can take to make our work spaces healthier and more comfortable.

P.S. Kate--don't worry, we appreciate your "What if?s"!

New excerpt up - from The Integrity Dividend

There's a new excerpt up on our Excerpts blog. It's taken from Chapter 1 of The Integrity Dividend: Leading by the Power of Your Word by Tony Simons. From the publisher: In The Integrity Dividend Tony Simons shows how leaders' personal integrity drives the profitability and overall success of their organization. This groundbreaking book is based in on solid research and reveals that businesses led by managers of higher integrity enjoy deeper employee commitment, lower turnover, superior customer service, and substantially higher profitability. This improved performance is the integrity dividend.

Here's a passage from the excerpt:

It's easy to break a promise. It's even easier to forget the price of breaking it. After all, who can measure that price? Few would deny that a broken promise lowers the morale of your employees, but what's the real dollar cost--the bottom line impact? Or what is the payoff of keeping a promise? It should be simple to align your words and actions in a way that employees can see. But if it's so simple why do most employees say their managers do not do it? Maybe it is not so simple.

Consider how two executives described to me the benefit of an impeccable word--and the cost of lacking one:

Good leadership is, 'Whatever I say I'm going to do, I'm going to do.' That means I have to know what my limitations are and what I'm capable of delivering. As a leader if you don't fulfill your commitments, I can't think of anything that can hurt you more than that.

--Frank Guidara, President and CEO, Uno's Chicago Grill

If your staff see you cutting corners, then they're not going to take you seriously. And then they're not going to take the values that you're trying to instill seriously. Because you're not taking the values seriously.

--Deirdre Wallace, President, The Ambrose Group

Like these successful executives, you, too, most likely want be an honest and respected leader. But this book is about more than being respected. As its title says, it's about The Integrity Dividend--and why and how keeping your word as a leader pays off on the bottom line. One thing that sets this book apart from others that discuss the importance of integrity is that it tells how I have been able to accurately measure its positive dollar impact. As you will see more in later chapters, successful executives I talk to recognize the dividend, too, but until now it has not been well measured.

I am not asking you to be motivated by any intrinsic payoff, though I think there are several. Integrity, for me, is about being more effective, because people see you as consistently following through on your word and demonstrating the values you profess: more effective as a leader, because you more readily capture the hearts of your followers; as a communicator, because people know you mean what you say; as a partner, because you can be counted on; as a customer because you complete business transactions more efficiently; as a supplier, because buyers can know what they will get; and as a brand, because you keep your promises--and promises are all that a brand is. Integrity contributes hugely to executive effectiveness.

Check out the full excerpt here: 800ceoread.com/excerpts/archives/008504.html

Booklist Top 10

Brad Hooper of the American Library Association's Booklist Online has posted his list of 2008's top 10 business titles (that have been reviewed on Booklist over the past year).

The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr, W.W. Norton & Company

Biography of the Dollar: How the Mighty Buck Conquered the World and Why It's Under Siege by Craig Karmin. Crown Business

A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market by Jim Rogers, Random House

Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by Edward J. Renehan Jr., Basic Basics

From Betamax to Blockbuster: Video Stores and the Invention of Movies on Video by Joshua M. Greenberg, MIT Press

The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation. By A. G. Lafley & Ram Charan, Crown Business (Jack Covert Selects)

How Toyota Became #1: Leadership Lessons from the World's Greatest Car Company by David Magee. Portfolio

It's Not about the Money: Unlock Your Money Type to Achieve Spiritual and Financial Abundance by Brent Kessel, HarperOne

The Middle-Class Millionaire: The Rise of the New Rich and How They Are Changing America. By Russ Alan Prince & Lewis Schiff, Currency

A Sense of Urgency by John P. Kotter, Harvard Business School Press (Jack Covert Selects)

Mr. Hooper states in his introduction to the list that "It is the privilege and even the duty of the conscientious public librarian to make certain the business collection is as inclusive as possible and will appeal to as many readers as possible." He's accomplished that rather admirably here.

Two Tribes Things

Just a two quick adds to what Dylan said earlier today:

1. Jack and I are going to be at the Tribes launch event next Wednesday in NYC. If you are going, drop us a note (todd at 800CEOREAD dot com) . We'd love to meet up.

2. There is an ebook that was written by a tribe of people Seth pulled together in advance of the books release. You can download it here and you should download it. At 228 pages, I guarantee there is something in there for you.

CEO Update writes about CEO-READ

Jacqueline Blais interviewed us about the company. She says nice things.

Tribes Released!

What many (including Todd) are calling Seth's best book since Purple Cow, and some are even calling his best book ever, goes on sale today. Entitled Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, it describes the new paradigm of marketing as (and) leadership.

Seth wrote of the book on his blog today:

... I started to write a leadership book but discovered that I was actually writing a marketing book. (Either that, or I started to write a marketing book and ended up writing about leadership, I can't remember). Either way, what I discovered in writing it is this: The next frontier of marketing is in leading groups of people who are working together to get somewhere.

As someone who was buying millions of dollars of magazine ads just 24 years ago, this is a lot of change to swallow. And it's also the biggest opportunity for good/meaning/success that I can imagine. More details are here.

Things have changed, far more dramatically than most people realize. Not just what marketers buy, but what the media does all day, and what marketers build, and what we get paid to do and what and where we pay attention...

Seth published a great manifesto about tribes in the 50th issue of ChangeThis, which you can find here, and has authored many other fine manifestos in the past.

He was recently interviewed by Hugh MacLeod at GapingVoid as well. You can find that interview here.

And finally, this is the last chance for you to get FREE tickets to Seth's Big Tribes Event in New York City on October 22nd. You can get them buy purchasing either a 3 Pack or 10 Pack of Tribes from our website. You're going to want to buy the book anyway, so if you're near the city, why not buy a copy for a friend, expand the tribe, and meet the man leading it.

Publishers Hedging Their Book Bets

With the present financial madness, publishers have been hedging their bets on how fast they can turn around the next big financial book.

The folks over at The Economist recently researched the extent of the hedging. They counted at minimum 18 books on the crisis that are either in the works or already in the shops. More are certain to join.

The published books include: The Subprime Solution by Robert Shiller, Charles Ellis's The Partnership on Goldman Sachs, The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson (due out in November), and one on the Oracle of Omaha The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

Writers who signed on for future looks at the financial crisis are Joe Nocera and will be publishing through Penguin. And CNBC's Charlie Gasparino who signed with Collins Business.

The Economist ends the review by comparing publishers' hedging to that of what's currently happening on Wall Street -- placing all their bets in investments seemingly full of potential and, in the end, few will be successful best sellers.

Guest Post: Invest in Your Networks by Jonathan Salem Baskin and Michael Cayley

Jonathan Salem Baskin and Michael Cayley met through the concurrent release of their manifestos in the 50th issue of ChangeThis, and have coauthored the following article on the nature of networks and crisis leadership.

Lincoln and Roosevelt are heralded as great American leaders in times of crisis, and their vision and fortitude are recognized as drivers of their historic accomplishments. However, we think their greatness had far more to do with their abilities to be catalysts for network effects.

If we're right, it reveals a very different interpretation of the calls we're hearing for "leadership" to restore confidence in our economic system. In fact, there's a good chance that no government policy gesture or announcement will mollify the worries of businesses and consumers, let alone stabilize the markets.

Confidence must emerge from the networks in which we all participate. We need to lead ourselves.

This raises intriguing issues and opportunities for corporate marketers looking to craft a way forward.

"In times of uncertainty consumers rely more on trusted relationships when making purchasing decisions," says Dr. Brent Simpson, an expert at the University of South Carolina who specializes in understanding how social order is formed.

Stanford University's Matt Jackson, a leading social network theorist, adds: "People's friends and trusted social relationships are important in influencing their behavior, and people learn from and emulate their friends. Attitude certainly can play into that, especially in turbulent times.''

So what does this mean for businesses directly impacted by the financial crisis, like banks, brokerages, and insurance companies, as well as any consumer business facing the prospect of declining (or less profitable) sales?

First and foremost, you can't brand your way out of it. You can't rely on spin doctors to declare your path through the crisis; your customers must see and verify it. While your hired guns are hatching ads and press releases to statically "position" the situation, your networks are trading information and defining it in real-time.

And that information, whether accurate or not, has absolutely nothing to do with how the brand has been envisioned, promised, or promoted. Every network is founded upon the tangible realities of action and reaction, just as the mechanism of their function is cause and effect.

How do you empower these networks to step up and lead?

Know your networks. Invest in software to map connections between people and content.

Move your enterprise closer to customers, employees, partners and investors. In the past we talked about flattening hierarchies; now it is time to integrate internal & external sources of value.

Trust opportunities that emerge from the exchange (don't just talk, and certainly don't lecture).

Make information a utility as ubiquitous as electrical light. If what you share isn't affirmed and forwarded, don't repeat it... instead, recast or re-imagine it, and find new ways to prove it to your networks.

Demand feedback and ideas.

Stop looking for "home runs" and play "singles and doubles" by finding small wins, frequent trials. Make constant adjustments. Allocate resources to winners and abandon losers without blame.

The larger revelation of today's various crises is that the era of symbolic branding is waning, if not over. The woes of the financial institutions have graphically illustrated to us why.

It was always untenable for lenders to ignore the details of weak/bad relationships and to expect instead that homes or property (i.e. commodities) would appreciate in value with no accord to the strength of home owners (i.e. the source of value that differentiated the commodity). Instead of accessing and fostering the relationship to make the loan a better product, the banker chooses to focus on the derivatives.

All businesses face similar risks. From toothpaste to software services, consumer brands invite significant downside threats when they focus on manufactured identify and perception, and not on the drivers of true business strength: connection, interaction, involvement, collaboration, consumption and the other aspects of human behavior.

There are no brands, or businesses, without the networks of people who make them real. It is in, and through, the behaviors of these networks that the Lincolns and Roosevelts for our business and social communities will ultimately arise.

Jonathan Salem Baskin recently released the book Branding Only Works on Cattle. Catch Jonathan's blog at http://dimbulb.typepad.com.

Michael Cayley recently released the ebook Introducing Social Capital Value Add: Value Based Management for the Networked Age. Catch Michael's blogs at www.socialcapitalvalueadd.com and www.memeticbrand.com.

Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year

The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year was announced last night at a Gala Dinner in New York, and congratulations are in order for Mr. Mohamed El-Erian. He has won the prize for his book When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change.

Editor of the Financial Times, Lionel Barber, said of the book:

When Markets Collide brings together the world of modern finance and macro-economics. It is lucid and prescient in its diagnosis of the present financial turmoil and offers important prescriptions for the way forward. A worthy fourth winner for our annual book prize.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C Blankfein, said:

Mohamed El-Erian provides invaluable context for the global financial crisis and does so in an extremely accessible and compelling way. When Markets Collide deserves to be this year's winner.

El-Erian beat out a strong shortlist this year, including:

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
by William J. Bernstein, April 2008, Atlantic Monthly Press

Cold Steel: The Multi-billion-dollar Battle for a Global Industry
by Tim Bouquet & Byron Ousey, Little Brown Book Group UK (not yet available in the US)

McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
by Misha Glenny, April 2008, Knopf

Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
by Lawrence Lessig, April 2008, The Penguin Press

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
by Alice Schroeder, September 2008, Bantam

2007's winner was The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co. by William D. Cohan, which we recognized as the top industry book of the year in our first annual awards.

The winner in 2006 was China Shakes the World: A Titan's Rise and Troubled Future--And the Challenge for America by James Kynge. You can find Jack's review of that book here.

Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat won the very first award in 2006.

Six Pixels' Book Recommendations

On October 9th, Mitch Joel of The Six Pixels of Separation Blog posted a list of six Books You Need To Read To Succeed In Business . The post generated quite a lot of buzz, suggesting that, contrary to popular opinion, people still read books. The list was:

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual by Rick Levine Christopher Locke, Doc Searls & David Weinberger

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky

Life After the 30-Second Spot: Energize Your Brand With a Bold Mix of Alternatives to Traditional Advertising by Joseph Jaffe

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

Re-Imagine!: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age by Tom Peters

Web Analytics: An Hour A Day by Avinash Kaushik

You can find brief descriptions of each book and join the conversation at the original post.

That post was so popular that the author went back to his bookshelf looking for less appreciated books, and came up with a list of 6 Brilliant Business Books That Are Highly Underrated. That list was:

The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander

Funky Business: Talent Makes Capital Dance by Jonas Ridderstrale & Kjell Nordstrom (out of print)

Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi & Tahl Raz.

Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger.

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing by Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg & Lisa T. Davis.

Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins: The Paradox of Innovation by Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes (out of print)

It's good to see David Weinberger on both lists. His most recent book, Everything is Miscellaneous, was also terrific. Head here to join the conversation.

New Excerpt - The New Paradigm for Financial Markets

Todd mentioned on Monday that Borders' business-book buyer listed George Soros' The New Paradigm for Financial Markets as a book he'd recommend for the credit crisis. We have posted an excerpt of that book on our excerpts blog.

I recently finished the book myself, and would agree that it helps explain the crisis we're in, or at least the second half does.

The first part of the book, as Soros himself states, he devotes to "the theory of reflexivity, which goes well beyond the financial markets" and goes on to suggest "People interested solely in the current crisis will find it hard going, but those who make the effort will, I hope, find it rewarding." I would say that it certainly was, though if you're interested only in the credit crisis, and not the "Autobiography of a Failed Philosopher" as he titles Chapter 2, you can skip straight to Part 2 of the book.

To get the book started, Soros includes an introductory chapter called "Setting the Stage" which is what we were lucky enough to obtain for our excerpts blog. You won't find a more concise explanation of how the credit markets ended up where they are.

As one of the most successful financial speculators in the world, Soros has a deep understanding of markets. In his outlook for 2008 at the end of the book, he even presciently states "Eventually, the U.S. government will have to use taxpayer money to arrest the decline in house prices. Until it does, the decline will be self-reinforcing, with people walking away from homes in which they have negative equity and more and more financial institutions becoming insolvent..." If this kind of thing interests you, I'd highly recommend the rest of the book.

Here is the direct link to the excerpt.
http://800ceoread.com/excerpts/archives/008498.html

More Meltdown Recommendations from The Wall Street Journal

The Weekend Edition of The Wall Street Journal has a regular feature called Five Best, where the editors ask an expert about the five books that best represent a topic. They have done personal finance and advertising just to name a few.

This past weekend, the subject was financial meltdowns. The column was curated by Martin Mayer, an author of 35 books, many on the financial system. His own bibliography includes The Bankers (1975) and its follow-up The Bankers: The Next Generation (1997), The Fate of the Dollar (1980), Risky Business: The Collapse of Lloyd's of London (1995), and The Fed (2002).

His current recommendations are:

• Manias, Panics, and Crash: A History of Financial Crises by Charles Kindleberger (1978) - "the definitive overview of financial emergencies"
• Bailout: An Insider's Account of Bank Failures and Rescues by Irvine Sprague (1986) - "first person account of the big bank traumas of the 1980's" by then FDIC director
• Beyond Greed by Stephen Fay (1982, out of print) - "a wonderful tale of how Bunker and Herbert Hunt of the Texas oil Hunts, together [with others], tried to corner the silver market in the late 1970's."
• When Genius Failed: The Rise & Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein (2000) - the subtitle says it all.
• The Trouble With Prosperity by James Grant (1996, out of print) - "[B]ooms are followed by busts, and the louder the boom, the more devastating the bust" with the opposite true as well.

What Borders Is Selling For the Credit Crisis

In today's Wall Street Journal, Borders business-book buyer Michael D'Agostini says there are five titles that seems to be of most interest to credit concerned consumers visiting his stores:

• The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers and the Great Credit Crunch by Charles Morris
• The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy by David Smick
• The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means by George Soros
• Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and The Global Crisis of American Capitalism by Kevin Phillips
• Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse by Peter Schiff

The article also says that you will probably find a similar display at your local Barnes & Noble the next time you visit.

Amazon lists The 100 Best Business Books of All Time

Amazon now has catalog copy and cover art for our book.

Four months before publication date, our sales ranking is already 280,000, but who's counting.

Check us out here.

The ChangeThis Connection - Hugh MacLeod Interviews Seth Godin

The author of the most downloaded ChangeThis manifesto of all time recently interviewed the site's founder about his new book and much, much more. A lot of people are saying this is Seth's finest book, which is really saying something considering the consistent quality of his writing. Hugh asks Seth 10 questions, the first of which is:

1. For the benefit of gapingvoid readers not yet familiar with your work [all 14 of them], let's get the main schpiel over and done with: From your perspective, what is "Tribes" about?

It explains why top-down, buzz-driven media is the past, not the future.

The world has always been organized into tribes, groups of people who want to (need to) connect with each other, with a leader and with a movement. The products, services and ideas that are gaining currency faster than ever are ones that are built on a tribe.

Barack Obama has one, John McCain tried to co-opt one. Arianna Huffington has built the most popular blog in the world around one. Harley Davidson and Apple are titanic brands for the very same reason. They sell a chance to join a group that matters.

The punchline is that the only way to lead a tribe is to lead it. And that means that marketing is now about leadership, about challenging the status quo and about connecting people who can actually make a difference. If you can't do that, don't launch your site, your product, your non-profit or your career.

I'd argue that you understand how to tap into this need, Hugh. Lots of people don't like your work--screw them, we don't like them anyway. The people who do like, who find that it resonates... it's likely that we'll like each other. You lead us to a place we want to go.

To read the rest of the inteview, head on over to gapingvoid.

Have a great weekend everyone!