Judged by its title alone, you may think The World is Curved is a rebuke of Friedman's philosophy, but it's not. Snick writes of Friedman's previous book,The World is Flat, in his contrarily titled book's prologue:

Friedman compellingly describes globalization as it is, with concentration on the global supply chain for goods and services.The stories are mesmerizing--taking the reader from India's Silicon Valley in Bangalore to villages in northeastern China. [...] The book stands as a historic achievement in introducing a broad audience to the new world of opportunity and challenges beyond national borders.

But, while Snick agrees with the premise of Friedman's worldview, he comes from the world of global finance and, well, to quote him:

Frankly speaking, from the perspective of the financial markets, the world is not flat. Unlike the world that produces goods and services, in the financial world nothing happens in a straight line. Instead, there is a continual series of unforeseen discontinuities--twists and turns of uncertainty that often require millions of market participants to stand conventional wisdom on its head. In the financial world, John, nothing much seems to happen in a straight line.

So, at his wife's urging, he wrote a book about what he calls the second installment of the globalization story--"the financial side of the story." We posted the book's prologue on our excerpts blog yesterday.

Friedman, of course, has written his own "second installment" of the globalization story, entitled Hot, Flat and Crowded, and you can contribute to its next edition. Through The Chapter 18 Project, Friedman is having readers send in their ideas for the the 2nd editions of the book's concluding chapter. From his website:

Hot, Flat, and Crowded has seventeen chapters. What's Chapter 18? Chapter 18 will be a completely new chapter that I'll add to the next edition of the book: Version 2.0. In it I hope to include the best ideas and proposals sent in from readers: ideas about clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation; about petropolitics and nation-building in America; about how we can help take the lead in the renewal of our country and the Earth alike by going Code Green.

To read the excerpt of The World is Curved, go here.

To contribute ideas or proposals to Mr. Friedman for the next edition of Hot, Flat, and Crowded, head here.

Boy, was I glad I did! In the communication field, even though it can get a bit liberal as to what is taught, can feature very valuable information. The class I took brought Plato to my impressionable, freshman mind and I will never forget what I read. We only touched on the Symposium, the Republic and Pheadrus, and his lessons about life and skills in rhetoric are useful to us in 2008 just as they were to Plato those many years ago.

Hyland's book talks about those works as well as Plato's Hippias Major and is definitely right in step for today's business environment where people and companies move too fast, communicate too fast and tend to ignore details and the beauty around them. I'm not saying everyone that reads Plato will have this epiphany, but it may open minds to thinking of things in a different way. Plato may even help you when dealing in communication between co-workers, colleagues, etc.

If you do pick up a copy, enjoy it - and let me know what you think!

What to Say to a Porcupine is a book that contains twenty different tales all centering around customer service and it offers topics for group (or single) discussion at the end of each fable. Some chapters include: My Big Fat Greek Chorus, Chilly Willy, The Knight Shift, Going to the Dogs and Sloth is Not a Vice.

Richard S. Gallagher, the author of all these little vignettes, has created such a great way to emphasize the fact that customer service is so important to companies and great service makes everything run more smoothly, intelligently, etc. In fact, What to Say to a Porcupine ends with the Gallagher saying that customer service is more than just another fable.

This book is great for any company that needs a little kick-start or even a reminder of how customer service should be like. It's thought-provoking in a very interesting way! I hope when you get a copy - or even copies for your whole staff - you'll enjoy it!

Have a GREAT weekend!!

This year, Hank and Kathryn went a step further with ABT and applied it to how people can change themselves. On Monday starts a blog tour for the book. The journey starts at Idea Sandbox; there you'll find the full schedule.

Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

• From the author of A Whole New Mind, comes the first ever manga business book. Dan Pink's The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need.
• Procter and Gamble's A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan worked together to publish The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation.
• Nudge:Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by two professors at the University of Chicago
• Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy? (Memo to the CEO) by Andrew J. Hoffman and John G. Woody on the subject everyone is talking about: how business will change as the climate changes.
• From the Cult of Mac author, Leander Kahney takes a look Inside Steve's Brain.

Enjoy your April.

Let me officially announce the launch of the 800ceoread New Releases Blog. The purpose of the site is to notify readers of new business books hitting the market. This information is not readily available to the general public and definitely not all in one place. It seems most people hear about books from other people or seeing them in the media.

On the day a book is released, a blog post will be published in the site. You will see cover art, title, author name(s), and a description of the book. You can subscribe to the whole site via RSS or to individual categories if you like.

The site is in late beta testing, so please send me suggestions if you them (todd @ 800ceoread . com).

• A Leader's Legacy by James Kouzes and Barry Posner (Jossey-Bass) - This is a follow-on to the best-seller The Leadership Challenge; alot of people like Kouzes and Posner's take on leadership.
• Hoopla by Crispin Porter + Bogusky (Powerhouse) - Powerhouse has been doing the Lovemarks/Kevin Roberts books and I have been looking forward to seeing what they do with another ad agency.
• Success Built to Last: Creating A Life That Matters by Jerry Porras et al. (Wharton School Publishing) - Built to Last author Porras this time asks what people rather than companies need to do to find success.
• Bangalore Tiger: How Indian Tech Upstart WIPRO is Rewriting the Rules of Global Competition by Steve Hamm (McGraw-Hill) - The senior writer goes inside this Indian phenom to find out what has brought all the success.

October

• Mavericks at Work: Why The Most Original Minds In Business Win by Bill Taylor and Polly LaBarre (William Morrow) - Bill and Polly created business conversation in the 90's at writing Fast Company magazine. If you have missed that passion and energy, you'll love the book.
• Tough Choices by Carly Fiorina (Portfolio) - This is going to be a big book. The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard tells her rise to the top and what happened when she got there.
• L.L. Bean: The Making of an American Icon by Leon Gorman (Harvard Business School Press) - Word has it that HBSP has been bugging the folks at L.L. Bean for years to do a book; it finally here and expect to see lots of cross-promotion in other L.L. Bean communications.
• Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage by Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston (Yale) - This title shows how companies can use green issues as a competitive weapon.
• The Starfish and The Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom (Portfolio) - What do Alcoholics Anonymous, Napster, and al Queda all have in common? No one runs them. I love this book and highly recommend you check it out.
• Setting the Table: The Power of Hospitality in Restaurants, Business, and Life by Danny Meyer (HarperCollins) - Meyer knows something about delivering service. His restaurants occupy four of the top twenty spots on Zagat's.
• Tailgating, Sacks, and Salary Caps: How The NFL Became the Most Successful Sports Franchise in History by Mark Yost (Kaplan, Nov.) - This is about the business of football in all its glory.

The manifestos:
24.01 Strategy and the Fat Smoker
by David Maister

Noted professional service firm advisor, David Maister, offers advice on how to fight strategic flab and make change happen within your organization. Using self-improvement efforts as a metaphor, Maister asserts that professional change only happens when each person in an organization makes the necessary, albeit uncomfortable, corrections to their bad habits, and remains committed to the long-range payoff through short-term goals.

Click here to read the manifesto.

Click here to visit the site.

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24.02 Non-Geeks are Not Morons: The Change Function Model for Adopting Technology
by Pip Coburn

Here, Pip Coburn challenges the assumptions of technologists who believe in the “if we build it, they will come� theory of technology development. Using his Change Function model (Crisis vs Total Perceived Pain of Adoption) to explain how dema happens, he contends that it is the users to whom technologists should look for inspiration, as it is the users who create the demand for new products.

Click here to read the manifesto.

Click here to visit the site.

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24.03 The Working Mother’s Manifesto: This is How We Do It
by Carol Evans

In this manifesto, Carol Evans, President and CEO of Working Mother magazine, encourages working mothers (and fathers) to ask their organizations for what they need to attain a healthy balance between work and family. She argues that now is the time, because working parents have greater leverage as the baby boomer generation leaves the workplace and companies face an employee shortage.

Click here to view the manifesto.

Click here to visit the site.

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24.04 Know the Codes: Why We Act, Buy, and Love as We Do
by Clotaire Rapaille

What is your earliest memory of coffee? What image comes to mind when you hear about a Jeep? Why are wedding traditions different in the United States from France? Rapaille reveals the unconscious motivators behind how we act and what we buy by unearthing the unique culture codes found within each of us and derived from our earliest or most enduring memories.

Click here to view the manifesto.

Click here to visit the site.

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24.05 It’s a Big, Blog World Out There: Five Quick Tips to Building a Better Blog
by Meryl K. Evans

These days, blogging is a common, if not necessary, way for a business to reach its customers. In her manifesto, Meryl Evans, long-time blogger and Internet aficionado, details why blogging is important for businesses, and how to make sure that your company’s blog is a great blog.

Click here to view the manifesto.

Click here to visit the site.

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Happy manifesto reading!

There are 12 books in the series:

• The Christians and The Fall of Rome by Edward Gibbon
• Common Sense by Thomas Paine
• The Inner Life by Thomas à Kempis
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• On Art and Life by John Ruskin
• On Friendship by Michel de Montaigne
• On Natural Selection by Charles Darwin
• On the Pleasure of Hating by William Hazlitt
• On the Shortness of Life by Lucius Annaeus Seneca
• The Prince by Niccolo Macchiavelli
• Why I Am So Wise by Friedrich Nietzsche
• Why I Write by George Orwell

This series is one Penguin US imported from their counterparts in the UK. Tomorrow, I am going to post a Q&A with Simon Winder, the UK editor that ushered these to bookshelves.

There has been a huge audience in the non-profit sector for Good to Great and there was some discussion about adding this material to the book. Jim Collins didn't think it was right to ask folks to buy a whole new book just to get the new material. This short piece is written to address questions that social sector organizations have asked since the GTG was released.

So, he self-published this new work as a separate paperback which will be distributed by HarperCollins. It will also only be available at online retailers.

The monograph will start shipping November 15th. You can place your preorders now.

We should have copies early next week and we'll give you our thoughts then.

P.S. None of the other guys even have it listed on their sites. You hear it here first!!! :)

P.P.S. A monograph is a scholarly piece of writing of essay or book length on a specific, often limited subject.

Peter Gibbons just can't seem to catch a break. His girlfriend is cheating on him, he has an obnoxious neighbor, and he's completely miserable with his job as a small cog in a company called Initech. Then he visits a hypnotherapist, who dies just after putting Peter into a state of complete bliss. Free of worrying about making a living, he no longer feels the need to keep his job, just as the company is going through a massive downsizing. However, his new attitude only makes him more valuable in the company's eyes, and his friends Michael and Samir are fired instead. Together, they scheme to plant a virus inside Initech's computer system that will pull money into their own account.

There is new version titled Office Space: Special Edition with Flair. The new features include outtakes, a behind-the-scenes documentary, and animated shorts from creator Mike Judge that inspired the movie

The Big Moo by The Group of 33; compiled by Seth Godin
Seth compiled the thoughts of 33 of the world's leading business minds including Tom Peters, Guy Kawasaki, Kevin Carroll, Jackie Huba, Dan Pink, Alan Webber and other thought-provoking people. The catch: there are no bylines so the thoughts are stand-alone. The benefits: all profits are being donated to charity!
READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE.

The Art of Pricing by Rafi Mohammed
Mohammed discusses and suggests different pricing methods that can be used to attract consumers to your products and services. This is a good starting point for learning about pricing.
READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE.

Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
Chouinard is the founder and owner of Patagonia--a company renowned for its environmentally conscious business practices and its equipment and clothing geared towards adventure sport enthusiasts. Let My People Go Surfing tells the story of Patagonia and is speckled with tales of Chouinard's personal adventures.
READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE.

Corporate Canaries by Gary Sutton
In the old mining days, canaries were placed in mines to warn workers of dangerous gases. Illustrated by the stories of Sutton's Irish grandfather, Corporate Canaries will warn you of your company's possible pitfalls.
READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE.

On to the list:

• 1/28/05 - The Making of Dr. Phil : The Straight-Talking True Story of Everyone's Favorite Therapist by Sophia Dembling and Lisa Gutierrez (Wiley)


• 1/28/05 - Boards That Deliver: Advancing CorporateGovernance from Compliance to Competitive Advantage by Ram Charan (Jossey-Bass)


• 1/28/05 - Mean Markets and Lizard Brains: How to Profit from the New Science of Irrationality by Terry Burnham (Wiley)


• Blue Ocean Strategy: How To Create Uncontested Market Space And Make The Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne (Harvard Business School Press)


• 2/3/05 - Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing by Alex Wipperfurth (Portfolio)


• 2/9/05 - The Art of Business: Make All Your Work A Work of Art by Stan Davis and David McIntosh (Berrett-Kohler)


• 2/10/05 - BRANDsense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound by Martin Lindstrom (Free Press)


• 2/10/05 - Get 'em While They're Hot : How to Attract, Develop, and Retain Peak Performers in the Coming Labor Shortage by Tony Zeiss (Thomas Nelson)


• 2/11/05 - Trump Strategies for Real Estate : Billionaire Lessons for the Small Investor by George Ross (Wiley)


• 2/11/05 - Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right! by Lior Arussy (Wiley)
]]> New Releases 2005-02-09T10:27:09-06:00