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ISBN 9780131361881 Published March 2009
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Posted July 13, 2009 4:46 a.m. by dylan
In Events - 800 CEO Read Blog
Five FT Press and Wharton School Publishing authors are being hosted at a week-long author event, starting today, over at Mixergy. You can watch the interview series live via Mixergy.com, iTunes or U-Stream.
Today's author is the brilliant Herb Sorensen, author of Inside the Mind of the Shopper: The Science of Retailing. And, not to underestimate the other authors, but we're really looking forward to Thursday's author, Jim Champy, coauthor of Reengineering the Corporation (one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time), and currently in the middle of a series of books, or as he puts it himself "compact volumes on the key topics of strategy, marketing, managing people, and operations." The first, Outsmart!, covered strategy and was released last year. This year's installment was Inspire!, a Jack Covert Selects in April. The complete list of authors is below.
Herb Sorensen, Ph.D. is a pre-eminent authority on observing and measuring shopping behavior and attitudes. He is the Global Scientific Director, TNS Shopper Insights, serving Fortune 100 retailers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America for over 35 years. Dr. Sorensen, Ph.D. biochemist, looks at consumer behavior from a scientific viewpoint but clearly explains the impact for the bottom line of merchants.
Mark Magnacca, is President of Insight Development Group, Inc, a business building coach, keynote speaker and author. Mark’s mission is to help sales professionals get greater results in less time by teaching his clients to put all of their communications, verbal and written, to the So What Test. By adopting a S o What Mindset, clients learn to communicate and structure every message according the needs of the listener.
Bertrand Cesvet is Chairman and Chief Strategist of Montreal-based creative hotbed SID LEE. Over the past 10 years, he has helped transform a small, but promising creative shop into a leading purveyor of experiential design and communication services for breakthrough brands. In doing so, he has earned the ear of many a C-level executive who value the disruptive insights he injects into their businesses.
Jim Champy, Chairman of Consulting, Perot Systems, is recognized throughout the world for his work on leadership and management issues and on organizational change and business reengineering. His first book, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, sold more than 3 million copies and spent more than a year on The New York Times best seller list. He is also the author of the best seller, Reengineering Management: The Mandate for New Leadership, which was recognized by Business Week as one of the top ten best business books of 1995.
Barry Libert is a pioneer in using communities and Web 2.0 technologies to help enterprises thrive and accelerate business growth. He was co-author of the recently published We Are Smarter Than Me, a critically acclaimed book created in collaboration with Wharton Publishing that used the Wiki-based contributions of more than 4,000 people to illustrate how businesses could profit from the wisdom of crowds. A one-time McKinsey & Company consultant, Libert has also co-authored two other highly regarded books about the business value of information and relationships.
If you can't listen in live, the shows will be edited and archived, so check back at Mixergy when you can.
Jack Covert Selects - Inspire!
Posted April 14, 2009 4:34 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
Inspire!: Why Customers Come Back by Jim Champy, FT Press, 192 Pages, $22.99 Hardcover, April 2009, ISBN 9780131361881
Some of the most successful business books use the research method to find the standouts in business, and then dig into those organizations to see what makes them so successful. Jim Collin's brilliant Good to Great comes to mind.
Jim Champy, author of Reengineering the Corporation—which is one of the titles featured in our book, The 100 Best Business Books of All Time—also uses the research method. This is his second book in a new series of compact volumes that he describes as follows: "Taken together, these volumes deliver practical advice on how to succeed in today's brave new world of business. That's because they are rooted in the actual experiences and insights of a select group of companies that have found new and better ways to innovate and grow in spite of our challenging economic environment."
The chapter "What Could Be More Inspiring Than Convenience with Economy?" uses the story of car-sharing company Zipcar as an example. Every time Clark Waterfall—the co-founder of high tech headhunter Boston Search Group—had a meeting in town, he had to drive in and deal with the ridiculous Boston traffic, instead of having the convenience of the train he was used to. Parking and the huge commutes were a royal pain. Zipcar has solved his problem, and found a very sweet spot in major metropolitan areas. You pay ZipCar $10 per hour to use their cars. They are parked in convenient places, and you simply wave your Zipcar card to get into a car, drive it for as long as you want, and then return it to that spot and replace the gas. For a commuter like Clark, this is a perfect deal.
In the chapter titled "What Could Be More Inspiring Than a Crusade?" Champy tells the story of Stoneyfield Farm and how they found a need, and created a brand around it, using simple, yet dramatic marketing ideas—like giving their product away for free to create buzz. Champy smartly summarizes each chapter with practical and valuable "Rules of Engagement." This chapter's are "Make sure your customers are true believers," "Don't hesitate to break the rules," "Use every available technique to tell your story," and "Be completely true to your cause," among many, many more.
In closing, I must congratulate either Jim Champy or FT Press for the design of this book. They use different font sizes to highlight and summarize ideas not only very effectively, but attractively as well. I'm looking forward to the future releases in this series. This one is a small treasure that will help you inspire and grow your business.
