World Is Flat


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Paperback
660 pages
ISBN 9780312425074 Published July 2007
Picador USA
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World Is Flat
A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
By Thomas L Friedman 

Related Blog Posts
Revisiting Malcolm Gladwell
Posted Dec. 14, 2011 8:09 a.m. by sally-haldorson
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

One of the most fascinating trends to follow in business literature is the continual expansion of what a business book actually is. The parameters have widened significantly from the influential management and theory books of the 1980s. While there are still books made available each year on such practical matters as team building, developing a social media strategy, making a new hire, and sensible budgeting, there are also a great number of books that study decision-making from a neuroscience angle or theorize about how social and environmental influences affect human behavior. Malcolm Gladwell is a pioneer of this type of book.

In The 100 Best Business Books of All Time review of The Tipping Point, Jack writes:

The Tipping Point is the type of book that helps us make sense of the world around us. It is a practical, nonacademic guide to the social epidemics going on around us, and perhaps to how we might take advantage of them. As people try to stay in step with a rapidly evolving business landscape, they are turning to journalistic books that bring the big picture into focus, like Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, Gladwell's next book, Blink, and Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics. Not only is the context broader, but the writing is significantly better than in traditional business books. The Tipping Point is the book that started this trend, perhaps its own epidemic, and continues to carry the banner as the best.

And "the best" it nearly is. In our compilation of six years of data* from Nielsen BookScan of the 10 top selling business books, The Tipping Point comes in second (behind the aforementioned Friedman title.) Gladwell's Blink? Well, it is 3rd on the list. It may only be a matter of time before Gladwell's 2008 book, Outliers, makes the list.

If it has been awhile since you've revisited Gladwell's writing, or you'd like to introduce someone to it, now all three of Gladwell's outstanding books are available in a new boxed set from Hachette, just in time to be the perfect gift for the business thinker in your life.

*1/4/04-11/14/10



The FT/Goldman Sachs Book Award Longlist
Posted Aug. 19, 2011 5:35 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

Understandably (looking at the award sponsors), the FT/Goldman Sachs Book Award always tends more toward macroeconomics, high finance and big business. But they always seem to pick well, and I always find books I feel the need to revisit when they announce their list.

Just in case you missed the announcement of the the award's longlist as I did, it is:

FT's Andrew Hill writes of the list:

If there is a theme that links most of the 14 titles on the longlist for the 2011 Business Book of the Year Award it is their authors’ quest to work out how and why companies, governments and their leaders fail—and how not to go wrong in future.

Thomas Friedman has won the award before so it will be interesting to see if he moves on to the shortlist, which will be announced in September. The award's past winners are:

We are currently accepting submissions for our awards. You can find the details and entry form at www.800ceoread.com/bookawards. And for our past winners, head on over to our awards page.



A Call For Submissions to the The FT/Goldman Sachs Book Awards
Posted May 10, 2011 6:52 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

The call is on for submissions to the 2011 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. From the press release:

Now in its seventh year, the award is firmly established as a feature of the business and publishing calendars. [...] The 2011 award will be decided by a panel of judges, who will select a shortlist of up to six titles in September. They will consider titles published for the first time in the English language between 16 November 2010 and 15 November 2011, spanning the whole range of economics, management, business and finance. [...] The closing date for submissions is June 30 2011.

You can submit your book online or download the submissions rules and forms (a pdf) from FT.com.

We've been following the award since they began handing it out in 2005. The list of books they've chosen is understandably more high-finance and Wall Street centric than ours picks here at 800-CEO-READ have been (we tend to focus more on small business and entrepreneurship), but beginning with the choice of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat in their inaugural year, they have always chosen very worthy candidates. The previous winners are:

And with Goldman Sachs behind the award, they can afford a fair amount of luxury when handing it out.

This year, the winner of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award will receive £30,000, while the prize money for up to five other shortlisted authors is £10,000 each. [...] This year’s awards ceremony and dinner—attended by top names from the worlds of finance, economics, business, media and publishing—will take place in London on November 3 2011.

We’ll be calling for submissions to our awards later this Summer, and will keep you updated on the FT/Goldman Sachs Award as they announce their shortlist and winner later this year.



Matthew May's Five Books That Defined the Decade
Posted Jan. 14, 2010 3:49 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

In Pursuit of Elegance author Matthew May reads around 200 books a year. That means he's read approximately 2000 books since the year 2000. Of those, he has picked five that he feels defined the last decade, writing "these 'big idea' books stand out because not only did they help us better understand the world, they gave us a new lens through which to view it."

Though you're picks may look slightly different, it's a difficult list to argue with, and one I like all the more due to the fact that—as Jack and Todd did in the 100 Best Business Books of All Time—he eschewed Friedman's more popular The World is Flat for The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

To read more about why May chose these books, head over to the original post: Five Books That Defined the Decade.



800-CEO-READ's Decade-in-Review
Posted Dec. 31, 2009 9:45 a.m. by sally-haldorson
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

It's an admittedly worn device to use the alphabet to organize one's thoughts, but when reflecting over the past decade and trying to distill the most notable events and objects that affected our company and also the publishing industry and business sector into a brief blog post, I found such a device to be quite helpful. As Jack put it when we initially discussed writing a decade-in-review post, not only is it like opening a can of worms, it seems like whenever one harkens back to the Millenium, one can't help but get sidetracked into thoughts about 9/11. But of course there were many more ups and downs that we've all been a victim and/or a participant in, and this list is an attempt to do that chaos a little bit of justice.

Amazon (may not have its origins in this decade, but grew from 1.6B in 1999 to 19.1 in 2008; Annual 800ceoread Business Book Awards (Inaugural 2007); Erika Anderson, founder of Proteus International, Inc., author of Growing Great Employees, and great friend of 800-CEO-READ who introduced us to a new in-office vocabulary (2007)

Blue Ocean Strategy (our decade's Best Seller, 2005); Bill George, author of three 800-CEO-READ best sellers, Authentic Leadership (2004), True North (2007) and Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis

ChangeThis (website presenting ideas via manifesto PDFs adopted by 800-CEO-READ from Seth Godin, 2005)

Disasters, natural and otherwise (Dot Com Bust, 2000; 9/11, 2001; tsunami, 2004; Hurricane Katrina, 2005; banking, 2009)

Enron bankruptcy (2001); Eight years of George W. Bush (2000-2008); Election of Barack Obama (2008)

Farewell, Schwartz Bookshops (2009); free/freemium changes everything; Facebook leads the herd.

Good to Great by Jim Collins; Green, Global and Google become top trends

Heath Brothers’ Made to Stick (2007) introduced us to a new language for the creation of ideas

InBubbleWrap offers free business books from 800-CEO-READ (2005); In the Books, 800-CEO-READ's yearly review of business books (2007); It's Your Ship by D. Michael Abrashoff (2002), an 800-CEO-READ bestseller with legs.

JackCovertSelects reviews (Inaugural 2000); Joy Panos Stauber, design extraordinaire and great friend of 800-CEO-READ.

Kindle (2007) and the advancing threat (revelation?) of digital books.

Lay-Offs (2009), Levitt & Dubner’s Freakonomics (2005), The Long Tail by Chris Anderson (2006); 800-CEO-READ's LeaveSmarter events (2006) kick off in Milwaukee.

Mega-Sales of Oprah’s Recommendations, Harry Potter & the Twilight series, lend hopefulness that books still beguile.

New York (book launch, company party, annual awards fete, 2009)

The 100 Business Books of All Time (written & anguished over during 2008, published 2009)

PechaKucha – 800-CEO-READ becomes the Milwaukee host for this exciting new way to present ideas in 20 images in 20 seconds (2008).

QbQ! The Question behind the Question by John Miller (2004), an 800-CEO-READ best seller that tapped into the perceived absence of personal accountability.

Rich Dad books populate the decade as the best selling personal finance books; Rehiring & Remodeling (2009)

Seth Godin (Unleashing the Idea Virus 2001 to Purple Cow 2003 to Tribes 2008); Strengths-based management books and strategies from Gallup.

Todd Sattersten (consultant 2004 - coauthor, 2008 - president, 2009), The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (2000); Twitter

Used books on Amazon (2001); The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld (2006) became the basis of some important questions we asked of our company and our customers.

Visit 800ceoread's Daily Blog for daily business insight (2001).

Wiki-anything; The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki (2004) and The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (2005), two books that changed the way we think.

X-treme changes to news and publishing industry

You're a blueberry (2008), an 800-CEO-READ inside joke that encapsulates the relationships of the 800-CEO-READ employees.

Zero percent. The likelihood that 2010 will be anything but another exhilarating ride.

Okay, so in terms of adhering to the alphabetization of this list, some are a bit of a cheat. And some inclusions are events that had a direct effect on our company internally, but most were important occurrences felt by everyone in business. If there is anything I missed, feel free to add in comments.

Happy New Year everyone!






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