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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!
FT Financial Editor Andrew Hill on New Biz Book Award from FT/Goldman Sachs
Posted Sept. 19, 2005 6:39 a.m. by tom-ehrenfeld
In Publishing Industry - 800 CEO Read Blog
Tomorrow the finalists of the first annual Goldman Sachs Financial Times business book of the year award will be announced, with the winner to be made known to the world on November 21 in what is promised to be a "gala ceremony." FT Financial Times financial editor Andrew Hill recently took some of his time to answer a few questions from us about the contest.
Q: Can you share a few details on the contest itself, such as how many entries you1ve received for this award, as well as any other important bits?
A: The contest attracted a great deal of interest--as the only one of its kind in the world and with a first prize of 30,000 that was probably inevitable--but of course the 150 or so titles that were submitted by publishers represented only a fraction of the eligible titles published in the 12 months since last October. My colleagues and I worked hard to make sure that the confidential long list of books that were considered by the judges included works from across the spectrum of business books. The aim of the prize is to find "the most compelling and enjoyable book on business issues", and that overall criterion was intentionally broad. In the end, we selected 17 books for the long list--from hard-bitten investigative journalism about recent corporate scandals to lofty analyses of globalisation, as well as a few books on management strategy. In some cases, the judges had to "call in" books that had not been formally submitted but seemed to be worth reviewing. I was surprised that some obvious candidates were not submitted--and that some titles that would probably never have met the criteria found their way into our in-tray. Once the industry hears the buzz created by the inaugural award, I think publishers will pursue a much more targeted approach in 2006.
Q: In the States today business books don't get much "respek," to quote Ali G. The number of publications that reviews business books is in steep decline (and even some business weeklies prefer to review non-business titles), smart writers like Barbara Ehrenreich bash the genre in the pages of the New York Times, and you would be hard-pressed to find many booksellers "hand-selling" the new Jim Collins. So what gives? Should the genre get more respect? Do few titles set the bar high enough? Will people start to confuse this new award with the Booker?
A: One of the aims of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book Award is to encourage authors and publishers to sharpen their act. I don't think we will ever have difficulty finding 20 or 30 titles for a long list of the best business books, but it would be great to have 100 to choose from. Most of us are "in business" in one form or another and all of us are affected by the successes and failures of business, finance and industry, so it surprises me that the genre is losing ground. I was interested to see in a recent browse through American and British book stores that our shortlisted titles were found in more than one "genre" (from current affairs, to economics and even politics), so perhaps the tag "business book" is doing a disservice to some very powerful works that have a broader importance.
As for confusion with the Man Booker prize--that seems unlikely. We are global and the original Man Booker seeks the best works from the UK, Commonwealth and Ireland; we are after the best business books, broadly defined, they are looking for fiction. That said, I was a little disappointed that publishers didn't submit any strong business novels this year. After all, we are looking for the most compelling and ENJOYABLE title about business--who's to say that in some years (Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full springs to mind), a work of fiction couldn't make the shortlist?
Q: Part of the basis for the past question is a belief that business books have indeed gotten better over the past 5-10 years--that there is a greater selection of books, that the good ones are of higher quality, and that many ambitious books strive to do more than simply provide a list of tips and tools. They help you, to paraphrase Jack Covert, to see the world differently. Would you agree or disagree with this, and why? And if so, how does this tie into the launch of the contest?
A: I think you're right that business books have got better in the past decade. But they also seem to have multiplied and, at the fringes, there are some very poor books. My colleague Mike Skapinker has described them as books by "get-rich-quick tipsters, motivational preachers and one-minute-solution merchants". Alas, busy people such as the FT's readers and Goldman Sachs' clients, don't have much time to filter out the poor ones. As a result they may end up rejecting the whole genre. This prize aims to help do the filtering for them.
Q: The award is designed to recognize books "that quickly become a must read for anyone whos serious about business." What are some classic business books that would fall into this category? And what makes a business book a "must-read"?
A: A personal selection would include Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed, on the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund, and, more recently, Jim Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds, although it is perhaps too soon to call either a classic. Liar's Poker, though flawed, remains a fantastic read. Some of the benchmarks cited by the judges as they were assessing the long list included The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, Jim Collins' Good to Great and Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. We're running a discussion at www.ft.com/bookaward in which readers are invited to suggest their favorite business book of all time--it's throwing up some interesting suggestions.
Q: What are your hopes for this award? The reward is certainly rich, and will motivate authors to compete. Do you believe it will raise awareness of business books and ideas in general?
A: As outlined above, we're hoping it will motivate authors to raise their game. I think the publicity around the award will also encourage book stores to push the worthy finalists' books a little more aggressively--if that means that people who would normally shun a "business book" take a second look, then it can only be good news for us and for everyone involved in that area of publishing.
The What and Where Generation
Posted July 6, 2005 6:04 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In General Management - 800 CEO Read Blog
This a little further into the Immelt/Fast Company interview:
What makes a growth leader today, and how does that differ from the sort of leader who was effective at GE in the past?
GE has always been a believer in leadership development. When the economy was growing at 5% a year, when oil was $14 a barrel, and when the world was at peace, the science of management was all about the how-to. That was the how-to generation. You didn't have to think about the what. Instead, there were management initiatives such as Six Sigma, which was the how.
So most of management literature, certainly for the past 10 years, was all about the how-to. I think we're now in the what-and-where generation. Global economies are slow and more volatile. Oil is at $50 a barrel. So this ability to pick markets, growth trends, customers, and to do segmentation-that is management today. We have a generation of people who know how to process flow charts. We have a generation of people who know how to do quality function deployment and things like that, but don't necessarily know why we're doing them. What's the what and the where? I believe that wholeheartedly. Nothing is completely black and white. But we are in a completely different cycle of what good managers know how to do.
This is what Jack (and I mean Covert) has been saying about business books. It is kind of cool to see the CEO of the largest, most successful company in the world saying the same thing (I should mention I am a GE alumni).
I think the great business books right now are the ones that give us a different way to look at the world -- Blink, Wisdom of Crowds, A Whole New Mind, The World is Flat. It is about starting the conversation, but not necessarily being given the conclusion. These books don't give the how-to to go do it. And that is because the world is changing and the next set of rules and practices aren't clear yet.
So while we are travelling through this crazy time, you need to keep an open mind and be willing to read a different kind of book.
Ants and Men
Posted March 22, 2005 8:00 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In Human Resources/Organizational Development - 800 CEO Read Blog
Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users has a great post on James Surowiecki's talk at SXSW. Surowiecki wrote The Wisdom of Crowds (one of the best books of last year).
Wired's Rave Awards - Book Category
Posted Feb. 24, 2005 4:47 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In Information Technology - 800 CEO Read Blog
In the March issue (now on newsstands), Wired Magazine announced their 2005 Rave Awards. The categories range from science to art to industrial design.
The winner in this year's book category is On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. From Wired:
"A neuroscience manifesto might be the last thing you'd expect from the guy who conceived the PalmPilot PDA and the Treo smartphone. Between product launches, though, Hawkins has been studyingthe human neocortex for 25 years. "I was fearful that I might go to my grave and not communicate this stuff," he says. "The day I finished writing the book, I felt a huge relief. No matter what happens, the ideas are out there."
Hawkins' thoughts on thin-slicing in science:
"Intuition leads scientists astray every time," [Hawkins] says. "Your intuition about the nature of reality is very likely to be wrong. Instead, take careful look at what you know. The answer is hidden there."
Our reviewer Rob May wrote a review of On Intelligence at the beginning of January. He had similar thoughts on the impact this book will have.
Other nominees in the Rave Awards book category included:
The Pentagon's New Map by Thomas Barnett
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
O'Reilly Hacks Series by Rael Dornfest, Dale Dougherty, and Tim O'Reilly
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
