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Posted Oct. 22, 2010 11:29 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
➻ Vanity Fair has an excerpt up about The Blundering Herd at Merrill Lynch from one of this year's most anticipated books, All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis. From that excerpt:
In the years leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, there was no more infectious disease on Wall Street than Goldman envy. Goldman Sachs, perhaps the most storied name in all of American finance, had gone public only in 1999, the last of the big firms to do so. After the I.P.O., Goldman’s mind-boggling profits were on full display. Starting in 2003, Goldman went on a run the likes of which had rarely been seen in American business. In just three years, its revenues more than doubled, to $38 billion, as its profits skyrocketed. In 2007, C.E.O. Lloyd Blankfein received a bonus of more than $68 million. Even junior traders made millions. Who wouldn’t be jealous of numbers like those? UBS, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank—they were all stricken, to varying degrees, with Goldman envy.
No firm, though, had it worse than Merrill Lynch. And once the crisis struck, there was no firm for whom the disease would prove to be more fatal.
The authors of the book are Bethany McLean, a writer for Vanity Fair and the coauthor of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron (one of the 100 Best Business Books of All Time), and Joe Nocera, a business columnist for The New York Times and author of Good Guys and Bad Guys: Behind the Scenes with the Saints and Scoundrels of American Business (and Everything in Between). It is due to be released next month.
➻ Scott Belsky (author of Making Ideas Happen), Daniel Pink (author of Drive and many other fine books), and Laura Vanderkam (author of 168 Hours) were chosen for GOOD magazine's GOOD Guide to Making Work Better about "productivity, procrastination, and getting off your butt and back to work." Here are each of their productivity mantras:
Scott Belsky: "Less ideas, more action."
Dan Pink: "Get to work."
Laura Vanderkam: "Do more of what matters. Do less of what doesn’t."
To get more tips from each of them and find out what each of them has to say about technology's effects on productivity, head on over to the GOOD slide show. (hat tip to the good people of Portfolio.)
➻ The New Yorker's Jenny Hendrix wrote a great review of a book I've been looking forward to for some time—Marcus Boon's In Praise of Copying.
In Praise of Copying is not an investigation of the ethical dilemmas of copying but a Stein-like affirmation of the mimesis that happens everywhere and everyday. Boon sees copying as fundamental to existence, part of "how the universe functions and manifests." Even on a molecular level, he writes on his blog, "all objects are made up of other objects." We cannot learn without mimicking (whether it’s learning to write a paper or learning how to catch a football)—but the way copying is defined in legal terms obscures this fact. Boon encourages us to rethink terms like "subject," "object," "different," and "the other," in order to "account for our fear of and fascination with copying."
If this book is anywhere near as illuminating as David Kord Murray's Borrowing Brilliance, it's worth picking up. And if you're interested in the topic from a purely business perspective, you may want to check out Oded Shenkar's Copycats.
➻ Richard Florida, author of The Great Reset and a slew of other books on the creative class—the man who, in fact, coined the term creative class—posted a gallery of the 20 Most Innovative States on The Daily Beast. He tells us in the introduction to the gallery how he defined them:
Though some argue that the rate of American innovation has declined recently, our economic recovery depends on a renewed investment in and commitment to innovation. The rate of innovation is likely to accelerate in coming years, as capital shifts back to invention and entrepreneurship in the real economy.
Our ranking of the most innovative states is based on two metrics: (1) the number of patented innovations per capita, and (2) the share of high-tech companies.
Unfortunately, Wisconsin did not make the cut. Apparently cheese curds aren't innovative.
➻ Stewart Quealy recently interviewed Aaron Goldman, author of Everything I Know about Marketing I Learned From Google about, well... Marketing Lessons From Google. From that interview:
SQ: When it comes to consumer mindshare, you claim it's a zero sum game. What does that mean for the Facebook vs. Google rivalry as these two giants cross into each others' domains?AG: It means all-out war. There are only so many hours in the day and attention span in the hours. The company that can help people make better, faster decisions will win. To be sure, those decisions can be related to information, commerce, and/or entertainment. Help me find quick answers, buy stuff I want, and connect with cool people and content, and I'll give you the lion's share of my time and attention.
I would give you a list of more books on Google, but that would take days to get through. Just check out Ken Auletta's Googled and Jeff Jarvis's What Would Google Do?
➻ Rebeca D. Costa, author of The Watchman's Rattle, did a fantastic job of Reframing the Issue over at The Powell's Books blog, asking one simple question:
So the central issue we must now face is this: what happens when the complexity of the problems we need to solve exceed the cognitive capabilities we have evolved to this point?
Read on to find the answer.
➻ With a thousand kisses...
Summer 2010: International Best Sellers
Posted Oct. 8, 2010 4:39 a.m. by the-roy
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
I know, I know - I promised there would not be a long gap for best selling books around the country - but it has been a pretty busy summer! So, I will not prolong the wait... Here are 8CR's top books for the months of June, July, August & September!
# 1 - India: Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance in the Changing World of Work by Cathleen Benko and Molly Anderson
# 2 - France: Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns
# 3 - Singapore: Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon and Lynn Carruthers
# 4 - Australia: Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World by Walter Kiechel
# 5 - Brussels: Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky
# 6 - Mexico: End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations? by Ian Bremmer
# 7 - Canada: Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath
# 8 - Spain: Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity by Richard Florida
# 9 - The Netherlands: Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers and Transform Your Business by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler
# 10 - France: The Trusted Advisor by David H. Maister, Charles H. Green and Robert M. Galford
HAPPY READING, EVERYONE!
International Best Selling Books: June 2010
Posted July 15, 2010 3:48 a.m. by the-roy
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
Summer may be the time for hitting the beach, visiting those in-laws or just plain relaxing in the shade, but that doesn't keep our customers from opening up a good book while doing so! Here's what people everywhere were reading this past June from 8CR's International Best Selling Book Listing!
FRANCE: Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns
BELGUIM: Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky
The NETHERLANDS: Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath
SPAIN: Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business by Erik Qualman
SOUTH KOREA: The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow's Employees Today by Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd
So, find yourself a good hammock, an ice cold drink of choice and tune out those relatives with one (or all) of these offerings.
Happy July, Everyone!
Making Ideas Happen on inBubbleWrap
Posted April 21, 2010 10:21 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
If you haven't been keeping up with Sally over on inBubbleWrap, I humbly recommend you start doing so. And this week would be a good time to start, because she is giving away Scott Belsky's wonderful new book, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality. She named her post "Making Your Dreams Real," which may sound hyperbolic, but if you're a creative person (whether you're starting a business or a novel) you know that "Making Ideas Happen" really is "Making Your Dreams Real." After acknowledging the title may sound "a little like claiming that unicorns really do exist and frolic happily at the end of every rainbow," Sally, like Scott Belsky does in the book, gets into the details on how we go about riding those unicorns:
"When discussing execution, Belsky explains that most people lose interest when they hit a 'project plateau.' 'We know we're on the plateau when we are overwhelmed with Action Steps and can see no end in sight.' He counsels that this is when most of us get lured away by a new idea, when really developing endurance is the key to surviving the plateau. Setting up identifiable constraints helps rein in our creativity while still building and sustaining energy. Other guidelines: Make progress obvious and limit your 'Insecurity Work' which is that tendency to check results early and often, looking for assurance, but a lack of immediate feedback can take the wind out of your sails."
That's just a taste of the great ideas you'll find in Belsky's book,* and a sample of the great writing you'll find on inBubbleWrap. So, head on over for the free copy of Making Ideas Happen, and stay for the elegant writing.
*If you'd like more, you'll find his manifesto, What the Creative World Needs Now ... on ChangeThis.
Friday Links
Posted April 16, 2010 9:35 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
➻ Justin Fox, author of The Myth of the Rational Market, pondered Improving the Let's-Persuade-Business-to-Improve Movement in a recent Harvard Business Review post. There's a lot of folks out there writing about we can persuade business and those in it to behave more ethically, but Fox thinks its still a hard sell:
I don't think anyone has come up with an argument for or description of better business behavior that has anything like the elegance and power of the economists' "incentives matter."
He ends, understandably, on a slightly defeated note, writing: "Clearly, I'm stuck here. Can somebody help me out?" Umair Haque, his colleague at HBR tried to answer his call for help, making The Case for Being Disruptively Good, arguing for the forces of information, discipline, competition, disruption and rule-making. He writes:
So why don't more businesses see these forces? It's the wrong question. The right one is: because there will be some organizations that are quicker to get it than others, what do the forces above mean for the economy? Well, they suggest that businesses who can do more good will survive, thrive, and prosper — and those who do more bad will stumble, falter, and fall.
I think he's definitety right, but he is taking a pretty long view of history when he writes: "Yesterday, the global economy was built on debtors' prisons, usury, expropriation, colonialism, and slavery. Today, it isn't." and "Yet even two hundred years from now, I'm sure incumbents will ask—what, you want us to do more good? And then, as ever, from under their patrician noses, revolutionaries who can do better will disrupt them." And while Umair's language speaks to me, I don't know if it is as catchy as "incentives matter" to those marching off to Wall Street. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
➻ Richard Florida also takes a longer view in his works about the creative class—such as The Rise of the Creative Class—and he has a great new book coming out in May called The Great Reset. You can get a taste of the book in his March article in The Atlantic, How the Crash Will Reshape America, or by reading his recent interview with Conor Clarke for the same magazine.
➻ Portfolio has posted a new issue of The Business Beat. Featured this month are Peter Escher, author of The MBA Oath, Michael O'Malley, author of The Wisdom of Bees, and, as always, our own peerless leader Jack Covert in his Just Jack corner. Jack discusses Po Bronson's What Should I Do With My Life, one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time and a close second (in my mind) to Studs Terkel's Working as the best book of interviews ever created about work.
➻ Speaking of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, you can now read it in Indonesian.* Muhammad Mishbah penned a review for Seputar Indonesia Daily writing:
Books 100 Best Business Books of All Time provides 100 units with a discussion of book selection of different problems. This book is like a "dictionary" of business books that point us in order to save time, money and energy before seeking appropriate books.
(Shakes fist at Google Translate.)
*This applies only to those of you that can actually read Indonesian.
➻ Peter Elkind's new book, Rough Justice: The Rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer, is embargoed until next Tuesday, but you can get a preview at Fortune, blessed as they were with an an exclusive excerpt. "'Is there a way to wire money where it's not evident that it's coming from me?' the governor asked."
➻ The Web Designer Depot posted a great overview of Scott Belsky's Making Ideas Happen by Cameron Chapman. He writes "Making Ideas Happen is an excellent resource for those of us who have no shortage of ideas but often have a hard time seeing those ideas through to completion." That is everyone I know, including me and probably you.
➻ Roger C. Parker has a novel idea: Learn to write a business book by studying 800-CEO-READ’s Top 25 Business Books.
➻ "Some people seem to think life is all about the I, and the Me, Me, Me." The WePad begs to differ. (HT to Siobhan O’Leary at Publishing Perspectives.)
➻ Following the Freakonomics trend, America's finest news source, The Onion, reported recently that "last month's quarter-inch drop in height among Mexican dead-lift competitors in the middle-heavyweight division could spell disaster for GE's aviation and software subsidiaries." "But, like anything else, a shrewd investor must always ask himself one thing: How many hot dogs did I eat last year?"
➻ I'll ask her someday.
