9/10

Author – Peter Sims

Elevator Pitch - “Lean Startup meets Talent Code”… or… The best way to launch something big, is to start really, really small with a very small experiment.

Favorite Quotes- 

1. “The internet has reduced communications barriers and allows new players from different corners of the world to rapidly emerge and compete globally.”

2. “…[innovators] understand that failure, in the form of making mistakes or errors, and being imperfect is essential to their success.”

3.  ”A playful, lighthearted, and humorous environment is especially helpful when ideas are incubating and newly hatched, the phase when they are most vulnerable to being snuffed out or even expressed because of being judged or self-censored.”

4. “Mainstream market research used to emphasize asking people what they wanted, but I have yet to encounter an executive who thinks traditional market research works for identifying new ideas.”

5. “Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win.”

My thoughts - I really liked this book. It actually was a Christmas present so to be honest, I wasn’t expecting a lot, but was pleasantly surprised. I was really curious how is was possibly going to be different/better than Lean Startup, since I was such a fan of that book.

All in all this book was very good. I would say it is a much less academic version of Lean Startup, focusing more on the creative side of the issue of starting up than the empirical data of feedback that LS is obsessed with. It is a challenge for the individual to understand yourself as you start to test your concept and launch your idea.

This book is a kick in the pants to get started, not a guide on how to manage the product development process. This is a 30,000 ft view of why you should start moonlighting your idea to see if it works and that kind of thought process goes a long way with me.

I would suggest this one for the entrepreneur who hasn’t started yet, and Lean Startup for the one who has.

Amazon Link

Watched this recently. To be honest, I thought Eames just made chairs. Only after watching this did I realize the impact he has had corporate marketing, design, product development, and advertising.

Give it a watch if you are in any way involved in a creative process. His process was second to none.

Favorite Part:

They mention that he quoted a client $75,000 for a project, and when it took him $150,000 to make and deliver, he paid the other $75,000 out of his own pocket, because he was a man of his word.

8/10

Elevator Pitch – What it is like to be an introvert in a world dominated by extroverted tendencies, and why the world needs us introverts to show up.

Really good video about what it is like to be an introvert, and what we should do to allow introverts to thrive.

Good advice for tomorrow…

(via Kottke.org)

(via IDEO – http://www.ideo.com/)

Dave Ramsey

Elevator Pitch -

What it means to be an entrepreneur on a practical level mixed with a little how to practically lead and manage a small business from day 1.

Favorite Quotes –

1. “You hit what you aim at, and if you aim at nothing you will hit it ever time.” – Zig Ziglar

2. “When you have momentum in any area of your life you look better than you are. When your star is shining everyone thinks you are smarter and prettier than you really are.”

3. “Proper hiring creates a good team, and a good team lowers turnover. Turnover is very expensive…”

4. “Your business is a party. You have invited your team to the party… Communication in a business is the map to the party. If you have a great map, expect to have a great party.”

5. “…46% [of employees] say a lack of transparent communication from their organization’s leadership is the main point of dissatisfaction at work.”

Thoughts –

I guess you could say I am a new comer to the Dave Ramsey tribe. I honestly didn’t think that he would have much advice on running a business outside of don’t go into debt, but I will admit that he knows his stuff. Obviously he has built quite a successful business, and has done so because he knows what he is talking about.

For the right audience, this might be the only business book that you need to read. This is a very practical book that gives a lot of great ideas for the owner or main leader of a small, startup business. The great thing about this book is that it doesn’t stop at talking about principles of how to be a “good leader”, but covers how to think about the finances, marketing strategy, sales process, hiring/firing of staff, leading the organization’s culture, and how to set a personal and business goals.

If you have ever read E-Myth, and are familiar with the “on the business” vs “in the business” view of leading a company, this is definitely the “on the business” guide, which is to say, this book won’t tell you how to bake good bread, but how to think about growing a bakery. It is a great introduction for the young entrepreneur who needs a guide for specific areas of their business that they might not be the expert in yet.

Buy it. Read it. Mark all over it. Then when you encounter a specific problem with your business, you will know where to go to get a quick answer.

Amazon link

9/10

Eric Reis

Elevator Pitch – How to successfully build a innovative and successful business through thinking through normal business applications but with a focus feedback for better decision making.

Favorite Quotes –

1. New customers come from the actions of past customers.

2. If you cannot fail, you cannot learn.

3. Remember, if we’re building something that nobody wants, it doesn’t much matter if we’re doing it on time and on budget.

4. The problem with most entrepreneurs’ plans is generally not that they don’t follow sound strategic principles but that the facts upon which they are based are wrong.

5. It does not matter how fast we can build. It does not matter how fast we can measure. What matters is how fast we can get through the entire loop.

Thoughts –

This book was really good. This is another book for the entrepreneur or the head of a department in charge of product development. The main idea is that you HAVE to have feedback to build the product the right way. Innovation, or product development, is a consistent march of learning, building, and then measuring, repeated at infinitum.The more feedback and more systematically you can develop the product by changing the unit of measurement to the right one, the better your decisions, and the more sustainable your growth.

Eric does a great job of leveraging his experience to give examples of how this looks in the “real world”. If I had a complaint for this book though, it is that it is too long. (almost 300 pages) If you skim the examples, you can get the point, without getting bogged down. (My favorite chapter was on growth, and it is all the way in the back… keep pushing through to get there)

Hope you enjoy!

#leanstartup

Brains on Fire

8/10

Phillips, Cordell, Church, Jones

Elevator Pitch – Word of mouth is the only way to build a brand by creating a community of loyal, passionate, and raving fans. Also, social media sucks.

Favorite Quotes -

“Your ultimate goal should be to ignite something so powerful that if your marketing and PR departments or, God forbid, even your entire company got hit by a busy, your fans would pick up the banner and march forward with it.”

“Participation does not equal engagement.”

“Listen closely to what we’re about to say: 90% of word of mouth interactions happen off-line.”

“Companies are made up of people, and people are fallible. The ones that admit this win.”

Thoughts –

This book is brilliant. It is a very convicting book to read because it makes you feel really dumb for any attempt to build a brand or market your product, in a way that is even the slightest bit authentic. The stories they tell about creating, mobilizing and unleashing movements is so inspiring, and yet completely daunting.

You should read this book and immediately realize the huge difference between marketing/advertising your company, and having a product that is remarkable enough to the point where your fans do all of that for you. They can’t help it. It is a similar idea to Godin’s Purple Cow, but with more focus on how to start, build, and maintain a movement of your raving fans, where Godin focuses more on innovating and building a truly remarkable product.

Pick this up if you have any control in the story telling process in your organization. It will hone your skills, and hopefully inspire you to do something bigger than just push your message louder and to more people. It will help you inspire your fans.

And big thanks to @bretttrapp – his blog for allowing me to pillage his bookshelf to borrow this one.

Also, if you don’t follow @spikejones, you should…

enjoy

Photo Cred – Brains On Fire Website

On those days, there are people that you always read, and those that you skip. Most of the time I read my friends, and skip the more business-ish tweeters, but wanted to share some of the ones that I always read. I say these are my favorites, but before you get your feelings hurt, this is a list of complete strangers, and none of my friends, not even the really talented and interesting ones, have been listed. (you know who you are…)

So here you have it, my list of some of my favorite tweeters.

Obvious ones:

Harvard Business Review: Good tips for managers. Better management is the goal. Not sure I always agree with what they say, but from time to time, you can get some good nugets.

Bloomberg News: Bloomberg is a new one for me, but I am really enjoying it. They keep up with what is going on in the headlines with politics and the economy, but mix that in with a healthy dose of the startup world.

Garden and Gun Magazine: Inspiration. Good food, drink, and travel.

Fast Company: Good updates on all things business/innovation/trends. I screen this one more than all of the others, but it normally has some interesting/thought provoking reads.

Inc Magazine: Slightly more technical and helpful than Fast Company, but the same spirit. Where Fast Company is more popular news, Inc is more practical tips, information, and resources.

And for the slightly lesser knowns:

Lee Clow’s Beard: Great reminders/ kicks in the butt in the marketing and branding worlds. This one will keep you from being too impressed with yourself.

Vivek Wadhwa: Entrepreneur and professor at Duke and Harvard. Very sharp guy when it comes to all things start ups, venture capital, and globalization. (often linked to by Bloomberg)

Spike Jones: This world would take itself more seriously if not for Spike Jones. He is a great reminder that Social Media doesn’t matter, and would probably make fun of me for writing this blog. Oh well…

Richard Florida: Author of “The Great Reset” and all around master of macroeconomics as it relates to the recession. Read that book, and follow this guy. He is smarter than I am.

Enjoy…

7/10

Peter Drucker

“Classic Drucker”

Favorite Quotes:

“knowledge workers must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers.”

“The key to greatness is to look for people’s potential and spend time developing it.”

Thoughts:

I decided to start reading some of the “old school” books on business and management. I feel like I have been reading a lot of new thoughts on how to manage in the new world, and to pay the old fellers their proper due, I thought it would be good to understand what got us to where we are now. Hopefully this trend will continue a bit longer. It has been valuable perspective.

Classic Drucker is a great book if you are in the business world, inside a medium to large organization, or do any work consulting with them. This is not a great book for an entrepreneur since the perspective is written for larger organizations. It spends a lot of time discussing how to make your departments, and people more productive, and help them develop into highly skilled executives. Very useful information if you are in that position, but for the rest of us.. not so much.

If you are at the executive level of a small business and looking for a highly technical resource to get you thinking about how to improve your organization, this is a good one. Just make sure you are ready for small type, lots of pages, and prepare yourself with plenty of caffeine. This was a tough book to work through on the beach this summer. (hence I am just now posting about it)

Check it out at Amazon