Filed under: Brands, General Business, Success | Tags: books, Business, business book, business books, strategies
In some ways, the book publishing business is like any other industry. There are books that occasionally arrive on the market in a serendipitous junction of the state of the economy and shifting tides in management thought. At other times, the market creates a need and publishers respond as quickly as possible to meet customer demands. We saw this occur over the past 12 to 18 months with an increase in titles relating to surviving an economic downturn and crisis management. (For a great example of one of the strongest of these titles, click here).
This same principle applies to every market. I was clicking through the major business headlines today when I came across an interesting note. I certainly hope your company (or for that matter, your home or school) hasn’t been impacted by the H1N1 flu virus. Between the shortage of vaccine deliveries and the increased media coverage of deaths due to the virus, it seems like everyone is a little more sensitive to the presence of microbial invaders on every square inch of our dwellings and places of employment.
For business leaders, a plan for flu prevention makes good sense. Companies continue to push for an increase in health and wellness among their work forces, but they shouldn’t neglect the need to protect against common illnesses that often keep workers bed-bound for days at a time. This could be as simple as a few extra reminders about the importance of frequent hand washing or as full-scale as setting up a station to administer flu shots on a given day.
While it would be reprehensible to suggest that anyone is actually “happy” about this year’s flu epidemic, one company has benefited to an extent. According to this article from Bloomberg, Clorox’s profits rose 23 percent in the past quarter. Sales of the company’s disinfecting wipes have been on the rise as people everywhere attempt to ward off the flu. As I said … timing is everything. Now if you’ll pardon me, my own desk could use a little cleaning. Can never be too careful!
Filed under: Books in General, From the Editor, General Business, Leadership, Marketing, Success | Tags: Business, business books, career skills, Collection, Leadership, management, Marketing, Strategic Management
I tend to be one of those people who gets caught up in the moment. Much of my time is spent looking ahead to upcoming business titles and working with our editorial team to chart out the trends in business publishing. The downside is there’s often little time left for looking back.
What tends to spark those rare moments of reflection is when I read something online or am doing a bit of research on a past event, such as this list of world headlines from 1999. In those moments I tend to shudder and think to myself, “Wow, that was 10 years ago … already!” While this statement is generally followed by a lament about my age, sometimes it causes me to look back at the titles that we’ve covered.
I’m always grateful for these moments because it’s in them that I see the continued relevance of many of our summaries. There’s a reason that James Collins and Jerry Porras’ Built to Last is still among our top sellers five years after its release. The business book world is one in which a high percentage of titles released in a given year are deemed out-of-date within a year of their debut. Fortunately, part of our selection process is to give subscribers summaries of books that we know will be around for some time.
The culmination of our efforts is now available for your benefit. Soundview is now offering a Premium Online Subscription. This subscription gives you full access to our entire online library. That’s 10 years of summaries! The library is completely searchable by title, author and subject.
Visit us at Summary.com for more information. Sometimes the best way to look ahead is to look back first.
Filed under: Books in General, Collection, From the Editor, General Business, Leadership, Strategic Management, Success | Tags: books, Business, business book, business books, career skills, Collection, Leadership, Strategic Management, strategies
When was the last time you were lost? Take a minute and think about it. When was the last time that you were unable to find your way from point A to point B? Now that we live under the constant glare of the electric eye known as GPS, we don’t spend too much time worrying about where we’re going. The wilderness (what little of it remains) is probably the last place where there are no guarantees that if we veer off the clearly marked path, we’ll find our way home again.
The fear generated by being lost is something both films and novels have used to great effect over the years. One way to up the tension level is to have the character make what seems to be a life-saving turn only to discover that he or she has been walking in a complete circle. According to a recent study on a German TV show, discussed in this Science magazine blog , walking in circles may not be a plot-device invented by writers.
The fear of getting lost evaporates when we take the time to prepare the course we plan to travel. The same rule applies in business as it does in exploration. A well-planned strategy is a business’s map to its eventual destination. When we don’t take the time to look ahead to the potential barriers that may stand in our way, we inevitably seem to go around in circles attempting to solve these issues.
If you’re preparing to set your course for success, Soundview has something that may help you with your plotting. The brand new Soundview Strategy in Business Collection presents summaries from 25 books that cover every angle of designing and executing a successful strategy. Order your copy by clicking on this link. Consider it a GPS for CEOs.
Filed under: Books in General, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Leadership, Personal Development, Strategic Management, Success, iPhone app | Tags: books, Business, business book, business books, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, iPhone app, Leadership, management, Survival Skills, Technology
I confess that I occasionally drag my feet when it comes to adopting new technology. Between GPS systems, Web 2.0, and my cell phone, I’m wired and traceable to the point where even I wonder if Big Brother is bored with me. Still, it’s hard to deny the overwhelming appeal of certain devices.
There are a large number of people who would put their iPhones at the top of the list of devices they can’t live without. Hopefully, we’ve just added three more reasons to keep it at the top of your list.
I mentioned earlier this week about our Entrepreneurship application. If one application is good, how does a total of three new apps sound?
In addition to the Entrepreneurship app, Soundview is also debuting Survival Skills Vol. I, as well as Innovation Vol. I. Each app features three crucial titles that will help you with the app’s specific subject.
These three apps are the latest in a growing collection of Soundview iPhone apps. Click here to see the complete list!
The convenience of having these apps at my fingertips is something that I underestimated. It makes me glad that I got on board with this technology more quickly than my usual pace. Now if only I could force myself to upgrade my DVD player to a “ray” of a certain shade (For trademark reasons, I’ll let you figure out the obvious).
Filed under: Success
I tripped upon this book the other day as I was browsing Amazon’s business bestseller list. The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential … in Business and in Life by Leo Babauta. Published by Hyperion in late December, the book currently ranks within the top 25 business books on Amazon. And I have to say the title alone is intriguing, especially in these trying economic times.
Babauta is a fascinating person—he has been a reporter, editor, speechwriter, and freelance writer for 17 years—currently living in Guam with his family. More fascinating—in my humble opinion at least—is that Babauta is also the blogger behind ZenHabits.net. The blog is ranked as one of the top 100 blogs on the Internet, and covers a wide variety of “zen” topics such as productivity, achieving goals, eating healthy, parenting, simplifying, frugal living, implementing good habits, and much more.
From the book’s product description on Amazon, The Power of Less shows readers: how to break any goal down into manageable tasks; focus on only a few tasks at a time; create new and productive habits; hone your focus; and increase your efficiency. Though this might not sound like earth-shattering personal success innovation, I know that what I’ve read from Babauta’s ZenHabits blog is solid and digestible advice. Perhaps he should stick with his blog writing, but I think The Power of Less is definitely worth a look.
Filed under: Success
When we come upon successful people, we instantly label them as talented: “Bob has a natural talent for leadership—look at how well his team is organized and the numbers they turn out!” Is Bob really a natural born leader, blessed with a talent for leading people? Probably not, concludes Geoff Colvin, an editor and columnist for Fortune Magazine, speaker, and author of Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else.
According to Colvin, great performance is no longer reserved for the preordained few—using scientific research he has managed to discover the secrets of extraordinary performance and how to apply these principles to our lives and work. From the inside flap of Talent Is Overrated: “According to Geoff Colvin … both the hard work and natural talent camps are wrong. What really makes all the difference is a highly specific kind of effort that few of us pursue … ‘Deliberate practice’ isn’t the kind of hard work that your parents told you about. It’s difficult. It hurts. But more of it equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance.”
Colvin offers a new mindset and practical advice in Talent Is Overrated that can alter the way you think about your career, and will inspire you to achieve more. The book is a New York Times bestseller, as well as an upcoming summary selection. We’re excited to share this new way of thinking with you.
Filed under: Success
It’s an interesting phenomenon when two divergent books meet. Such is the case with the new release The Overflowing Brain by Torkel Klingberg, and the August title The Myth of Multitasking by Dave Crenshaw.
Crenshaw’s book makes the case that multitasking is not possible. We cannot simultaneously perform two or more things that require mental effort and attention. Instead, we “switchtask,” switching rapidly between one task and another to give the appearance of multitasking. And Crenshaw contends that there is a cost to switchtasking which he calls “switching cost.” Since we can’t pay equal attention to more than one thing at a time, there is a cost to the other tasks we’re trying to do simultaneously (i.e. driving while text-messaging).
As a scientist, Klingberg takes a different approach as he describes how the brain handles the immediate tasks at hand with what he calls “working memory.” There is a limited capacity to our working memory, and as we try to focus on too many things at once, we lose information because of these limitations. Klingberg describes what he calls controlled attention: the directed effort to apply one’s concentration to a particular task, and stimulus-driven attention; the involuntary response to something happening in the environment.
Where is the meeting of these two books? It’s in how we handle information overload. Klingberg’s research shows that while we can expand our working memory some, if we don’t focus our attention on something, we will not remember it. Crenshaw agrees with this conclusion, and stresses that business people must take control of their environment in order to not incur a switching cost. Among his recommendations: Take control of technology – become master over the nagging beeps and buzzes of your gadgets, schedule what you can schedule – set regular times for voicemail, email and other tasks, and focus on the person because if you switchtask on a human being, you risk damage to a relationship.
Great advice for all of us who hold onto the mistaken belief that we can successfully multitask! And if you’re looking for other ways to deal with information overload, you might want to check out Soundview Executive Book Summaries.
When you’re a kid, you dream about becoming an astronaut, or maybe a rockstar. These might seem like “silly” little kid fantasies, but they’re not. They’re aspirations. And maybe you could have become an astronaut or a rockstar, but I think as children grow up, adults—often parents, teachers, or neighbors—tell them that they need to pick a career that is more practical, like becoming a teacher or a lawyer or an accountant. There’s nothing wrong with suggesting a practical—and sometimes better—career path, but I think at times it can get into the way of letting a child’s dreams come to fruition.
Perhaps John C. Maxwell would agree with me. In March 2009, Maxwell is releasing yet another book titled Put Your Dreams to the Test: 10 Questions that Will Help You See It and Seize It. I have a feeling that any child that tells Dr. Maxwell that she wants to become an astronaut would not be turned away and told to “keep her feet on the ground”; instead I have a feeling he would challenge her to make her dream a reality.
In Put Your Dreams to the Test, Maxwell draws on his 40 years of mentoring experience to guide readers through the 10 questions required of every successful dreamer: the ownership question; the clarity question; the reality question; the passion question; the pathway question; the people question; the cost question; the tenacity question; the fulfillment question; and the significance question.
Maxwell sets out to help readers discover how they can achieve their dreams; maybe it’s a little too late for you to become a rockstar, but I’m sure there are a few other dreams you will still be able to achieve.
Nowadays, I think we could all use a little cheerleading, though I’m sure we need a little less of “You Can Do It!” and a little more explanation and encouragement of just how we can do it.
Perhaps Brian Tracy’s latest, Reinvention: How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life—due out in early January 2009 from AMACOM—can give us that bit of direction we’re looking for. Tracy, a world renown personal success expert and founder and chairman of Brian Tracy International, might be just the person to give us that much needed motivational kick in the pants. Reinvention focuses on the idea that everyone is engineered for success, and with the right focus, we can remake ourselves into whatever we want: Given the right focus we can move ourselves out of a dissatisfied life and into a productive life and solid career.
If this book seems of interest, then perhaps you should also visit Tracy’s Web site, where you can find everything from his books to newsletters, articles, seminars, and his blog.
I think “reinvention” would be a worthy New Year’s resolution. If that’s not quite up your alley, you might want to consider at least taking the time to do a year-end review, outlining the good, the mediocre, and the not-so-good of 2008 for you. See what you discover; you might be surprised.
