In this audio interview, I talk with Eileen Shapiro and Howard Stevenson, author of Make Your Own Luck: 12 Practical Steps To Taking Smarter Risks In Business. We talk about making bets, Martha Stewart, Jack Welch and how companies can use the principles in Blink.
mp3, 35:53, 16.4MB
March 31, 2005
Eileen Shapiro/Howard Stevenson Interview
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Reading the Future
One of the thing we want to do is be the first to tell you about books you should be reading. We think we are doing a pretty good job. As I was paging through Fortune yesterday, I saw two books we recently highlighted.
They did a book review on Robin Wolaner’s Naked in the Boardroom. And then 6 pages later, Anne Fisher gives alot of love to Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone. Both spots review each book favorably.
Here are some reminders and resources on the books:
Naked in the Boardroom
Never Eat Alone
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March 30, 2005
WOMMA
Todd and I attended the WOMMA Summit yesterday. Todd stayed for the second day and I am sure will have tons to talk about.
I want to talk about the lunch keynote from yesterday. Guy Kawasaki is a great speaker. He has just the right combination of folkie street smart with a touch of MBA speak. One of the real tests of a good speaker is how much you takeaway from the speech. I took away many ideas. The conference was attended by an interesting cross sections of Fortune 500 folks and hybrid drivers. It was like what it must have been like during the early blog conferences.
The conference was knee deep in authors ranging from Jackie and Ben of Creating Customer Evangelists, to Emanuel Rosen of Anatomy of Buzz, to authors with books not yet published like Mark Hughes who has a book coming in July called BuzzMarketing. I think you will also hear us talking about Pyromarketing by Greg Stielstra.
Todd has been posting notes over on his blog.
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March 29, 2005
Jack Covert Selects – Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing
Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing by Alex Wipperfurth, Portfolio, 288 Pages, $24.95, Hardcover, February 2005, ISBN 1591840783.
There are thousands of books about brands, brand management, and branding. Believe me, I have seen and read most of them in the last twenty years. I think Alex Wipperfurth takes a different path on his idea of branding with his new book called Brand Hijack: Marketing without Marketing.
This book has the best case study I have seen on Red Bull and how they allowed their customers to hijack their brand. Red Bull’s first expansion outside of its native Austria was to Germany. The legal importation of Red Bull took five years for the government to approve. During this time, there was a huge black market in Munich for it. and people started asking why it was illegal. Rumors started to fly about effects of the drink (speed in a can?) to its source (bull testicles?). Upon approval in Germany, a concerned mother’s group stepped forward and campaigned to have the drink banned. This organized resistance only made it that much more popular with young people. Wipperfurth believes the Red Bull’s brand has “[early consumers] fingerprints” all over it. The important thing is that Red Bull let the myths and the controversy persist. This is a great example of letting your customers co-create the brand with you.
The author has a lot of other great thoughts too: he believes that one has to start with a compelling idea, and cautions companies that believe non-traditional methods are cheap. They are often multi-year projects with very specific plans and goals. At the end of the book, Wipperfurth lays out a framework for allowing a successful hijack. Consider yourself warned – let your company be hijacked. Really, it’s a good thing.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE MONTHLY BOOK REVIEWS, PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO JACKAT 800-CEO-READ.COM
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March 28, 2005
This week – 3/28/05
The weather is warming here in MKE. We are looking at temperatures in the 50′s this week. We also want to congratulate Wisconsin and UW-Milwaukee on their runs in the NCAA tourney this year.
This week is going to be a little slower than most. Jack and I are going to be attending the WOM Summit in Chicago. I am going to try and line up some things while we are out. And I am certain we will have a thing or two to say about the conference. Rumor has it that there is no wireless, so we will be on tape delay.
What we do have is the Jack Covert Selects review of Brand Hijack. We have an audio interview with Eileen Shapiro and Howard Stevenson about their book Make Your Own Luck. We will be also posting another excerpt from an audiobook (hint: it was featured in WSJ on Friday).
The rest will be a surprise as always.
Have a great week!
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March 25, 2005
A Whole New Summary
We post an awful lot of content on A Whole New Mind this week.
I wanted to pull it all together in one post for those who have come in and out during the week. It is also an opportunity to point out the other weblogs where we are running content. I am going to add a few additional link to some other content on the book.
800-CEO-READ Book Reviews
External Reviews
Excerpts
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Success Is A Choice Audio Excerpt
We thought this was a great choice as we are right in the middle of the NCAA basketball finals. This is an audio excerpt from Success is A Choice: Ten Steps to Overachieving In Business and Life by Rick Pitino with Bill Reynolds.
This excerpt is Step Three – Always Be Positive. I chose this excerpt because he talks about Kentucky’s 1996 NCAA championship and how he needed to change his approach to coaching players in the final stretch.
mp3, 5:02, 5.8MB
You can also find the softcover here
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800-CEO-READ sponsors WOMMA Summit 2005
800-CEO-READ is a proud sponsor of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Summit 2005. We don’t normally sponsor events, but we thought this was an unique event on a unique topic. The Summit is being held in Chicago next week and word has it that it is sold out. Around three hundred people will be attending the two day event.
For the event, we pulled together a library of books we think you should be reading if you are interested in word-of-mouth marketing:
Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnell, Jackie Huba
It is great, just read it. We are giving away 300 copies at the event. Ben and Jackie believe word-of-mouth is more than a product launch tactic. They think it should be your company’s strategy.
The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen
How buzz works, what creates buzz and how to make it work for you.
The Influentials by Ed Keller and John Berry
This tells you how to find the people you are looking for–the people who will talk to and influence others. This is the book with all the data. The authors have been collecting data for 25 years and have painted a wonderful picture of this set of people is truly different and worthy of your attention.
The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing by George Silverman
Silverman thinks the best thing you can do is accelerate the purchase decision process and one of the best ways of doing that is connecting customers with prospects. This book is heavy on the B2B examples, but applicable to all.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Need I Say more.
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Word-of-mouth starts with a remarkable product or service. The key word is remarkable. People often mistake remarkable to mean amazing. Seth tells you remarkable is creating something someone wants to talk about and tell someone else.
Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin
This was the book that proved its own point. Seth made the book available for free online. There were 2,000,000 downloads in the first year. The book was an afterthought.
Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers
This is the theory title in the set. This book was originally written in 1962 and has become the textbook on diffusion. It is in its 5th Edition and has been updated with current cases.
The Cluetrain Manifesto by Dave Weinberger and company
“Markets are Conversations.”
Brand Hijack by Alex Wipperfurth
Alex talks about what happens when you allow your customers to take over the maketing of your product. This book is to get you comfortable with that idea.
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Whole New Mind: A Primer for the Conceptual Age
We are witnessing a shift from the logical, linear, computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big picture capabilities of whats rising in its place, the Conceptual Age. I wholeheartedly (and whole mindfully) agree with the premise of A Whole New Mind: Moving From the Information Age to the Conceptual Age by Daniel Pink. And while this isnt the definitive handbook into personally delving into that new age, it is an excellent primer — with caveats.
I had high hopes for A Whole New Mind. I wanted to fall headlong in love with this book but could only muster a strong “let’s be friends” attraction. So maybe I’m still pining as I write this.
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