Blog
-
Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Cover Selects - The Athena Doctrine
By Porchlight
The Athena Doctrine: How Women (And the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future by John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio, Jossey-Bass, 304 pages, $27. 95, Hardcover, April 2013, ISBN 9781118452950 The Athena Doctrine is a strange hybrid of a book. In one way it’s prescriptive: feminine leadership qualities are valued around the world, and men and women can learn from the stories told within to approach their work with traditionally female traits such as flexibility, empathy, and honesty.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
-
Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - The Alchemists
By Porchlight
The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire by Neil Irwin, The Penguin Press, 400 pages, $29. 95, Hardcover, April 2013, ISBN 9781594204623 Central banks are among the world’s most powerful, complicated, and controversial institutions. They are also some of the world’s most secretive and least understood organizations, which makes Neil Irwin’s The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire such an important addition to our bookshelves.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
-
Blog / News & Opinion
ChangeThis: Issue 104
By Porchlight
Time Ain’t Money: Stop Punching the Industrial Age Clock, and Start Embracing the Digital Now by Douglas Rushkoff “Living in the digital media environment changes a whole lot more than the technologies through which we do business. It has changed our relationship to time—and this is having profound effects on our businesses, our economy, and our customers. ” How to Boost Your Bottom Line.
Categories: news-opinion
-
Blog / News & Opinion
Personality and Presence
By Sally Haldorson
We've all experienced it. Maybe it was one of your professors from college who inspired you to get up before noon and actually attend her class every week. Maybe it was that actor, in that film, not the main star, but the other guy.
Categories: news-opinion
-
Blog / ChangeThis
Time Ain't Money: Stop Punching the Industrial Age Clock, and Start Embracing the Digital Now
By Douglas Rushkoff
"Living in the digital media environment changes a whole lot more than the technologies through which we do business. It has changed our relationship to time—and this is having profound effects on our businesses, our economy, and our customers."
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / ChangeThis
Customer Service is Not a Department
By Lee Cockerell
"Customer Service is Not a Department It's also not a complaint desk, or a website, or a phone number, or an option on a phone menu. Nor is it a task or a chore. It's the responsibility of everyone in the organization, from the CEO to the lowest-ranking front line employee. In effect, everyone in the company is a customer service rep, because each of them has some impact on the customer's experience. As an executive, you may never see or speak to a customer, but you model how they should be treated with every interaction you have, with vendors, creditors, suppliers, and especially your employees. Treat everyone with sincerity and respect and it will trickle down to your customers."
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / ChangeThis
It's Smart to Suck (Sometimes)
By Jake Breeden
"Think about work that made you proud. Remember something you produced—a product, a pitch, a proposal—that represents you at your very best? Pride feels good. We want to feel it more, and we'll work hard to get that good feeling. Now think about work you did that made you ashamed. Remember something sent off incomplete because you didn't have time to do it justice? Remember early work you completed before you climbed up the learning curve? How'd that feel? We're driven to do more of the work that makes us proud and less of the work that makes us ashamed. Usually, that's smart. Pride pulls us to do things well, and shame pushes us away from doing things poorly. But in certain critical times—especially when it's time to do something new—these emotions push and pull us in unwise directions. Sometimes doing your very best is the very worst decision. In fact, sometimes it's smart to suck."
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / ChangeThis
Fitting in and Standing Out: Shifting Mindsets from Taking to Giving
By Adam Grant
"When people think like takers, they focus on getting as much as possible from others. When they operate like givers, on the other hand, their overarching emphasis is on contributing their knowledge and skills to benefit others."
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / ChangeThis
How to Boost Your Bottom Line... And Save the Planet, Too
By Mark R. Tercek
"The old, knee-jerk opposition between business and the environment is yesterday's way of thinking. Increasingly, top business leaders view nature as a foundational asset base and essential ally to their companies' productivity. If you want your company to thrive, you will need to be bold, think big, and be aggressive about pursuing business opportunities that work with the environment, not against it."
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / Staff Picks
How to Be Interesting
Book Review by Porchlight
This week, Dylan and I went to go see Jessica Hagy speak at the wonderful Lynden Sculpture Garden. Hagy, an ex-advertising copywriter who now creates doodles and charts with keen observations on people and the situations they find themselves in, presented a summary of her "10 Simple Steps" from her new book How to Be Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps). After enjoying her previous book Indexed, which consisted solely of pages of charts and minimal commentary, I was curious what her presentation might consist of.
Categories: staff-picks
