Blog
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Blog / Staff Picks
Innovation Economics
Book Review by Porchlight
Politicians and the punditry across the country are making a good living discussing America's decline, but no one seems to be doing very much about it other than asking people to "vote for me" or "listen to me. " It seems like every time we turn to the news, it's the same story with a different punchline, usually dictated by what side of the political divide the speaker is coming from. Robert Atkinson and Stephen Ezell's new book, Innovation Economics: The Race for Global Advantage, is a welcome, wonkish 440 page respite.
Categories: staff-picks
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Blog / News & Opinion
Lead with a Story
By Sally Haldorson
Over on KnowledgeBlocks we recently published an exploration on storytelling called Great Leaders Tell Good Stories. The overall message is that good stories aren't the sole property of the marketing or communications department, and anyone can master some basic storytelling techniques that will help leaders earn trust, excite enthusiasm, convey authenticity. While valuable, storytelling can be controversial.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Outside In
By Porchlight
Customer experience is it. While it's increasingly difficult to set yourself apart from your competitors with regard to innovation or product offerings, there seems yet to be a huge opportunity for companies to excel in providing a superior customer experience. According to this new book from Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, there is a lot of money at stake in the customer experience game.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Rebel Entrepreneur
By Porchlight
In recent years, a handful of books have been written about entrepreneurship as a disruptive practice. Whether talking about bootstrapping, throwing out the business plan, improvising, or a number of other non-traditional approaches, entrepreneurship itself has almost become a rebellious act. Jonathan Moules, an enterprise correspondent for the Financial Times, spent years talking with hundreds of companies with a variety of experiences.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Half-Life of Facts
By Porchlight
In chapter 1 of his new book, Samuel Arbesman gets this out of the way early: To be clear: I'm using the word fact in an intuitive way—a bit of knowledge that we know, either as individuals, as a society, or as something about the state of the world. We generally like our facts to be an accurate representation of reality, an objective truth, but that's not always the case. Having digested the above, it becomes pretty easy to see the potentially global application of Arbesman's book.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Longlist for the 2012 FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book Award
By Porchlight
Andrew Hill's article yesterday in The Financial Times announcing the longlist for the 2012 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award was entitled A reading list to reflect loss of faith in capitalism. That headline is more than a little hyperbolic. The statement in the article itself that the list "includes an array of titles charting the strengths and weaknesses of the American corporate, economic and financial system" is a bit more accurate, especially if you replace the word "American" with "global.
Categories: news-opinion, publishing-industry
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Blog / News & Opinion
How Children Succeed
By Porchlight
Paul Tough's new book could be an interesting change of pace from your usual reading list. While none of what Tough is saying will be material for instant application in the lives of every manager, entrepreneur, or salesperson (unless they happen also to be parents of young children), his book provides a unique perspective on how successful people are formed. After all, every notable figure in the world of business was once a child.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - Us Plus Them
By Porchlight
Us Plus Them: Tapping the Positive Power of Difference by Todd L. Pittinsky, Harvard Business Review Press, 272 pages, $27. 00, Hardcover, August 2012, ISBN 9781422177778 This past Sunday morning, eleven miles from our office here in Milwaukee, a prejudiced and hate-filled man walked into the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin and opened fire, murdering six people and wounding four others.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - Winning the Story Wars
By Porchlight
Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell—and Live—the Best Stories will Rule the Future by Jonah Sachs; Harvard Business Review Press, 264 pages, $27. 00, Hardcover, July 2012, ISBN 9781422143568 A popular pursuit for business and current affairs writers is to produce work that investigates and exposes all the various ways that marketing manipulates consumers. And there is certainly cause for concern.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - The Book of Business Awesome
By Porchlight
The Book of Business Awesome/The Book of Business UnAwesome, by Scott Stratten, John Wiley & Sons, 272 pages, $24. 95, Hardcover, August 2012, ISBN 9781118315224 This new book by Scott Stratten is actually two books in one. Open the cover with the title The Book of Business Awesome: How Engaging Your Customers and Employees Can Make Your Business Thrive and you’ll read some great advice about marketing, business technology, customer service, branding, human resources, public relations, and more.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
