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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited
By Porchlight
The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited: Real-Life Lessons in Word-of-Mouth Marketing by Emanuel Rosen, Broadway Business, 384 pages, $15. 95, Paperback, February 2009, ISBN 9780385526326 One of the first books I recommended when I started writing Jack Covert Selects reviews in 2000 was Emanuel Rosen's The Anatomy of Buzz. Ahead of his time, Rosen wrote the first book on word of mouth marketing, using the word “buzz” to describe people talking about the products and services they love.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - The Score Takes Care of Itself
By Porchlight
The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh with Steve Jamison and Craig Walsh, Portfolio, 288 pages, $25. 95, Hardcover, August 2009, ISBN 9781591842668 After the San Francisco 49ers went 2-14 in 1978, the owner went down the road to Stanford and hired Bill Walsh as GM and coach. During his tenure with San Francisco, the team went from the worst to first faster than any team in history.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / News & Opinion
Why do you read business books?
By Porchlight
"Some people read business books looking for confirmation. I read them in search of disquiet. Confirmation is cheap, easy and ineffective.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Working for Yourself
By Porchlight
Whether you freelance, work your hobby at night, are an artist, or found yourself out of a job and are thinking hard about taking your career in your own direction, your excitement might be outweighed by trepidation. As the economy continues to rumble, many people have found themselves struggling in one of the above scenarios, and are looking for answers. For those who have tried working for themselves as designers, writers, consultants, and other independents, it can be difficult to manage both the work itself, and the work to make the work happen.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - The Four Conversations
By Porchlight
The Four Conversations: Daily Communication That Gets Results by Jeffrey Ford and Laurie Ford, Berrett-Koehler, 238 Pages, $19. 95, Paperback, August 2009, ISBN 9781576759202 Communication is the foundation of relationships, whether personal or professional, and rarely are we trained in how to improve those skills. Instead, experience tends to be our guide.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Social Media University Reading List
By Porchlight
I had the opportunity to speak at Social Media University - Milwaukee a few weeks ago. Some of the follow-up email has been asking for the recommended reading list I gave out during my Blogging For Success session. Here the list and some reasons these are worth your time: Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky - This is the big idea book; it's the one that examines social media from a sociological viewpoint with outstanding examples the reduced friction the Internet provides.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / ChangeThis
F2 | Firefly Manifesto: Remixed
By Jonathan Fields
"Try this career choice standard on for size. Will this choice allow me to: Spend the greatest amount of time Absorbed in activities and relationships that fill me up While surrounding myself with people I cannot get enough of, and Earning enough to live comfortably in the world. It sounds so simple. This is the standard I've used to guide my own evolution from six-figure, beaten down mega-firm attorney to lifestyle entrepreneur, blogger, author, copywriter, marketer and, yes, even yoga teacher. . . oh, and still earn enough to live very comfortably in the world and support my family in New York. Fact is, this definition of success keeps me honest. And, with good reason. It's evolved out of thousands of hours of testing and exploring a broad spectrum of career paths and entrepreneurial ventures, interviews with a wide cross-section of successful career renegades, from maverick CEOs to internet-earning soccer moms and extensive research into the field of applied positive-psychology.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Hazards of Leading Culture Change
By Chip R. Bell, John R. Patterson
"When great starts have poor endings, it can leave change pioneers disappointed, hard working organizers disheartened, and skeptics with proof they were correct all along. It makes the next initiative more challenging to launch and the next set of resistors more defiant. However, without needed change the organization risks losing its competitive advantage. Losing its edge makes it harder to attract and retain the best talent and resources, and in today's economy, the death knell begins. Planned change takes courage and tenacity. Even organizations with a burning platform, effective leaders, and well-crafted plans can sometimes miss the mark because they fail to recognize early signals that the seeds for derailment are being sown or they fail to realize the power of the signals they are sending via decisions that are unsupportive of the culture change commitment. Derailment is much more likely during periods of organizational anxiety from economic challenge, organizational shift (like a major merger or new competitor), or a change in senior leadership.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Quit Managing Your Time... and Start Managing Your Attention
By Lee J. Colan, David Cottrell
"The myth of time management never dies. Many people enroll in 'time management' classes and learn techniques like making to-do lists. That's fine. Lists can be useful, even satisfying. It's great to experience that rush—Ahhhh. —as we check something off the list. However, by the end of the day, or the week, or the month, most people discover projects that are still not checked off and some projects they haven't even started. That's when frustration begins to set in. The time is gone, and there's no way to get it back. You can't manufacture time, you can't reproduce time, you can't slow time down or turn it around and make it run in the other direction. You can't trade bad hours for good ones, either. About all the time management you can do is to cram as much productive work as possible into each day. What you can manage, however, is your attention. Attention is a resource we all possess. It's a lot like time. In fact, as long as we are awake, we produce a continuous stream of it.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Your Butt's in the Wrong Seat: A Manifesto for Public Transportation
By Porchlight
"It's not sexy. It's not tracking as a Twitter trend. And it's not a YouTube sensation. In fact, by current reputation, it's dirty, it (sometimes) smells, it forces you to interact with people you don't know, it's slow, and inconvenient. But it shouldn't be. Or at least, it shouldn't be positioned and marketed like it is. Here's the problem with 'it.' Its competitors are some of the largest, most renowned companies in the world, and despite the current 'crisis' affecting the automobile industry, it doesn't stand a chance. 'It' is public transportation, and 'it' is hurting. So what's the problem? It's simple; your butt is in the wrong seat."
Categories: changethis