News & Opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Business Book Award: The Longlist
By Porchlight
The longlist for The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year was announced this morning. And just as interesting as the list itself, which includes a novel this year, is the fact that Lloyd Blankfein is recusing himself as a judge. He is doing so because "a number of books on this year’s longlist address various aspects of the financial crisis," a crisis Blankfein was intimately involved in as CEO of Goldman Sachs.
Categories: news-opinion, publishing-industry
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Blog / News & Opinion
Refining the Niche
By Porchlight
With all the recent talk about Barnes & Noble considering selling, and theories on the internet about Amazon buying them, interlaced with ongoing discussions about digital vs. physical, it all can make followers of the story a bit dizzy. Both companies have gigantic inventories (of ALL sorts of stuff), and that in itself is something for both of them to deal with.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
ChangeThis: Issue 73
By Porchlight
What do Russia's leading poet of the pre-revolutionary symbolist school and the creator of the great hippie handbook Whole Earth Catalog have in common. Find out in the 73rd issue of ChangeThis! ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ The Internet as Social Movement by n+1 “From the first, and in no small part because of its fervent supporters, it has felt less like a technology and more like a social movement—like communism, like feminism, like rock and roll.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Corporate Lattice
By Porchlight
As a follow up to her book Mass Career Customization, Cathleen Benko and Molly Anderson have teamed up to present The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance in the Changing World of Work. As outlined in MCC, the world of work is changing, not only for companies, but also for individuals: personal values, diversity, and skills are being viewed differently than they once were, and it's changing the structure of people's lives. Because of these factors, more people aren't necessarily "climbing the ladder" like they once were.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Business Book Humiliations
By Sally Haldorson
Penguin's Portfolio imprint specializes in business books, and their Portfolio Javelin blog ("Business, Business Books, and the Business of Books") is a great read for any of us business book geeks. Yesterday, Will Weisser, Vice President and Associate Editor of Portfolio, wrote an entry inspired by a post in the Guardian's blog in which the author, Robert McCrum, confessed, despite his education and exposure to great books, that he had never read Middlemarch by George Eliot (if you too have not read Middlemarch, I highly recommend remedying that this summer--it's one of my favorites. ) McCrum then invites readers to share their book humiliations by listing the books that they regret never having read.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Brains on Fire
By Porchlight
Hooray! The Brains on Fire book! Ever since I first read their ChangeThis manifesto, and heard Spike Jones speak in Milwaukee about the incredible approach people should consider in marketing - creating movements, I was hooked.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
You Call Yourself a Leader?
By Porchlight
We've all seen them, the boss or CEO that lead a company to great heights, then got busted for some ugly personal flaw. This can be a big letdown if you're on the inside, and from the outside, it makes you question the rest of the company's integrity, products, service, and all sorts of things unrelated to the incident. Hopefully, no one reading this has been that person.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Rock and Roll and Business
By Porchlight
Last week, I was excited to see a copy of David Meerman Scott's and Brian Halligan's Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From The Most Iconic Band In History. I've never been a fan of the band, but have always marveled at the culture surrounding them - truly a unique following, turning each concert into an event beyond just music. In fact, I've attended the parking lot of their concert, but not the actual concert.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Could You Be The CEO?
By Porchlight
A few people mentioned the book Preparing CEOs For Success: What I Wish I Knew to me, and admittedly, I haven't gotten around to it until now, months after its May pub date. What I didn't realize I was missing, was more than just some expert's opinion about the challenges and successes of being CEO. This book is a formal guide for understanding what it takes to be CEO of a company, from personality, to practice, to leadership, to how you are perceived by others.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Design Is How It Works
By Porchlight
Jay Greene's Design Is How It Works: How the Smartest Companies Turn Products Into Icons was published this week by Portfolio. It's an interesting overview of companies that have integrated a design philosophy into their business model, releasing products that don't just look nice, but function and satisfy customer interests on many levels. Obvious choices like Apple and Nike are covered, but the more interesting ones were the less obvious choices like Ace Hotels (turntables in their rooms!
Categories: news-opinion
