Staff Picks Book Reviews
Porchlight is a company filled with voracious readers—talented, creative individuals who know books, and who excel at moving them. Whenever we can, we like to do that by telling you about the books we’re reading.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Fixing the Game
Book Review by Porchlight
With the NFL owners and players union currently in court over the lockout, it might seem like an odd time to use the NFL as an example for how to run anything. But current labor disputes aside, the NFL is by far the most successful business operating in sport today—it must be doing something right. And Roger L.
Categories: staff-picks
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Blog / Staff Picks
Opportunism
Book Review by Porchlight
Opportunism is a bad word in our culture, and an excellent book released earlier this year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. To get a popular definition of the word, let's turn to our society's new reference of choice—Wikipedia. The entry on opportunism begins by describing it as "the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles.
Categories: staff-picks
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Blog / Staff Picks
In the Books - Off to the Printers XIII
Book Review by Porchlight
The article below was printed in last year's In the Books—our annual review of the best in the business genre. It my (possibly ill-advised) attempt to look at how some of the books published in 2009 tackled the macroeconomic issues, with a (possibly ill-advised) splash of Candide thrown in awkwardly, for emphasis. If you don't feel like reading the entire essay on the topic, you can skip to the end of the post and see F.
Categories: staff-picks, the-company
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Blog / Staff Picks
In the Books - Off to the Printers XII
Book Review by Porchlight
In another installment from the annual review of business books we produced last year, we have an article from friend and former president of the company, Todd Sattersten. In it, he discusses the meta-themes in business thought that he and Jack uncovered as they spent 18 months compiling, reading, choosing and writing The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ The Five Universal Themes in Business BY TODD SATTERSTEN What happens when you spend 18 months reading the best in business literature?
Categories: staff-picks, the-company
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Blog / Staff Picks
In the Books - Off to the Printers XI
Book Review by Porchlight
After an always busy year-end of hosting our Author Pow-Wow, reading and judging books for our 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, producing our annual review of business books, planning our Book Awards Party in New York City, trying to keep up with our more mundane and unsung daily tasks, and working on our secret, obviously unannounced plans of world-domination, we're beginning to see the light here in the New Year. One big recent step was sending our annual review off to the printers*, and in a tradition I started last year to wrap up the project, I'd like to share with you here some of what we have written in previous issues. (I've also put links to previous entries in this series at the end of this post.
Categories: staff-picks, the-company
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Blog / Staff Picks
Ten Picks from The Globe & Mail
Book Review by Porchlight
Harvey Schachter of The Globe and Mail has listed what he believes are The top 10 Business Reads of 2010. With a bias toward practical and immediately applicable books over "big idea" titles, this is an especially great list for managers. He chose: The Executive and the Elephant: A Leader's Guide for Building Inner Excellence by Richard Daft, Jossey-Bass The Management Mythbuster by David Axson, John Wiley & Sons Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your Employees to Give It Their All, and They'll Give You Even More by Mark Murphy, Jossey-Bass Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Broadway Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, Riverhead How To Hire A-Players: Finding the Top People for Your Team- Even If You Don't Have a Recruiting Department by Eric Herrenkohl, John Wiley & Sons Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It by Marshall Goldsmith, Hyperion Get Rid of the Performance Review: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing—And Focus on What Really Matters by Samuel Culbert with Lawrence Rout, Business Plus Smart Growth: Building an Enduring Business by Managing the Risks of Growth by Edward Hess, Columbia Business School Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Bloomberg Picks 30
Book Review by Porchlight
Here's a list we missed late last month. Though the post is rather cryptically titled Hellhound Bites Citigroup, Schwarzman Finds Gold Mine: Top Business Books, Bloomberg's James Pressley explains exactly why they put the list together: With so many business books being published each month, we’re often asked for recommendations. Here are 30 of our favorite hardbacks published this year.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Hacking Work
Book Review by Porchlight
Does the infrastructure your company set up to help you get your work done actually get in the way of you doing it? Does it slow you down, or even create extra work instead of streamlining it? Well then, it's time to start hacking work.
Categories: staff-picks
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Blog / Staff Picks
Don't Quit Your Day Job
Book Review by Porchlight
There are a great many (and many great) literary books about work. There are those that search for the deeper meaning of work by interviewing others about the work they do, such as Po Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life? , Studs Terkel's Working, and The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alex De Botton.
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Blog / Staff Picks
Pete Carroll and the Grateful Dead
Book Review by Porchlight
After leading a train of counter culture, tie-dyed long-hairs around the country for over three decades, the Grateful Dead is now being used to teach valuable lessons in some unlikely places. David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan released a great book last month with John Wiley and Sons about how the band built its devoted following and the many lessons they offer marketers today. Basketball legend, Dead Head and current NBA announcer Bill Walton wrote in the book's introduction that "Brian and David's newest book, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead, is like a powerful, hard-charging anthem that fills in so many of the blanks while closing the circle of life all around us.
Categories: staff-picks