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Chris Guillebeau was in Milwaukee last night as part of his $100 Startup tour. The full room of people who traveled from as far as Chicago got exactly what they hoped for: Hearing Chris share some of the most interesting stories from the book, a discussion of idea navigation, free copies of his book, and personalized signing by Chris. What they also got was a great space, cupcakes, Milwaukee Beer, and pizza arranged by the great folks at Translator.
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Charles Darwin once noticed that finches adapted their beak structures over a few generations to deal with changes in their environment. These adaptations were essential for the birds to survive. They weren't quick fixes, but necessary ones, which helped them find new food sources while other species slowly died off.
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Yesterday, Stephen Shapiro was in town for our private LeaveSmarter event, sponsored by BMO Harris/M&I Bank and Whyte Hirschboek Dudek. His talked focused on ideas from his recent book, and 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award winner for 2011, Best Practices Are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition.
According to Shapiro, the main problems we have with being innovative, is how we think about things, the kind of questions we ask, and what we already know about the challenges we face.
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Unleashing the Creative Reservoir: The Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited by Richard Florida
“A new social compact—a Creative Compact—can turn our Creative Economy into a just and Creative Society, in which prosperity is widely shared. While driven and shaped by economic logic, the key institutions and initiatives of the future will be shaped, as they always have, by human agency. ”
Build This: Your Culturematic Laboratory by Grant McCracken
“Ruled by pragmatism and play, your laboratory is fast becoming the place you come to look out into the future.
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Micah Solomon follows up his book Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit, a book he co-authored with Leonardo Inghilleri, with a new book written just by him, titled, High-tech, High-touch Customer Service. Taking some of the core values of good service and applying them to the increasing level of technology that's involved in our interactions, Solomon tells stories and shares insights about best practices in this constantly changing, yet fundamentally human business landscape we exist in.
I sent Micah a few questions after reading the book, and his answers are below.
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