First Friday Book Synopsis

"…like CliffNotes on steroids…"

Blogging on Business Update from Bob Morris (Week of 4/22/13)

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I hope that at least a few of these recent posts will be of interest to you:

BOOK REVIEWS

The Power of Why: Breaking Out in a Competitive Marketplace
Richard Weylman

Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire
Bruce Nussbaum

The Creative Brain: The Science of Genius
Nancy C. Andreasen

Crisis Communications: The Definitive Guide to Managing the Message
Steven Fink

Decide: Better Ways of Making Better Decisions
David Wethey

Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable
Steven Fink

Business Brilliant: Surprising Lessons from the Greatest Self-Made Business Icons
Lewis Schiff

INTERVIEWS

Jen Guzman (Stella & Chewy’s) in “The Corner Office”
Adam Bryant
The New York Times

Peter Gray (Part 1)
BOB

Thought Leader Conversation: Edgar Schein
Art Kleiner and Rutger von Post
strategy+business

Dennis Perkins (Part 1)
BOB

COMMENTARIES

“How to Expand Your Company’s Innovation Network”
Management Tip of the Day
HBR

“McKinsey & Company: Leading in the 21st century”
The McKinsey Quarterly

“How IDEO brings design to corporate America”
David Kelley
FORTUNE

“To Increase Innovation, Take the Sting Out of Failure”
Doug Sundheim
HBR

“Linked Data: Web Science and the Semantic Web”
Tim Berners-Lee

“Google’s Greatest Innovation May Be Its Management Practice”
Bruce Nussbaum
Fast Company

“The Five Stages of Disruption Denial”
Grant McCracken
HBR

“How to Create an Innovation Ecosystem”
Art Markman
HBR

* * *

To check out these resources and other content, please click here.

To subscribe via RSS Reader, please click here.

Sunday, April 28, 2013 Posted by | Bob's blog entries | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Blogging on Business Update from Bob Morris: 10/15/12

Here are some recent posts that may be of interest to you:

 

REVIEWS

How Women Lead: The 8 Essential Strategies Successful Women Know
Sharon Hadary and Laura Henderson

 

INTERVIEWS

Maria K. Mitchell (Amdec) in “The Corner Office”
Interview conducted by Adam Bryant
New York Times

Thomas M. Sterner, Part 2: An interview by Bob Morris

Christopher J. Nassetta (Hilton Worldwide) in “The Corner Office”
Interview conducted by Adam Bryant
New York Times

 

COMMENTARIES

“Valuable Links to Free TED Resources”

“Closing the Great Skills Divide: How to Promote Potential With Success Mapping”
Susan Cantrell, Catherine Farley, and David Smith
Talent Management

“What Really Alienates Top Performers”
Steve Damaio
Harvard Business Review

“Eight essential strategies that successful women in business know”
Sharon Hadary and Laura Henderson

“Introverts Can Still Innovate”
Management Tip of the Day
Harvard Business Review

“The Mindset of Great Leader”
Dave Logan
CBS MoneyWatch

“What business should do to restore competitiveness: How companies can get America’s edge back while advancing their own interests”
Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin
Fortune

Michael J. Mauboussin on “Four Steps to Measuring What Matters”
Harvard Business Review

Josh Linkner on “Leadership Lessons from the Honey Badger”
Linkner Blog

“How to Match Your Presentation to Your Audience”
Harvard Management Tip of the Day
Harvard Business Review

*     *     *

To check out these resources and other content, please click here.

To subscribe via RSS Reader, please click here.

Sunday, October 21, 2012 Posted by | Bob's blog entries | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Erik Qualman: An interview by Bob Morris

Erik Qualman

Called a “Digital Dale Carnegie,” Erik Qualman is the author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business and, more recently, Digital Leader: 5 Simple Keys to Success and Influence.  Socialnomics made Amazon’s #1 Best Selling List for the US, Japan, UK, Canada, Portugal, Italy, China, Korea and Germany. Socialnomics was a finalist for the “2010 Book of the Year” awarded by the American Marketing Association. Fast Company magazine listed him as a Top 100 Digital Influencer. He also has one of 2010′s most viral videos on YouTube in “Social Media Revolution.” Qualman is a frequently requested international speaker and has been highlighted in numerous media outlets including: BusinessWeek, The New York Times, WSJ, Mashable, USA Today, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, CBS Nightly News, and The Huffington Post. He has been fortunate to share the stage with Alan Mulally (Ford CEO), Lee Scott (CEO/Chairman Walmart), Jose Socrates (Prime Minister of Portugal), Lutz Bethge (Montblanc CEO), Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (Nokia CEO), Julie Andrews, Al Gore, Tony Hawk, and Sarah Palin.

Qualman is an MBA Professor at the Hult International Business School. For the past 16 years he has helped grow the digital capabilities of many companies including Cadillac, EarthLink, EF Education, Yahoo, Travelzoo and AT&T. He is the founder and owner of socialnomics.com which PC Magazine ranked as a Top 10 Social Media Blog. He sits on the Advisory Boards of Manumatix and Bazaarvoice Inc. With regard to his formal education, he holds a BA from Michigan State University and an MBA from The University of Texas. He was Academic All-Big Ten in basketball at Michigan State University and still finds time to follow his beloved Spartans while living in Boston with his wife and daughter.

Here is an excerpt from my interview of him. To read the complete interview, please click here.

*     *     *

Morris: Before discussing Digital Leadership, a few general questions. First, who has had the greatest influence on your personal growth? How so?

Qualman: My parents. They instilled in me the belief that if I wanted anything bad enough that I could achieve it.

Morris: The greatest impact on your professional development? How so?

Qualman: Ralph Bartel, CEO of Travelzoo, taught me the art of simplification and also the art of doing what you are passionate about.

Morris: Years ago, was there a turning point (if not an epiphany) that set you on the career course you continue to follow? Please explain.

Qualman: Yes, I realize that I had a lot of great ideas, but so does everyone else. The way to separate yourself is to stop dreaming your ideas, and making them happen. That was an epiphany for me.

Morris: To what extent has your formal education been invaluable to what you have accomplished in life thus far?

Qualman: The networks of friends and learning I developed outside of the classroom have been invaluable in my success.

Morris: To what extent (if any) have reactions to your book, Socialnomics, surprised you?

Qualman: Becoming the #1 marketing book in 7 different languages/countries really floored me. Also that it was a finalist for the American Marketing Association’s Book of the Year (2010).

Morris: Robin Dunbar has suggested that roughly 150 is the “cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships.” What do you think?

Qualman: I believe that is true in an analog world, but can be expanded in today’s digital world. That being said I do believe you are best off going deep with a few people rather than wide with many.

Morris: Although the term “social media” is relatively new, people have been gathering in groups since fire was first used for domestic purposes. Here’s my question: What are the most common misconceptions about the nature, benefits, and limitations of social media? What in fact is true?

Qualman: Social Media is simply Word of Mouth on Digital Steroids

Morris: In your opinion, what is the single greatest challenge that CEOs will face during (let’s say) the next 3-5 years? Why? Any advice for them?

Qualman: CEO’s need to learn that in order to learn in this digital world they need to increase their rate of failure. This is difficult for publicly traded companies.

Morris: If there were another monument comparable with the one on Mt. Rushmore for social media entrepreneurs, who would be your four choices? Please explain your reasons for each selection.

Qualman: Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, Mari Smith

*     *     *

To read the complete interview, please click here.

Erik cordially invites you to check out this website (http://www.socialnomics.com) follow him on Twitter @equalman.

Friday, April 27, 2012 Posted by | Bob's blog entries | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Todd Henry: An interview by Bob Morris

Todd Henry is the founder and CEO of Accidental Creative, a company that helps creative people and teams generate brilliant ideas.  He regularly speaks and consults with companies, both large and small, about how to develop practices and systems that lead to everyday brilliance. Todd’s work has been featured by Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, HBR.org, US News & World Report, and many other major media outlets. His book, The Accidental Creative: How To Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice, offers strategies for how to thrive in the creative marketplace and has been called “one of the best books to date on how to structure your ideas, and manage the creative process and work that comes out of it” by Jack Covert, author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time and founder of 800-CEO-READ.  You can connect with Todd here, or learn more about how to hire him to speak at your event or train your team.

Here is my interview of him. To read the complete interview, please click here.

*     *     *

Morris: Before discussing The Accidental Creative, a few general questions. First, Who has had the greatest influence on your personal growth?

Henry:  I have a counter-intuitive answer to this. Probably the biggest influence on my personal growth was a 20th-century mystic and monk named Thomas Merton. It seems strange that a man who lived the biggest part of the late years of his life in isolation and contemplation would have much to say to a 21st-century, tech-immersed creative, but I found his writings to be deeply reflective on the nature of humanity, and also an illumination on the mechanics of doing important work.

If I were talking only about contemporary influences, I would have to say that I’ve been incredibly blessed to be around a group of mentors who, over a period of several years, really made it a project to develop me and help me understand both my capacity and my limitations. It was in this virtual incubator for leadership that I first discovered my voice and began reflecting deeply on the creative process.

Morris: Years ago, was there a turning point (if not an epiphany) that set you on the career course that you continue to follow?

Henry: I was a leader in an organization trying to scale a team while helping them handle the pressures and demands we were facing, and in my effort to do so I reached out to several other creative directors who I knew would be dealing with the same issues. My biggest question for them was, “How do you serve your team, and help them do their best work without burning them out?” They stared at me like I was from another planet. “What you mean?” they almost unanimously asked. In other words, it had never occurred to them that it might be possible to exist in any create on-demand environment and be simultaneously healthy in the way you approach your work. This began a long journey for me of exploring whether or not it was possible to be prolific, brilliant, and healthy simultaneously in life and work. This research eventually led to my company, which now shares these insights with teams around the world, and then eventually to the book, The Accidental Creative.

Morris: To what extent has your formal education proven invaluable to what you have accomplished in your life thus far?

Henry: It may be cliché but I believe that the biggest contribution formal education made to my career accomplishments is that I learned how to structure my uncertainty and questions into a format that could be pursued and digested effectively. I learned to deal with ambiguity and suffer through process. When I was in school, information wasn’t so readily available, and there was more risk involved in pursuing a specific avenue of research. It was much more difficult (and costly!) to pivot mid-course, so it forced me to stay focused while going about my work. This allowed me to develop the capacity of deep, intermittent focus that has served me in my work as a professional creative.

Morris: In your opinion, what are the most significant differences between creativity and innovation?

Henry: The definition of innovation I use is “progressive and useful change” which typically involves (or at least begins with) a creative act. Creativity, at the heart of it, is problem solving. A designer might solve a problem visually, while a manager might do so by thinking up a new system. But that creative act is only innovation once it’s applied and creates useful change.

Morris: What do you say in response to someone who says, “I’m just not creative”?

Henry: I would say they are wrong. We are all creative, because we all have the ability to solve problems and create value with our mind. I think the biggest reason people say “I’m not creative” is because they confuse creativity with art. The very act of holding a conversation – which most of us can do – is a creative act, because it’s based on improvisation! Once we re-frame creativity as problem-solving, it helps people see their own creative capacity in new ways.

Morris: Isaac Asimov once observed, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, ‘hmm… that’s funny…’” Do you agree with him?

Henry: Yes! Steven Johnson has called this the “slow hunch” and I agree. Brilliant work is most frequently the result of focused, laborious effort punctuated by moments of insight, all of which is driven by curiosity sourced in the slow hunch. It’s only when we stay with the problem long enough to recognize those anomalies that we are positioned for breakthroughs. To do this we must develop the ability to ask incisive questions. The questions are – in my opinion – far more important than the answers. Every answer must lead to a new question.

Morris: Here is another quotation, this time from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” By what process can one get to “the other side of complexity”?

Henry: The trouble is that we get to the other side of complexity for a moment, only to find that there’s far more complexity to be conquered. The creative process is the perpetual assault on the beachhead of apathy, which means that we must fight a daily battle against our natural desire to stay in our comfort zone. Steven Pressfield calls this battling “Resistance” and I’m in 100% agreement. To get to those flashes of clarity – simplicity – requires persistent daily, and sometimes seemingly fruitless effort. At the same time, I don’t know that the illusion of simplicity lasts for long. Most creatives I know experience a brief, shining moment of satisfaction before they begin to see holes in their work. That’s what propels us to keep striving – the promise of greater clarity and simplicity.

Morris: Many major breakthroughs in creativity and innovation are the result of counter-intuitive thinking. For example, combining a wine press with separable type (Gutenberg and the printing press), removal of burrs from a pet’s hair with an attachment (George de Mestral and VELCRO), and leather softener with skin care (Mark Kay Cosmetics).

Here is my two-part question: What are the major differences between intuition and counter-intuition? What (if anything) do intuition and counter-intuition share in common?

Henry: I think intuition and counter-intuition are all about framing. A problem framed in a certain way leads to an intuitive solution. When framed in a different way, the same solution appears counter-intuitive. I believe that so much of this is determined by the focus of the individual solving the problem, and the stimuli that prompt their search for a solution. That’s why I believe it’s critical to maintain a proper level of focus on the true problems you’re trying to solve. If you don’t regularly define your work, you’re likely to drift and you’re less likely to notice those moments of intuitive or counter-intuitive serendipity.

Morris: Of all the books you have read, from which one have you learned the most about creativity and innovation? Please explain.

Henry: From an innovation standpoint, it’s really hard to top The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. He thoroughly nailed the dynamics of living and working in a marketplace that requires perpetual reinvention, and I believe also unintentionally defined the single biggest factors that cause creative professionals to feel frustrated, under-utilized, and disengaged in their daily work. Purely from a “mechanics of creativity” standpoint, I’d say that I learned the most from Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono. I also greatly enjoyed Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which is a synthesis of his research into creativity across multiple domains.

Morris: Within the last few years, there have been several excellent books published in which thought leaders such as Roger Martin, Chris Brown, and Roberto Verganti discuss the design of business. In your opinion, why has this subject attracted so much attention?

Henry: Over the past many years it’s become obvious that design can’t be an after-thought, because it’s actually good business as well. We are in an age where ideas flow freely and with less friction, and many of the traditional means of creating and distributing goods were based on creating friction rather than eliminating it. Great design is about eliminating friction so that consumers can identify, connect with, and consume what they want when they want it. Good design, from operations all the way through the final point-of-sale communication, is critical in eliminating that friction, especially now that consumers have so many choices.

Morris: What are the defining characteristics of a workplace environment within which creativity and innovation are most stimulated, nourished, and when necessary, protected?

Henry: There is no one-size-fits-all solution, though many still try to find it. In my experience, the most innovative and productive workplace environments have less to do with physical space than psychological space. Is there clarity of purpose? Are we rewarded for the things that move the needle, such as taking measured risks, asking good questions, and spending ourselves on behalf of the work? Do we foster an environment of conversation, or of secrecy? No one goes to work in the morning hoping to crank out a mediocre pile of misery, yet over time our work environments either reward continual growth, or encourage systemic mediocrity. You’re either growing or dying, there is no stagnancy. But growth is difficult and messy, and requires persistent effort. Many give up when it’s “good enough.” (One of the best examinations I’ve read of teams who accomplished great, innovative things is Organizing Genius by Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman.)

*     *     *

To read the complete interview, please click here.

Todd cordially invites you to check out the resources at The Accidental Creative website by clicking here.

Thursday, April 26, 2012 Posted by | Bob's blog entries | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Booz & Company’s “Thought Leader Interview” Series: Sylvia Nasar

Sylvia Nasar (Photo: © John Blais)

Here is the introduction to an interview of Sylvia Nasar by Rob Norton as part of “The Thought Leader Interview” series featured by strategy+business magazine, published by Booz & Company. To read the complete interview, check out other resources, sign up for free email alerts, and obtain subscription information, please click here.

*     *     *

The renowned author discusses how the great economists uncovered the basic truth about progress, prosperity, and productivity, and the reasons you should be careful which ideas you listen to.

Many of the powerful forces that help business, hurt business, and shape our civilization today stem directly from the theories formulated by economists in the past, put into practice in the real world. That is the subject of Sylvia Nasar’s new book, Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius (Simon & Schuster, 2011). And yet, as Nasar would be the first to acknowledge, the field of economics has suffered from a lack of respect since its formative years; Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle dubbed it “the dismal science” in 1849. Today, when economics makes headlines, it’s typically as a whipping boy (“Why Economists Failed to Predict the Financial Crisis”) or as part of a sales pitch (“Prominent Economists Support Changes to Medicare”). Add the fact that economics has been delivered to undergraduates over the past 50 years in an off-putting package of mathematical equations and unintuitive charts, and it’s no surprise that most people tend to see it as a difficult subject producing dubious results.

But economics has in fact made profound contributions to our understanding of how society functions. Nobody has done a better job of bringing its story to life than Sylvia Nasar. Launching into her narrative via Charles Dickens and Jane Austen rather than Adam Smith and David Ricardo, she shows how some of the most important ideas of modern times came together in London in the mid-19th century, as Britain entered an era of unprecedented economic growth — the first time in human history that the living standards of average people began to rise significantly. The key insight around which the book revolves is that business productivity drives economic and societal improvement, and the book’s narrative shows us how an idea like that can be developed, debated, and accepted over the decades as empirical evidence mounts and the scholarly consensus builds.

Along the way, Nasar rights some perceptual wrongs of conventional economic history. One hero of the tale is British economist Alfred Marshall (1842–1924), who hasn’t always gotten the respect he deserves. Grand Pursuit reveals what Karl Marx was wrong about (practically everything) and why (intellectual laziness); it paints rich portraits of neglected thinkers such as prototypical feminist Beatrice Webb (1858–1943), who formulated the idea of the social safety net in the 1890s, and American economist Irving Fisher (1867–1947), who presciently discovered portfolio theory, countercyclical monetary policy, and index numbers, as well as inventing the Rolodex and founding the company that became Remington Rand. Nasar also provides carefully reported assessments of the achievements of such better-known economists as John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich August von Hayek, and — the last in her line of profiles — Amartya Sen, whose work she sees as pointing to new directions for the field.

In Nasar’s view, economics has progressed to the point where it can explain definitively how to avoid the kinds of economic catastrophes that produced the Great Depression. All the nations that have grown steadily in recent years, she believes, are following the basic economic playbook that began to take shape as Marshall visited the factories of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, whereas countries that ignore those lessons are doomed to failure. But the dismal science has less to say about how to balance the roles of governments and markets or how to determine the optimal level of taxation. As examples, she cites the United States and Sweden, two countries with very different policy and fiscal profiles, but very similar — and enviable — standards of living.

*     *     *

To read the complete interview, please click here.

Sylvia Nasar, a former economist herself and a writer for Fortune and the New York Times, is the author of A Beautiful Mind (Simon & Schuster, 1998), the best-selling biography of mathematician and game theorist John Nash, later adapted into a hit Hollywood film. She is also the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Business Journalism at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She discussed her research and conclusions with s+b at Booz & Company’s New York office in May 2011.

Monday, January 30, 2012 Posted by | Bob's blog entries | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

The Thought Leader Interview: Sylvia Nasar

Sylvia Nasar (Photo: © John Blais)

Here is the introduction to an interview of Sylvia Nasar by Rob Norton as part of “The Thought Leader Interview” series featured by strategy+business magazine, published by Booz & Company. To read the complete interview, check out other resources, sign up for free email alerts, and obtain subscription information, please click here.

*     *     *

The renowned author discusses how the great economists uncovered the basic truth about progress, prosperity, and productivity, and the reasons you should be careful which ideas you listen to.

Many of the powerful forces that help business, hurt business, and shape our civilization today stem directly from the theories formulated by economists in the past, put into practice in the real world. That is the subject of Sylvia Nasar’s new book, Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius (Simon & Schuster, 2011). And yet, as Nasar would be the first to acknowledge, the field of economics has suffered from a lack of respect since its formative years; Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle dubbed it “the dismal science” in 1849. Today, when economics makes headlines, it’s typically as a whipping boy (“Why Economists Failed to Predict the Financial Crisis”) or as part of a sales pitch (“Prominent Economists Support Changes to Medicare”). Add the fact that economics has been delivered to undergraduates over the past 50 years in an off-putting package of mathematical equations and unintuitive charts, and it’s no surprise that most people tend to see it as a difficult subject producing dubious results.

But economics has in fact made profound contributions to our understanding of how society functions. Nobody has done a better job of bringing its story to life than Sylvia Nasar. Launching into her narrative via Charles Dickens and Jane Austen rather than Adam Smith and David Ricardo, she shows how some of the most important ideas of modern times came together in London in the mid-19th century, as Britain entered an era of unprecedented economic growth — the first time in human history that the living standards of average people began to rise significantly. The key insight around which the book revolves is that business productivity drives economic and societal improvement, and the book’s narrative shows us how an idea like that can be developed, debated, and accepted over the decades as empirical evidence mounts and the scholarly consensus builds.

Along the way, Nasar rights some perceptual wrongs of conventional economic history. One hero of the tale is British economist Alfred Marshall (1842–1924), who hasn’t always gotten the respect he deserves. Grand Pursuit reveals what Karl Marx was wrong about (practically everything) and why (intellectual laziness); it paints rich portraits of neglected thinkers such as prototypical feminist Beatrice Webb (1858–1943), who formulated the idea of the social safety net in the 1890s, and American economist Irving Fisher (1867–1947), who presciently discovered portfolio theory, countercyclical monetary policy, and index numbers, as well as inventing the Rolodex and founding the company that became Remington Rand. Nasar also provides carefully reported assessments of the achievements of such better-known economists as John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich August von Hayek, and — the last in her line of profiles — Amartya Sen, whose work she sees as pointing to new directions for the field.

In Nasar’s view, economics has progressed to the point where it can explain definitively how to avoid the kinds of economic catastrophes that produced the Great Depression. All the nations that have grown steadily in recent years, she believes, are following the basic economic playbook that began to take shape as Marshall visited the factories of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, whereas countries that ignore those lessons are doomed to failure. But the dismal science has less to say about how to balance the roles of governments and markets or how to determine the optimal level of taxation. As examples, she cites the United States and Sweden, two countries with very different policy and fiscal profiles, but very similar — and enviable — standards of living.

*     *     *

To read the complete interview, please click here.

Sylvia Nasar, a former economist herself and a writer for Fortune and The New York Times, is the author of A Beautiful Mind (Simon & Schuster, 1998), the best-selling biography of mathematician and game theorist John Nash, later adapted into a hit Hollywood film. She is also the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Business Journalism at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Her most recent book, Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, was published by Simon & Schuster (2011) and is also a bestseller. She discussed her research and conclusions with s+b at Booz & Company’s New York office in May 2011.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 Posted by | Bob's blog entries | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Kevin Maney: Second Interview, by Bob Morris

Kevin Maney

In his own words….

I’ve had a long career as a journalist and author. Lately, I’ve added a new hat: I’ve joined VSA Partners as its Editorial Director. The plan is to marry business to big-think journalism in a way that hopefully helps both prosper. The first example of that is the book commissioned by IBM and co-authored by me, Steve Hamm and Jeff O’Brien — Making the World Work Better.

My latest book, co-authored with Vivek Ranadivé, is The Two-Second Advantage: How We Succeed by Anticipating the Future…Just Enough (September, 2011).

Last year, I had another book out: Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don’t. The hardcover was published in the fall of 2009 by Broadway Books; the paperback, in August 2010.

I contribute occasionally to Fortune, The Atlantic, Fast Company and other magazines. I had been a contributing editor at the ill-fated Condé Nast Portfolio, joining the magazine prior to its launch in 2007 and hanging on until its demise in April 2009.

Before all this, I worked at USA Today for 22 years, much of it as the newspaper’s technology columnist. The job gave me the privilege of interviewing most of the biggest names in the industry. Here and there, I end up on television and radio. I’ve appeared on PBS, NPR, CNBC, and other media outlets, and I’ve frequently been a keynote speaker and on-stage interviewer at events and conferences.

On the music side, in 2008 I worked with a group of terrific Bay Area musicians and recorded a CD of songs of wry commentary about business and technology. It’s called “Privacy,” by Kevin Maney & His Briefs. You can actually buy it on iTunes. I’ve also played in a DC-area band, Not Dead Yet, which at the moment is dormant, if not actually dead. My shining moment was getting my song “Found It On Google” played on Mitch Albom’s radio show.

I graduated from Rutgers University, grew up in Binghamton, N.Y., and now live outside Washington, DC, while spending a lot of time in New York.

[Here is an excerpt from my second interview of Kevin. To read the complete interview, please click here.]

*     *     *

Morris: Before discussing The Two-Second Advantage, a few general questions. First, of all the people with whom you have been closely associated, which has had the greatest influence on your personal development? How so?

Maney: Over the very long run, I guess it’s been my brothers. I’m the oldest of three, and the next one is Dave, and then Scott. (I also have a stepbrother, Mark.) Dave, Scott and I have always been close, but it’s more than that. I think our opinions of each other carry great weight, and that’s pushed each of us to be better people, be more ambitious, be wittier, raise better kids, and whole lot of other things like that. And it’s a supportive competitiveness. We’ve always boosted each other, and at times even done business together. Right now, I’m working at a firm, VSA Partners, that Scott introduced me to, and playing a role in Dave’s start-up, Economaney. Fortunately for me, I’m the least smart and savvy of the three of us, so I think I get to learn more from them than they do from me.

Morris: On your professional development?

Maney: There are two people. When I was 25, Hal Ritter just became editor of USA Today’s Money section, and he hired me. I think I was his first hire. I’d say we had a respectful but sometimes contentious relationship. He could be a hard guy to work for — demanding and harsh. But he was also maybe the smartest editor I ever worked for. He knew his audience and drove us to write for it with clear, lean prose. He taught me to have standards and never settle for less, and to have the discipline to always think of the reader. I worked for Hal for the first decade of my career. Whatever kind of writer I am today, it’s because of those 10 years. Hal is now an editor at the Associated Press. We nominally keep in touch.

The other important person is Jim Collins. While Hal taught me to pay attention to the details, Jim played a significant role in helping me think big and broadly. The two of us met well before Jim got famous for his books Built to Last and Good to Great. I was working on a story for USA Today, and talked to a publicist at Stanford, where Jim was a professor at the time, about it. The publicist told me that I should talk to Jim — that Jim was working on a book about a similar topic. That book ended up being Built to Last, but it was then a half-finished manuscript. Jim and I talked and hit it off. He sent me the manuscript, and I thought it was one of the most important business documents I’d ever read. When Built to Last was finally published, I jumped on it and wrote a cover story for USA Today, which in turn was the spark that sent the book up the bestseller list.

Anyway, Jim and I became friends, and I can’t tell you the number of big, analyze-the-universe conversations he and I have had. I love the way he makes me think. His ideas about corporations had a huge impact on the way I analyzed Thomas Watson in The Maverick and His Machine. I wouldn’t be the same kind of author if not for Jim’s friendship.

Morris: Years ago, was there a turning point (if not an epiphany) that set you on the career course you continue to follow? Please explain.

Maney: I knew I wanted to be a writer from as far back as I can remember. That was my talent. Lord knows it wasn’t math. If there was an epiphany, it came when I went to Rutgers and got involved in the journalism program. I reluctantly signed up for a journalism major, thinking I needed a fall-back way to make money should my career as a novelist fail to take off. As I started to try on journalism, including doing internships and working at the campus paper, I found I actually liked it. So I started to want to be a journalist.

And then there was another epiphany when I discovered the great old New York Times columnist Russell Baker. I realized there could be a way to be a newspaper journalist and write funny yarns in a column. Then I wanted to be Russell Baker. I kind of half achieved it — writing a column for USA Today that often involved funny yarns about technology.

Morris: To what extent has your formal education been invaluable to what you have since achieved thus far?

Maney: Well, with all due respect to Rutgers, I’m not sure the value of my time there was in what I learned academically. It was more about the fact that Rutgers introduced me to journalism and diverted my path into newspapers.

Morris: You are a serious musician. To what extent has your significant involvement with music proven to be highly valuable in ways and to any extent you had not anticipated? Please explain.

Maney: I’m not sure how much the word serious applies! I write songs like “Wouldn’t Want to Be Bill Gates” and “Little Tattoo and All Over Tan.” But I certainly have pursued music in general and songwriting in particular.

What’s it done for me? I think it’s become part of my personal brand — in a field where having a personal brand is an asset. It’s helped me stand out a bit in the minds of a lot of people in the tech industry. I’m that tech writer who gets on stage and plays funny tech songs. I wouldn’t want that to be all I’m known for, but it’s a bit of a differentiator.

Morris: In your opinion, what will be the single greatest challenge that business leaders (especially CEOs) will face during the 3-5 years?

Maney: This gets a bit into what I’m doing with my brother Dave. He and I and other people we’re working with believe that the disruptions and difficulties in the economy the past few years aren’t just a bump in the road — they’re part of a massive change in very big forces, brought on by the Internet, globalization, and the flood of data. It’s changing the very nature of what a company is, the nature of what a job is, the value that proximity has or doesn’t have. Economaney is kind of a new age think tank for tossing these ideas around and trying to make sense of them. All in all, the next three to five years are going to be among the most challenging in history to be a CEO in America — or for that matter, President of the country.

*     *     *

To read the complete interview, please click here.

http://bobmorris.biz/kevin-maney-second-interview-by-bob-morris

Kevin Maney cordially invites you to check out the resources at these websites:

www.kevinmaney.com

www.thetwosecondadvantage.com

 

Wednesday, September 21, 2011 Posted by | Bob's blog entries | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Head’s Up! A great business book will soon be published.

On October 4, 2011, Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want It, will be published by Crown Business. Written by Adrian Slywotzky with Karl Weber. In my opinion, it is one of the most valuable and will, over time, become one of the most I influential business books ever written.

It takes full advantage of the breakthrough revelations generated by dozens of major research projects that seek answers to questions such as these questions:

• During the decision-making process (e.g. making a purchase), what role does reason play?
• What role do the emotions play?
•  By what process can it be determined what people want even if they don’t know it?
• Which companies have most effectively created demand for what they offer? How?
• Precisely how and why is demand “a modern alchemy”?
• What is the “Achilles heel” of creating or increasing demand? Why?
• What is Netflix’s “two-hundred-year-old secret”?
• How to “get smarter faster” about what consumers do and do not want?

Slywotzky and Weber provide a brilliant analysis of what the research reveals, citing dozens of real-world examples of what the demand principles offer and how to develop mastery of them.

To read my first interview of Slywotzky, please click here.

To read Curt Finch’s excellent interview of him, featured in the June (2011) issue of Inc., please click here.

Adrian Slywotzky is a Partner of Oliver Wyman, a leading global management consulting firm. Since 1979, he has consulted to Fortune 500 companies from a broad cross-section of industries, working extensively at the CEO and senior executive level for major corporations on issues related to new business development and creating new areas of value growth. Adrian has written several books on strategy and growth, including Value Migration, The Profit Zone, and The Upside. BusinessWeek named The Profit Zone one of its Top 10 Business Books of 1998. The Upside was on the Financial Times list of Best Business Books of 2007. Adrian has been a keynote speaker at a number of senior executive conferences, including the Microsoft CEO Summit, the Forbes, Fortune, and BusinessWeek CEO Conferences, and CFO Magazine and Conference Board conferences. The Times of London has named Adrian one of the top 50 business thinkers, and Industry Week has named him one of the six most influential management thinkers. He holds degrees from Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Business School.

Karl Weber is a writer specializing in business, politics, and social issues. He has collaborated with Adrian Slywotzky on four previous books, including The Upside and How Digital Is Your Business? Karl has also collaborated with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and author of Creating a World Without Poverty, and he edited the best-selling movie companion books Food Inc. and Waiting for Superman. He lives with his wife Mary-Jo Weber in Irvington, N.Y.

Saturday, September 10, 2011 Posted by | Bob's blog entries | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Kevin Maney, Part One: An interview by Bob Morris

Kevin Maney

Kevin Maney is an author and journalist who has interviewed many of the biggest names in business in a career spanning 25 years. His most recent book is Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don’t, published in 2009 by Broadway Books. His other published books include the critically-acclaimed The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson Sr. and the Making of IBM, published in 2003 by John Wiley & Sons, and the 1995 BusinessWeek bestseller Megamedia Shakeout: The Inside Story of the Leaders and the Losers in the Exploding Communications Industry. He writes for Fortune, The Atlantic, Fast Company and other magazines. Maney was recruited by Conde Nast Portfolio magazine prior to its launch in 2007, and was a contributing editor there until its demise in April 2009. He was previously technology columnist and senior technology reporter at USA Today. Working with Chicago firm VSA Partners, he is currently an historical consultant and collaborator helping IBM plan for its 100-year anniversary in 2011. He often appears on television and radio, notably on PBS, NPR, CNBC. He is a frequent keynote speaker and on-stage interviewer. He is also a musician and songwriter, and in 2008 released a CD of songs of wry commentary about business and technology — “Privacy,” by Kevin Maney & His Briefs. He grew up in Binghamton, N.Y., has a B.A. in English and Journalism from Rutgers University, and now lives outside Washington, DC, where he plays soccer and hockey as much as possible.

Note: I conducted this interview about two years ago. Kevin has recently published The Two-Second Advantage: How We Succeed by Anticipating the Future — Just Enough, co-authored with Vivek Ranadivé and published by Crown Business (2011). My second interview of him will be posted in several weeks.

Morris: Before discussing any of your books, a few general questions. First, what attracted you to a career in journalism?

Maney: From about ninth grade on, I knew I was a writer at heart. I had fantasies of being a great novelist, but I thought that seemed like an iffy way to try to make a living. So I tried journalism while in college, and really liked it. But even in journalism, I’ve always pursued ways to be somewhat literary, whether writing a column or writing books.

Morris: In your opinion, why do some magazines prosper and so many others don’t?

Maney: I don’t know if any magazines are prospering in this economy. It’s been brutal on the industry. To use the lens of my book, in the long run magazines can’t be a convenience play — the Web has stolen that. So magazines have to be high fidelity — a fantastic experience — to thrive. Magazines will survive the Internet age, but only the ones that give people an experience they just can’t get anywhere else. A magazine will have to be truly loved to make it.

Morris: Given the emergence of electronic reading devices, is the bound volume an endangered species?

Maney: It won’t become extinct for a very long time, but it’s definitely endangered. Within the next three years, we’ll see several e-book readers on the market for less than $100, and they’ll access any electronic bookstore — so they’ll work more like online music works now. At that point, e-books will take off.
Morris: You have been writing about the business world for more than 20 years. Of all the changes that have occurred during those years, which change do you consider to be most significant? Why?

Maney: Without question, the explosion of the Web and digital media from 1995 to 2000 shook companies more profoundly in a shorter time than anything since the end of World War II. Here’s how fast things were happening: Megamedia Shakeout was released in early 1995. By the end of 1995, the trajectory of nearly every company discussed in the book was so severely altered that the book had become out of date.

Morris: What led you to write Megamedia Shakeout?

Maney: In the early 1990s, I started writing some of the earliest mainstream media stories about digital media and what we were then calling the “information superhighway.” I thought there was a book idea in there somewhere, so I wrote a proposal, tried to shop it, and got nowhere. I stuck the twenty-page proposal in a drawer.

Months later, out of the blue, I got a call from John Mahaney, then an editor at book publisher John Wiley & Sons. He’d seen some of my stories and wondered if there was a book to be done about the info highway. It was bizarre. I was able to say, “I’ve got a proposal I can send you tomorrow.” Mahaney bought the book.

Morris:  Here’s a follow-up question. For those who have not as yet read Megamedia Shakeout, what business lessons can be learned from the “winners” and from the “losers” that you discuss?

Maney: Here’s my big take-away: Who “wins” and who “loses” depends on when you measure it. Measured in 1995, Apple was a huge loser and AOL a huge winner. There are two-dozen stories like that from the book alone.

*     *     *

To read the complete interview, please click here.

You are cordially invited to visit these Web sites that provide an abundance of resources:

www.kevinmaney.com

http://www.facebook.com/tradeoff.book?ref=ts

http://twitter.com/kmaney

Monday, September 5, 2011 Posted by | Bob's blog entries | , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

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