Top Shelf Reading Picks:

I’ve been focused on social media for a while, so I’m always surprised at people who are holdouts. Yet they’re out there.  If you happen to be one of those people who still need convincing, read this article about the coming Age-Wave.  Really, it’s not just us fanatics anymore; the demographics are singing the same tune.

The nice thing about social media and online marketing is that they are something everyone can learn.  So what’s a marketer to do to get up to speed?  I found that Scott Fox’s e-Riches 2.0: Next Generation Marketing Strategies for Making Millions Online was a very thorough overview.  Don’t let the name scare you into thinking it’s one of those internet scams.  I found it was useful for performing a complete marketing audit.  I was able to evaluate inefficiencies and plan for the next six months.

Some items of interest:

His Nine Commandments for E-Riches Marketing Success include:

1. Don’t worry about technology–focus on your marketing goals instead.
2. Heed the interactive imperative.
3. Build customer relationships. Don’t just chase sales.
4. Listen Up. The “participation nation” requires it.
5. Your profit potential depends on being more personal.
6. Grow beyond your website to a multi-channel online “product presence.”
7. Graduate from destination marketing to distributed engagement.
8. Nurture your brand’s reputation cloud.
9. Publish or perish.

Now if you didn’t understand all of those, or don’t have them incorporated into your 2009/2010 marketing plan, you might want to pick this book up.

Even if you do have a social media component to your marketing plan, I found that Fox had me reconsidering whether some of the services and tools I was using were the most efficient/cost-effective.

And my favorite line in the book is found under Fox’s “Magic Blog Formula.”

If you have something to say that will grow your business, then start a blog.  Otherwise shut up.

Top Shelf Bottom Line: e-Riches covers: e-mail, social marketing, blogs, online PR and promotion tools, podcasting and PPC advertising.  If you don’t have most of these incorporated into your plan, it’s worth picking up.

Word of caution, it may be a bit overwhelming for the non-techie newbie but still helpful to learn the terminology and to earmark the stuff you need to learn more about.

Another good book, which might be easier for total newbies, is: eBoot Camp by Corey Perlman.  Click here for my review.

I’ve found another must read Top Shelf Pick for 2009: Kevin Maney’s Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On and Others Don’t.  Any book that makes me rethink my biz plan is a must-read, and while this didn’t cause me to change direction, it did solidify that our new plan is taking us in the right direction.

Initially, I thought this was going to be a marketing book (sort of like Made to Stick), but it’s really more of a discussion around your company’s mission statement and core values.  The main premise is that every business has a trade-off.  You can either excel in providing a high-fidelity experience or in being extremely convenient.  If you’re in the middle for both, you end up in the “Fidelity Belly” (kind of like the doldrums . . . or to use a dating example . . .  it’s like dating someone who is vanilla–everything about them is fine, but nothing is outstanding. )

Any company or product that tries to capture both fidelity and convenience ends up in the Fidelity Belly and will more than likely fail.  Maney provides Starbucks and Coach bags as examples.  They both tried to mass market a luxury product, which when you think about it is a bit of an oxymoron:  mass-marketed luxury?  Not possible . . . the definition of luxury is something expensive or hard to obtain.

If you’re chasing convenience

A super-convenient product is one where people will forgo a nicer experience due to time, cost or easy accessibility, i.e. Wal-Mart.

But in addition to being affordable and easy, if you can add a social dimension, it acts as an adoption accelerant.  This is why teens will buy a cell-phone ring . . . Downloading it is convenient, but a ring tone also announces your taste in music to the world, giving it great social value.

However, manufacturing a social dimension doesn’t always work.  Maney points to USA Today’s 2006 attempt to create a social network around its newspaper.  They found out that you can’t force a social aspect onto something that is not inherently social.  I started to debate this example in my head because, in some sense, the comments on NYTimes.com sort of work like a social dimension (and I probably e-mail an article or two per week to friends).  But, then again, I feel an affinity with someone who reads the NYTimes, and not sure USA Today readers feel the same.

If you’re hoping for fidelity

You need the following formula:   Experience + Aura + Identity = Fidelity.

Experience means giving someone a feeling/situation that is high-quality, i.e., iPhone, high-fidelity experience; exceptionally inconvenient access(price/AT&T).

Identity:  Maney uses the Kindle for this example–stating that it’s missing the Identity component: that is, you are what you read, and when you read on a Kindle, no one knows what you are reading.  As I write this I realize that this is also a component of convenience . . . but it seems that Maney is saying there needs to be identity when it comes to fidelity; but if your goal is convenience, then it’s a nice bonus, but less necessary.

The Kindle is an interesting example that Maney brings up.  It’s very expensive, so not convenient, so it must be a high-fidelity play.  Yet, does it improve the experience of reading a book?  The jury is still out on that one.  Besides, when you think about it, the majority of book purchasers are “mass market,” and most people buy paperbacks, which are still quite convenient.  So the Kindle seems to be in the Fidelity Belly.

Aura:  Super-fidelity is sustainable, but it can’t be done on Aura alone. Maney uses Crocs as an example.  The more a company relies on Aura, or being cool and trendy, the more easily it can be toppled from its perch.

Should  you be convenient or high-fidelity?

Convenience is needed; fidelity is loved.  In other words, people tend to choose the most convenient product or service most of the time but treat themselves to fidelity.  This is why it might not be wise to launch a high-fidelity product during an economic recession, although the iPhone seemed to defy those odds.

High-fidelity products have a smaller audience and therefore need a higher profit margin.  Convenient products have lower margins and therefore need to reach larger audiences.

While Maney promotes an almost all-or-nothing approach, one or the other, he does note that adding the right touch of fidelity to a high-convenience product or service, or the right touch of convenience to fidelity, can make for a powerful, competitor-beating concoction.

Warning: Don’t forget the Tech effect.  Technology drives fidelity and convenience. Wherever your product or service lands today on the fidelity or convenience spectrum, it may well be in a different position tomorrow.

Throughout the book Maney focuses on a lot of different companies and products:   iRobot’s Roomba, Tiffany’s, newspapers and higher education. Being a Washington Capitals fan, I was really interested in his take on how the team turned into one of the most exciting in hockey.  But Maney also brought up something that’s been bugging me for a while–instead of trying to boost TV ratings for NHL hockey, i.e., only showing playoffs on obscure cable channels (I had to follow some games via Twitter), why not live stream them on the internet?  Go for the convenience.  Especially if the majority of the NHL’s demographics have access to a computer.  After all, the existing plan isn’t working.

Top Shelf Bottom Line. Like most trend books, it gets to a point where the author is saying the same thing over and over but with more and different illustrations.   Nevertheless, it kept me reading to the end and I could easily grasp the different examples.   This is a definite must-read if you don’t know where your company falls on the Fidelity/Convenience Trade-offs chart, or you want to fine tune your future growth.

DKD Sidebar: I tried applying this to my business, the Downtown Women’s Club.  Last year we launched our new tagline: Professional networking that’s affordable, effective and fun!  Clearly we’re going for convenience.

But this book made me realize that people still want a high-fidelity networking experience.  Some of our local clubs do provide this in abundance (which is our high-fidelity aspect).  However, after reading this book, I came away with the idea that we need to provide more networking “content” as opposed to “contacts.”

Let the other 99 percent of our competitors focus on making introductions for only a select group of people.  Instead, we’ll provide the skills and tools everyone needs to create her own networks, wherever they may be.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I’ll keep you posted.

How can you apply this to your own company/service/product? Ask yourself the following:

1. Are you high-fidelity or convenient?
2. Do you have a high or low profit margin?
3. Can you add a social component to your product/service?
4. Do you rely too much on your aura?
5. Can you be displaced easily by new technologies?
6. Are you in the Fidelity Belly?

Need help answering those?  Buy the book!

Instant Appeal: The 8 Primal Factors that Create Blockbuster Success by Vicki Kunkel is yet another book that tries to explain how and why people react the way they do.  Initially, I thought it would be a re-hash of Blink and other such books.  However, there were some new ideas.

The book consists of an introduction and eight chapters, each of which is focused on different factors that can attract or repel people.

1.    The conspicuous flaw factor
2.    The visual preprogramming factor
3.    The reptilian comfort factor
4.    The sacred cow factor
5.    The jackass factor
6.    The biology of language factor
7.    The biotuning factor
8.    The mental real estate factor

One issue I have with the book is that it doesn’t have a lot of documentation for its theories. To quote Publishers Weekly, “Unfortunately, Kunkel’s evidence of these universals is vague and speculative.” But that’s probably because Kunkel is a communications consultant and not a researcher.

However, I realized I was getting tired of reading books that just went through research study after research study.  Besides, a lot of the anecdotal evidence did ring pretty true. So here are the few that stood out to me.

The conspicuous flaw factor

I liked the section on “Ugly as a Design Element” because, when you think about it, most of the world’s favorite websites:  Google, craigslist, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, mySpace, Twitter, etc. are all pretty lame when it comes to design and navigation.  In many cases, they break all the standard rules. Kunkel posits that as a society we can be turned off by “slick websites,” as it gives us the impression that big companies are behind them.  This is why we prefer the ugly ducklings.

The reptilian comfort factor

I found the discussion of “The principal of least effort” interesting because it stated that a more appealing sales pitch is not that a certain blender would help YOU chop, dice, etc.  at the speed of light, but that the BLENDER chops, dices, etc. at the speed of light. We are basically lazy and do not want to do the work. This is why we are more likely to buy a blender that does the work for us.

I think this section hit home because at the time I read it, we were in the midst of choosing a new slogan, and I was reluctant to include the word “effortless” when it comes to networking. I know that networking is not effortless.  However, according to the book Made to Stick (which makes a similar argument), as well as Instant Appeal, I should have gone with “effortless.”  So this week, I’ve started including that word in our Google ads as a test. I’m curious to see what happens.

It’s funny: As I was reading this section, I kept thinking . . . this is the secret to The Secret. We don’t want to work for results. We prefer to just think nice thoughts. Sure enough, on the next page, that’s exactly the example Kunkel uses.

Another comfort factor that struck a chord with me is where she talks about the difference between the career application pages at Microsoft and Apple. The former is rather technical; the latter is user-friendly and more appealing in its design.  Both are meant to cater to the audience they want to attract and hire. In this economy, where companies that actually have positions are inundated with applications, it might be worthwhile to see if you can weed out a few through your website alone.

The sacred cow and jackass factors

Unite around a common enemy.  Kunkel defines “sacred cows” as protected ideologies that attract like-minded people; and the “jackass factor” is defined as the intentional repulsion of a portion of the audience by being unapologetically yourself.

“To gain supporters, you have to create enemies because, when you do that, you at the same time energize your base of loyalists and give them an external force to combat.” In some sense, this takes Seth Godin’s tribes a bit further. Not only do like-minded folk follow a charismatic leader, they are more solidified if they have to battle a common enemy. Looking back to our presidential election, one only has to think that Sarah Palin helped unite the Democratic Party behind Barack Obama.

This is an interesting thought for a company, one you can definitely see it at play between Microsoft and Apple. I was about to write that, as a company owner, I’m not ready to go there. But in fact we do market the Downtown Women’s Club as a fun and inclusive alternative to stale, bureaucracy-laden, exclusive and traditional networking associations. Over the years, we’ve had women denounce us as not being professional because we have spa nights and horoscopes or that we were focusing too much on technology and online networking. I used to try to find ways to engage those detractors, but then a few years ago I stopped because I stand by our fun factor, and our business model is proving that technology is key.

Who ya gonna turn off?  This is the question Kunkel apparently asks clients to help them define their market better and increase their appeal. I have to agree here, as you can see from the above paragraph. I made a conscious decision to stand behind fun and technology when it comes to networking, and I really do not want to attract people who tell me that I need to “be more like other groups.”

Corporate individuality.  This was a small section, but I think it has a lot more meaning in the social media era. “For a corporate personality to be believable, individual leadership personalities within that organization must be believable, too.” I’ve always felt that companies that slap a logo on their twitter personalities and then review everything their “social media representatives” say don’t do much to attract people. As Kunkel writes, “we’re in a creative economy now where the focus is on participation.” I would add that transparency and authenticity are big, too.

The whole section basically boils down to the following paragraph:

“The real appeal of a strong . . . leader boils down to one thing: confidence. We are drawn to people who know who they are, know what they want and go after it, and are so independent and self-assured that they don’t need or want the approval of anyone. They are comfortable in their own skin. They have found their own voices. Their strong and assertive nature is intoxicating and makes us feel safe in their company because we get the feeling that they can overcome anything.”

The biology of language factor.

Apparently popular books, songs, tv shows, etc. use “comfort language.” That is, most of the No. 1 songs include the same words at high frequencies. And best-selling authors like Dr. Seuss and Agatha Christie use very few words in total and a lot of repetition. I’m not sure I’m buying this one but, when thinking of corporate slogans, it might be worthwhile to keep it simple.

The mental real estate factor.

In this factor Kunkel also advocates keeping it simple because our brains can only function in so many different ways at one time. For example, it’s often the most basic, least creative commercials that get us to buy. The humorous and highly creative ones distract us from the core message.

In addition, audiences will only see the parts in a commercial that resonate most with them and will subconsciously ignore the rest. She has some interesting examples about kids and commercials. But this reminds me of a comment a friend made recently. “I know I just joined Facebook, so maybe that’s why I’m suddenly noticing how much it’s in the press.  Yet maybe it was there before, and I just never noticed it.” She’s probably right. Clearly, coverage of Facebook and Twitter has increased in the recent past as more and more journalists use them, too.  Yet it probably remains background noise for anyone who doesn’t use them.

Another small but good point in this section had to do with why it helps to dumb down your PowerPoint presentations.  Too much info or special effects are distracting and detract from your message.

The Top Shelf Bottom Line.  This is a good book for marketers and worth reading before spending any money on an ad campaign.  However, it doesn’t include any real specifics as to how to implement these ideas into your own business (you’ll have to extrapolate for yourself).  Moreover, it’s most helpful if you already know your target market. So take some time to do that.  One book that I found helpful in working through that is No Time Marketing: Small Business-Sized Steps in 30 Minutes or less by Alyssa Dver.

Sometimes you find a great book when you least expect it.  Last week, I was invited to a conference and met Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff.

As an early adopter, I understood using Facebook for brand-building (through Groups, Pages, Ads and Apps) and expanding your network by reconnecting with people from your past. However, Shih’s presentation and book brought me a new depth and understanding of what it means to interact with customers through social networks.  She also introduced a whole new vocabulary.

• Weak ties.  Sure, we can get a few sales out of our strong ties, but they’re limited in number.  It’s the weak ties that drive business.  On Facebook (and other social networks), you can stay in touch with a greater number of people who in the past would’ve fallen to the wayside.  You also have the ability to reach out to the networks of all your weak ties.
• Smart CRM.  Consider Facebook one of your customer relationship management (CRM) tools.  The difference is that it’s a bidirectional CRM tool. Communication on Facebook goes both ways; you are constantly prompted about what your contacts are doing, reading and thinking.  It even includes reminders of birthdays and other personal details.
• Transitive trust/passive word of mouth (WOM).  Traditional WOM relied on someone actively telling other people about a brand, product or service.  On Facebook, you don’t need someone to tell anyone anything. Friends can see when friends join a group, become fans or download applications.
• Intentional advertising.  When you advertise on Google, it’s “intentional” in that people are searching Google for something specific and, if it contains the right keywords, your ads will pop up.  This is one reason Google ads might have a higher click-through rate than Facebook ads, which are triggered by profiles meeting advertisers’ demographics.
• Hypertargeting.  Says Shih, “hypertargeting allows advertising precision that can uncover latent interest from passive buyers while minimizing wasted ad impressions.”  In other words, while it’s not intentional advertising, it’s possible on Facebook to target precisely the market you want by age, gender, geography, keywords, etc.,  thereby eliminating a lot of wasted clicks.  Side note: We’re currently in the process of testing whether intentional advertising or hypertargeting yields higher conversion rates (For example, if Google ads have higher click-throughs, does that equate with converting more people into members?).
• Mashup.  A mashup is a web application that combines data from one or more sources into a single, integrated tool.  Shih developed a mashup that pulls Facebook profile information and friend data into the Salesforce CRM application.  This is an interesting concept because it turns a static CRM system with one-way communication (i.e.,  you input data about your contacts) into a bidirectional database that can pull live content from Facebook.
• Social capital. We know about social capital, but when you add in the transitive trust/passive WOM concepts, social capital is even more important.  To paraphrase Lena West, who also spoke at the conference this week, when you think about promoting your business online, you want to use OPS “Other People’s Social.”  Click here for more on Lena’s talk about viral marketing.

I found Shih’s book extremely timely, as we had been planning to rethink our Downtown Women’s Club Facebook strategy now that Facebook had finally updated its Pages’ functionality.  Taking some of the elements and ideas from Shih’s talk and her book, we redid our Downtown Women’s Club Facebook Page.

Phase One:

1. We deleted our Downtown Women’s Club Facebook Group.  Groups have less functionality than Pages because they are an application, and you can’t add Apps to an App.   We considered keeping both, but the new page is much more dynamic and we didn’t want to a. Double-post content; b. Divide our potential fan base between the Page and the Group; and c. Create confusion for members about which one to visit/bookmark.
2.  We started posting DWC Networking Tips of the Day and Event Listings through the Page. Posts from that page show up in newsfeeds of our fans. And if a fan comments on something or leaves us a note, that will show up not just on our DWC Facebook  Page, but also on the fan’s own newsfeed, which will reach her networks. (We’re hoping for a little Transitive Trust action.)
3. We provide monthly messages to fans explaining what’s new on our Pages and ways for them to interact and promote their businesses (i.e., tagging themselves in photos, posting links and other announcements).
4. We’re encouraging all of our directors to post pictures from events on the Page so that members will go in and tag themselves.

After only one week of implementing Phase One, we’re: 1. Adding fans at a faster rate, 2. Interacting with members from across the country and Canada; and 3. Have increased the traffic Facebook was driving to our main site by 10 percent.

One bonus is the ability to track the demographics of visitors coming to our Page.  Not surprisingly, we found that we’re popular with women 35 and older.  The good news is that this is also the fastest-growing demographic on Facebook.

Phase Two will be to implement Facebook Connect on our main website.  This is something else I learned from Shih’s book.  Facebook Connect is an application that allows members who sign onto an external website to sign in via Facebook and see which of their Facebook friends are also members of the site. I’m going to hold off on that as our membership is still getting used to the Facebook thing, and I’m not sure they’ll be comfortable with the whole “Big Brotherish” feel to Facebook Connect.

Which leads me to some final thoughts from Shih about compatibility.  Should every company/brand/product have a Facebook Fan Page? Shih writes that social network marketing doesn’t make sense for everyone–it depends on your product, service and demographics. I couldn’t agree more. Fan Pages work for things about which people can be passionate or inspired enough to want to actively engage in a dialogue with your company.

Top Shelf Bottom Line.  I’m adding The Facebook Era to my “must-read” list for marketers and anyone in biz dev because Facebook–which should hit 200 million users this week–is a communication delivery system that no company can ignore, whether it’s for building their own brand, engaging/recruiting employees or simply keeping on top of trends.   Shih’s book is a great guide to using not just Facebook for business, but other social network tools as well.

**If you’re still looking to learn about how to use Facebook on a personal level, I recommend checking out Jason Alba and Jesse Stay’s I’m on Facebook, Now What?

I was all set to write a review of the updated version of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath, when I got sidetracked by the Jon Stewart v. Jim Cramer battle last week. Next thing I know, I’m wanting to write blog posts titled: “I’ve Got a Crush on Jon Stewart” and “Jon Stewart: Made to Stick it to the Man.” Fortunately for my readers, I decided to approach this in a straightforward manner because that’s what Stewart did on Thursday night’s Stewart vs. Cramer smackdown.

Why did Stewart’s takedown resonate? Because it was one of those stories that was “made to stick.” For those of you who haven’t read Made to Stick, I would suggest you make some time for it, especially entrepreneurs. We, of all people, need ideas that stick.

In a nutshell, the Heaths’ theory is that a message will stick if it follows their SUCCESs rule. This is why I thought I would apply it to Stewart’s performance last Thursday night. (Previously, I did something similar for Colin Powell’s Obama endorsement).

If you haven’t seen it, visit: www.comedycentral.com.

Here’s my take on how it fits the Made to Stick formula:

• Simple. Stewart’s goal was to ask: “How dare Jim Cramer and the rest of CNBC blame the mortgage holders when it was the bankers, egged on by financial reporters, who burned the house down?” He conveyed this message through simple language and simple imagery.
• Unexpected. The voice of financial reason is on the Comedy Channel?
• Concrete. Stewart kept his attack on Cramer on point. “You weren’t the watchdogs. You were the cheerleaders.”
• Credible. Even if he’s a comedian, he is also a journalist. We had one journalist taking on another. In addition, Stewart’s incredible research team should be leased out to the Justice Department. Its work is impeccable and worthy of a Pulitzer.
• Emotional. Stewart was clearly emotional and was able to stir up our own emotions.
• Storytelling. Stewart told the story of a failed system.  This was why a squabble between two cable TV front men captured everyone’s attention.  It had that “stickiness” factor.

More about the book below, but I have to make one last non sequitur comment on Stewart vs. Cramer: While clearly it was Stewart’s day in the spotlight, I have to give a pat on the back to Jim Cramer. He took it like a real gentleman. Sure, he threw out a few lame excuses; but for the most part, he let Stewart do his thing, took his lumps and said his mea culpas. I actually kind of like the guy for it.

As for the book. I reread the updated version and, like watching the Stewart/Cramer interview again online, it was even better the second time around. I wasn’t too clear which parts were new, as last time I listened to the audio version, so some of what I picked up may have been there the first time, but I wasn’t as focused because I might have been navigating traffic at the time.

Here are a few points that stuck out in my mind this time around.

The importance of the big picture. Early on in the book, the Heaths talk about how armies often fail because they put all their emphasis into creating a plan that becomes useless 10 minutes into the battle. It would be better if they focused on the commander’s intent rather than a set plan, i.e., “My intent is to capture the XYZ battalion.”

I think using a commander’s intent strategy for business today is a must, especially due to the different generations currently in the workplace. Telling a Gen Y’er that you want a marketing plan that utilizes print advertising might not have the same effect as telling a Gen Y’er that you want a marketing plan that will reach x number of people in the x demographic. Who knows? She might find a better, cheaper way to accomplish the same goal.

Speak the same language. The Heaths make a point about how one of the tricks to making ideas concrete (as opposed to abstract) is not to dumb things down, but instead to find a universal language that everyone speaks fluently. This is something I ascribe to heavily as I often find myself talking about technology to audiences who still think abstractly about computers. When I teach workshops about social media (especially to boomers), I’ve learned to rely on good analogies.

Semantics matters. I liked the example of how giving good sportsmanship awards didn’t encourage people to become better sports. However, when people were asked to “Honor the game,” they were more likely to exhibit good sportsmanship. We found out how semantics matters at the Downtown Women’s Club when we had trouble finding people to serve on committees and help with events. However, when we asked them to be DWC ambassadors and represent the DWC by helping plan and execute events, we found volunteers. So sometimes before you totally shake things up, try renaming them first.

What’s in it for me? The Heaths focused on some successful ads over the years that worked self-interest into the headlines and advised against burying that self-interest if it’s an advantage. This is something we also discovered this year when we changed our tagline/marketing line to “Professional networking that’s affordable, effective and fun.” We were listing our benefits/differentiators late one night to try to come up with a new tagline.  So I finally said, “I don’t care anymore; let’s just go with that for now. Well, clicks on our Google ad went up, membership is up, and I’ve been asked fewer times why we’re different.

Interestingly, we almost went with “professional networking that’s affordable, effortless and fun.” But I felt funny about the “effortless” part. I don’t believe that networking is effortless, but I do believe that if done right, it can FEEL effortless.  Yet that required too much explanation.  However, according to Made to Stick, I should at least test it out someday.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

There’s so much more in here, but I’ll let you discover that yourself.

Top Shelf bottom line: A must-read for entrepreneurs and marketers who want their ideas to stick.  And even worth picking up for a reread.  There, that’s simple (read this book), unexpected (from an article that starts out talking about Jon Stewart), concrete and credible (I hope), emotional (we’re all attached to our ideas) and, ideally,I told a few stories that will make it memorable. Let’s see if you can do the same with your own ideas.

Last month the Downtown Women’s Club hosted Michelle Goodman, author of My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire, on a DWC+ Teleclass, and I’m making it this month’s “quick pick.”

Right off the bat I asked Goodman what’s different about freelancing in this economy?  Her answer: The basics are pretty much the same, you just need to ramp up and fine-tune your efforts.  In other words,  anyone who has all her “ducks in a row”–meaning contracts ready to go, marketing plan in place, health care and a business plan–is in a better position to do well.

Why? Because she won’t waste time with that while haphazardly chasing clients and potentially taking on business that’s outside her business plan. In desperate times, we tend to act out of desperation; therefore, business plans are necessary to keep ourselves on track.

In addition, if an opportunity comes up in this market, you need to jump on it ASAP.  Paying clients are not going to sit around waiting for you to get a proposal to them.  Have it ready to go.

So if you’re one of these freelancing folks who has been flying by the seat of your pants or dependant upon a single client, you should definitely pick up Goodman’s book.  It’s a great overview of how to get your freelancing work operating like a business quickly, so that you can focus on getting new business. Goodman covers everything you need to know, and it’s a fun and easy read.

In the meantime, for the rest of you, here are a few tidbits we learned in the teleclass about freelancing in a down economy:

1. Make yourself more marketable.

• Be diverse (skills, subcontracting, fields of expertise, different technologies)
• Be flexible
• Be timely (jump on opportunities/trends, etc.)

2. Projects to avoid:

• Those that are below your minimum price
• Those that pay in promotion
• Clients whose companies are shaky
• Clients whom you can’t pin down to parameters

3. Counterintuitive networking

• Learn from other freelancers.
• Find them in person or on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

I have another new entrant on my must-read book list, and it’s not just because I’m quoted in it!  How To Be A Geek Goddess:  Practical Advice for Using Computers with Smarts and Style by Christina Tynan-Wood was not only informative, but also funny and entertaining.  Much to my surprise, I sat down and read this “how to” book in nearly one sitting.  It’s witty and engaging, and you’ll find yourself exclaiming “Oh! I wish I’d known that sooner!”

No matter what level you are with regard to computers, you’ll find help here–for both software and hardware issues.  I’m pretty darn good at using computers, but I learned a few new tricks.  And I’m even planning to buy a copy for my mom, although I’ll have to caution her not to do what she always does with books, which is to read the end first (the last chapter has tips on finding good girl porn online–yes, this book does cover everything).

Here are a few tidbits:

On pricing of technical stuff:  “Tiny and cute costs more than roomy and functional.  (Isn’t that also true of underwear?)”  But seriously, Tynan-Wood walks you through what type of computer to buy, how to buy it and what all the OS/RAM Ports/Monitor info means and even what type of laptop/desktop you should get.

How to resize a picture.  “In either Vista or XP, click on the Start button, look for Accessories, and the Paint.  Once you have Paint open, use File>Open to open your image.  Then click Image in the menu bar and choose Resize/Skew . . .”

Tips for recycling old computers–go to cristina.org; or freecycle.org/) and data disposal (good thing to do before donating a computer)–tolvanen.com/eraser/.

When downloading software, we always get the choice–save or run.  Which should you do?  Her answer:  Choose save for any program bigger than a few MB, just so you have a backup if installation doesn’t work out.  Otherwise, you can just “run.”

Lists of free software.

Explanations of SMTP, URLs and all the other gobbledygook.

For those trying to run a business, she has all sorts of recommendations from grandcentral.com (I’ve already reserved my phoneline there for my company to have a virtual receptionist); to billcollectorinabox.com (if you need to start collection proceedings).

I’ve taken her recommendations and installed netnanny.com on my son’s computer, and she has other suggestions for kid-safe e-mail addresses and how to prevent your kid from downloading software.

And if you read the social networking section . . . you might notice a quote from yours truly!

Top Shelf Bottom Line:  If you have ever felt intimidated by any aspect of your computer, go buy this book.  It not only covers the fundamentals; it’s also a whole lot of fun.

On a slightly different note, I attended a lecture tonight in my town’s high school auditorium by professor David Blight, author of A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom.

The following is from our town’s library site.

David Blight’s A Slave No More is in effect a memoir–the story of two slaves who made their break for freedom during the chaos of the Civil War. After reconstructing their childhoods as sons of white slave holders through their climb to black working-class stability in the north where they reunited with their families, Blight then reproduces the men’s accounts of their own emancipation in their original language. One of the men, John Washington, eventually retires here to Cohasset [Mass.] where he spends the last five years of his life with his son’s family on North Main Street; he died in 1918 and is buried in Woodside Cemetery. Author David Blight is professor of American History at Yale University.

I put that short blurb there because I admit that I have not yet read the book, despite it being part of our Cohasset Reads Together program. However, I wished I had. Nevertheless, hearing Blight speak was a wonderful glimpse into the book. And since my last book review was based on a professor’s lecture, I thought I would quickly jot down some thoughts about what made this an amazing story and why I think it’s relevant.

The ups and downs of the small town.  OK, I live in a small town. Really small town: population 7,000, and you can’t ever leave the house without seeing someone you know. I love that about this place. The one big detractor from this town is that my being 1/2 Pacific islander increased the town’s non-white population to about 2 percent, if that. So for a town like ours to find out a former slave lived out his last years right on North Main Street is a bit surprising.  And intriguing enough to bring out a couple hundred folks to listen to a lecture on a cold winter night.

I’m going to start attending more library lectures.  At a time when movies cost $10/seat plus $20 in refreshments, going to a free lecture where the speaker captivated an audience, especially when I found myself sitting among friends and neighbors, was a great recession-proof entertainment strategy.

So why this speaker, why this book on a blog for entrepreneurs?  John Washington, one of the slaves who left behind a narrative of his life, was unique. He was literate. His mother was literate. But he spent his first years being a slave boy in Virginia (carrying a stool around to sit next to and attend to his mistress’s every whim) and then later shipped out to work in bars, factories, hotels, etc.  He eventually escaped during the fall of Fredericksburg and the Union soldiers gave him his freedom.

John Washington went on to be a bartender and painter living in Foggy Bottom, Washington, DC, married his sweetheart (who had been born free) and had five children–all of whom finished high school and college. Some even got master’s degrees and many were educators.  One of his sons moved to Cohasset to work on the Old Colony railroad, and that’s who John lived with for his last few years.

How did he manage to walk away from being a slave to raising a family of solidly middle-class educators?

1.  Patience and perseverence. He waited for his opportunity to arise and was ready when it happened.

2.  Preparation. When he met the soldiers, he was prepared with newspapers and other information to help them.

3.  Skills. He was smart, literate and could do everything from work in a factory to being assistant manager of a hotel.

4.  Optimism. While Blight never said it, I sensed that John Washington had to be an optimist.

So what does this have to do with being an entrepreneur? The above-listed traits are what also distinguish many of the most successful entrepreneurs.  And, according to Blight, the theme of the book is “never say never.”

For more from Blight and John Washington’s overlap with Abraham Lincoln, see this Boston Globe Op-Ed piece.

Top Shelf Bottom Line:  Sometimes we need to step out of our myopic world to find great role models. A must-read for civil war buffs.

When I first watched Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture in November 2008, I was blown away.  For those who haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor, skip that lame reality show tonight and spend an hour learning about reality by watching the video.

Click here to read my thoughts on my original viewing. 

For those of you who have never heard of Randy Pausch and are not among the 8 million individuals who have watched his video on YouTube, Dr. Pausch was a Carnegie Mellon Professor diagnosed with terminal cancer when he was asked to participate in their Last Lecture series.  His topic for his “Last Lecture” was about realizing and enabling childhood dreams. 

His dreams ranged from being in zero gravity to becoming an NFL football player and an Imagineer with Disney.  Even his dreams that he didn’t achieve yielded lessons we all need to hear, especially entrepreneurs.

When he passed away in July, 2008, I learned there was a book about The Last Lecture.  I figured that it would be the same content, so didn’t pick it up.  Then last month in my library they had the book on cd and I figured with all that was wrong with the world, I needed to put everything back in perspective.  I’m so glad I did. I was delighted to find that it covered some of the same items, but there was so much more. 

Memorable parts for me (from the book, some are in the lecture, some aren’t):

1. The chapter on what he learned trying to become a pro football player.  I played this part for my 9 year old son while on a car ride.  He asked to stay in the car to listen to the whole chapter even after we had arrived at our destination.  I may purchase the book to take on our trip this summer to read other parts to him.  Or I may hold onto it and give it to him when he’s able to read it himself.
2. His description of his parents and childhood.  This had particular significance to me as he grew up in my town in Columbia, MD and went to my rival high school.  Columbia was a very unique place back in the 70’s and 80’s, and when I found out at the end of the video that he went to Oakland Mills high school, it didn’t surprise me.
3. “Experience is what you get, when you don’t get what you wanted.”  I loved this quote and it has even more meaning in this economy where many of us have to make different choices than expected.
4. The value of feedback.  He has sections on this and you realize that too much of corporate America and academia function without feedback.  Many of his other ideas on teaching are useful for entrepreneurs and managers who want to enable employees to succeed.
5. I enjoyed the parts about his family life.  This best part of the book for me, was the stories of how he and his wife met, got married, had kids, faced a terminal illness, and even dealt with the fact that he wanted to spend the last months of his life writing a book.   It’s a bit “Marley & Me” in these parts  (except the elephant in the room is a terminal illness and not a psychotic lab), but it makes one think, how the heck would I handle a curveball like that in my life?  I don’t think I could be as upbeat as he was, but at least I would have a good role model.
6. The career advice at the end of the book.  There were great stories of persistence and how going the extra step could make a difference for someone in a job hunt or otherwise pursuing their dreams.

Topshelf Bottom line.  This is a must read for everyone who needs to put things back into perspective so that they can go out and chase down their own childhood dreams.  Share it with your kids.

In 1999, Havey Mackay wrote the networking classic Dig Your Well before You’re Thirsty: The Only Networking Book You’ll Ever Need. As the author of two books on networking, clearly I don’t agree with his subtitle, yet I’ve always recommended the book because his basic advice stood the test of time . . . until now.

The internet and even our current economic crises have changed the way we network. This is why I chose to review the book Smart Networking: Attract a Following in Person and Online by Liz Lynch. If you’re still networking 1999 style, it’s time for an upgrade, and I liked Lynch’s approach.

The beginning of the book focuses on convincing people that they have to network.  Even if you don’t need convincing, there are a few good gems in there, such as:

“Your plan may be to stay right where you are, but that might not be your employer’s plan.  Job security is a thing of the past.  The only security we can count on now is our own ability to adapt quickly, and those who can’t will struggle.”

“More ways to communicate means that it’s easier to be left out of the conversation.”

Here are just a few of the tips that stood out to me. I just reviewed a book about online networking, and there are excellent sections on that in this book, but I’m going to focus on the in-person tips.

You don’t need a huge network if you have a responsive one. I wholly agree with this. Thanks to technology, we’re able to connect with thousands of people. But truthfully, we can only manage real relationships with a fraction of that number.  (For more on this topic, see the discussion in the comments after my last book review where we discuss “super connectors” on LinkedIn).

Just about everything you need to be successful with networking boils down to one question:  What kind of person would you need to be for someone to be willing to help you more than once?  When you think about only your immediate need, then you end up thinking only about yourself.  By thinking down the road a bit, you are forced to consider how you would have to treat that person in order to be able to make another “ask.”

Think about giving and receiving (help); not person by person, but within a whole system.  This is basically a “pay it forward” philosophy, but it’s helpful to remember so you don’t become a “networking scorekeeper.”

• It used to be:  It’s not what you know but whom you know.
• Then it became: It’s not whom you know, but who knows you.
• Now it’s: It’s not who knows you, but who’s willing to help you.

Lynch uses this to lead into a section where she quotes Tim Sanders of Yahoo! in The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life’s Dreams, “The more likable you are, the more likely you are to be on the receiving end of a positive choice from which you can profit.”

Get a strong sense of people’s personality and potential likeability through what you can find out about them online.  While this is a small point that she makes, for me it marks a difference in how people view online networking.  In our 2006 and 2008 online networking surveys, when we asked women who didn’t network online why they didn’t, the top answer after “I don’t know how” was that it’s “too impersonal.”    If anything, online networking has put the “personal” back into networking.

If you want to pitch your business, the best way to do it is one-on-one during a conversation.  She gives a great example of how engage the other person by envisioning the conversation as a ball that you toss back and forth, learning something new about the other person as well as revealing something more about what you do.

If you want to build a networking relationship with someone, don’t respond to “what’s new?” with a “nothing much” answer.  Pick one project you’re currently working on that could be relevant to that person and work it into a short response.

Avoid networking burnout (revisiting the same people over and over again) by constantly expanding your network.  She gives some good examples of how to do this both in person and online.

I liked the section on Leading with Value in All your Interactions.  “Think of how you can add value to people’s lives when you plan to interact with them, and you’ll always be welcome.”  She then goes on to describe different ways you can do this:

Use Value for First Time Follow-up

1. Uncover value through conversation.
2. Set the mechanics in motion.
3. Make sure you’re remembered.
4. Ask for the meeting.
5. Orchestrate a successful meeting.

Offer Value in Ongoing Outreach

1. Forward helpful information.
2. Make a date for coffee.
3. Refer someone to them.
4. Launch a “help offered” campaign.
5. Invite them to an event.

Add Value by Making Connections.

1. Connect someone to a friend.
2. Connect someone to a vendor.
3. Connect someone to a customer.
4. Connect someone to a resource.
5. Connect someone to an organization.

Another section I really appreciated was her chapter on “Raising your profile to stand out from the crowd.”  In this section her two top tips were:

1. Take on leadership roles in a networking group.
2. Start your own networking group. 

I can clearly attest that every one of my best and favorite contacts can be related back to work I did on a committee and/or founding the Downtown Women’s Club.  In addition to the DWC, the other most useful  committee work for me has been the program committee for the local chamber of commerce, the marketing committee of a real estate industry association and an event committee at a local art museum.  I can trace almost every good networking result back to those groups in some manner.

The rest of the book includes helpful tips on how to build an online profile and leverage online communities.

Top Shelf Bottom Line.  This was a comprehensive networking book that has the right attitude (help first, ask later) and includes both online and in-person tips.  If you haven’t read a networking book lately, this is the one to pick up. In the final chapter Lynch even includes a networking plan, which helps you break down networking to make it more manageable on a daily basis.

When asked to review an updated version of a book, I would generally decline; but when it comes to a book on social networking, the world changes so quickly. This is why I thought I would take a second look at I’m on LinkedIn–Now What???  A Guide to Getting the Most OUT of LinkedIn by Jason Alba.

I never really used LinkedIn all that much, preferring both Twitter and Facebook. Then last month, when I was teaching a seminar on social media, I went back to take a look and was pleased to see that LinkedIn had made a bunch of improvements. Reviewing Alba’s books gave me a lot more ideas about how we all could use it more effectively.

Who’s on LinkedIn?
It used to be that LinkedIn was a place for job-seekers and recruiters. I recall meeting one person last year from a company that had banned its younger employees from being there for fear they would be recruited. Back then my response was: “Maybe try giving them reasons to stay rather than focus on making it harder for them to leave?”  Today I would echo what Alba says in his book: There are more than 28 million people on LinkedIn and most of them are NOT seeking jobs–they are networking, marketing their services and even launching businesses.

The rest of this review will look at the different tips Alba presents that caught my eye, as someone who is familiar with LinkedIn but not as active a user as I could be.

Pump up your profile – a few less obvious tips.

• Use both full names of companies, schools, associations and titles as well as the nickname or common abbreviation.  People may look for one or the other. For example, University of Virginia and UVA, Downtown Women’s Club and DWC, the Museum of Fine Arts and the MFA, vice president and VP.
• Write recommendations. Not only is this good networking form, but it puts your name (with a link back to your profile) on other people’s pages. This helps make your own profile more visible.
• Get a vanity URL. If you have a publicly searchable profile (which is recommended), put your name in the URL (search engines search through URLs first before site content). Go to the Profile Page, click on the link next to “Public Profile” that says “edit.” You can then edit the URL and put in your full name.
• Make your public profile complete. “How much info should you make public?” was a question that came up in a recent Downtown Women’s Club teleclass with career expert Lindsey Pollak. She echoed Alba’s position that this is your chance to have people see your professional expertise the way you want them to. So you should take the time to make it as complete as possible. To paraphrase Pollak: Giving people full and quick access to a complete a picture of your professional experience is the point of LinkedIn.  If you don’t want to play the game, then you probably shouldn’t be on LinkedIn.”

Communicating on LinkedIn
Alba gives a good overview on Message Settings. As with any social network, you can control how you receive messages. (This is why many of us prefer these to e-mail.) For example, you can choose to receive messages and invitations by e-mail immediately (recommended), but profile updates from your network can be sent via weekly e-mails. Other things, such as job notifications and service recommendations, can be items that you choose to see only when you log onto LinkedIn.

Make sure you have both (or all) of your e-mails listed on LinkedIn. This is how people find you, and if some people only have one of your e-mails and it’s not the one you used to create your LinkedIn account, you need to add them.  You can do this under the Account & Settings link in the upper right-hand corner.

One helpful bit in this section is that Alba tells you what his settings are. I’ve found that when I teach people about social media tools, it helps to actually show them what I do and how I do it.  Alba does this throughout and it makes this book, in particular, very user-friendly.

Searching for People on LinkedIn
This was a useful section because, as Alba mentions, sometimes searching on LinkedIn can be quirky.

• Increase the size of your network because your search results are based on your connections. In other words increasing the number of people you link to will expand the size of the search you can do and lead to better results.
• Connect with a few super-connectors. There are “open networkers” on LinkedIn who connect with thousands of people, even though they may only loosely know them.  Just connecting to one of these will expand your network drastically.

Searching for Jobs on LinkedIn
I confess that I had never clicked on the “jobs” tab since joining LinkedIn.  After reading Alba’s book, I took some time to mess around with it and this is truly a useful function. Not only are there exclusive jobs listed on LinkedIn, the tool that tells you who in your network has worked/is working at a company is perhaps the key to LinkedIn–finding a personal connection.  Alba has a whole section on how to effectively use the job search function.

Groups and Answers
Of all the functions of LinkedIn, these two are what I have always found the most useful.  We have a DWC+ LinkedIn Group (exclusive to our paid members), but since the addition of discussions, it’s become much more useful. Members can post business questions, make announcements, etc.

I’ve also been a big fan of Answers, where you can ask questions as well as answer others. I’ve used the Answers to do mini-focus groups for consulting clients and even made a few connections in doing so (one may even lead to a launch of DWC-London).  I’ve also responded to others’ questions and been picked as “best answer” twice.  This is another way to establish yourself as an expert.

Alba provides some good advice on forming a strategy as to how you use both Groups  and Answers effectively.

Top Shelf Bottom Line:  If you haven’t used LinkedIn or, like me, are not an active user, this is a good guidebook to pick up. It’s short, easy to read and full of actual examples of how Alba uses it. That for me was what made it easier to digest than a normal how-to book or surfing the FAQ sections. Most of all, I liked the autho’s view that: “LinkedIn is a powerful tool, not a silver bullet.” As with any networking platform, group or resource, you only get out of it what you put into it.  And it should be only one part of a marketing/networking strategy, not the whole thing.

*****

Since we’re on the subject, here are some of my other thoughts on LinkedIn:

The recent LinkedIn improvements have been tremendous. In fact, we were surprised to see that all our DWC+ teleclasses that we list on Eventbrite  were automatically picked up by LinkedIn (this was discovered after various calls and e-mails between DWC staff trying to figure out which one of us posted these  to LinkedIn). LinkedIn has also added the equivalent of Twitter/Facebook “status updates” called “What are you working on?” I could see this being useful and plan to test it out.

Some of the applications that have been added are also worth testing out–posting your PowerPoints from SlideShare and your blog listings are good ways to further demonstrate your expertise.  I also like the Company Buzz function, where you can track “tweets” from Twitter about your company.  The Typepad blog link, which pulls in blog posts from around your network, is another useful idea. You can click on a link and write a comment on a friend’s blog post (a really effective way to network).

The only thing on my wish list is that under Groups, I wish LinkedIn would add an announcements section, so we could separate that out from our discussions. And I really wish the site would let me stay signed in rather than make me resubmit my password repeatedly, sometimes during the same session.  Annoying.

As I close out my 2008 reviews, I thought it was quite fitting to end with Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition, by Guy Kawasaki.  This is because my big beef with 2008–besides the nastiness that we all, present company included, succumbed to–was that it exposed our society as one where people could act as if they would never be held accountable for their actions.  Blagojevich; Madoff; Stevens; Spitzer; Edwards;  auto, insurance and finance execs are the obvious examples that spring to mind.  Sort of like their own version of “Guys Gone Wild!”  But we all have experienced these “not my fault” types much closer to home in our own companies and neighborhoods.

This is why I found myself hoping that one day my son would be an entrepreneur. Now, I wouldn’t wish upon him all the stress that comes with being an entrepreneur. However, I do want him to run his own business at least once in his life, even if it’s mowing lawns for a summer. Why? Because when you start a business from scratch, at least in the startup phase, you’re completely accountable for your actions as well as any success or failure.

This is where Guy’s book, Reality Check, fits in with my end-of-the-year ramblings. It’s a straightforward, blunt handbook outlining what it’s really like to start and run a business. Yes, there are truckloads of fabulous tips and common sense advice that will make you go “Doh!”  However, one theme that struck me was that as an entrepreneur, you will fail and you will make mistakes, but that’s part of learning.  Own your mistakes, learn from them and move forward.  In other words, be accountable.

At first, I thought I would be put off by the book’s style as I’m not a huge fan of books made up of blog posts and columns.  Yet I was completely won over by Kawasaki’s intro, where he explains that he noticed people using his blog to research past postings and he wanted to provide them with his best information in an easy-to-digest manner.  He definitely accomplishes this.

There’s too much in here to review, but I’ll focus on the handful of the sections I earmarked as thought-provoking enough to put down the book and rethink my business plan (for me, that puts Reality Check in the category of a Top Shelf “Must Read” Top Pick).  Although, I admit, there were more than a few sections that I earmarked simply because they made me laugh.

From: The Inside Story of Entrepreneurship

• Startups are freak-catchers.  “To join a startup, to leave a Microsoft, you have to be fundamentally unhappy with the way things are and unrealistic enough to believe the world can change.”  My thoughts?  All I gotta say, is “Bless all the freaks,” every last one of us.
• Everyone has to rebuild.  Shortcuts and problems will happen in your first version of things.  Don’t get discouraged or shortsighted; just buckle down and rebuild it.  This personally hit home at exactly the right time, as we are in the midst of rebuilding parts of www.DowntownWomensClub.com that I thought we were long done with.

From:  The Art of Bootstrapping.
I liked this section because, in reality, most entrepreneurs are going to be starting their businesses with minimal funding.  Some of it is common sense, but some of it isn’t:

1. Focus on cash flow.  “Cash is not only king, it’s queen and prince, too, for a bootstrapper.”
2. Forecast from the bottom up.  Start with what you can realistically output, rather than on what the potential size of the market could be.
3. Ship, then test.  In other words, this is not the time to be a perfectionist.
4. Forget the “proven” team.  Someone with 10 years at a large company might not be relevant in a startup.
5. Start as a service business.  Start providing services before you launch a product to the marketplace.
6. Focus on function, not form. “All the chair has to do is hold your butt.  It doesn’t have to look as though it belongs in the Museum of Modern Art.  Design great stuff, but buy cheap stuff.”
7. Understaff.
8. Go direct.  Cut out middlemen when you can.
9. Position against the leader.  Don’t try to explain your story from scratch if you can position against the leader. I must have recited this to myself one hundred times before we finally came up with the new tagline we’re launching in January.

Other intriguing sections:

How I Built a Web 2.0, User-Generated-Content, Citizen-Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site for $12,107.09.  Not only is this a good barometer for what you should be spending to create a social media site, but also it’s a great checklist for what you should be doing and should be prepared for in a launch.

How to Kick Silicon Valley’s Butt. This interested the old commercial real estate professional in me.  Kawasaki attempts to answer the question, “How can you create another Silicon Valley?” One thing that caught my eye was his statement that the governments trying to do this should not focus on “creating jobs,” because that perverts the goals of a startup (e.g, see above about understaffing). This is directly opposed to my own state’s focus on creating programs catering to companies that will “create jobs.”

Tips from Woz (Steve Wozniak).  I confess that I have to thank Kathy Griffith for getting me intrigued with the Woz.  But Kawasaki includes a section of outtakes from a book about Woz called “iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon–How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It.”  The summation of his advice on being a great engineer is typical of the book (e.g., not what one would expect):

1. Don’t waver.
2. See things in gray scale.
3. Work alone.
4. Trust your instincts.

Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption.  This was another great checklist where I found myself doing my best Homer Simpson impression and saying “Doh!” more times than I’d like to admit.

From The Art of Selling:  Sell, don’t enable buying.  “If you don’t have an iPod-like product, you need face-to-face, personalized, and intense contact.”

The Zen of Presentations.  A good section to read before you give your next PowerPoint presentation.

How to Kick Butt on a Panel.  Everyone focuses on keynote speeches, but here are tips about sitting on a panel, especially why you should never say, “I agree with the previous panelist.”  He also includes a section on how to be a good moderator.

The Art of Customer Service.  This is where accountability really comes into play. Kawasaki says that two concepts are the core of great customer service: welcoming criticism and fostering discourse.  This section covers how to do both of those things.

The Art of Sucking Down.  Sometimes it’s people we may view as beneath us who hold all the cards.

Of all the chapters in the book, however, the one that I love (maybe because it has particular relevance at this time of my life) is his excerpt from Robert Sutton’s “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.”  Kawasaki gives us a couple of lists in this section. The first is “How to identify if someone is an a*shole.” Somehow having a list of factors to check off depersonalizes it so that you can realize that no, it’s not you, it’s that the other person is really just an a*shole.

So next time someone just strikes you as being a bit of a jerk, you can see if he or she exhibits any of the following everyday as*hole actions.

1. Personal insults
2. Invading one’s personal territory
3. Uninvited personal contact
4. Threats and intimidations, both verbal and nonverbal
5. Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems.
6. Withering e-mail flames
7. Status slaps intended to humiliate his or her victims
8. Public shaming or status degradation rituals
9. Rude interruptions
10. Two-faced attacks
11. Dirty looks
12. Treating people as if they were invisible.

Reviewer sidenote:  One thing I noticed is that all of these “actions” are very typical of individuals suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. For more about that check out:

• Why Is It Always About You? : The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism
• The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family

The No As*holes chapter has two other good lists: How to avoid being an as*hole ; and how to deal with them.  He also recommends Googling people’s names and the word “as*hole”.  I tried this (as Kawasaki reports doing in the book) and was pleased to note that there were only 27 results.  Ironically, the majority of these were due to the fact that I was mentioned in an article on the same page as Robert Sutton and his “No As*hole” book.  As for the other sites, fortunately, the word was used but not in reference to me!

I have to say that section was, for me, the highlight of the book. I could have ended there, but I’m glad I didn’t.  The last section on social entrepreneurship and making change by doing good are well worth the read.

The Top Shelf Bottom Line:  This is the ultimate compendium of everything you need to know to start a business and succeed (or fail forward).  A must-read if you are thinking of or in the midst of starting up a business.

I also wanted to add in this one afterthought.  People may dismiss Kawasaki as a “social media evangelist.”  But I note that he wrote this print book as the best way to catalog his online ideas.  That’s a good indication of someone who understands how people use the web, as well as its shortcomings.