The new book, The Sassy Ladies Toolkit for Start-up Businesses, is must-read for women entrepreneurs across the country interested in starting a business and doing it the right way. This fun, informative and inspirational book takes the reader on a journey from dreaming about a business to making it a profitable reality. The book is written in a conversational, down-to-earth style making the reader feel as if The Sassy Ladies are sitting with you, coaching and encouraging you every step of the way.

While the book is only 120 pages, it is jam-packed with resources and links to websites, books and tools to support you in your entrepreneurial endeavor. The Sassy Ladies have an online club that ties in with the book and provides more in-depth learning in six key areas. These include marketing, sales and revenue, office environment, strategic planning, networking, time management, financial management and self development.

Who are the Sassy Ladies? Michelle Girasole,Wendy Hanson and Miriam Perry are wonderfully diverse and talented women who have been there and done that when it comes to small business. Girasole’s technical expertise is sprinkled throughout the chapters and is most helpful in Chapter 4, Working from Home, in a section called Technology to the Rescue. Hanson is an experienced business coach who takes complex business concepts like developing a business plan and pricing your products and breaks it down into bite-size pieces for the reader. Perry is a writer and communications specialist who offers her insights into how to market your product or service effectively to the world. This talented trio will empower you to get in touch with your sassy side and inspire you to build the business of your dreams.

The biggest surprise in reading the book was how helpful it was for me, an entrepreneur with 15 years of experience in small business. While the concepts of starting with the end vision in mind, profitability, sustainability and marketing were familiar to me, the easy-to-read, practical approach and end-of-the-chapter exercises provided new ideas for taking my existing business to the next level.

If you are thinking about starting a business or want to take your current one to the next level, The Sassy Ladies Toolkit for Start-up Businesses is a great investment and must read.

Kathleen Burns Kingsbury is a national speaker, international author and money coach in a unique position to empower business women to “talk to their money” and attain financial freedom. She is also the co-director of the Boston chapter of the Downtown Women’s Club.

I found the book written exactly for my level (and a little below). This means that I could skim the sections on social networks, blogs, e-mail and article marketing, and other topics that fall within my expertise. That’s not to say that I didn’t make a note here or there about things I could be doing better.

However, for the uninitiated, Perlman provides some general, easy-to-follow guidance on those topics. The bulk of the book is about explaining organic search, i.e. how to make sure people find your website, even if they don’t know they are looking for it when they sit down to browse Google. While reading this book (which took less than a Boston-NYC Acela ride), I simultaneously did a website audit and will be making some changes based on what I learned. Here are some of the parts that caught my attention:

Choosing a website designer
Someone who can create a website and make it look attractive does not always have expertise to make a site search-engine-friendly. Says Perlman, “The litmus test question is: ‘How important is it to create metatags for my website?’ If the designer doesn’t say ‘very important,’ then I’d consider finding another web designer.”

The challenge with many websites is that the web designer built the site for you, his customer. He or she didn’t take into account the importance of meeting the needs of your customers. For this reason, some sites look attractive but lack the important content your users are seeking. Others convey the perfect message, but that message is lost within too many images or pictures that dominate the site. Hmmm. I think I recall discussing this in an earlier review where we noted that some of our favorite sites are not visually well-designed (i.e. Craigslist and Google.com).

Title tags and metatags
I knew these were important, but I’d put title tags at the bottom of my to-do list. Nevertheless, this is one of the best sections of the book because Perlman really explains their importance. In fact, I stopped reading and typed out title tags for all of my website pages that include key words and descriptions. What I like most about eBoot Camp is that Perlman understands that his audience is not technical. This means he doesn’t talk down to you and actually includes a draft e-mail you could send to your web designer about the title tags you want to include.

Things to think about when designing your home page
While he references one of my all-time-favorite books, Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, Perlman gives a few good guidelines:

• Colors: White background with black text and no more than three primary colors.
• Main navigation bar: Five to eight links, and the links should be descriptive enough so users will know exactly where they are going (I learned this the hard way in an early version of the Downtown Women’s Club website, where my cutsy titles were too confusing.)
• Most important content: Above the fold. This means the “Buy now” button.

Top Shelf Bottom Line. If you have a website, you should do a yearly audit for search engine effectiveness. Even if you hire someone to do this for you, I recommend reading this book first so you can understand and evaluate the SEO services you are getting. And for the do-it-yourself types, it’s a good, easy-to-understand primer.

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.

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?

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.