“Don’t read science
fiction books. It’ll look bad if you die in bed with one
of them on the nightstand. Always read stuff that will look
good if you die in the middle of it.”
P. J. O’Rourke.
Bookshelf
Like most people’s, our
bookshelf is full of business books we have collected over the
years.
Some of them we find ourselves referring to again and
again, which is why we have listed them here. By clicking on
the covers you can connect to
Amazon.com
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| Title: |
The End Of Marketing As We Know It |
| Author: |
Sergio Zyman |
| Published: |
1999 |
| Comments: |
The kind of marketing that has to end, says Zyman, is the “black box” kind that’s all about activity and not about results. His philosophy is very simple – the purpose of marketing is to sell stuff. That means analysing the data, understanding the customer, formulating a strategy and constantly testing and measuring the results. |
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| Title: |
Re-imagine! |
| Author: |
Tom Peters |
| Published: |
2003 |
| Comments: |
The older Tom Peters gets, the more outrageous he tries to be. You might say many of the ideas in Re-imagine are not new (didn't Gary Hamel get there first?), but - to quote that great movie "The Castle" - it's what he does with them. We find ourselves referring often to his chapter on the white collar revolution and the need for professional services firm thinking. |
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| Title: |
Emergence: the connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software |
| Author: |
Steven Johnson |
| Published: |
2001 |
| Comments: |
If you think the world might be at the same time simpler and more complicated than we think, then this is the book for you. It explores the idea (picked up in a later book "Why Most Things Fail" by economist Paul Ormerod) that the best systems are not centrally planned. They work because individual agents following a few simple rules create patterns. The patterns cannot be predicted, but nor are they random. |
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| Title: |
Purple Cow |
| Author: |
Seth Godin |
| Published: |
2003 |
| Comments: |
Seth Godin is leading the charge in a new way of thinking about how to connect with customers and "Permission Marketing" is his earlier book. In Purple Cow he talks about being noticed by being remarkable. Kind of a next generation "Good to Great", but a useful concept. |
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| Title: |
Lovemarks |
| Author: |
Kevin Roberts |
| Published: |
2004 |
| Comments: |
When Lovemarks came out, it was fascinating the negative response it generated... mostly from people who had not even read it. We find the concept of Lovemarks relevant and in tune with a "web 2.0" world. Love the story about the crayon formerly known as indian red. |
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