Courtesy of Technotraps
Beleaguered employees can now leverage on a “cheat code” to streamline work and increase their productivity – without getting into trouble.
With the subtitle “Breaking Stupid Rules For Smart Results”, Hacking Work by Bill Jensen and Josh Klein encourages workers of all stripes to utilise “benevolent” hacking to get their jobs done more effectively and efficiently.
Debunking conventional wisdom that human beings are rational and logical beings, Predictably Irrational by behavioural economist Dan Ariely provides an entertaining and enlightening read in the market-tested tradition of authors like Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (Freakonomics series), Malcolm Gladwell, and Ori and Ron Brafman (Sway). Using the results of empirical research conducted at MIT and other university campuses, Ariely explains why we do the things we do despite their contrary effects on our health, wealth and long-term success.
Written in a light-hearted, jargon-free prose, Predictably Irrational takes us through several themes. They include the fallacy of supply and demand (ie why pricing can be so arbitrary in certain markets), the overwhelming power of FREE, the danger of turning social norms into market norms (or why you shouldn’t pay your mother-in-law for cooking a delicious family dinner), the effects of expectations (what you visualise is what you get), and two chapters on honesty and dishonesty in humans, among others.
Michael Jordan: a proponent of Extreme Focus (source of image)
How does one truly achieve one’s dreams? What are the secrets behind ultra-successful folks who make a “dent in the Universe”?
The answer according to NBA Orlando Magic’s Senior Vice President Pat Williams and author Jim Denney is “Extreme Focus”.
Image from Mashable.com
Everybody knows Steve Jobs.
Icon, innovator, brilliant entrepreneur and creator of “insanely great” products, Jobs was the founder and CEO of Apple.
Creator of legendary products like the Macintosh computer, iPod, iTunes Store, iPhone and iPad, Jobs founded the Disney beating Pixar Animations (which was later sold to the behemoth), and opened the much lauded Apple Store.
“Undercover Economist” Tim Harford’s latest book Adapt – Why Success Always Starts with Failure blends economics, psychology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology to explain why trial and error is preferred over grand strategic plans. Touted as “Britain’s Malcolm Gladwell”, Harford’s central thesis is that countries, companies and individuals should embrace an evolutionary and empirical approach in determining what works and what doesn’t.
Using analogies from evolution such as variation, selection and adaptation, Adapt uses far flung examples ranging from the Iraq War, Global Warming, 2007’s Financial Meltdown, to 3rd World Development efforts to prove its point. Some of its stories – such as the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg – date all the way back to the middle ages. Others, such as the almost accidental success of Google (which purportedly has no corporate strategy) are more recent.
Wonder why you are perpetually tethered to your smartphone, refusing to put it down even when your kids are yelling at you?
Or started eating that tub of delicious Haagen Dazs ice cream, and couldn’t stop until it’s all gone.
Perhaps you’ve got a 10 year old boy who nagged you incessantly about getting him that latest Play Station Portable (PSP) which all his friends in school have.
“In a world of extreme clutter you need more than differentiation. You need RADICAL differentiation. The new rule: When everyone zigs, zag.”
That, in a nutshell, is what Zag: The #1 Strategy of High Performance Brands is all about.
How do companies like 3M, Apple, Google, Xerox, Siemens and Grameen Bank continually generate game changing products and services?
What can large organisations do to retain talent while building innovative cultures?
The answer? Corporate Entrepreurship, which is also the title of a book by Thunderbird School of Global Management’s Robert D Hisrich and Claudine Kearney.
With the subtitle “A Masterclass in Modern Marketing Ideas”, British marketing consultant Kevin Duncan’s Marketing Greatest Hits provides quick summaries of what he considers seminal or interesting titles and their key ideas in marketing. Touted as a “definitive compendium of everything you need to know from the best minds in modern marketing”, the book attempts to encapsulate key lessons from the discipline’s thought leaders.
Neatly organised into six chapters, Duncan’s book systematically dives into the essence of 40 books covering major themes, principles and philosophies, branding, consumer behaviours, creativity and personal organisation. Each section provides a book summary that is further crystallised into an elevator pitch of sorts called a one-sentence summary – the core idea behind a book. Examples of these include the following:
Have you used metaphors for your marketing efforts? What were the outcomes of your attempts?
An integral part of your everyday life, Analogies and Metaphors are popular storytelling methods which simplify complex ideas and imbue them with meaning. They help to make your advertisements, articles, and brand stories come alive.