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Like anyone that has a marketing or advertising component to their job, finding the right way to break through the clutter and make your message memorable is one of the toughest goals to achieve. I picked up Powerlines by Steve Cone with the hope that it might offer some formula or tips on how to create great powerlines for use in my marketing/advertising copy.

To be clear, Cone defines Powerlines as “a compelling story about an event, person, place, product, or a part of human nature that has lasting impact. Sometimes these lines are just a few words, sometimes several sentences, and once in a great while, must one word.” This definition in itself is not very powerline-ish but it is a definition … just one that I couldn’t remember off the top of my head and had to go look up just now. He also says powerlines must “ring true” and they should not overreach.

I like books that have lots of great examples and then actions you can take immediately to start enacting the change the book is advocating. Powerlines has lots of great examples but I didn’t find the tips came early enough in the book. Either I’m not seeing them or they just aren’t there. He had tidbits here and there but he didn’t dedicate as much text to steps you can take to improve the powerlines you create. Read More

Part of my current responsibilities at work – one that I particularly enjoy – is managing the student newspaper. I’m not the editor, my job is to hire and train the students who work on it, make sure the files get to the printer, ensure everyone gets paid and other administrative duties.

One of the biggest challenges we face at the newspaper is recruiting and retaining volunteer writers. I’ve been studying reward systems from a consumer perspective (e.g. how to use programs like Air Miles to encourage customer behaviour) for a few years but haven’t thought of a specific strategy for employees.

The idea popped into my head this past summer and I sought out a book I could learn from. that’s where Steve Kerr’s Reward Systems: Does Yours Measure Up? came into play.

Steve Kerr has been the Chief Learning Officer and managing director at Goldman Sachs and before that spent time as GE’s CLO heading up their prestigious Crotonville corporate university. Read More

I’ve been wanting to read this particular book for a really long time. I picked it up and it sat on my shelf for well over six months before I made my way though my list of other books I had committed to myself to read.

I’m a big fan of Starbucks and the way they make you feel when you buy product there. In fact I like the way they make you feel even when you don’t buy product there.

I began reading The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary in the bookstore and couldn’t put it down. In fact I made it through the rather lengthy introduction and half of chapter one before I put it under my arm and headed for the cash register.

Author Joseph A. Michelli details Starbuck’s five principles of being they use to separate themselves from the pack. They are:

1. Make it your own
2. Everything Matters
3. Surprise and Delight
4. Embrace Resistance
5. Leave Your Mark Read More

My best friend (Miles) and his wife (Ruchika, also an awesome friend) hooked me up with a copy of Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace for my birthday.

Miles and I had talked about this company for a few years. He had heard about them and the way they do business, discussed the radical way things are accomplished there so it was nice to read about it in a book written by Ricard Semler, the CEO of the company.

Semler took over Semco from his father when he was 20 years old. Based in Brazil, Semco had prospered under the government’s five year plans that included building up Brazil’s shipping business. Being a supplier of marine parts the company had done very well.

However as the economy sagged and Semler Sr. handed over the reigns to his son, Ricardo went about transforming Semco into a democratically run manufacturing business where workers set their own hours and salary and the office space is redesigned as after as the seasons change (sometimes even more).

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I was given The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything last year by the group leader of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Signature Workshop I attended last year. Like many reviewers on the Internet I was worried that Covey Jr. wouldn’t be able to add much to the conversation that his father had started and rather he was just making use of the family name.

My suspicions were way off base. Covey Jr. does an excellent job of discussing “the one thing that changes everything.” He provides excellent examples of how building trust – both personally and within an organization – leads to better results, faster paths to excellence and greater efficiency.

Covey Jr. presents a 360 degree action plan for building trust, first with yourself right through your organization. He doesn’t sugar coat the process pretending that’s as easy as flipping a switch but he does provide proof of concept that it can be done.

Just as his father has seven steps to become highly effective, ‘lil Covey presents four broad subject headings that are then broken down into smaller steps beginning with: Read More

In conversations with my boss at work she’s not convinced you need to hand hold Gen Yers as much as Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y might be suggesting. She says that at some point Gen Yers just need to either figure it out on their own or have some freaking initiative.

I agree with her and I think what this book is trying to accomplish is give you the tools when dealing with a Gen Y workforce. Some Gen Yers are really motivated and won’t need nearly the amount of heavy usage of the tips in this book that others well. But some will need A LOT of you using the suggestions from this book with them.

What I’ve found since implementing some of the strategies is I’m getting better accountability from my Gen Y direct reports. At just way over half way through this book I can safely say I’m satisfied with it over all. Read More

This is the longest chapter in Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y so far, so I’ll be splitting chapter seven into three parts with this being part one.

Chapter seven focuses on helping Gen Yers learn to how to manage themselves at work. Bruce Tulgan says lots of Gen Yers come into the job having an advanced set of skills having developed their specialties at a young age. He cautions today’s managers who insist they didn’t have their hands held when it came to doing things like showing up on time, dressing appropriately or refraining from cussing on the job. Managers will have to do what they can to help Gen Yers fill in these gaps of maturity they also bring along.

Tulgan says managers need to teach them to care about the basics, teach them to be more aware of those gaps in their repertoires. and to fill those gaps one at a time. Read More

I read a lot of Seth Godin on the Internet, mostly at his blog, but I’ve never bought one of his books. For my birthday and Christmas I asked for two of them:

1. All Marketers Are Liars
2. Meatball Sundae

Godin wrote on his blog a while back that all the information in his books are also available for free on his blog, all you have to do is sift through the posts to find it. While that is true, it’s like saying all the ingredients to make mushroom risotto are available in the grocery store and all I have to do is buy them and prepare it. Going to a restaurant is quicker and easier so for the same reason, I asked for these two books.

I only received All Marketers are Liars and I haven’t picked up Meatball Sundae yet but I think a combination of watching Seth on the TED Web site, reading numerous reviews and keeping up with his blog, reading the book wouldn’t add much value to what I’ve already discovered. All Marketers Are Liars is an older book and wasn’t discussed on his site as much as his newer titles so giving it a read seemed like a good investment. In all I read it over two weekends and his style of writing is very conversational which I enjoy. Read More

A few weekends ago I picked The Age of Speed off my bookshelf. I usually read one book at home, one on audio book in the car and then one at the office. I had just finished reading Here Comes Everybody and while I have been thinking of reading The Starbucks Experience, this one had been sitting on my shelf for a while.

Author Vince Poscente’s overall theme is there are four type of businesses today, Zeppelins, Balloons, Bottle Rockets and Jets, but only one of them will lead to continued success.

Jets are the companies that recognize speed is a natural phenomenon of today’s society, grasp hold of it and align their business with characteristics of the speed economy will be the only ones who realize true growth and success. Read More