Review RAP

"Smart retirement" is not an oxymoron

2011-08-21T16:46:00.000-04:00

Author Dan Solin explains how to get the most for your money for retirement.

The Smartest Retirement Book You'll Ever Read. Daniel R. Solin. Penguin Group. 272 pages.

by Richard Pachter

I currently have no plans to retire. As long as I still have most of my marbles, I'll just keep working, though I may eventually be forced to stop. This is highly unlikely (yeah right), but to be prudent I ought to prepare for the possibility that my earning days could end. I'll need to look closely at what remains of my 401(k) and other savings so that the funds will last at least as long as I do. Reading this book is smart.

Dan Solin's previous entries in this series, The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read and The Smartest 401(k) Book You'll Ever Read, were clever, breezy guides to navigating through the financial morass without getting hurt. Really, the info contained therein would undoubtedly be sufficient for anyone seeking to manage their finances through post-employment life. Still, the publishing business being what it is, Solin was undoubtedly encouraged to continue. And that's fine. This new book gets into the basics of investment, stocks and bonds in context with the present economic scene, so reading the earlier volumes doesn't mean that you won't get anything out of this one.

BEYOND SAVING

In fact, in addition to advice on retirement accounts, Solin casts his wise eye and sharp pen on other important subjects like reverse mortgages, age of social security distribution, prenuptial agreements for seniors, options and implications of delaying retirement, and the locally ubiquitous phenomenon of "senior seminars'' involving a ``free'' meal at a ritzy restaurant accompanied by a steaming side dish of potentially costly advice.

The best thing that Solin brings to the party is his shrewd and skeptical approach to the art and science of investing. Have an account with a brokerage? Close it, he instructs. Those guys are just trying to sell you stuff that you may or may not need in order to generate fees for themselves, not returns for you. And be sure to have a will that reflects your current wishes so your heirs, not the state, get whatever is left of your estate. You may not agree with everything Solin writes (especially if you're a professional whose livelihood depends on fees), but there's no question that his focus is on what's best for individuals, not institutions.

USEFUL TOOLS

Throughout, Solin writes clearly with style and humor but stays on topic and doesn't bloviate or pontificate excessively. He includes a number of charts and other tools to figure out what to do with your money so it grows into the amount you will need to live on for the rest of your days. He also includes a pretty clever bibliography that painlessly presents his sources and offers options for further reading and investigation.

The only thing about this booked that bugged me was the brevity of each chapter -- some about a page and a half. Seemed to me that in most cases, several could have been neatly combined. This may seem like nitpicking, but the narrative would have flowed a bit better and maybe a couple of trees could have been spared in the process.

Originally published 8/24/09 in The Miami Herald

Two books outline preparation for retirement

2011-08-21T16:39:00.001-04:00

Two authors examine the preparations that must be made before one retires. Or not.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Retire? For some it's not a viable option. For others, it's a possibility, but their financial well-being is the prime determinant of the timing. Two new books examine retirement from the perspective of the critical issue of investing self-directed retirement funds and the option of pursuing a different path that would offer an alternative to total withdrawal from the workforce.

The Smartest 401(K) Book You'll Ever Read. Daniel Solin. Perigee. 240 pages.

For poor slobs like me, 401(k) and 403(b) plans need to work very hard. Though a friend recently joked that she thinks that she can probably afford to retire in the year 2525, there's a chance that circumstances may prove otherwise. Another buddy told me that he has three retirement funds sitting with three ex-employers. Nice. Both of these comedians ought to pick up this useful new book by Daniel Solin, pronto!

I reviewed his previous tome, The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read: The Simple, Stress-Free Way to Reach Your Investment Goals when it came out about a year and a half ago, and this one is a worthy successor. Instead of going on to other subjects or bigger things, Solin focuses on retirement savings plans. It's a fertile topic and his advice seems sensible enough, though it's touted on the jacket as being ''controversial'' and ''challenge(ing) some basic assumptions.'' Well, maybe I'm missing something, but Solin's admonitions to keep fees and expenses low, use index funds and diversify seem pretty solid.

Solin also isn't afraid to be specific, which is very nice, too, so look for some very sharp criticism of several funds (including TIAA-CREF) and investment instruments such as annuities. He provides a few model portfolios, rails against professional investment advisors and politicians, and suggests ways to augment retirement plans with additional investments. This book also provides several work sheets and questionnaires, making matters a bit easier, so one's excuses for inaction becomes a bit weaker.

If you're considering reading this book, I'd suggest doing so quickly, as things change, but much of what Solin writes is very solid and useful. If you haven't taken a recent look at what your own retirement investments are doing and -- perhaps even more important-- how they are put together, reading Solin's smart little book might provide the impetus for action.

Retire Retirement: Career Strategies for the Boomer Generation. Tamara Erickson. Harvard Business Press. 192 pages.

Erickson's premise is similar to my friend's who plans to work forever; those reaching the traditional age of retirement need necessarily not do so. The author proposes ways to adjust one's compensation and expenses to accommodate this. She also offers insights into strategies and options, such as location, transportation and lifestyle choices. Sure, they're all related (if not defined) by economic factors, but Erickson puts them all into a larger context, which is very useful, too.

Though primarily aimed at boomers, I suspect that much of Erickson's advice can be adapted to others, too, as the ongoing changes in the economy and our culture continue to alter the nature of work and the relationship between employers and employees.

Originally published 6/23/08 in The Miami Herald

Three books offer fundamentals of investing

2011-08-21T16:14:00.004-04:00

Three books on the fundamentals of investing offer advice and wisdom from those experienced in the art of finance.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Aside from professional traders, speculators and hobbyists, I think most people invest only when they have to. But for many of us with disappearing or nonexistent pensions, or ''self-directed'' retirement accounts, it has been necessary to take a more active role in saving and allocating funds to either supplement our current earnings or help us get through the days when we will be unable (or unwilling) to work.

Here are three books that offer general investment advice.

The Best Investment Advice I Ever Received: Priceless Wisdom from Warren Buffett, Jim Cramer, Suze Orman, Steve Forbes and Dozens of Other Top Financial Experts. Liz Claman. Warner Books. 240 pages.

I must admit that I rarely watch CNBC, which the late Neil Rogers called ''The Gambling Channel.'' That wacky, noisy, wildly gesticulating Cramer fellow seems to be on the tube most times I cruise by, but without Jerry, George or Elaine, he's just not that entertaining. Author Liz Claman is a news anchor on that channel, but since I don't recall seeing her there, it's probably easier to judge this book on its content rather than on anything else.

That said, it's pretty good. The contributors are either corporate executives or financial experts and managers. She might have had a bigger seller if she'd solicited input from Dancing with the Stars-type celebrities, but she opted instead to provide something of substance, which is commendable. Oh, she's got a few ringers in here, like oddly coiffed TV host Donald Trump and the aforementioned Crazy Cramer, but she also has AutoNation's Mike Jackson, Warren Buffett, Suze Orman, John C. Bogle, Alexandra Lebenthal and others who know what the heck they're talking about. You may not instantly become a smarter investor after reading this book, but you will certainly benefit from the bits and pieces of experience and knowledge offered in the aggregate.

The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read: The Simple, Stress-Free Way to Reach Your Investment Goals. Daniel R. Solin. Penguin. 179 pages.

I really like Andrew Tobias' book of a similar title, The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need, which takes a sober and comprehensive approach to the subject. Tobias updates it regularly, too, so it's usually as timely as it is timeless. You can also go to his very useful website: www.andrewtobiascom/ -- which is another way to share his wealth of information.

Solin's book is more of a how-to investing book, covering stocks and bonds and such. His nuts and bolts approach to the subject is quite good, especially for those of us who have to manage our own 401(k) plans, savings and investments but have little enthusiasm and inborn abilities to do so. It's tightly written, always on-point and not weighed down with anecdotes and aphorisms, and could be just the instruction book that you were looking for, but never received with that thick pension package from your company's HR department.

The Little Book of Value Investing. Christopher H. Browne. Wiley, John & Son. 180 pages.

I quite liked Browne's The Little Book that Beats the Market, and this one is a worthy sequel, as he provides more information and support for his notion that investing in good, profitable companies can be more lucrative than going for the short money and the quick scores.

There's a bit more fluff here, but Browne is an engaging and self-effacing writer, so it's not too painful and never boring. If you read his previous little book, this one is a worthy and useful companion.

Originally published 11/27/06 in The Miami Herald

Guest Review: Bob Lefsetz on Derek Sivers' "Anything You Want"

2011-07-05T20:49:00.002-04:00

The great Bob Lefsetz graciously alowed us to repost his review. For more Lefsetz, please visit his blog, here. To subscribe to the Lefsetz Letter by e-mail, click here.

Anything You Want. Derek Sivers. Domino Project. 88 pages.

This book is so good, so chock full of nuggets, that I had to stop reading it and e-mail you, even though Derek says it will only take an hour to finish.

Derek is you. An outsider. Who’s not trying to be an insider, just looking to find a way to make his life work.

In case you don’t know, Derek started CD Baby. And sold it ten years later for $22 million.

Minus startup costs…

THERE WERE NO STARTUP COSTS! CD BABY WAS STARTED BY ACCIDENT! IT WAS PROFITABLE FROM DAY ONE!

You’re gonna like this book because it’s deals with something you’re familiar with, the music business. It’s not like buying a business book written by a corporate kingpin or an entrepreneur with a personality brighter than a 100-watt bulb who could sell ice to Inuits. This is a musician, telling his story.

And his story is so different from the one being told by everybody else.

First and foremost, he made money.

And he did it by himself. His way.

Let’s start with a few lessons…

1. "Start Now. No funding needed

Watch out when anyone (including you) says he wants to do something big, but can’t until he raises money.

It usually means the person is more in love with the idea of being big big big than with actually doing something useful. For an idea to get big big big, it has to be useful. And being useful doesn’t need funding."

In other words, START TODAY! NO WAITING NECESSARY!

If you’ve got a good idea.

Every day I get e-mail from people waiting to start, getting their ducks in order, bitching that they can’t get funded. All you’ve got to do is begin.

2. "Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.

We all have lots of ideas, creations, and projects. When you present one to the world, and it’s not a hit, don’t keep pushing it as-is. Instead get back to improving and inventing."

If no one reacts to your music, write new tunes. If you still don’t get traction, change styles.

People hate to hear this. BUT WHAT ABOUT MY INVESTMENT!

You never forget what you’ve learned. Yes, read "What Color Is Your Parachute?", you’re developing transferable skills. Don’t be married to failure. This doesn’t only apply to the music business. If you can’t make it as a lawyer or a doctor…change course! Doesn’t matter if someone else is successful, they’re not you.

3. "A business plan should never take more than a few hours of work. Hopefully no more than a few minutes. The best plans start simple. A quick glance and common sense should tell you if the numbers will work. The rest are details."

You can do the business plan in your head. It should be just that simple. If you’re paying an MBA to write it, you’re just justifying the price of his education. As for impressing investors, Derek didn’t take any money. He built upon his success. If you’ve got no success, stop.

4. "Any time you think you know what your new business will be doing, remember this quote from Steve Blank: No plan survives first contact with customers."

Voila!

You’ve got no idea what’s gonna happen until you open your store, until the audience hears the first note. Turns out people like a different track than you do. Turns out that little thing you do that embarrasses you audiences love. Maybe your instrumental passage is the highlight of the show. Or vice versa, maybe it’s when you sing a cappella. You won’t know until you try.

Last night Jim e-mailed me to ask if I too wouldn’t take the $1.3 million paid to Nathan Hubbard. If they offered me that gig.

They’re never gonna offer me that gig. I’m not the right person. I don’t play well with others. You’ve got to kiss a lot of ass to succeed in the corporation. You’ve got to hold your tongue when the President acts like an idiot. It’s about being a member of the team, and you’re not the coach, you’re not even the star player.

I don’t work that way. I’m in an endless pursuit of the truth. I can’t suffer incompetency. Even worse, I can’t handle when people don’t work. I’m paying you, PAY ATTENTION!

But if you run your own business…

I know Derek Sivers. He’s not like the people at Live Nation. He confided personal information to me right off the bat, unafraid I would use it against him, that I would hurt his career by revealing it to his superiors. When you run your own operation, you can be free!

And Derek is nice. But he’s not Steve Jobs. He’s not so charismatic that you’d follow him anywhere, he’s not a super-salesman. He’s a musician who thinks. Who is willing to get his hands dirty. Who will try something new and make mistakes. We all hate making mistakes, but when we own the company we’re not worried about retribution, we’re not worried about losing our jobs. And we learn from our mistakes.

5. "Five years after I started CD Baby, when it was a big success, the media said I had revolutionized the music business.

But ‘revolution’ is a term that people use only when you’re successful. Before that, you’re just a quirky person who does things differently."

And there’s no room for the quirky person who does it differently at the corporation. They call that person an artist. Maybe that’s why Derek could be so successful, at his heart he’s an artist, willing to take his own path, not susceptible to corporate reviews and not beholden to the HR department.

AND FINALLY:

6. "Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.

Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself."

That ain’t Wall Street. That ain’t Pandora or LinkedIn.

Do you know how boring it is to work for Goldman Sachs? How unfulfilling? Working with numbers just so you can make enough coin to vacation in a first class way, buy tickets to the shows of people you wish you could be if you could only take a risk?

Life isn’t about money. It’s about personal fulfillment.

But you can’t do it without money. And Derek Sivers acknowledges this.

Just like I could never be Nathan Hubbard, I could never be those people writing business books. Which is why I’ve completely given up on self-help tomes. They’re not me. Yeah, that guy could become rich, BUT ME?

But reading Sivers’s book I feel like I’m listening to a soul brother. It gives me hope.

Read it. It’ll inspire you too.

Anything You Want

2011-07-04T09:12:00.003-04:00

I recently read "Anything You Want" by Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby.

Terrific!

Short but superb entrepreneurial memoir.

Not everything he writes will apply to you, nor will you entirely agree with his approach, but it's an excellent catalyst for thought and — hopefully — action.

Can your business benefit from blogging?

2011-06-25T21:34:00.005-04:00

Web logs provide new ways to attract and interact with customers, according to two books.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Blog is short for Web log. It's an Internet site or sub-site where a person or organization can post usually brief bits of text, along with relevant links to other sites with more text, photos, audio and/or video. There are blogs of all kind: political, cultural, academic, news, sports, hobbies -- you name it. There are also tons of personal blogs for people to inflict their opinions on the world. I may, in fact, be the only opinionated person who doesn't have a blog.

Media companies have tried to capitalize on the phenomenon by either encouraging their own people to participate (The Miami Herald's Cindy Krischer Goodman, Ellie Brecher, Greg Cote, Dave Barry, Steve Rothaus and others have blogs) or by having existing bloggers join them (as Time magazine has done with Andrew Sullivan and former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox).

We'll look at books covering the phenomenon of media blogs in the future, but for now, here are two books that discuss ways that businesses can benefit from blogging.

Blogwild! Andy Wibbels. Portfolio. 175 pages.

Andy Wibbels' book is a basic, ground-level primer on blogging. He patiently explains the jargon and landscape of the subject, and the value of embarking upon this thing as a way to build a business. He contends that blogging allows a company to have an informal yet personal relationship with customers.

That's the interesting paradox of the Internet: that all the technology and equipment permit and facilitate human contact. It's an amazing and seductive thing. Actual conversations and discussions between and among companies, customers, vendors and other stakeholders can unfold as a result of a blog. The consequence is that information can be conveyed, new products introduced, customer feedback received and powerful connections created.

Though the bulk of his book is basic and rudimentary, Wibbels has good insights and useful experiences, and is a pleasant and facile writer. He has his biases and idiosyncrasies, but if you are essentially clueless about blogs and how blogging can provide a great way to market yourself and/or your company for minimal cost and effort, this is a very good place to start.

Naked Conversations. Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. Wiley. 251 pages.

After you read Andy Wibbels' little primer, you can move on to Robert Scoble's and Shel Israel's book — or just start with this one instead. They cover the basics, of course, but once they define terms and briefly explain the benefits of blogging, they're off. Their virtual trip around the business blogosphere provides excellent examples and powerful reasons for otherwise faceless and monolithic firms to blog. Even companies with decidedly mixed public personae like Scoble's employer, Microsoft, managed to humanize their image by engaging their customers through blogs, the most popular of which, Channel 9, is run by Scoble, not coincidentally, I'm sure.

Some of the most enlightening and entertaining parts of this book are the examples of how not to blog. Companies that understand how to use the technology in principle but fail to comprehend the expectations of the audience, especially in areas such as honesty and authenticity, inevitably fail. Other bloggers are often quick to uncover and expose deceit and dishonesty -- as the Washington Post recently discovered when it hired a partisan operative and serial plagiarist as a blogger -- so transparency is especially important.

Not every company will benefit from this new medium, but you won't know until you learn more, and reading Scoble and Israel's book is a smart way to find out.

originally published in The Miami Herald in 2006

Is getting an MBA a wise business decision?

2011-03-18T23:17:00.004-04:00

Josh Kaufman explains the reasons he chose not to pursue his MBA, and why he finds the degree totally unnecessary.

By Richard Pachter

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business. Josh Kaufman. Portfolio/Penguin. 416 pages.

No disrespect intended to any person or institution, but is an MBA really necessary? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak never got theirs and many, many other successful business people (and book reviewers) lack that degree and seem none the worse for it.

In his new book, author and consultant Josh Kaufman not only explains the reasons he chose not to pursue his MBA, but does a rather masterful job of eviscerating the program in general and, more specifically, the reasons people seek it and why they needn’t and shouldn’t; in his not-so-humble opinion: Money.

Spending around $250,000 or more, says Kaufman, to get an MBA from a top business school is a lousy investment and completely unnecessary. In fact, the whole biz school deal is essentially a money-making enterprise for educational institutions who profit mightily from teaching mostly ancient, arcane, academic approaches to business that track very little with the actual world and the ways it really operates. Further, says Kaufman, there’s no assurance that the instructors are qualified beyond possessing the skills required to teach (if that) and are usually bereft of the experience and achievements that would confirm the efficacy of their instruction.

Young Kaufman had an undergrad degree and a great job at Procter & Gamble when he was urged to continue his education, which meant going after the inevitable MBA. Instead, he did a quick cost-benefit analysis and decided to read and study on his own. He blogged about his decision and posted a preliminary reading list, which was subsequently picked up by inveterate anti-MBA advocate and über-blogger Seth Godin. From there, it spread. This book continues Kaufman’s mission.

He’s canny enough to know that just reading this book in a linear fashion — one chapter after another — is not necessarily the best way to go, so he encourages browsing, skimming and skipping around. I’d add, in fact, that reading it sequentially is downright boring, so after about 125 pages, I abandoned the effort and skipped around, as suggested. Kaufman isn’t a horrible writer, so that wasn’t the problem. I’d decided that the abrupt shift after a couple of pages on each subject might have been intended to accommodate our increasingly short attention spans, but it wasn’t working for me. True, each little chapter had an online component, but when I’m reading a book I don’t necessarily want to bounce on and off the Net to enlarge the experience or whatever the intended effect was supposed to be. Sometimes, a little concentrated depth is where it’s at.

Still, I think Kaufman is a very smart guy and maybe his collective nuggets would resonate more with other audiences though it didn’t quite make it with me. A few years back, I read and reviewed a thick tome called MBA In A Box and liked that quite a bit. Its more expansive approach worked for me. Still, in all fairness, I think I’ll hold onto Josh Kaufman’s book and keep it handy as a reference, since he really covers just about every aspect of business in an intelligent and no-nonsense way.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Craig Ferguson's autobiography

2011-03-04T21:10:00.003-05:00

American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot. Craig Ferguson. HarperCollins. 268 pages.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Acknowledged that this may seem to be a left-field choice for a biz book review but upon closer examination, maybe not. Two reasons: first, some of the best business advice comes from life itself, not just unambiguously mercantile situations. Second, in many ways, this really is a business book: Craig Fergusons' story is an archetypal tale of the pursuit of the American dream . . . and not just in terms of achieving success by owning a house with a wife and 2.6 kids.

Unlike most memoirs of CEOs and other biz whizzes, Ferguson isn't quite the faultless hero of his own story. In fact, he lopsidedly portrays himself in a pretty poor light, mostly due to his alcoholism, which took hold at an early age. He's also currently on his third marriage, so he made a number of bad choices that may not have been solely attributable to substance abuse. Regardless, his bracing, self-effacing autobiography is replete with examples of product development, innovation, networking, human resources and other business practices.

Ferguson grew up in Scotland and describes, with humor and love, his parents, their community, its poverty and their determination to improve themselves and support their children. His father started as the equivalent of a telegram delivery boy and steadily rose through the ranks to run the Glasgow city post office. Mother became a teacher and rode herd over two daughters and two sons.

When young Craig and his father visited relatives in the U.S., he was smitten with our open society and boundless possibilities, vowing to return. And so he did, but first, he drummed for several punk bands in Scotland, dropped out of school, tried stand-up comedy and became a raging alcoholic. When he married, the young couple moved to America.

In the early eighties, New York's burgeoning punk and alternative art scene captivated Ferguson, and he succumbed to many of its temptations while working construction by day and attempting a stint on the off-off-Broadway stage at night. Unsuccessful and broke, he returned to the U.K., the marriage failed, and he started a new career as a comedian with the unfortunate name, "Bing Hitler.''

Despite his ferocious alcoholism, he enjoyed modest success but fell into debt and depression. In despair, he planned suicide, but was distracted by an offer of a glass of sherry — a very large glass of sherry. After finally committing to rehab and embracing recovery, he moved to Los Angeles on a whim, hooked up with an agent he'd met during the Bing Hitler days and wound up with a recurring role on The Drew Carey Show.

Along the way, Ferguson honed his craft, wrote screenplays (and filmed a couple), became a novelist and replaced Craig Kilborn as host of The Late, Late Show on CBS following David Letterman, whom he may eventually succeed. He became a U.S. citizen last year.

Craig Ferguson was attracted to this country's openness, which can still be a function of race, class and socioeconomic status. But it's far less stratified than where he came from, and it afforded him, as others, the opportunity to begin again, which is probably the real American Dream.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

A guide on conquering what work throws your way

2011-02-26T16:14:00.002-05:00

Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work. Russell Bishop. McGraw-Hill. 256 pages.

By RICHARD PACHTER

Most of us look for shortcuts, "macros" or workarounds as a matter of course. "Adaptive behaviors," as the psychologists call 'em, are natural human processes we develop due to physical, intellectual or emotional limitations. Shortcuts, "tricks," mnemonic devices and the rest are popular because they work.

But the author here really isn't referring to those things. In fact, Bishop's rap is more along the lines of an analysis of systems to facilitate effective collaboration, then proposing ways to implement them. Yes, to some extent you could call them workarounds, but really, his methods involve the judicious use of logic, common sense, psychology and flattery, as needed.

If you're working with another group that seems to ignore your deadlines and issues, for example, instead of confronting them and asking what the !@#$% the problem is, Bishop decrees that you proactively try to turn things around and ask how you and your group are screwing up their lives and not the opposite. Invariably, he writes, you will find plenty of things that you can either eliminate or modify on your end. Having done that, you and your group can then focus on those anomalies and attempt to solve some of the issues affecting their end of things. Other impediments to progress like culture clash, power plays, organizational stratification, rules and more are covered by Bishop. In turn, he provides anecdotes of - and antidotes to - the obstructions.

I especially liked his bits on information overload, an affliction clogging the lines (and the productivity) of many organizations. It can take many forms but the most prevalent seems to be the unrelenting tidal waves of e-mail and carbon-copying so that every possible person will be included in the endless chain. It's not just a matter of openness, although that does occur from time to time. No, it's mostly used to cover your (anatomy) so that the sender can't be accused of not including the receiver in any and all communications - relevant or not - during a project. Bishop offers suggestions for dealing with several types of information overload, including this pandemic CC-itis.

He also adds his voice to the growing chorus opposed to constant multitasking, though the practice of doing many things at once is so ingrained in our culture that it might be a futile cry.

In addition to looking at sundry problems, Bishop also provides a number of interesting cases in which a "workaround" became a new business, such as a distributor of natural foods.

Again, I'm not sure if I'd actually call the solution to almost every problem herein a "workaround," but nomenclature aside, Bishop is an engaging writer whose clean and very readable prose makes for a pleasant reading experience. Because his ideas are interestingly presented and the examples are reasonable and realistic, they go down quite easily.

I'm also uncertain that every difficult situation has a solution; after all, some humans are far less rational than others. And other people just can't get out of their own way.

Originally published in The Miami Herald.

RIP Neil Rogers

2010-12-24T14:49:00.005-05:00

I was a music promotion guy when I first encountered Neil, who was doing middays on WINZ in the early eighties. I’d been turned on to his show by my brother, Steve, who’d lived in Chicago and was a fan of the city’s free-form talker Steve Dahl. He’d send me cassettes of Dahl and his partner Garry Meier. Fun stuff!

When my brother returned to South Florida, he started talking incessantly about Rogers, saying that I really ought to check him out. But I’d heard that the guy had an issues-related show and I had no interest in listening to some radio guy’s interminable pontifications on boring politics and “serious” issues. Besides, I’d rather listen to music. That was my business and my pleasure.

But I finally tuned in just as Neil was making his incredible and unprecedented transition from issues to free-form rants and comedy.

I was hooked.

Here was a very smart, sharp guy who had strong opinions and a powerful personality. But most of all, he was endlessly entertaining and hilarious; cynical and compelling; an older guy from a generation before me; hip but not au courant — in some ways, even old-fashioned. So professional, he could break the rules and make his own. Eat on the air? Sure! Play bits and clips from other shows? Yup. Not take phone calls for weeks on end? Faxes only? He did it.

I followed him from WINZ to Zeta to WIOD to WQAM, listening live when I could or taping the show for later playback. It was as engrossing as (and grosser than) any rococo novella, with melodrama, subtext, plot, characterization and daily themes.

Rogers, who’d started out as a Top-40 jock, was the undisputed King Of Talk Radio in South Florida. Or Queen, if you’d ask him. That he was an out-of-the closet gay man was interesting, perhaps, but just another facet of his on-air persona. His disdain for what he called “mincing queens” might’ve had something to do with his appeal to the mostly young male heterosexual audience that he amazingly carried with him from station to station to day-part to day-part, as they followed him up and down the radio dial — from AM to FM and back — an unprecedented and singular feat in the industry. But mostly, he was a real voice and pulse of South Florida — even when he broadcast from Toronto.

His peak, in my opinion and others, was at WIOD when he was part of a lineup of Mike Renieri, Phil Hendrie, Rick& Suds, Randi Rhodes and others. But radio management, as Neil always said, had to mess with success. It was short but amazing.

Over the years, I called him a few times. Okay, A LOT of times, and because I was in the biz, I sent him a bunch of songs: Dennis Leary, Timbuk3, “Be True To Your Shul” and others. I even collaborated lyrically with his resident geniuses Boca Brian and Guitar Man on a few parodies and bits: “Walk Away Rene,” “Ron and Ron,” “Jeff The Florist” and others.

Naturally, that didn’t stop the “Old Man” (as he was semi-affectionately known) from ripping me on the air after any real or imagined transgressions against him. One had to take it in stride, of course. After all, as Neil constantly said, “It’s only a radio show,” and it was… but so much more.

Our future is shaping the way we live, work

2010-12-19T12:19:00.000-05:00

The future is what we make of it and what it makes of us.
BY RICHARD PACHTER

I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works. Nick Bilton. Crown Business. 304 pages.

Toward the end of Nick Bilton's stimulating and provocative new book, he quotes the visionary science fiction author of Neuromancer, William Gibson: "The future is already here — it is just distributed unevenly,'' and that's about right. Some of us readily embrace new technology and are early adopters. Others move more cautiously, either clinging to whatever older technology they came up with, or treading carefully with the new stuff, though only when forced to do so by bosses and/or clients.

It's pretty clear that we're still in the midst of a metamorphosis that's transforming the ways we live, play and work. Bilton, a talented journalist, is the lead writer for the New York Times "Bits'' blog, a cool position that barely existed a few years ago. He also toiled in the Times' R&D Lab, which sounds like a fun gig, testing different technologies as the Gray Lady tries to stave off its extinction.

Bilton is a good writer and an inquisitive reporter. His book is sort of a quick survey of the changes in technology and its effects on the human interface. His palpable fascination with the digital landscape makes this an enjoyable and breezy read, despite the fact that some of the stops along the way are pretty serious indeed.

But not all of them are. For example, he takes a look at the porn industry, long a leader in finding new ways to extract revenue from customers, and sees how they were hit (just like every other content provider) with unsanctioned downloading and ``free'' content, and how they adjusted.

Unlike the doofusses who run the music business, some of the pornsters were smart and learned how to leverage this behavior rather than try to stifle innovation and sue their own customers. The music biz has yet to figure this out, though musicians, fortunately, seem to have done so and are in the process of finally freeing themselves from the onerous shackles of their evil record company overlords.

In addition to porn, the author looks at the ways online communities form, how we communicate differently as media changes, how our brains change (and actually grow) as we use various technologies, and more. Bilton fearlessly jumps into the middle of the spate of arguments for and against the efficacy of multitasking, concluding that it may not be the best way to work for everyone, but for some (especially the young people who grew up doing it almost 24/7), it's no big deal.

There are also little nuggets studded throughout the text; how you can identify a good surgeon by his affection for video games, Twitter in Iran, how the Web-fueled "me-centered'' business model will soon be the rule and not the exception, and more.

Bilton doesn't know everything, nor does he know where everything is headed, but he boasts an excellent sense of culture, context and technology. We can cry about wanting things to be as they were, but we really need to use our heads and hearts to learn how to deal with what we have, and get ready for what comes next.

Hasn't the future always been like that?

Best Business Books of 2010

2010-12-19T00:01:00.007-05:00

The best biz books I reviewed during 2010

BY RICHARD PACHTER 

As always, I know I read more biz books than any pedantic autodidact oughtta. But even when I was reviewing ‘em on a weekly basis (it’s now monthly-ish), I always had a growing pile of books I wanted to read but just didn’t have the time and space to deal with. So, too, with this list; I can’t read everything, so it’s totally subjective and based on the things I read and reviewed, and not the books I couldn’t and didn’t. And in the spirit of Spinal Tap, my list goes all the way to eleven. It’s one more! Happy New Year.

(Books listed chronologically. Date of publication and link to the original review follows each title.)

Linchpin. Seth Godin. Portfolio. 256 pages. (1/25/10) Review and Interview

Maybe his best book yet, it's also his most personal. Rather than explain marketing, pontificate about the urgent need to be unique, how to spread ideas or when to quit, the über-guru and mega-blogger aims his squarely message at the growing ranks of anxious employees who wonder what lies ahead for them and their jobs. Right-brain activity — creativity — is the answer, he says, but takes it farther by declaring that to ensure job security, one must imbue their work with “art'' and make every effort a “gift'' rather than a chore. Heady stuff!

Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. Daniel H. Pink. Riverhead. 256 pages. (3/8/10) Review

In this ideal companion piece to Godin's tome, Pink examines motivation and finds that the most powerful drives come from within, and are more important to us than the material compensation we're given. His findings seem counterintuitive to those of us who have long accepted Pavlovian doctrine that we work mainly for “rewards'' like salary and other external reinforcements. But harnessing the power of intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic remuneration can be thoroughly satisfying and infinitely more rewarding.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Broadway Books. 320 pages. (3/15/10) Review

The authors of “Made To Stick ” recount episodes from business, government, healthcare, academia and other areas of human interaction where needed change seemed difficult or impossible, yet someone still found ways to get from here to there. Minor moves achieved dramatic results. Now, when business needs to be more nimble than ever, reading this great little book could well be among the most effective small steps one could take.

Leading Outside the Lines: How to Mobilize the Informal Organization, Energize Your Team, and Get Better Results. Jon R. Katzenbach, Zia Khan. Jossey Bass. 240 pages. (4/5/10) Review

In many organizations, informal structures that bypass established hierarchies are the ones that actually get things done. These loose confederations of doers may respect the authority of those above them on the corporate food chain, but they nonetheless developed and implemented ways to circumvent and subvert them. Katzenbach and Khan look at the phenomenon and reveal ways that these ad hoc, informal groups can be reliably mobilized and engaged.

The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business To market Itself. John Jantsch. Portfolio. 233 pages. (5/17/10) Review

Jantsch, the “Duct Tape Marketing” author, identifies humans' inherent need to refer and recommend, and offers some really good nuts-and-bolts suggestions for getting closer to customers and eliciting their kudos. His suggestions apply to a variety of businesses, so whether you proffer products, services — or any combination thereof — there's an abundance of ideas for making the most of and extending each client interaction.

The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity. Richard Florida. HarperCollins. 225 pages. (6/28/10) Review

Florida’s flood of data forms a nice mosaic of snapshots as he explains how the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression morphed the largely rural, agrarian economy and population of the United States into an urban manufacturing powerhouse. As in his earlier book, “The Rise of the Creative Class,” Florida argues effectively (with stats, naturally) that the country's diversity has been its most powerful, important and, ironically, subtlest strength, despite teabaggers' and nouveau-nativists' assertions to the contrary.

I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works. Nick Bilton. Crown Business. 304 pages. (8/31/10) Review

Bilton, a talented journalist and lead writer for the New York Times’ “Bits'' blog, doesn't know everything, nor does he know where everything is headed, but he boasts an excellent sense of culture, context and technology as he smartly surveys the digital landscape. We can cry about wanting things to be as they were, but we really need to use our heads and hearts to learn how to deal with what we have, and get ready for what comes next. Hasn't the future always been like that?

Bury My Heart At Conference Room B: The Unbeatable Impact of Truly Committed Managers. Stan Slap. Portfolio. 272 pages. (9/6/10) Review

Slap's avowed goal is encouraging genuine and visceral connections between managers and employees, tying personal values and goals to the daily routine of working together. His text includes individual testimonials from executives who, after a head-slapping moment or two, linked their moral standards to their business ethics and operational methods to great effect. There's also one from Slap himself, detailing his challenging (to say the least) upbringing, which serves as both an inspiration and an invitation to amateur psychologists to connect it to his ongoing passions and methodologies.

This sprawling, old-fashioned biography of Albert Lasker bring to life an important figure in the world of advertising and politics. Among his accomplishments, according to the authors, is the prominence given to content and copywriting; the consumer-centered ad; modern political advertising; branding commodities (particularly produce); selling previously unmentionable female hygiene products and more, including the “creation'' and popularization of orange juice as a daily morning beverage.

The Art of Choosing. Sheena Iyengar. 12/Grand Central. 329 pages. (10/25/10) Review

If you choose to read Columbia University professor Sheena Iyengar's fascinating book, you may have a slightly better idea of how humans formulate decisions. We like to be in control but often consciously (or not) defer to parents, authorities or even strangers. We often say one thing then do something else. Choices we feel strongly about one day may fade into an afterthought with time. Iyengar's frequent digressions and asides are as cogent and interesting as her main points, and certainly as descriptive; an amazing feat for a sightless person but her vision extends far beyond the physical domain.

Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. Douglas Rushkoff. OR Books. (11/22/10) Review

The author’s mission is to raise awareness of the human implications of our technologies — the context (if you will) of our actions. His Decalogue is a set of rules of conduct. To wit: Do Not Be ‘Always On;’ Live in Person; You May Always Choose ‘None of the Above;’ You Are Never Completely Right; One Size Does Not Fit All; Be Yourself; Do Not Sell Your Friends; Tell the Truth; Share, Don’t Steal; and Program or Be Programmed.” On the surface they seem pretty obvious, but like their Biblical counterparts, they add up to a wise and ethical way to conduct oneself, in this case, mostly within the online and virtual worlds

From small steps come big changes, Heaths say

2010-12-19T00:01:00.001-05:00

Engage the rider and the elephant, and you will get results, say Chip and Dan Heath.

BY RICHARD PACHTER 

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Broadway Books. 320 pages.

Not a big fan of change, per se. Change my underwear, change the channel, change tables, change the scenery (once in a while, for a weekend or so) or hope that my favorite pitcher throws a change-up, but when it comes to big, hairy, fundamental changes, include me out. It's not that I'm averse to change; I'm not, truly. But I've pretty much got it down, so I'm not looking to change wives, kids, favorite sports teams, preferred breakfast (steel-cut oats, please) or any number of other elements in my life. And I'm not alone. But life is change and if we fail to alter our behavior when required to do so, dire fates often await.

The Heaths' previous book, 2007's Made to Stick, looked at the reasons some ideas gained traction and made it through the morass of marketing, media and more to attain "stickness'' in our consciousness. Good one! But this new brotherly collaboration is something completely different. The pair looks at why we're resistant to change and the means by which we can, er, change that.

As with Made to Stick, the text is smart, breezy and humorous, but no less elegant, well researched and insightful. The biggest takeaway, for me, was not anything new. In fact it's a variation of one of the most important tenets of child rearing, "Praise the good.''

How does that apply here? Well, they start with dividing the brain (similar to Godin and Pink in their recent books) into "the rider'' and "the elephant.'' The latter is our emotional and instinctive side, say the Heaths, and the former is the part of us that tries to stay on track and get things done. The Heaths contend that in order for change to take place, both the rider and the elephant need to engaged and satisfied. And instead of focusing solely on problems that need to be solved or negative behaviors that must be eliminated, they advocate seeking the bright spots and replicating them (aka "praise the good''). They also offer the idea that small adjustments can make more of a difference than seeking the root causes of the dysfunctionality.

They tell the story of a frustrated psychologist who was having trouble with her golf swing. The pro who helped her didn't examine her childhood for clues or ask about how she related to her mother. Instead, he suggested minor changes to her swing and achieved immediate favorable results. It was a revelation that informed her approach to dealing with her patients, henceforth concentrating on small, achievable steps that worked.

There are plenty of similar anecdotes herein from business, government, healthcare, academia and other areas of human interaction where change seems difficult or impossible, yet someone found ways to get from here to there. They also offer specific steps for a variety of scenarios.
While not every transition is easy, the Heaths show that it can be done, and how to do so when it seems impossible. Now, when business needs to be more nimble than ever, reading this great little book could well be among the most effective small steps you can take.

Be a driver or a passenger

2010-12-18T12:52:00.002-05:00

Douglas Rushkoff's Digital Decalogue
by Richard Pachter

Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. Douglas Rushkoff. OR Books. 140 pages.

Having read and reviewed Rushkoff’s previous books, Think Outside The Box, which was good, and Life Inc., which was nothing less than brilliant, I wondered what was next for the media maven. This new one is short and concise, but a highly worthy successor. His mission is to raise awareness of the human implications of our technologies — the context (if you will) of our actions.

The author’s Decalogue here is a set of rules of conduct. To wit: Do Not Be ‘Always On;’ Live in Person; You May Always Choose ‘None of the Above;’ You Are Never Completely Right; One Size Does Not Fit All; Be Yourself; Do Not Sell Your Friends; Tell the Truth; Share, Don’t Steal; and Program or Be Programmed.” Each of the command(ments) comprise a chapter.

On the surface they seem pretty obvious, but like their Biblical counterparts, they add up to a wise and ethical way to conducts oneself, in this case, mostly within the online and virtual worlds. After all, many of us blithely mouse over, click and agree to website terms we’re asked to give our assent to, with little thought to the implications or the consequences, and whatever rights and responsibilities we may shed as we do. Beyond that, there’s an insidious role reversal, says Rushkoff, whereby the supposed programmer becomes the programmed. Our tools define us, whether we like it or not. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Rushkoff is no Luddite. Far from it. He was and is an early adopter of all things digital, and rhapsodizes nostalgically for those thrilling early days of weak computers, inbred electronic bulletin boards and other relatively quaint and low-tech solutions that marked the dawn of the Internet Age. But as he’s grown with the times, so, too has his very healthy skepticism blossomed. Different technologies are biased in different ways, he declares, based upon the facility of each application to enable and elicit specific behaviors. We need to be aware of this effect and do what’s right for us, not the website owners or software developers.

Minor quibble: I had a little problem with his 10th command, the one employed as the title of this book. I don’t want to do any programming, thank you very much. I certainly don’t mind cooking a meal or (occasionally) fixing a toilet, but if I want to go to the store, I’d prefer to just drive my car, not design and build a car. Apparently, mine was a common concern among readers. In a recent interview with NPR, Rushkoff laughed, saying that one needn’t learn to build that car. The difference he’s seeking is being a driver and not just the passenger. Whew. I can live with that! Slide over. I’ll drive! But seriously, it’s an important distinction that he could have made clearer in this otherwise excellent book.

And Rushkoff is apparently driving, too, as he bypassed big publishers to accelerate the publication of this book, a pretty ballsy move, which he explains here. It’s not an isolated case, either. Seth Godin waved goodbye to his publisher, too.

Author looks at why we choose what we choose

2010-12-18T12:41:00.000-05:00

Columbia professor Sheena Iyengar's engaging book shows how we formulate decisions.
BY RICHARD PACHTER

The Art of Choosing. Sheena Iyengar. 12/Grand Central. 329 pages.

Choice is good, right? We don't want to be dictated to by anyone. We prefer autonomy and fight for the right to choose what we want, when we want it — except when we don't really want to rock the boat or appear dramatically different from everyone else. But sometimes that's exactly what we want to do.

Make sense?

Well, if you choose to read Columbia University professor Sheena Iyengar's fascinating book, you may have a slightly better idea of how humans formulate decisions.

We like to be in control but often consciously (or not) defer to parents, authorities or even strangers. We often say one thing then do something else. Choices we feel strongly about on one day may fade into an afterthought with time.

We may say that we like to have a broad field to choose from, yet greater selection often makes decisions more difficult.

Iyengar writes: "The expansion of choice has become an explosion of choice, and while there is something beautiful and immensely satisfying about having all of this variety at our fingertips, we also find ourselves beset by it. We think the profusion of possibilities must make it that much easier to find that perfect gift for a friend's birthday, only to find ourselves paralyzed in the face of row upon row of potential presents. Which one is really her? Which one is truly the "perfect' gift?''

The answer is that there is no answer, but Iyengar's curiosity about what affects our choices shows just how complex this simple question really is.

She's a scholar, so her anecdotes and examples are thoughtful, illustrative and well documented. She's also an excellent and engaging wordsmith, and her writing throughout the book is rich and quite engaging.

Her frequent digressions and asides are as cogent and interesting as her main points, and certainly as descriptive; an amazing feat for a sightless person but Iyengar's vision extends far beyond the physical domain.

For example, she riffs about choices of nail polish and how descriptions (or lack of same) may alter women's preferences for a particular color. And she takes us with her as she lines up at the Apple Store in Manhattan to pick up an iPhone for her husband, who also shows up to tell her that his original choice of a black device has changed to a white one -- because everyone else will have a black one. Go figure!

Iyengar also extensively explores cultural differences and peer pressure, and recounts a funny tale of committing a faux pas in Japan by requesting sugar for her green tea (featured in her presentation at the TED conference here.

All in all, after reading The Art of Choosing, you'll have a broader context — cultural, personal, about why we choose the way we do.

Despite her title, by the way, I'm not convinced there's any "art'' involved, nor craft, for that matter, but I choose to honor the author's nomenclature as a marketing decision. That's her choice, after all.

Originally published in The Miami Herald.

The inception of the American ad industry

2010-12-18T12:32:00.002-05:00

A biography of pioneering Ad Man Albert Lasker reveals the origins of our advertising age.
BY RICHARD PACHTER

The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century. Jeffrey Cruikshank and Arthur Schultz. Harvard Business Press. 435 pages.

We take advertising for granted. Even as companies rush to implement the technology the Tom Cruise character experienced in Minority Report that immersed him in personalized ads, continuous commercial messages are a consistent part of our culture. Douglas Rushkoff's brilliant book, Life, Inc. eloquently explored the corporatization of our lives, but once upon a time, advertising itself was a minor part of things, and were mostly announcements rather than persuasive and pervasive pleas.

I was fascinated by this sprawling, old-fashioned biography of Albert Lasker, an important figure in the world of advertising and politics of whom I was only faintly aware. I recalled him being mentioned by David Ogilvy in his essential books, as someone who made a ton of money but knew little about his role in essentially creating the modern advertising agency and industry.

Among his accomplishments, according to authors Cruishank and Schultz, is the prominence given to content and copywriting; the consumer-centered ad; modern political advertising; branding commodities (particularly produce); selling previously unmentionable female hygiene products and more, including the "creation'' of orange juice.

Lasker, a first-generation American born in 1880 to German-Jewish immigrants — descendents of aristocrats who dared resist proto-fascist Bismarck — grew up in Galveston, Texas. He wanted to be a journalist at first, a disreputable rofession at the time, so his father pulled a favor from a friend and set him up with a position at Lord & Thomas, an advertising agency in Chicago. From there, Lasker bloomed.

Possessing innate sales skills, he quickly secured a few accounts for his new employer, then delved into the craft of advertising: What was it and how did it work?

What Lasker discovered, developed and implemented transformed the industry from order takers into a creative force and catalyst for the ascension of the consumer market, making the United States into a worldwide economic powerhouse. Before long, the unstoppable Lasker wound up owning that agency.

Lord & Thomas and Lasker blazed an impressive track record. They were responsible for branding the California orange crop and creating Sunkist, a more marketable product since oranges now had a name that could be promoted. The agency also promoted the invention of the juice machine and subsequent popularization of orange juice as a daily morning beverage. It also worked similar magic with raisins (Sun-Maid) and took Lucky Strike, an obscure cigarette brand, and made it a top-seller.

An early proponent of radio advertising, the company sponsored the infamously hilarious minstrel comedy, Amos & Andy, and later picked a relatively obscure wisecracking comedian to star in a show sponsored by Pepsodent, a toothpaste client. Thus was Bob Hope's career launched. Lord & Thomas agency also broke ground by first advertising a product whose purpose was deemed unmentionable — Kotex "sanitary napkins.''

Lasker was involved in a number of social and political efforts, including the Leo Frank case involving anti-Semitism in Georgia and Warren G. Harding's run for the presidency in 1920, as well as the relentless (and successful) effort to sabotage crusading novelist Upton Sinclair's 1934 California gubernatorial campaign.

As a window to an earlier era, and a source of insights into the commercial and cultural origins of the advertising industry (and one of its guiding lights), this portrait of Albert Lasker is a worthy contribution.

Originally published in The Miami Herald.

To manage well, focus on employees' core values

2010-12-18T12:25:00.001-05:00

Stan Slap's successful management training program strives for authenticity and productivity
BY RICHARD PACHTER

Bury My Heart At Conference Room B: The Unbeatable Impact of Truly Committed Managers. Stan Slap. Portfolio 272 pages.

It's a reliable axiom that any book authored by a business consultant is essentially an extended sales brochure for his or her services. The initial 20 pages or so of this offering by management trainer Stan Slap is devoted to touting his program's overall wonderfullness, without establishing the foundation for the energetic self-promotion, which portends yet another instance of this phenomenon.

To be sure, there are copious portions of this boasting bonhomie larded throughout the book as he good-naturedly flogs his programs at every opportunity. The funny thing, though, is that Slap's shots aren't nearly as offensive or out of place as the customary self-aggrandizing scribbling.

This book is an emotional one. Slap's avowed goal is encouraging genuine and visceral connections between managers and employees, tying personal values and goals to the daily routine of working together. In addition to the prolific promotional copy, the text includes individual testimonials from executives who, after a head-slapping moment or two, linked their moral standards to their business ethics and operational methods to great effect. There's also one from Slap himself, detailing his challenging (to say the least) upbringing, which serves as both an inspiration and an invitation to amateur psychologists to connect it to his ongoing passions and methodologies. (I'll pass, thanks.)

So it's not out of place in the least for Slap to tout and reaffirm the awesomeness of what it is he's trying to do. In fact, if he'd failed to jump up on his own soapbox and testify, one would wonder why he wasn't doing just that. It would be weirdly disingenuous and he'd be guilty of failing to follow his own advice.

Slap provides checklists and other exercises for managers to assess their own values and advice for getting employees to do the same. He lays out a playbook for gaining acceptance by the staff and management so they're all not laughed out of the office, or worse. There are scripts and plenty of other tools for dealing with and possibly overcoming objections from above and below the corporate ladder, too.

He's an interesting and entertaining writer, and there are lots of little jokes, puns and asides strewn throughout the text. Slap is quite full of himself but acknowledges that, too, as it's all part of his shtick, although it's pretty clear that he takes it all pretty seriously despite implied claims to the contrary.

The only problem that I have with Slap's worthwhile book is that it's one of those alternate-universe deals. Most if not all of the companies that the rest of us encounter as employees and managers may profess their fealty and commitment to our core values and might declare their goal of engendering a familial environment. We may even have managers that we connect with as human beings, and respect and cultivate us in turn. But Slap recognizes that his is a revolutionary idea that's antithetical to many organizations in practice, if not theory.

In the meantime, he's provided the tools, the rationale and a very entertaining book. Maybe that's enough.

Originally published in The Miami Herald.

Our economic future is not what it used to be

2010-12-18T11:50:00.000-05:00

Richard Florida outlines what we must do to be prepared for the next epoch.
BY RICHARD PACHTER

The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity. Richard Florida. HarperCollins. 225 pages.

It's not just a matter of bank failures, spiraling foreclosures, high unemployment and the rest of this mess. Many of us sense that we're on the cusp of a fundamental shift in our economy and culture. Though most may be in denial, the evidence strongly suggests that the American economy has been propelled and sustained by criminally inflated credit and rampant speculation, and we are on the precipice of a change that will result in a dramatically altered American landscape.

Richard Florida, an American who lives in Toronto, made his name with The Rise of The Creative Class, the book that predicted the primacy of metropolitan areas with diverse populations. Not surprisingly, this new one makes the same case, placing it within the context of our ongoing economic tumult and turmoil.

As an academic, Florida starts, somewhat predictably, with a large dose of history, focusing on previous eras and shifts in the country's socioeconomic fabric. He invokes tons of stats and quotes, another academic habit, which can be a bit off-putting at times though it's more of a mild distraction than an annoyance. But if you're patient, this flood of data forms a nice mosaic of snapshots as he explains how the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression morphed the largely rural, agrarian economy and population of the United States into an urban manufacturing powerhouse.

As in his earlier book, Florida argues effectively (with stats, naturally) that the country's diversity has been its most powerful, important and, ironically, subtlest strength, despite teabaggers' and nativists' assertions to the contrary. Areas with diverse populations — ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations and other factors — are invariably economically stronger, not to mention more interesting places to live. Further, he asserts that cities, with their dense clusters of apartment houses, clogged roads and massed populations, are actually more environmentally friendly and better at "metabolizing'' their wealth.

Also among Florida's findings is that the U.S. infrastructure is approaching third-world status so if we truly want to be competitive, if not viable, we need to get with it! We're way behind China, Spain and most of what Rummy used to call "Old Europe.''

We must also upgrade our transportation system. Forget about building more inefficient, energy-depleting highways, light rail and high-speed rail is where it's at. In fact, high-speed rail would bring scattered areas together into more powerful clusters and also be useful if, indeed the predictions of $20-a-gallon gas comes true, or the rest of the prognostications of the ``peak oil'' crowd comes to pass.

Not all of Florida's recommendations are easily implemented. Though Starbucks, Trader Joe's and Costco have already done so, Florida's advocacy of the elevation of service workers' pay may unfortunately be a bit Utopian.

Overall, The Great Reset is an interesting, provocative and intelligent book. Florida is a witty and entertaining writer, despite his academic tics and tropes. It's well worth reading as a starting point for the future that's coming our way whether we're ready or not.

There's more to work than money, Dan Pink argues

2010-12-18T11:28:00.002-05:00

In his latest book, Dan Pink suggests that money is not enough and motivation comes from within.

BY RICHARD PACHTER 

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Daniel H. Pink. Riverhead. 256 pages.

I was blown away by Dan Pink's 2005 book, A Whole New Mind. His previous tome, Free Agent Nation, had been very good indeed, but the former speechwriter for Al Gore had made a quantum leap with his incisive look at the ways work can evolve into something much more than just labor. Recognizing the changing nature of global and local economies as positive drivers for the reconfiguration of our roles, the next step was — what? How would we make the transition from worker bees to empowered individuals?

Pink's next book offered some clues, but The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, a decidedly outré young-person's illustrated career guide done in the form of manga, a Japanese comics art form, was terrific and useful, though clearly a one-off. But now the wait is over: Drive, his new book, illuminates the path to unlocking the door to more meaningful work.

In this ideal companion piece to Seth Godin's recent Linchpin, Pink examines the ways we are motivated and finds that the most powerful ones come from within, and are more important to us than the material compensation we're given. His findings seem counterintuitive to those of us who have long accepted Pavlovian doctrine that we work mainly for "rewards'' like salary and other external reinforcements.

Pink presents a rather persuasive argument that we often labor and toil for inner satisfaction and engagement, or, as author Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, says, "flow,'' defined as one's positive, engaged submersion in an activity. If you're "in the zone,'' or describe an athlete as "unconscious'' when he is intently focusing on the game so that he appears to be in a trance-like state, it's the same deal. As he builds his case, Pink recounts the work of a variety of psychologists, academics and authors who've explored the phenomenon. It's not a new discovery, either. In 1949, Harry Harlow, a University of Wisconsin psychology professor, studied eight rhesus monkeys and found that they began playing with and solving the assigned puzzles irrespective of proffered rewards or biological imperatives like sex or food.

Pink writes of Harlow's discovery: "It suggested that our understanding of the gravitational pulls on our behavior was inadequate -- that what we thought were fixed laws had plenty of loopholes. Harlow emphasized the `strength and persistence' of the monkeys' drive to complete the puzzles. Then he noted: 'It would appear that this drive . . . may be as basic and strong as the [other] drives.

Furthermore, there is some reason to believe that [it] can be as efficient in facilitating learning.''

Harlow came to the conclusion that in order "to truly understand the human condition, we had to take account of this third drive,'' Pink writes.

Just as Godin does in Linchpin, Pink offers specific instructions and resources to facilitate this engagement in our own pursuits. It's not foolproof, nor is it risk-free, and many of us will reflexively reject the notion that working for a living (a/k/a salary and other monetary benefits) is not the most important force compelling us to work at our jobs, professions and careers. But harnessing the power of intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic remuneration can be thoroughly satisfying and infinitely more rewarding.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Joplin's Spirit Eludes Detailed Narrative

2010-11-12T22:47:00.001-05:00

SCARS OF SWEET PARADISE: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin. Alice Echols. Metropolitan Books. 432 pages.

By RICHARD PACHTER

The only Janis Joplin songs on the radio these days are Me and Bobby McGee, and maybe Piece Of My Heart. But her image — larger than life — endures. Alice Echols' new biography of Joplin thoroughly examines her life and image, but the result is wholly unsatisfying.

Born in 1943 and raised in claustrophobic Port Arthur, Texas, Joplin grew into an "ugly duckling" teen. A vivacious, outgoing child ostracized by her classmates, who cruelly voted her "Ugliest Man On Campus," the preternaturally bright young woman became a social outcast. Purposely cultivating an unsavory reputation, she pushed the limits of propriety and parental authority by hanging with the town's lowlifes and beatniks until she escaped to college.

A self-professed folkie who gravitated to the music of Odetta and Leadbelly, Joplin barely attended classes, devoting all of her time to nearly nonstop partying and sexual explorations. She began singing at clubs and coffeehouses and nurtured her growing talent, which was sometimes fueled by copious amounts of legal and illegal substances

She dropped in and out of school, and attempted to live the conventional lifestyle of her parents a final time before abandoning any pretense of conformity. She explored Greenwich Village, but eventually settled in San Francisco just in time for the emergence of the hippies of Haight Ashbury.

In San Francisco, Joplin found a community that welcomed her as a kindred spirit. The burgeoning music scene was a hotbed of experimentation, socially, sexually and sometimes even musically. Bands like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, and the Charlatans recognized Joplin's talent and outrageous character. She hung out -- and coupled -- with many of those involved. Country Joe McDonald had a relatively long-term relationship with her, and memorialized the singer in his song Janis, on his 1967 album Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die.

The Bay Area's "anything goes" attitude gave Joplin license to party even more. When she joined Big Brother and The Holding Company, a ragged hippie rock band, Joplin's astounding voice became its immediate focal point. Hailed as the Caucasian reincarnation of Bessie Smith and other black blues singers, Joplin and the band inked a typically exploitative contract with a smallish record label, quickly producing a low-fi album that was ignored by radio.

At the first (and only) Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967, a now-legendary appearance by the group and its fiery vocalist attracted rabid attention from the music business. Bob Dylan's manager quickly displaced Big Brother's home-grown handler, and the rest of the band faded into the background, forever relegated to the role of Janis Joplin's first backup band. Columbia Records bought out their recording contract, and Big Brother made its real debut album under the tutelage of producer John Simon and engineer Elliot Mazer.

Though the album, dubbed Cheap Thrills, seemed like a live recording, all but one track — Ball and Chain — were cut in the studio. Simon and Mazer figured that the band's ragged playing would be more palatable if presented in a concert context, so they added fake audience tape-loops and canned applause, crafting a simulated live album.

Though the LP sold a million copies in its first month of release, Joplin was urged to abandon Big Brother by her manager, her record company and others. Subsequent musical accompaniment inarguably served her prodigious talents better. Big Brother recorded one album following her departure, before becoming a music history footnote.

Joplin's newfound celebrity and fortune enabled the acceleration of a Sybaritic lifestyle, as she made up for lost time. Her casual pansexual couplings, drug addictions, alcoholism and other passions undercut potential artistic and career growth. Echols lists many of Joplin's lovers, including Jets quarterback Joe Namath and musician Kris Kristofferson, who composed her posthumous hit, Me and Bobby McGee. But Janis felt lonely and unloved, despite the seemingly endless parade of short-term companions.

In October 1970, at the age of 27, she was found dead after an overdose of heroin, forming an immortal triumvirate of prematurely departed rock icons. Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix — Echols says Joplin had brief affairs with both — were dead within months of her.

Her enduring image as a red-hot mama and rock archetype inspired Bette Midler's film The Rose, which was originally touted as a Joplin biopic. Another Joplinesque movie is said to be under consideration, this one supposedly starring Melissa Etheridge, who says she draws inspiration from the late singer's bold life. Other women artists similarly express solidarity with Joplin's sexuality and legacy .

Echols' book is a sympathetic but nearly clinical exploration of Joplin's life. With ample research, including scores of interviews with friends, lovers and associates, it's clear that much earnest work went into this project, but the result is a scholarly tome, contrasting wildly with the subject's flamboyant life and work. The ferocious power of Janis Joplin hinted at here may be impossible to authentically convey in any non-aural medium.

Originally published March 14, 1999 in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

Making the most of every client interaction

2010-06-19T00:01:00.028-04:00

John Jantsch offers tips on how to connect with customers so they refer your services to others.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business To market Itself. John Jantsch. Portfolio. 233 pages.

I skipped his last book, a bestseller called Duct Tape Marketing, for reasons that are now unclear; perhaps out of loyalty to Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion. Regardless, I may have to go back and give it a gander, as John Jantsch's latest is a real gem. Under the guise of developing a system for generating business referrals, the Kansas City, Mo.,-based author also provides coaching on just about every aspect of entrepreneurial enterprise — but more about that in a bit.

First of all, Jantsch identifies humans' inherent need to refer and recommend. He writes: "We refer to connect with other people. Being recognized as a source of good information, including referrals, is a great way to connect with others. Think about how eagerly you responded the last time someone asked you for directions, offering up your favorite shortcut and tips for avoiding traffic. We all do it. Making referrals is a deeply satisfying way to connect with others — asking for referrals is just the other side of the same phenomenon. I think the growth of many popular social networks can be traced to the fact that people love to connect and form communities around shared ideas."

In order to have customers refer you to others, you must ensure that you delight them and surpass their expectations. Guys like Kawasaki and Godin have been pounding on that drum forever, but Jantsch updates the pitch quite nicely by adding his own perspective and experiences. Then he invokes using Facebook and Twitter, among other things — which should be a no-brainer these days, although they're surprisingly absent from many businesses. He also covers stuff like product development and innovation, as well as market differentiation — all vital elements in today's commoditized marketplace.

His coaching is pretty compelling, too, as he implores would-be tycoons to pursue activities that have meaning to them and can provide something of value in a unique and personal way to their customers whenever possible. This too may seem obvious, but when considering the things that motivate others to recommend and refer, the idea of connecting with meaning and relevance is quite important.

In addition to the inspirational stuff, Jantsch offers some really good nuts-and-bolts suggestions for getting closer to customers and eliciting their kudos. The suggestions apply to a variety of businesses, so whether you proffer products, services — or any combination thereof — there's an abundance of ideas for making the most of each client interaction.

As with most books that demand a lot from businesses and stakeholders, the question lingers whether they are willing and able to commit to follow the ideas and actions outlined to attain the goal of self-generating customer referrals. The short answer, at least to me, is "probably not," and that's unfortunate.

But the good news is that Jantsch offers enough ideas and inspiration so that even if one picks just a few things, that might be enough to make a difference — or at least to get started.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Innovation is the cornerstone of brand growth

2010-06-14T00:01:00.018-04:00

Coral Springs consultant Robert Brands shows how to systematize creativity.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Robert's Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival. Robert F. Brands. Wiley. 212 pages.

It seems fairly obvious that innovation and the development of new products and services should be priorities. Most companies at least pay lip service to the idea but in the real world, many firms, unconsciously or not, dissuade this form of creativity in favor of the tasks at hand. Even such organizations as 3M, fabled home of tape of all kinds, have been known to be less receptive — at first — to innovations like those that led to the creation of Post-It notes, which ultimately became a multi-billion dollar business. Sadly, that seems to be the rule and not the exception.

Coral Springs-based consultant Robert Brands' book has a corny title, playing off his name, of course, but beyond the silliness, there's a short, smart, sharp primer for organizations of all sizes and shapes seeking to leverage innovation for growth, profits and, ultimately, survival.

Brands is a consultant now, but possesses a strong résumé from time spent at a variety of corporate entities, focusing on product development. His most recent claim to fame is the development of the method and mechanism that turns hand soap into an airy foam, which he says has revolutionized the industry — most likely by adding a new angle to the soap dispenser that helped vendors replace existing equipment with new ones. (Don't know about you, but they don't produce a better lather or get my paws any cleaner, though your mileage may vary.)

Regardless, Brands makes an excellent case for innovation — revenue generation. As he sees it, it isn't an option but an absolute necessity.

He writes: "Remember, innovation is not a luxury, even for today's most successful companies. Sustaining success means ongoing renewal of your intellectual property (IP) portfolio. After all, technologies become dated; end-user fashions change; and new processes, materials, and capabilities emerge. Like breakers at the seashore, the life cycle of a technology begins, crests, and falls off as, all the while, new technologies form and carry momentum of their own — an ongoing cycle of innovation energy, if you will.''

In addition to walking through each step of the innovation process (liberally seasoned with his own observations and self-deprecating asides), Brands includes useful and surprisingly detailed discussions of related topics like ideation, creativity, management, intellectual property issues and more. And it's not all out of his own experiences, either, with plenty of citations sprinkled throughout from experts in the field. In addition to anecdotes and observations from a handful of fellow innovation executives, Brands invokes some of the more formalized academic thinking on the subject, most notably the Star-Gate process, which systematizes ideation and development into something that's replicable and transferable. Brands also provides lots of checklists, assessments, some charts, bullet points and more, including a transcript of a roundtable discussion with fellow innovation pros.

Though the book itself is a combination of old and new, and Brands' light but comprehensive approach may not itself be astonishingly innovative, it could be a useful catalyst for product development in your own moribund organization

Affable careerism, chutzpah and good connections

2010-06-12T00:01:00.039-04:00

Producer and impresario Jerry Weintraub recounts his steady rise.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man. Jerry Weintraub, Rich Cohen. 12/Grand Central. 291 pages.

Though generally wary of CEO memoirs for their patently self-aggrandizing bonhomie and vacuous, shameless — and endless — self-promotion, I'll occasionally take a look-see. In the case of this one, the subject is less a CEO and more of a show biz entrepreneur and personality. As a businessperson, he shook up the status quo and reinvented his chosen profession. Plus, his collaborator, Rich Cohen, is a veteran author whose tale of his own dysfunctional family, Sweet and Low, focusing on his artificial sweetener-inventing grandfather, is one of my all-time faves. Cohen's other books, profiling Hebrew shtarkers, gangsters and warriors, made him an ideal scribe for Weintraub's rambling tale.

Curious, star-struck (after a family trip to Hollywood) and not at all academically-inclined, a young Jerry Weintraub first sought and created opportunities for income generation in his Bronx neighborhood, joined the Air Force and found a few more odd jobs, then refused to go into the family business upon discharge. Weintraub's mercantile talent manifested itself in making connections and then building upon them. He became a talent manager, agent — whatever it took — then met and married star singer Jane Morgan, who became his entr'e to the world outside his New York show biz circle.

As a businessman, one of Weintraub's biggest innovations was the creation of the modern concert tour in the 1960s. He signed a big act, Elvis Presley, the revived king of rock 'n' roll, and set up a national tour of large arenas throughout the country, bypassing local concert promoters. This was pretty much unheard of during those pre-Live Nation days when local and regional hegemonies ruled.

Thus began Weintraub's close relationship with the infamous Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis' manager, who's portrayed rather generously herein. Somewhat less so, perhaps deservedly, is Weintraub client John Denver, a bland singer-songwriter turned into a superstar by the impresario.

After achieving great success, the restless troubadour fired his manager and his career tanked. A lesson? Perhaps. A professional relationship with Frank ("Call me Francis'') Sinatra was also instructive and lucrative.

But Weintraub soon tired of dealing with musicians and their egos and opted, instead, to move to the more sedate and professional setting of Hollywood, producing a string of mostly successful films (from Nashville to the Ocean's 11, 12 13 movies) and briefly heading a studio, albeit less successfully.

His personal story threads through the career recap, surprisingly becoming pals with the elder George Bush, whom he met after being refused entrance as a Jew at a tennis club near the Bush summer home. He also became buds with industrialist Armand Hammer and other colorful characters as he wended effortlessly and untroubled through the milieus of politics and show biz without any discernible philosophical conflicts. On the spiritual side, Weintraub was attracted to the Orthodox Lubavitchers, and video footage of him with another former client, Bob Dylan, at their annual fundraising telethon is a Youtube staple.

The book is slightly gossipy but mostly discreet, though Weintraub's current coupling, with a woman who's not his wife (though he's still married) brought admiring inquiries from no less an Über-womanizer than Warren Beatty, the author unabashedly recounts.

It's hard to come away with any hard lessons from Weintraub's book, other than that relentlessly affable careerism, large dollops of chutzpah and good connections can be enough to make a successful career and a fairly entertaining autobiography.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Learn how seven triggers pique our fascination

2010-06-07T00:01:00.000-04:00

Author Sally Hogshead explores the fascinating world of fascination.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation. Sally Hogshead. HarperCollins. 266 pages.

Gotta love somebody who takes a funky name and revels in it a la Smuckers. On her website, marketer, consultant and author Sally Hogshead proclaims, "A hogshead is a barrel that holds 62 gallons. So what's your name, smartass?'' I do know what a "Pachter'' is, by the way, but as impressive as the use of her distinctive name is, I was equally captivated by this interesting tome — with some reservations. We'll get to those in a bit, but first ...

For some, the best parts of a business book are the anecdotes and examples. As Hogshead wends her way around the world of fascination, her citations are funny and apt, even educational. She looks for things that elicit fascination and delves into such areas as fetishes, sexual attraction and ovulation — just to get warmed up.

Then she goes all over the virtual landscape, from Marilyn Monroe's "wet'' voice, to Godiva chocolate, to Ginsu knives, to the failure of the DARE program and beyond, as she identifies the seven "triggers'' for fascination: "Lust: why we're seduced by the anticipation of pleasure; Mystique: why we're intrigued by unanswered questions; Alarm: why we take action at the threat of negative consequences; Prestige: why we fixate on symbols of rank and respect; Power: why we focus on the people and things that control us; Vice: why we're tempted by 'forbidden fruit;' and Trust: why we're loyal to reliable options.''

None of these things, as you might notice, are associated with logic or reasoning. On the contrary, they are all highly emotional and, at times, irrational. After all, smart salespeople understand that prospects often make decisions based on intuitive and non-cognitive reasons, then use facts and "needs'' to justify their purchase.

Hogshead (the name also pops up in a Beatles song, by the way) is a sly and facile writer, and manages to keep things interesting as she flits and flies through her fascinating landscape. No surprise, she's also pop-culture-savvy and endlessly self-referential and self-deprecating.

When you read a book by an agency owner or consultant, you are frequently seeing an extended brochure for their products and services. That isn't necessarily the case here, though I'm confident that she would be happy to trigger a few inquiries.

The book closes with a number of assessments and exercises designed for businesses seeking to identify the elements of their enterprises that might be used to bring them to the forefront of fascination, plus a survey she commissioned on (what else?) fascination.

Despite her best intentions, I question, however, how smaller firms and individuals can apply this stuff to their work and lives without adding a veneer of bovine excrement to the mis en scène. It's not for lack of trying on Hogshead's part, but it would seem like artifice and inauthenticity, perhaps, to a small businessperson who's already in perpetual survival mode.

Regardless, Fascinate is a fascinating book and even if you don't use its how-to formula for manufacturing mystiques, it's still a lot of fun to ride along with Sally.

Clouds shed ray of light on organizing your data

2010-06-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

Douglas C. Merrill demonstrates how fairly simple online tools can revolutionize the way we do business and carry on with life.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Getting Organized in the Google Era: How to Get Stuff Out of Your Head, Find It When You Need It, and Get It Done Right. Douglas C. Merrill and James A. Martin. Broadway Books. 272 pages.

With his rock star good looks and glitzy résumé (Charles Schwab, Google, EMI Music), you'd immediately presume that Douglas Merrill has got it all together; a hip dude for whom everything comes easy. And you'd be wrong.

First of all, he's dyslexic and has had to struggle to learn and develop adaptive behaviors to get through life. He survived and thrived. And later, after he'd managed to wriggle his way up the corporate ladder, he lost a beloved young life partner to cancer.

But neither of these items is in the forefront of this smart and useful little tome, though both inform nearly every page.

Merrill's purported goal with this book is to show how he uses fairly simple online tools — most provided by his former employer, the ubiquitous Google — to do business and carry on with his life. He does that quite well, actually, and even though it's a fairly subjective view, he's objective enough to point out alternatives for different tasks and needs. Sometimes, in fact, he wholeheartedly endorses non-Google products! I'm not making this up!

After I first got a Gmail account when it was new, back in those days when you had to have an invitation, I immediately discovered that it was a great "place'' to upload big files, and park and retrieve 'em later. In fact, I stored plenty of large work samples — audio, video, print and multimedia — as attachments, to simply transfer and ease submission to prospective employers when I found myself "seeking new opportunities.''

Similarly, Merrill writes expansively about tools like Google Documents and how they can be used collaboratively between and among employees and others. While it's not a perfect replacement for dedicated word processors like Microsoft's venerable Word, it's a decent enough substitute so that your content can live in the clouds (or on a server in Mountain View, Ca.) and you can work on it whenever you feel like it online.

Merrill also gives tips for sharing calendars, organizing files and using search. That's the key, he says. Don't bother organizing your files and folders. Just tag them with key words that you use for search terms to find on your computer, in the clouds or wherever. That's the Google way. Search and index everything. But Merrill ably explains how to do it and, more importantly, how it works, so it's replicable and scalable for a variety of endeavors and applications.

Beyond the info on using all the apps in the clouds, Merrill's thread about his girlfriend's illness is powerful and heart wrenching. It's also a good way to show how some of the tools were — or could have been — used to deal with that sad situation.

The other powerful tool Merrill gets into is how he "encodes'' information before dealing with it. We all process information differently, but Merrill's methods, borne of the adaptive behaviors he developed from his learning disorder, fit perfectly with this new way of functioning. It may not work for everyone but for those of us in the business of pushing pixels, it's a great way to start thinking about doing things better.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Informal structures often prove more productive than formal ones

2010-06-01T00:01:00.001-04:00

Ad hoc and informal structures often prove to be more productive and efficient than formal ones.

Leading Outside the Lines: How to Mobilize the Informal Organization, Energize Your Team and Get Better Results. Jon R. Katzenbach, Zia Khan. Jossey Bass. 240 pages.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

In just about every organization I've worked for or with, I've repeatedly observed a formal hierarchy in place as well as an unofficial group of people who actually get stuff done. They are, more than not, two disparate groups. The somewhat loose confederation of doers, in my experience, tends to respect the authority of those above them on the corporate food chain, while developing and implementing ways to circumvent and subvert them to git 'er done, regardless and in spite of. Sometimes, it's just a slight variation to the table of organization that allows certain obstacles to be avoided and "impediments to progress'' (to put it politely) to be ignored — while including them in any necessary e-mail threads, of course.

Though the role of the guerrilla squad of achievers is frequently well known within the organizations, they are often officially disregarded. But I've seen situations where CEOs, VPs and directors often bypass protocol to enlist them in key projects, often to the chagrin of their bosses. I've known several of these stealth commandos, and when asked will admit, immodestly, to having been one.

Katzenbach and Khan look at this phenomenon and attempt to demonstrate ways that these ad hoc, informal groups can be mobilized and engaged. They do so by defining formal structures; that's pretty easy. Then they take a shot at informal ones. They write: "The informal isn't as easily defined as the formal, because it does not have the clear structural boundaries that the formal has. Its elements often overlap and don't follow the clean principles of 'mutually exclusive, comprehensively exhaustive' that analytical thinkers prefer. In essence, the informal is the aggregate of organizational elements that primarily influence behavior through emotional means. And, unlike the formal elements, the informal elements of an organization rarely appear as written instructions. Even so, they can still be identified and named.''

They go on to identify the ways these groups form and function and how they might be cultivated. The text is smart, very readable and studious, though informal. Their approach throughout is benign and humanistic rather than imperious and authoritarian, which is the way to go, given the subject matter. There's a nice chapter summary at the end of the book, as well as a fine diagnostic tool to assess your organization and its adaptability.

The only caveat I have about this book is whether or not it's practicable and actionable for the real world. Katzenbach and Khan certainly did their parts, and their own responsibility ends once the book is read. But as with other tomes that advocate and promote genuine change, one always wonders if those who need it the most will heed the advice proffered therein. Still, if their book stimulates discussion and helps those inside the organization take some extra initiative, all will not be for naught.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Two books present useful thoughts on presentations

2010-05-29T00:01:00.007-04:00

Smart design and the power of crosstalk and snark can help persuade and engage.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations. Garr Reynolds. New Riders. 252 pages.

I really liked Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen, which provided a very smart way of thinking about PowerPoint and other ways that we convey information to persuade, inform and inspire groups and individuals. Unfortunately, we still encounter too many people who didn't get the memo. The presentations and "decks'' are dense, wordy, convoluted and soulless.

Reynolds' understanding of the need to establish an emotion connection between the audience and the subject, and not throw piles of stultifying data and glitzy images at them, was refreshing. But the author — a corporate veteran — has a powerful sense of whimsy and valued creativity in all its manifestations. This new book is a really worthwhile continuation of the Presentation Zen theme.

While just about every biped with a computer these days thinks they're a designer, the smart folks still leave the dangerous stuff to the professionals. Yet Reynolds boldly goes, regardless, and attempts to teach the principles of design to the PowerPoint crowd. This is fairly audacious, but because he's such a knowledgeable guy, deft designer and all-around brilliant person, he actually pulls it off. Of course, being a great presenter helps quite a bit, and he pulls out all the stops in telling and showing just how it's done, with plenty of great examples. Type, white space, images, contrast, humor, metaphor and just about every element of design are at least touched upon or delved into.

Throughout, Reynolds' personality and philosophy shine through, adding an extra layer of goodness to the proceedings.

The question, as always, is whether or not those who need this book — the ones who stand the most to gain from it — will buy it and actually read and follow its instructions.

The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever. Cliff Atkinson. New Riders. 222 pages.

If you remember passing notes in class during boring lectures and lessons, you'll easily understand how audiences armed with laptops, BlackBerries and iPhones now Tweet, post and e-mail back and forth during presentations and events. This poses some extraordinary obstacles, but it also opens up some new opportunities for all involved. Atkinson, who, like Reynolds, wrote an earlier book on PowerPoint, shows how savvy presenters, hosts and participants can use this crosstalk, chatter and snark to extend and expand their own presentations into full-blown participatory multimedia experiences.

There are some painfully hilarious instances of the use and misuse of these channels -- backchannels, as Atkinson calls 'em — along with examples that they either trashed the presentation along with the presenters' credibility and reputations, or turned hostile audiences into engaged and delighted participants.

Some of the material herein is pretty basic, since it's necessary to establish and define terms, conditions and technologies, but once past that, The Backchannel is a very helpful and smart resource — quite entertaining, too!

originally published in The Miami Herald

Harvey Mackay still good-naturedly pushes envelope

2010-05-24T00:01:00.002-04:00

Experience and enthusiasm drive the veteran author's advice on job seeking and keeping.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door: Job Search Secrets No One Else Will Tell You. Harvey Mackay. Portfolio. 352 pages.

Harvey Mackay's books, starting with 1989's Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, reflect his relentlessly upbeat, can-do ethos. Back before I jumped on the weekly biz-books review treadmill, I gobbled up each of Harvey's missives in turn. They were, upon reflection, pretty similar, but also fast, positive tracts full of homey, commonsensical wisdom, relevant anecdotes, judicious name-dropping and practical advice. Nothing weighty, ponderous or tedious, yet MacKay's preternatural positivism was a great comfort and helped a youngish promo guy making the first of several career reinventions avoid feeling like Tony Curtis' character in The Great Imposter.

With the success of that first book, Mackay, who owns a Minnesota envelope company — and seldom fails to make pitch on its behalf — became an author of a series of books on self-improvement, sales, networking and marketing, as well as a syndicated columnist and speaker. And he continued to sell envelopes!

This new book is vintage Mackay, chock full of all the stuff that everyone who works for a living should know, though few do; the things that used to be called "common sense'' but have proven to be anything but. Harvey understands the process inside and out, having sat, spoken and listened from both sides of the interview desk. Luckily, he picked up on all the big and little things that too many others either ignored or just assumed, like how to dress, how to speak, how to deal with other applicants, timing and just about every other aspect of the job-search process.

And though the author is far from a kid, he's savvy about the ways of the Web, both as a tool and a communications medium, and as a weapon for self-inflicted wounds, especially in the social networking realm. There's great guidance on the hows and the whys and the musts-to-avoid. Plus, there are some wise hints on cleaning up one's errant reputation when the embarrassments inevitably surfaced.

But Mackay doesn't just draw from his own extensive experience. There are interviews and contributions from a fairly diverse group of outside sources on the various stages of the job-seeking process. There's even advice on what to order — and what to avoid — if a prospective employer decides to take an applicant out for a meal. And he goes further, by suggesting ways to keep a job, which is pretty valuable information to have in this precarious economy with its jobless recovery (such as it is).

There's some really great stuff within, and it's fairly current, too, with ample examples of Harvey's optimism and determinedly good-natured personality, though the book is also suffused with pragmatism and even some urgency, as befits the subject and the tasks that are involved.

You can do far worse than have a mentor, coach or helpfully friendly uncle like Harvey Mackay offering encouragement and advice in these difficult times. It's kind of nice to know, too, that in terms of employment and career books, the dear old guy is still doing his best to push the envelope.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

No need to leap. Just make small changes.

2010-05-22T14:33:00.000-04:00

Engage the rider and the elephant, and you will get results, say Chip and Dan Heath

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Broadway Books. 320 pages.

Not a big fan of change, per se. Change my underwear, change the channel, change tables, change the scenery (once in a while, for a weekend or so) or hope that my favorite pitcher throws a change-up, but when it comes to big, hairy, fundamental changes, include me out. It's not that I'm averse to change; I'm not, truly. But I've pretty much got it down, so I'm not looking to change wives, kids, favorite sports teams, preferred breakfast (steel-cut oats, please) or any number of other elements in my life. And I'm not alone. But life is change and if we fail to alter our behavior when required to do so, dire fates often await.

The Heaths' previous book, 2007's Made to Stick, looked at the reasons some ideas gained traction and made it through the morass of marketing, media and more to attain "stickness'' in our consciousness. Good one! But this new brotherly collaboration is something completely different. The pair looks at why we're resistant to change and the means by which we can, er, change that.

As with Made to Stick, the text is smart, breezy and humorous, but no less elegant, well researched and insightful. The biggest takeaway, for me, was not anything new. In fact it's a variation of one of the most important tenets of child rearing, "Praise the good.''

How does that apply here? Well, they start with dividing the brain (similar to Godin and Pink in their recent books) into "the rider'' and "the elephant.'' The latter is our emotional and instinctive side, say the Heaths, and the former is the part of us that tries to stay on track and get things done. The Heaths contend that in order for change to take place, both the rider and the elephant need to engaged and satisfied. And instead of focusing solely on problems that need to be solved or negative behaviors that must be eliminated, they advocate seeking the bright spots and replicating them (aka "praise the good''). They also offer the idea that small adjustments can make more of a difference than seeking the root causes of the dysfunctionality.

They tell the story of a frustrated psychologist who was having trouble with her golf swing. The pro who helped her didn't examine her childhood for clues or ask about how she related to her mother. Instead, he suggested minor changes to her swing and achieved immediate favorable results. It was a revelation that informed her approach to dealing with her patients, henceforth concentrating on small, achievable steps that worked.

There are plenty of similar anecdotes herein from business, government, healthcare, academia and other areas of human interaction where change seems difficult or impossible, yet someone found ways to get from here to there. They also offer specific steps for a variety of scenarios.

While not every transition is easy, the Heaths show that it can be done, and how to do so when it seems impossible. Now, when business needs to be more nimble than ever, reading this great little book could well be among the most effective small steps you can take.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Made To Stick

2010-03-09T00:01:00.001-05:00

Chip and Dan Heath examine the reasons behind the success of some advertising messages.
BY RICHARD PACHTER

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Chip and Dan Heath. Random House. 291 pages.

Why do some ideas stick? Many of us have heard and then repeated stories that may have possessed some immediate believability but were later refuted or contradicted by facts.

A few weeks ago, for example, author Seth Godin featured a brief riff on his blog about the supposed failure of Chevrolet's Nova automobile in Latin America due to the ''fact'' the its name means ''doesn't go'' in Spanish and buyers stayed away as a result. With my facility in that language mostly limited to dining selections, I'd always believed the story, but Godin, citing the reliable rumor debunker www.snopes.com said it ain't so. But I'd been willing to believe it because it made "sense.''

URBAN LEGENDS
Another story, featured in this new book by the Heath Brothers (not the jazz musicians, alas) involves a man, seduced and abandoned, who then awakens in an ice-filled bathtub. He calls the police, who ask him if there's a tube protruding from his back. He answers in the affirmative and is told that he's been victimized by an organ thief who has made off with his kidneys.

Never happened.

Yet the story is still repeated. Other fables, like Al Gore supposedly claiming to have invented the Internet — which he never said — are also repeated because, well, they ''stick,'' meaning they meet several standards that cause us to accept them as if they were the truth.

According to the Heaths, there are six key qualities that make an idea stick: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotion and story.

Simplicity is obvious; if it's a complicated thing, it's too easy to misunderstand or forget. Unexpectedness is no surprise either; sharp copywriters know that the best way to get a point across is to catch people when they least expect it. Writer and advertising executive Roy Williams likes to point to a part of the brain, ''Broca's area.'' Apparently when ideas are presented in an unexpected way, they get past our defenses through there.

Ditto with emotion. The Heaths use the Lone Star State's successful ''Don't Mess With Texas'' anti-littering campaign as an example of using emotion to promote acceptance of unappealing or unexciting ideas.

Stories are a powerful means of communicating ideas, too, as they contain a variety of symbols, images and values presented in ways that resonate with different cultural groups possessing similar values.

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLES
In addition to the discussion of their six keys, the Heaths present quite a few examples to illustrate them. But that's not all; they provide a number of successful templates that they say can be populated with specific ideas. It's not an entirely plug-and-play proposition; some assembly is required, as well as making sure that all the pieces ''fit'' and make sense.

Their tone throughout is very low key and positive, but the content is pretty powerful. I've heard and read much of this stuff before, but by placing it all into this pleasant and persuasive context, a lot of the familiar ideas seem to have a bit more authority and persuasiveness.

What do you know? They stick!

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Good business: Some companies actually do the right thing

2010-03-01T00:01:00.002-05:00

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi looks at a more caring form of entrepreneurship

Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Penguin. 244 pages.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

The dichotomy is real.

On one hand, business has gotten lean and mean: costs cut, suppliers squeezed, employees seen as mere commodities.

On the other, people demand increased accountability, greater choices, less artifice, more humanity

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a professor, author and business consultant, examines these conflicts and contradictions in this interesting and easily digested volume. He explores these issues and the back story of how we got where we are and what it portends..

He writes: "For the past century or so, business leaders have made credible claims to the effect that allowing for the operation of a free market, unfettered by social and political regulations, would improve the quality of life for everyone. As a result, our mental model of how the world works has become one in which production and consumption, the twin poles of economics, are the benchmarks of prosperity and well-being.

"Any fraction of a percent drop in consumption becomes a flag of distress that sends investors scurrying for shelter. After the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, one of the most often-heard responses from political and business leaders was: `Go out, and buy. Don't let the enemy threaten your way of life.'

"While this worldview offers an easy solution and is convenient for those who benefit from it at the higher levels of the supply hierarchy, is a way of life that has consumption as its highest aim really that rewarding?

"Yet, however dispiriting the historical record may seem to be, human nature is not, in fact, based on greed alone. In every historical period, there have been individuals who care for more than their own profit, who find fulfillment in dedicating themselves to the advancement of the common good. The struggle between selfishness and altruism has run throughout history like periods of sunlight and shade on a summer afternoon.''

HUMANISM AND PROFIT
Csikszentmihalyi looks at several companies that have embraced more humanistic and less mercenary paths — without sacrificing profitability.

Patagonia, the maker of rugged apparel, began as an extension of founder Yvon Chouinard's love of the outdoors and mountain climbing. He developed equipment for himself that caught on among fellow climbers, and the company took off.

But then, upon realizing that his innovative gear was responsible for increasing the scarring and pitting of his beloved mountains, he developed new techniques and equipment that left the land unharmed.

The company evolved into a manufacturer of outdoor clothing, and Chouinard's high standards required his clothing to be the best and toughest available. But when he realized that the cotton used in its manufacture was grown with the aid of petroleum-based pesticides that left polluted pools in the cotton fields, he spearheaded the use of organically raised fibers.

The tale of Patagonia and Chouinard is one of several used by Csikszentmihalyi to illustrate ''flow,'' defined in this case as the natural integration of sound business practices with intelligent, sensitive and sensible behavior.

CAUSE TO LOSE ONESELF
He also uses the term to define the state of being wherein one almost loses oneself in the act of doing something.

Depending on individual values and experiences, each reader will come away with something a little different from this book, underscoring the author's notion of society.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Eulogy for Ray

2010-02-25T09:08:00.007-05:00

February 24, 2010; Boca Raton, Florida

First of all, thank you for being here. The love and support from family and friends is the thing that’s keeping us going during this unimaginably horrible time.

Darlene, Sarah and Ben, and Peter as well as my mother Lee, my in-laws Ruth and Tobe, Aunt Wendy, Uncle Steve and Aunt Miriam deeply, deeply appreciate it.

I’ve personally gotten unbelievable and amazing love from people I’ve known all my life… for years, months … and even from someone I just became friends with a few short weeks ago. Beloved aunts. Dear cousins. Friends. Colleagues. Friends I barely knew or never saw in person or met once. Fellow parents and allies in the fight.

Beautiful. A blessing. Amazing! Visits. Calls. E-mail. Facebook: Facebook has been great!

Jews. Christians. Buddhists. Moslems. Atheists. Whatever. Love. Powerful love. Thank you. Thank you. I love you too.

So let’s talk about Ray, my youngest child. My baby. My little boy.

If you knew him at all, you know how charming he is. Is, not was. I’m still charmed by him. We all are.

A charming Pachter? Is that an oxymoron? Darlene is very charming of course and Sarah is a pageant queen. Ben and I have a somewhat more casual relationship with charm and tact, though we do try.

But Ray: you could drop him into a crowd of strangers and within a few minutes, they’d be his pals. Right? That’s Ray. And it was sincere.

Ray was named for my paternal grandfather, Ralph: Raphael Ralph Pachter. RRP. Ray is Raymond Raphael Pachter. RRP. Boy, those two together, had they known each other, would have been dangerous. Two peas in a pod, as Darlene likes to say. RRP times two.

Ray’s quite a character: Deep: when my father died, he’d ask me for months where Grampa Howie was and about the nature of death. An infant Woody Allen, I thought. Now, in about an hour — give or take — his mortal remains will rest just a few yards from Grampa Howie’s.

Ray loved music, as do Sarah and Ben. Ray thanked me a bunch times for turning him on to the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Was (Not Was). Miles Davis. Horace Silver…. And for taking him and Ben to see The Who a few years back. Ben says Ray’s favorite album was The Who’s Quadrophenia and I’m not surprised.

Ray loved music and he loved his family. And he was quite adept at using the Jedi Mind Trick on Darlene. The Force is strong in that one.

Every one of us in his family and among his friends can talk about how charmed we were and are by his ready laugh, big smile and words of love. In fact, the last thing he said to me was “Love ya, Daddy.”

Love ya, Ray.

He cared deeply about his family and when he returned to live with us in late October, there was a new appreciation from him of us. He started to compliment my cooking and devoured things that he previously wouldn’t have even touched. Fish. Even spaghetti, which he hated to eat because it was so unmanageable to him.

But Ray’s own cooking and eating habits would have made Elvis Presley blush. Greasy fried eggs and waffles and bacon and lox and bagels and strawberries and syrup and cheese and crackers and bananas and raisin bran. With lots of salt, pepper and garlic powder. Slathered in butter and/or cream cheese. This was one meal, by the way. Elvis would have told him it was a little unhealthy… thank you very much.

Ray also loved cars and once took an unscheduled ride in Darlene’s Camry one afternoon when we were away… a few years ago. That was exciting. He also owned a couple of vehicles that we didn’t quite know about, but that’s another story for another day.

Ray was loved… is loved by many people. I only wish that Ray took that love seriously.

I know. Shoulda woulda coulda but if he felt the love from us maybe it would have kept him from the people who didn’t value him for who he was, and might have helped him make better choices.

Shoulda woulda coulda. Right. I know. Forget it.

It’s unreal to think that we won’t see Ray again. That’s really the hardest thing for me.

He told me last week that he wanted to spend more time with me; how he missed me when he was up north. I told him that I was here and just say when and I’ll make the time.

I still haven’t watched the DVD of Inglourious Basterds because he said he wanted to watch it with me… so I held off.

But we all must remember Ray as he was, as he is: A charming, lovable and loving boy. A music lover, a musician.

Ray is a song that plays forever in our hearts and minds for as long as we live.

With loud drums! Shredding guitars! Powerful bass!

I think Ray would really like that.

Love ya! Love ya! Love ya!

–Richard Pachter

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

2010-02-21T23:02:00.001-05:00

Brain power and economics come together in an in-depth look at where we could be headed in the wake of the information age.

A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. Daniel H. Pink. Riverhead Books. 272 pages.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, especially when the mind is concerned.

Daniel Pink, a former speechwriter and prolific writer, identifies Asia, abundance and automation as the key forces driving societal changes. Asia, for its cheap workforce and its demands as a growing market; abundance, since we are living in an age of unprecedented plenty; and automation, because most every repetitive commercial task will soon be performed by machines, if it isn't already.

How each of these forces affects us, individually and as a society, is what this book is about — at first.

Pink writes: "We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big picture capabilities of what's rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.''

100% BRAIN
His notion is that the right side of the brain — the artistic half, if you will — can and should be better integrated with the left half — the more logical and rational portion. By doing so, we will be able to deal with the changes in our economy once Asia's dominance really kicks in and whatever economic advantages we possess become far less potent, if not nonexistent.

But Pink is not a grim prophet of doom. He uses the coming changes as a springboard for exploring the nature of personal fulfillment, success and humanity. It's not a touchy-feely self-help manual that he has constructed. But many of his ideas and approaches are wise, compassionate and supportive of a variety of personal and professional endeavors.

It's a pleasant and surprisingly entertaining little trip as he explores the workings of the brain, celebrates the proliferation and democratization of Target's designer products and learns to draw and play games, all as a means of illustrating ways we can think and live in a better, more meaningful and productive manner.

I reviewed Pink's previous effort, Free Agent Nation in July 2001, and though I found it to be well-written and provocative, I was completely unprepared for the breadth and depth of this new book. It's not that I thought that Pink was incapable of such an audacious and powerful work; he seems to be one of those people who excel at many things.

What surprised me about this book is how Pink realized that to empower individuals, it's necessary to really understand and act upon the powerful socioeconomic forces that shape the world economy.

OUR STRENGTHS
Unlike many of the recent xenophobic screeds that rail against the evils of outsourcing, Pink has figured out several paths that individuals and society can pursue that play to our strengths. The transition will not necessarily be an easy one, but the full engagement of both types of thinking — left- and right-directed — is wholly consistent with many of the qualities that embody traditional American ingenuity and empathy.

So if Pink is correct, we're almost there. All it may take is for individuals and institutions to recognize this reality by using the tools we already possess. And that may well require A Whole New Mind.

Originally published on Monday, May 9, 2005 in The Miami Herald

Customer service key to building business

2010-02-13T08:48:00.004-05:00

Put as much energy into retaining customers as acquiring them and you will profit.

Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones. Joseph Jaffe. Wiley, 286 pages.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

It's bizarre and baffling to me that companies expend so much time, money and energy on customer acquisition and then follow it up with crappy service after the sale.

Think about it: Advertising, marketing and sales department are all geared toward convincing prospects to buy the company's products and services. But after asking for the order and getting it, the customer — especially if it's a consumer and not a business — is often ignored. Worse, they're frequently forced to deal with incompetent, unhelpful or ignorant people several continents away when they have a problem.

There's nothing inherently wrong with outsourcing customer service to India or South America, for example: I've had exceptional service, in fact, from friendly and well informed people in those places. But I've had also awful ones, too.

Every interaction with a customer holds the potential to not only serve their needs, but turn them into evangelists and advocates for your company and continued sources of sales and revenue. So why is this not obvious to every enterprise?

Joseph Jaffe wonders the same thing. In this new book, he looks at every aspect of the client experience, including, obviously, "customer service" interactions. But he goes well beyond that, too. Engaging people is the challenge. Your product is secondary. After all, they're not buying what you're selling; they're buying a solution to a problem or a fulfillment of a need.

But the big challenge, he writes, is to grab their interest: "Getting people to care these days is like climbing Mount Everest. People today are skeptical, jaded, cynical and wary — and increasingly so, due to the hardships and hangover of the recession. And those are the good ones! The rest are apathetic, uninterested, indifferent, and detached. Most messages don't make it through the multiple layers of consumers' near-impenetrable defenses, and the ones that do are greeted with either a pitchfork or a pillow. It's a catch-22 of dire proportions."

How do you do that? That's the problem: there's no cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all answer. But the good news is that there are plenty of tools to extend the human experience to address the unique requirements of each customer. But first, according to Jaffe, companies have to look at these things in a positive, proactive manner and devote the necessary resources to ongoing efforts. And then they have to make sure that they not only accommodate needs, but also delight everyone they touch.

Jaffe cites companies like Nike, Comcast and others that flipped the funnel by building their business through customer retention. Prime example is Zappos, which was so impressive in its customer relation-building that Amazon acquired the company lock, stock and sandals.

In addition to case studies (good and bad), Jaffe looks at social media (naturally!) and provides steps for companies to take in implementing the flipped funnel for fun and, of course profit.

Much of what Jaffe advocates seems self-evident, but too many companies are oblivious to the obvious, so if you are seeking a true competitive advantage, this is an excellent place to start.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Letterman-Leno Super Bowl promo spot

2010-02-07T21:02:00.001-05:00

Is that all there is? No.

2010-01-26T22:54:00.005-05:00

A conversation with Linchpin author Seth Godin

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Q: How did you write this book? I follow your blog at http://sethgodin.typepad.com, and have read most of what you've posted and published during the last decade, but most everything herein seems new — at least to me. Given your schedule of blogging and other work, where and how did you write this?

A: We have so much time, all of us. We don't have to spend hours tilling the fields or 12 hours in the factory; we don't have to walk three hours just to get water. We have time for TV and time for a restaurant and time to update Facebook. Making time to write isn't a challenge for me. I could write a book every month if I felt like it would help move the needle for people.

I think the hard partisn't finding time; the hard part is deciding that we're worthy. The hard part is overcoming the fear of actually making something happen. Fortunately for me, when it comes to writing, I'm fearless.

I write on my laptop. I write in moleskin notebooks. I write on post-its. For this book, I stopped at the Muji store in Newark airport and bought their biggest-size Japanese notebook. Bigger than usual, because I wanted bigger ideas than usual. And then I bought some special pens, pens just for writing this book. If I opened the big book and took out the big pen, then, it was to write something big.

And I just wrote. A lot. And fast.

I ended up deleting more than half the stuff I wrote. Words I loved, like little members of the family, but words that weren't going to help advance my argument. Sometimes writing less is worth more.

Q: You seem frustrated. Your tone isn't angry, bitter or snarky but... disappointed. Are you?

A: Very disappointed. Disappointed that we're close to blowing it. We've taken so much from the system and from the land, and for what? To buy a bigger house? What a waste. I'm disappointed that we built a system where we've worked so hard to cull the creatives, to dampen the outspoken ideas, to maximize efficiency. And then we smugly call it a dream, when it's not what it could be.

I walk into a museum or a concert hall or a kindergarten or a Fast Company advance or TED or read your column and then I feel better. Better because we haven't extinguished the opportunity, just diminished it. I'm working overtime to pour a little gas on the embers.

Q: All of your books focus on individuals as well as businesses, but this one is directed at employees more than anyone else. Why them?

A: I hear a lot of people talking about the system or their boss . . about how they're not allowed or permitted to do work that matters. A lot of my books have focused on strategy and mechanics and the fundamental shifts in the marketing dynamic, but I've come to see that this is really a grass-roots problem. If you've been brainwashed into believing that the system wants you to be a certain way, it's going to be hard for you to do the work you're capable of. So I'm trying to call people out and help them see that there has never been another time, certainly not in our lifetimes, where individual initiative is easier or better rewarded.

Q: I read a lot of books, yet of those in your bibliography, I've only read a few, which is very exciting to me! But the fact is, most people I talk to say they don't read -- books, newspapers, Kindle whatevuh. Is this aliteracy a problem, in your opinion?

A: A bigger problem than nonliteracy is noncuriosity. Reading is a great way to feed your curiosity, but it's not the only way. I want our kids (and my peers) to get better and more comfortable at asking, "Why does it work that way?'' and "How can I change it?'' The more you read, the more likely you are to ask (and answer) those questions. We've never had more words to choose from, never had them more easily available, and never had so few people who could read, not do so.

We fought for the right to have this choice and this leverage, and I hope we don't blow it. Can you imagine how much it cost to build and deliver the Internet? Why? So we could watch Paris Hilton videos on demand?

Q: Why did you essentially bypass the MSM [main-stream media] and newspapers by not sending review copies of Linchpin? Was this a cost-cutting decision or what, not making ARCs [advance review copies] and sending hundreds out? Or was there another reason, after all, you're generally pretty well reviewed!

A: Here's the thing, Richard: The MSM is mistreating big thinking book reviewers by firing them, cutting their column inches or yes, going out of business. The few reviewers who are left have a long line out the door of authors waiting for attention. Add to that the status quo mind-set of most MSM papers . . . I just didn't see the point of enduring snarky feedback from someone with a lot of fear of change and a lot of leverage. So I made the decision to write a book reviewers might not like, but one that my readers might embrace and share. And my publisher backed my decision of going directly to my newly empowered readers, the ones with blogs and twitter accounts and passion -- and giving them the same respect and attention we previously paid to traditional reviewers.

It's faster, cheaper and a lot scarier. Scarier because you can't tailor the message to a particular reviewer and because it hadn't been done before and because there's a lot of people at once. But one thing I learned from writing this book is that often, scarier is exactly what you should do.

Q: And, of course, your next book is...? (Ha!)

A: Truth: I haven't written a page, not even a word, of a new book since I handed this book in. I'm empty, at least right now. I gave this every single drop I had.

Q: Bonus points: Linchpin, to me, fits quite neatly between Daniel Pink's last book, A Whole New Mind, and his new one, Drive. Agree, disagree or what?

A: Just to be compared to Dan is an honor.

You have to write a book about a year before it comes out, so figuring out what's next is a challenge. If Dan and I are in sync, that helps me sleep better.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Be indispensible: Create art and give gifts

2010-01-26T22:43:00.002-05:00

Be the artist they cannot fire

Author Seth Godin recommends we free our minds and use our brains to turn our tasks into art.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Seth Godin. Portfolio. 256 pages.

This may be Seth Godin's best book yet. It's also his most personal.

Rather than explain how marketing functions in this latest new, new era or bloviate and pontificate about the urgent need to be unique, or how to spread ideas or when to quit, the guru and blogger aims his message at the growing number of employees who wonder what lies ahead for them and their jobs.

The short answer is ``nothing.'' Not as long as commoditization, virtual outsourcing and the relentless race for lower costs continues -- and there's no reason to think it will stop. In fact, count on rapid acceleration. New technologies will catalyze the process, so what do you do? And if you're a manager, how can you motivate your people if they're on a virtual death march toward approaching extinction?

In the spirit of Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind, Godin says that right-brain activity -- creativity -- is the answer, but he takes it farther by declaring that to ensure job security, one must invest each position with ``art'' and make every effort a ``gift,'' rather than a chore. Sounds like HR BS, to be sure, but Godin places his message in the context of the diminishing stature and importance of the production line and its white-collar analogues. Cubicle denizens and other office workers, retail employees, service providers, technicians and craftsmen may wonder -- with good reason -- if there is a future for what they do or, equally importantly, if there's any hope for them to transcend the routine tasks and drudgery of their jobs.

There is, according to Godin, and he discusses ways we stifle our own creativity and how our brains work against us. This is the primary obstacle, he says. It's not cosmic slop or metaphysical psychobabble, but clear and simple explanatory prose.

Indeed, Godin gets accolades for his ideas but never receives appropriate props for his engaging and very readable writing; consistently intelligent, elegant and free of both ego and artifice.

Your definition of "art'' is likely different from his, but that's all right. What Godin really wants from us is emotional investment and a little risk taking: seizing initiative, human engagement, whimsy, exceeding expectations -- that sort of thing. It's the only way to make yourself so valuable that dismissal would be unthinkable. The value added goes far beyond what your actual gig is because you've imbued it with beauty and emotion.

Godin gives examples of people doing just that despite their job descriptions: executives at Google, store buyers, retail workers, flight attendants, Web designers, dot.com developers and others.

Godin's reasoning is impeccable and his prose persuasive, so much so that I've done something that I haven't even considered with any other book I've reviewed. I secured copies for my colleagues (in my "real'' job) in the hope that the message herein resonates with them as powerfully as it has with me.

It may not work with every organization and some bosses may not get it, but the alternative would be grim indeed.

Originally published 1/25/10 in The Miami Herald

Sam Zell, What the hell?

2010-01-11T00:01:00.001-05:00

The biography of real estate maverick Sam Zell is a decent introduction, but not the final word

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Money Talks, Bullsh*t Walks: Inside the Contrarian Mind of Billionaire Mogul Sam Zell. Ben Johnson. Portfolio. 246 pages.

Great title, of course, though the sub-title doesn't really deliver what it promises, as there's scant inside info about the mind of this billionaire mogul. Regardless, this breezy biography of successful real estate investor Sam Zell provides a pretty good profile of this character.

As a kid, the canny young Zell bought copies of the new (at the time) Playboy magazine and sold them to his suburban Illinois classmates at a nice markup. As a young law student, he chanced into real estate, investing in student housing. The venture proved so lucrative that young Zell abandoned plans to practice law after holding exactly one job at a firm, then quitting to begin his real career as an investor.

He found distressed properties and rehabilitated them, earning a nice profit when he flipped 'em. It was a formula he'd repeatedly follow until he bought into a business that might be immune to such tactics: media — newspapers and broadcasting.

But before he faced his Waterloo on Lake Michigan, Zell continued to invest and profit, mostly from real estate though he also, according to Johnson, began to diversify. He became knowledgeable in international markets and invested cautiously though astutely in real estate ventures in developing countries.

Johnson's biography sheds little light on Zell's motivations beside avarice. Surely there's more, not merely in psychological terms or mystical mumbo jumbo.

In other words, what makes Sammy run? If the author has no opinion or insights to offer, I didn't see them herein. And other than his early days, there's little of the character's personal life. He's married. Any kids? No idea. But we do know he likes to ride motorcycles. It's his trademark. Nice.

Nevertheless, as Johnson turns his attention to the main event, the Tribune deal, Zell has more than enough money for several lifetimes worth of comfortable retirements, yet he goes far out of his element and comfort zone into a field quite foreign to him, despite his proclivity for reading six newspapers every day, per Johnson.

No need to recount the miseries endured by advertiser-supported publications and the broadcast industry, but when contrarian Zell and his cadre of like-minded mavericks looked at Chicago's venerable Tribune Co. what did they see? Johnson doesn't really provide much in the way of details, instead focusing on the background leading up to the company's sale and the machinations of the deal itself.

That's fine and well done but given the crumbling landscape, was it hubris, ignorance or hallucinogenic drugs that led the otherwise canny Zell into such an unastute investment.

Newspapers are generally staffed with overeducated underachievers whose monastic dedication to the pursuit of truth can be baffling to those using their own prodigious skills to merely make money. The ensuing culture clash between Zell and the journalists at his newly acquired papers was inevitable.

So, too, was bankruptcy, despite his stellar track record and apparently good intentions. Johnson provides the general outline of the ongoing dissolution of the Trib and its sister papers and broadcast properties — and the Chicago Cubs, which were part of the package — though another whole book might better detail the sad collapse. In all, Money Talks is a decent intro to Zell, but likely not the final word.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Seeking employment in an uncertain job market

2010-01-10T00:02:00.001-05:00

Four new books see the glass as half full
By RICHARD PACHTER

Next to social networking primers, the biggest pile of bound dead trees in my stash are job-search books. And no wonder.

After larding the banksters with beaucoup bucks, the Administration is belatedly paying attention — or lip service — to the country's staggering unemployment. It's not just statistics (which fail to account for those who have given up in despair), it's people. Yet many continue to look for work or seek to start a career or reinvent themselves despite the awful job market. Pessimism isn't an option for some. There's no alternative except to plow on. That said, here's a selection from the current crop of get-a-job tomes.

The Smart New Way to Get Hired: Use Emotional Intelligence and Land the Right Job by Lisa Caldas Kappesser. JIST Publishing. 224 pages.

Kappesser's shtick is "emotional intelligence,'' a term popularized by Daniel Goleman in his book of the same name. So, in addition to requisite hints and anecdotes on résumés, interviewing and the like, the author offers self-assessments up the wazoo. The goal is to determine who you are and what job would be the best match for your personal qualities, mind-set, temperament and skills. It's hardly a bad approach, assuming, of course that the job for which the reader is best suited is open and the firm is able to hire someone to fill the position.

How to Get Any Job: Career Launch and Re-Launch for Everyone Under 30 (or How to Avoid Living in Your Parents' Basement). Donald Asher. Ten Speed Press. 248 pages.

I envy people emerging from universities and colleges, educated in their chosen fields by wise and wizened professors in tweed, with their whole lives in front of them, ready to rock! Or not, again depending upon availability. But hope springs eternal.

Ascher stokes those fires of faith, both for new job seekers and those of us who've been forced into reinvention — often repeatedly. He's also big on self-assessment, anecdotes and gentle coaching, not just for newbies but salarymen and women at all stages of their working lives.

The End of Work as You Know It: 8 Strategies to Redefine Work in Your Own Terms. Milo Sindell, Thuy Sindell. Ten Speed Press. 144 pages.

The Sindells offer eight strategies that they say will allow you to redefine your relationship with your job so that you are working ``on your own terms.'' Good luck with that. Though they make a persuasive case, the ongoing role-play and suspension of disbelief might be difficult to maintain. And most employers have their own agendas, within which you will be fortunate to find common ground. Still, if their cogent advice helps one cope with an otherwise oppressive occupation, this volume is well worthwhile.

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Expanded and Updated). Timothy Ferriss. Crown. 416 pages.

Ferris wrote the book on productive indolence and now he's revised it. In addition to offering advice based on his own skewed-but sane view of life, the author provides resources and guidance for working minimally while traveling and having a great time.

He has scant understanding and sympathy for those of us who are preternaturally responsible and unable to chuck it all away to set up revenue streams and live in Tahiti, but the book is fun and a pleasant departure from reality. If you read it and it works for you, please send me a short postcard — and a fat check.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

The end of dominant U.S. influence

2010-01-06T16:48:00.002-05:00

The End of Influence: What Happens When Other Countries Have the Money. Brad DeLong, Stephen S. Cohen. Basic Books. 176 pages.

Coauthors outline the problems the U.S. faces as we lose money and power

BY RICHARD PACHTER

I've long thought that the best advice one can give a youngster seeking success in the business world is to learn Chinese. Our pals in Beijing and Shanghai hold serious paper on us ("Us, U.S.,'' as Paul Harvey used to say) and they can wreak terminal havoc upon America, its institutions and infrastructure, if and when they chose. But it's not really in their best interests to ask us to ante up and watch us turn our pockets inside out, show our empty hands and shrug.

Why?

Cohen and DeLong invoke the quote, ``If you owe the bank $1 million, the bank has you; if you owe $1 billion, you have the bank,'' then spend much of the rest of the book explaining why and how it's true. Along the way, they discuss the failure of neoliberalism, which sought to transfer portions of the control of the economy from the public to the private sector, skewer former Fed head Alan Greenspan, and describe with palpable awe the pandemic failure to oversee credit and banking in the United States and the major role it played -- and continues to play -- in our ongoing economic meltdown. The rampant corruption of the political system is also calmly recounted as a powerful catalyst for this dissolution and dispersal of American wealth.

Though both authors are academics, they're rather decent writers; DeLong is also a blogger (http://delong.typepad.com) who struggles online daily to make sense of various economic effluvia and ephemera with a combination of alacrity, disgust and amusement. But this book is far from a knee-slapper and unlikely to be chosen by Ms. Winfrey for her book club.

They cover a fair amount of ground here and their depiction of the loss of U.S. influence is tempered by their rational, non-alarmist manner. Though resistant to speculation on things that are obviously unknown and unknowable, the pair does spell out the fading power of government and private industry to collaborate on industrial and scientific innovation. The authors leave any horrific conclusions and sensational scenarios to others.

The absence of requisite funding will hit this area quite hard, they surmise. The natural constituency for this alarm might be found in either political party, though both are focused on other things. They may eventually wake up just in time to do nothing but howl and raise impotent ire, however.

Overall, the loss of U.S. dominance due to lack of governmental largess might promote more multilateralism, as we become just another country, rather than the planet's sole superpower. It may force some of our beneficiaries to stand on their own and opponents to focus inward. It may also further the domestic growth of China as their credit ceases to subsidize and support our consumption of their consumer goods. After all, it's a very big country and is already growing faster than any economy on the planet.

Cohen and DeLong's interesting look at the real New World Order is worthy of consideration as it describes a reality that's fast approaching.

published 12/14/09 in The Miami Herald

The Best Business Books of 2009

2009-12-28T03:00:00.003-05:00

The Miami Herald's Business Monday books columnist offers his highly subjective list of favorites.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

I didn't — couldn't — read every business book published during the past year, but I was still gob-smacked by the number that I did read in 2009, including a few just for fun. (Imagine that!)

But among those that I read and reviewed, these titles represent the ones that I thought were exceptional, have lasting value and were worth my time — and yours.

A few things that may have deserved inclusion didn't make the cut for one reason or another, and some worthy titles that came out in 2009 won't get reviewed until January. Them's the breaks. You may have a few choices that aren't here either. If you'd like to share, I'm always happy to hear from readers. After all, you make this all possible, so please leave your comments.

Thanks for reading!

(Click on each title to read the original, full review. Date of original review follows each title. Books listed in chronological order by review.)

Collapse of Distinction: Stand Out and Move Up While Your Competition Fails. Scott McKain. Thomas Nelson. 272 pages. 2/09/09

A wise plea for the strategic imperative of being different and distinctive asthe best way to avoid commoditization or worse — extinction. McKain insists that it's a competitive advantage, in fact. "Good enough'' just isn't "good enough'' any more, if it ever was.

Taming The Search-And-Switch Customer: Earning Customer Loyalty in a Compulsion-to-Compare World. Jill Griffin. Jossey Bass. 288 pages. 5/11/09

Griffin suggests ways to connect with customers and prospects through the intelligent and proactive deployment of blogs, social networks and other resources that provide support and rapid responses to criticism, problems and concerns — real or imagined. Her deep understanding of thiscomplicated subject and her intelligent and actionable assessment of the necessary strategies are impressive.

Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy. Barry Ritholtz. Wiley. 332 pages. 6/1/09

Economist and investment guru Barry Ritholtz's blog, The Big Picture, is a mandatory daily stop for many. This honest, unvarnished look at the forces that screwed up the U.S. economy is a worthy candidate for a time capsule so that future financial operators can avoid the same traps that we fell into. Or at least howl when history repeats itself.

The Twitter Book. Tim O'Reilly, Sarah Milstein. O'Reilly. 240 pages. 6/8/09

Movie stars, media figures, captains of industry and book reviewers are doing it, but how can businesses discern the twits from the tweets? O'Reilly and Milstein present as lucid and intelligent an overview as you'd want or need. The format is concise but quite rich, and there's plenty here to convince skeptics that employing Twitter as a marketing tool is a very good way to engage customers.

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back. Douglas Rushkoff. Random House. 304 pages. 6/15/09

The "operating system'' behind the world's economies and monetary systems is flawed and antithetical to productivity and most other human values. Greed, avarice and (unenlightened) self-interest flourish. So do artificial scarcity, perpetual debt and empty allegiance to the slogans and logos of oppressive corporations. A less elegant and gifted writer might have produced a dour and plodding polemic against materialism and consumerist culture, but Rushkoff's persuasive prose is a pleasure.

In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing. Matthew E. May. Broadway Books. 224 pages. 7/6/09

Elegance is simplicity itself, is often self-contained, or damned near, and has nothing to do with wealth or fashion, yet it can affect both. Patterns and the need to look for them and make them work in an elegant manner are hard-wired into human DNA. May's sagacious and engaging book demonstrates how successful organizations can engage elegance and benefit from the engagement engendered by uncomplicated and intuitive choices.

$20 per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rising Cost of Gas Will Change Our Lives for the Better. Christopher Steiner, Grand Central Publishing. 288 pages.

Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization. Jeff Rubin. Random House. 304 pages. 7/13/09

I devoured these two fascinating books over the last Independence Day weekend, a propitious occasion to learn that one of our most cherished American freedoms may soon evaporate. Each depicts the ways our lives will change as the price of oil, gasoline and petrochemicals continues to rise, and both posit a future that resembles, in many ways, our pastoral past. Much of what these guys write reads like science fiction, though like the best SF, there are recognizably plausible elements therein to enable the suspension of disbelief.

Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone. Mitch Joel. Business Plus. 304 pages. 8/31/09

If you're enticed by all you've heard and read about the benefits of deploying online tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, blogs, search engines and the rest for your business or personal enterprises but were not sure what to actually do and where to begin, this terrific tome will help hook you up. Joel doesn't just provide directions but also thoroughly explains a variety of things that may seem painfully obvious to the cognoscenti but somehow eludes others.

Walk the Walk: The #1 Rule for Real Leaders. Alan Deutschman. Portfolio. 208 Pages. 9/7/09

Alan Deutschman's short and readable book examines a number of people and the failure and success they achieved for themselves and their organizations based on whether or not their deeds aligned with their words. He does a fine job explicating the importance of moral equanimity and the effectiveness of leaders who are consistent in their values and actions. It's a lesson that transcends business but is especially important in it, where trust and integrity can ultimately determine failure or success.

The Chaos Scenario. Bob Garfield. Stielstra Publishing. 294 pages. 11/30/09

Advertising-supported mass media is dying, and Ad Age columnist and NPR host Garfield, though currently part of its status quo, is simultaneously gleeful and distraught, mourning the decentralization of power while grabbing a bit of his own by blogging about the death of his cable provider for lack of support, dishonesty and general idiocy. What makes his insights valuable — even essential — is Garfield himself. He's an enormously entertaining and engaging writer, and it's a blast to observe the machinations of his so-sane-he's-crazy (or is it the other way around?) mind. Witty, world-weary, wildly knowledgeable and endlessly curious, Garfield is your perfect tour guide to the end of the sponsored world as we know it.

Media Meltdown

2009-12-27T16:59:00.001-05:00

Uncertainty looms as the ad-supported media infrastructure continues its death spiral

BY RICHARD PACHTER

The Chaos Scenario. Bob Garfield. Stielstra Publishing. 294 pages.

When advertiser-supported media — print, broadcast, online, whatever — cease to exist as audiences shrink below the critical mass needed by businesses to justify placing advertising therein, it's what Advertising Age columnist and NPR host Bob Garfield calls "The Chaos Scenario.''

He began documenting this meltdown in 2005 with a column that engendered widespread industry hysterics. The book took all this time to write, he said, because the chaos was ongoing and accelerating. But he told me at the Miami Book Fair International that he was compelled to write this. Driven. This was something that needed saying.

If he'd managed to do it quickly, this book would have been even more explosive and mind-blowing, four years ago. Now, his tour of the emerging media-less landscape is slightly less shocking. Most mavens and everyone else already know what's ahead and take Facebook, Twitter, blogs, social networking, crowdsourcing and all that other Googlely stuff pretty much for granted.

But Garfield's take remains invaluable and is still quite timely, even urgent. Major components of the scenarios he describes are still unfolding. For example, Jay Leno's nightly TV chat show is a direct result of NBC's plummeting ratings and the relatively low cost of producing that show compared to (more or less) original dramatic presentations. Daily newspapers' diminishing circulation numbers have publishing execs considering patently suicidal tactics like charging for online access or withholding content from the great god, Google. (Good luck with that one, Rupert!)

What makes Garfield's insights valuable — even essential — is Garfield himself. He's an enormously entertaining and engaging writer. It's a blast to observe the machinations of his so-sane-he's-crazy (or is it the other way around?) mind. Witty, world-weary, wildly knowledgeable and endlessly curious, Garfield is your perfect guide to the end of the world.

He trudges through Lego's Danish headquarters to see how the makers of those annoying bits of shaped plastic profited from tapping into the hive-mind of its fans. He journeys to Australia, Estonia, Israel, England and through his own living room as he investigates the twilight of one media age and the genesis of the next.

To be sure, there are thousands of other books, blog posts, PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, vodcasts and speeches on the subjects Garfield covers, but he's unique and his discursive by-the-ways, rude asides and dead-on skepticism provide the ideal balance to the mash-up of endemic excitement and widespread panic pervading the affected industries and culture at large.

Mass media is dying and Garfield, though currently part of its status quo, is simultaneously gleeful and distraught, mourning the decentralization of power while grabbing a bit of his own by blogging for the death of his cable provider for lack of support, dishonesty and general idiocy.

One nit to pick: the "real" last chapter of this tome has yet to be written and will appear online, per Garfield. Whatever. But the final one herein, explaining the book's origin and publication path, ought to have appeared up front, I think. No biggie, though.

Failure, however, to see what Bob Garfield's discovered — the chaotic and uncertain world we're entering — could be a very big mistake. You've been forewarned.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Say it, mean it and do it

2009-12-27T16:52:00.002-05:00

Your words must match your deeds

by Richard Pachter

Walk the Walk: The #1 Rule for Real Leaders. Alan Deutschman. Portfolio. 208 Pages.

Each of us may be the star of our own movie, but that doesn't guarantee an intriguing plot. In a similar fashion, most war stories recounted by business leaders are dull cautionary tales rather than inspiring works offering useful examples and actionable instructions.

In many cases, the problem is that deeds fail to match words. These captains of industry may be legends in their own minds who can glibly talk the talk, but may not walk the walk. No one is perfect, of course, but most leadership failures can invariably be ascribed to the disconnect between the walk and the talk.

We see it all the time in Washington, D.C., and in our local governments. Two-faced politicians, for example, call for austerity, slash spending on important programs yet reward allies, cronies and lackeys at the expense of the public. But when other supervisors fail to follow their own rhetoric, especially in business, there's a ripple effect. ``Leaders'' are supposed to lead, and their behavior is far more revealing and meaningful than mere words.

Alan Deutschman's short and readable book looks at a number of people and the failure and success they achieved for themselves and their organizations based on whether or not their actions aligned with their words. Military leaders, coaches — even companies — that were consistent in their rhetoric and practices are profiled, as well as those who failed to live up to their own responsibilities and standards.

You may not cheer for his team, but there's no way that you can read Deutschman's observations about University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer and not admire his integrity and behavior. His actions communicate more about his values and expectations than any hackneyed half-time speech or sideline exhortation.

Historical figures including Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Eleanor Roosevelt are profiled along with business people such as Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffet, Southwest Airlines' Herb Kelleher, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, politicians Al Gore and Mike Bloomberg, and a bunch of unknown figures whose behavior demonstrated unambiguous leadership and set examples for the people they led -- or fell short.

It's an interesting and absorbing set of stories, sure, but invariably, while reading these exemplary tales, one immediately is reminded of all the moralizing political hacks who condemn the behavior of others while cheating on their wives, lying to their staffs and defrauding the public.

Also springing to mind are thoughts of the more mundane managers who demand standards they fail to achieve. It's especially telling in tough times when bosses expect employees to trim budgets, endure salary cuts and take on additional work, yet somehow those same budgets still accommodate the leaders' high salaries and perquisites.

Deutschman does a fine job demonstrating the importance of moral equanimity and the effectiveness of leaders who are consistent in their purported values and their actions.

He also does a terrific job of portraying the deleterious effects of failure with examples from General Motors' plants to failed military campaigns, plus politicians who preached what they failed to practice. It's a lesson that transcends business but is especially important in it, where trust and integrity can ultimately determine failure or success.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Connecting through six pixels of separation

2009-12-27T16:33:00.001-05:00

How to use online tools to expand your enterprise.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone. Business Plus. 304 pages.

The very first book I reviewed in this space in 2000 explained how the Internet had transformed marketing into an ongoing conversation between and among interested parties.

Since then — nearly nine years later — I've looked at and reviewed an endless stream of books that built on the proposition set forth by the creators of The Cluetrain Manifesto (Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls and David Weinberger), who, along with Seth Godin (Permission Marketing) and Guy Kawasaki (Rules for Revolutionaries), helped define our brave new age of interactive affinity marketing.

Other than subsequent works by those authors and not many others (Dan Pink immediately comes to mind), few proved worthy successors. I'm not absolutely certain that Canadian marketing maven Mitch Joel will join the virtual pantheon, but his new book Six Pixels of Separation has sparked my synapses in ways that only the aforementioned visionaries had previously done.

Like them, Joel quickly brushes aside jargon, pretension and artifice. He's engaging, witty and wise, with book smarts and pop-culture savvy. He's also endlessly inquisitive and employs this peripatetic curiosity to explore the vagaries of human behavior.

Even the better books about online marketing and networking tend to give the view from 30,000 feet (or a comparable number of pixels), but Mitch Joel operates at ground level. So if you're enticed by all you've heard and read about the benefits of deploying online tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, blogs, search engines and the rest for your business or personal enterprises but were not sure what to actually do and where to begin, this tome will help set you straight.

A couple of months ago, I read a book that purported to be a repository all known Internet and social networking resources, so I kept it on my shelf as a reference but didn't crack it more than a few times. In contrast to that work, Joel's practicable and actionable handbook might actually come in handy more than once in a while.

He doesn't just provide directions but also thoroughly explains a variety of things that may seem painfully obvious to the cognoscenti but somehow eludes others. For example, why should newspapers or other content creators continue to aggregate — and not abandon — their offerings? Duh! By archiving their content, it increases their site's value and makes it more available to search engines, thereby building traffic and revenue opportunities. Seems like a no-brainer, but have you ever tried to find an article on some newspaper sites a few weeks after original publication — or later? Oy! It has driven many writers to create their own websites as a defensive strategy to protect their own work (which is not a bad idea, regardless.)

I also liked Joel's invocation of General Eric Shinseki's prescient admonition, "If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less,'' a gentle and subtle reminder that those who fail to embrace the future will be stuck in the past.

If there's any criticism of this book, it's that Joel covers a lot of ground and might have divvied the material up among several shorter books. But I frankly like the wide approach, even if it means that he'll have to think hard about what comes next. I look forward to whatever he decides to write about if it's as well presented and provocative as this.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Out of gas but a better future awaits

2009-12-27T16:25:00.003-05:00

Two new books say the rising price of oil-based energy will force us to change our lives for the better.

BY RICHARD PACHTER 

$20 per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rising Cost of Gas Will Change Our Lives for the Better. Christopher Steiner. Grand Central Publishing. 288 pages.

Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization. Jeff Rubin. Random House. 304 pages.

I devoured these two fascinating books over the recent Independence Day weekend, a propitious occasion to discover that one of our most cherished American freedoms will soon disappear. Both books spell out the ways our lives will change as the price of oil, gasoline and petrochemicals continues to rise.

We may already feel that current prices at the pump are outrageous, though both authors agree that they're actually quite low — but will be rising shortly. The resultant climb will affect nearly every aspect of modern life around the globe. In the United States, more than anywhere else, where we work and live are functions of the low price of gas. When it rises to 10 or 20 bucks a gallon, we simply won't be able too afford to live far from our jobs. But that's just the beginning. Both authors ably demonstrate that our food and other real or imagined necessities depend largely upon the plentiful supply and low price of petroleum.

Authors Steiner and Rubin agree that we're burning around six gallons of gas for every one found. Most of the major oil deposits around the world have been tapped or soon will be, they say. The ''Drill baby, drill'' crowd is just blowing a bilious cloud of natural gas; there just ain't that much to be had. But the world's demand for oil hasn't gone down. It's gone up and is growing rapidly. The nascent middle classes of China and India represent millions of new drivers and a huge demand for an untold amount of fuel. The numbers they say, clearly, indicate a steep price rise; we may in fact be looking at $6 a gallon by next year.

Both writers separately posit a future that resembles the pastoral past in many ways. The suburban sprawl that has become the hallmark of contemporary America will be impossible to sustain when high gas prices eliminate the personal automobile as we know it. It will be supplanted by an infrastructure that includes mass transportation systems like rail but doesn't include very much internal combustion-powered personal vehicle traffic -- except for some small cars fueled by ammonia. Hydrogen fuel cells? Not so much. Electric cars? Maybe.

But the population will either live in small towns with local services or dense cities like New York. Agriculture will be local too, as it will become prohibitively expensive to ship over long distances. You can also forget about eating things like sushi, unless it's cut from local fish. Globalization and world trade will essentially cease.

Much of what these guys write reads like science fiction, though like the best SF, there are recognizably plausible elements therein to ease the suspension of disbelief.
As scary as they are, I enjoyed these two books and recommend them both, with Steiner's getting the slight edge for readability as his more expansive outlook is engagingly depicted — but he quotes Rubin several times, so the unanimity between the two seems strong.

Neither author, however, presents the alternative, dystopian scenario that would result if we fail to successfully adapt our lives and livelihoods to accommodate the new, nearly gas-free way of life. Perhaps the possibility is far too horrible to comprehend, or has already been ably depicted by Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and others.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Elegance is a matter of simplicity

2009-12-27T16:16:00.003-05:00

Businesses can benefit by engaging customers in unintrusive ways
Matthew May shows how elegance is actually a matter of simplicity.

BY RICHARD PACHTER 

In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing. Matthew E. May. Broadway Books. 224 pages.

The term elegance is popularly misunderstood. It's not about luxury, avarice or Fred Astaire. It's simplicity itself and often self contained, or damned near, and has nothing to do with wealth or fashion, yet it can affect both.

An elegant solution, to me, is one that solves a problem in a minimal and unintrusive manner. For example, what to do with the thin sliver of soap remaining in your shower? I slap it on a fresh bar of soap, then use it. It doesn't sit at the bottom of the shower. It's also not wasted. That's an elegant — albeit mundane — solution.

My expectations of Matthew May's elegant new book were, I admit, skewed a bit by my own misconceptions. I'd expected something about design and how it confers an advantage in the manner of the iPod, which solved the MP3 listening problem and opened up a new market along the way.

May touches on design, but mostly looks at the subject in terms of problem solving, covering seemingly diverse topics, such as how monks think, why roadways without traffic rules are safer, the final scene of The Sopranos, the art of Jackson Pollock, the ''Broken Windows'' approach to crime fighting and the proliferation of fractals, a recurring theme.

More than anything else, though, he looks at elegance in terms of decision making, which is very important for business, of course, and his discourse on its key elements (seduction, subtraction, symmetry and sustainability) may very well trigger something in the reader that inspires a new way of looking at ordinary things.

May is a fine writer, though at times the reader is left wondering where the heck he's going, as though he's taking his subtitle (''Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing'') a tad too seriously. And I'd quibble with that subtitle, in fact, as it's not strictly true, nor is it a major theme of the book.

But adding by subtracting or doing nothing, as opposed to something/anything, is demonstrated to be quite useful. May, summarizing a section on the absence of traffic lights in an area, paraphrases the designer Hans Monderman in explaining that "when you are fully involved in a process governed by very simple relationship rules, a natural inclination takes over, and a self-organized pattern emerges that is far more orderly than any legislation can produce. Under those circumstances, you're connected with what's around you. Lose that connection and a mess ensues.''

When you think about how the Web works and that the simplest sites such as Google and Amazon are among its most effective, the lessons of elegance and their applications to business are quite simple, indeed.

Patterns and the need to see them and make them work in an elegant manner are hard-wired into human DNA. May's wise and engaging book demonstrates how successful organizations can emulate the elegance and benefit from the engagement engendered by uncomplicated and intuitive choices.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Fascism

2009-12-27T16:06:00.003-05:00

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back. Douglas Rushkoff. Random House. 304 pages.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

In a review of one of his earlier books a few years back, I referred to author Rushkoff as a Renaissance Man, though after reading this new one, he'd clearly be more at home in the latter part of the Middle Ages between the 11th and 13th centuries. According to him, that era was a more productive and people-friendly period, with many of the advancements attributed to the latter one actually occurring in this so-called First Renaissance.

This new one is an interesting and challenging book. Its primary theme is that corporations, which were originally devised to suppress competition and preserve the wealth and power of monarchies, have evolved to possess more rights than individuals and most governing authorities. Furthermore, the ''operating system'' behind the world's economies and monetary systems is antithetical to productivity and most other human values beside greed, avarice and (unenlightened) self-interest. Rather, says Rushkoff, through manipulation of markets, resources, production and labor, the world's ascendant corporate interests have diminished humanity. What we're largely left with is artificial scarcity, perpetual debt and an empty allegiance to the slogans and logos of the oppressors.

PARALLEL ECONOMIES

Rushkoff writes: 'There are two economies — the real economy of groceries, day care and paychecks, and the speculative economy of assets, commodities and derivatives. What forecasters refer to as `the economy' today isn't the real one; it's entirely virtual. It's a speculative marketplace that has very little to do with getting real things to the people who need them, and much more to do with providing ways for passive investors to increase their capital. This economy of markets — first created to give the rising merchant class in the late Middle Ages a way to invest their winnings — is not based on work or even the injection of capital into new enterprises. It's based instead on 'making markets' in things that are scarce — or more accurately, things that can be made scarce, like land, food, coal, oil and even money itself.''

POWERFUL WRITING
Though eschewing the tone of a manifesto or screed, the narrative is a tour de force survey of the economic history of the modern world. A less elegant and gifted writer might have produced a dour and plodding polemic against materialism and our consumerist culture, but Rushkoff's prose is a pleasure to read. He's clearly lecturing, but his seasoned teaching chops result in a painlessly enlightening and consciousness-raising experience. You may not agree with all of his conclusions, but it's a fascinating view and one that's rarely presented with such élan.

Rushkoff's not a socialist or communist, to be sure, though he's clearly opposed to corporatism, or as it's also known, ''fascism.'' He questions and exposes many of the things that are taken for granted, such as home ownership, which he exposes as a means to tie workers to their labor by giving them a tiny stake, albeit one with enormous debt attached to it. But for all his slow-boiling outrage, Rushkoff's proposed remedies are modest and local, as befitting a near-impossible endeavor dedicated to chipping away at the foundations of civilization.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

How to discern the twits from the tweets

2009-12-27T16:00:00.001-05:00

The Twitter Book. Tim O'Reilly, Sarah Milstein. O'Reilly. 240 pages.

By Richard Pachter

My dear mother asked me recently if I tweet. I nearly choked on my chopped liver but regained my composure quickly enough to query, ''Do you know what that is, Mom?'' ''No,'' she replied sweetly,"`but everyone's doing it.''

Indeed, the mainstream media has been buzzing about Twitter and its 140-character messages, called ''tweets.'' Movie stars, media figures, captains of industry and others seem to be doing it, but how can businesses discern the twits from the tweets?''

O'Reilly and Milstein present as lucid and intelligent an overview as you'd want or need. Twitter is clearly not for everyone, but it's quickly becoming as important as e-mail for certain professions and this terrific primer shows why.

The format is concise but quite rich, and there's plenty here to convince you to employ Twitter as a marketing tool and a very good way to engage customers.

Originally published in The Miami Herald

Big Picture

2009-12-27T15:49:00.003-05:00

Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy. Barry Ritholtz. Wiley. 332 pages.

By Richard Pachter

Over the past decade, a diverse assemblage of bloggers have established themselves as a self-appointed truth squad for the so-called ''mainstream media,'' though most of them draw from the MSM for actual reporting and content. A few, however, consistently provide some original material. Among the more worthwhile blogs is The Big Picture, a blunt but stylish one presented by economist Barry Ritholtz, whose daily analysis is a mandatory stop within the blogosphere.

His new book expands upon many of the themes he has already hit upon online, but in this package, there's more space for him stretch out and provide a more thoughtful and expansive look at our current economic and political messes.

originally published in The Miami Herald

Hunters and Gatherers

2009-12-27T15:41:00.001-05:00

Taming The Search-And-Switch Customer: Earning Customer Loyalty in a Compulsion-to-Compare World. Jill Griffin. Jossey Bass. 288 pages.

by RICHARD PACHTER

There are hunters and there are gatherers. With the advent of online commerce, hunters are now ascendant. And why not? Thanks to Google, anyone who can key in a name, even one spelled incorrectly, can suddenly gather information about a product, service or provider in detail that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier.

For those of us who tend to obsessively research prices and features before making a purchase, it's heaven, but the extra edge afforded by discovering testimonials (or cautions) from users is the real killer app. Some online retailers, most notably Amazon.com, recognize the value of this and encourage buyers to post reviews and ratings of products.

The same situation exists in the nonconsumer sector. In fact, the b-to-b segment is usually tougher in its ratings, since they generally employ more exacting requirements, and technical and legal standards may be involved as well.

It's great if you're a buyer, but if you're a provider, what the heck can you do to, at the very least, participate in the process? And can you control it?

Jill Griffin may not have all the answers, but I was blown away by her deep understanding of this complicated subject and her intelligent and actionable assessment of the necessary strategies. Having a firm grasp of the obvious is all too rare.

Rather than counsel obfuscation and deception, she recommends going at it full-bore. Of course, the internals have to be worked out first, though some of the tasks can be done on the fly. The first rule of promotion still applies: make sure the product (or service) is tight; if it isn't, then the criticism may be deserved. The whole point of Griffin's strategy involves doing the right thing and telling the truth. If the message emanating from you and your organization is bogus, you're sunk. If you start with honest communication and customer satisfaction as the primary goals, it's easier to formulate company policies and practices, even if they have to be made up as you go along.

Griffin suggests ways to genuinely connect with customers and prospects with an intelligent and proactive deployment of blogs, social networks and other resources to provide support and rapid responses to criticism, problems and concerns -- legitimate or otherwise. She also offers a guide -- several, actually -- to assess key aspects of the initiative. Customer loyalty is the ultimate goal, after all, and it's an ongoing process.

These elements usually require a fair degree of attention and consistency. But this type of behavior is now mandatory for businesses seeking to thrive in the context of the new reality.

Griffin covers a lot of ground in this book, but her organization of the material is excellent. It's not enough to have great ideas and to write well. If it isn't presented in an entertaining and compelling manner, making a lasting impression will be difficult. But if any business or other organization that sells or serves is serious and sincere about engaging customers, prospects and other stakeholders, they'll benefit from the principles, strategies and tactics of Jill Griffin.

published 5/11/09 in The Miami Herald

Roy Wood's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Ever Day" – The Inside Story

2009-12-25T16:18:00.003-05:00

Best Business Books of 2009

2009-12-22T15:57:00.002-05:00

Coming Monday 12/28/09

Avoid Germs!

2009-11-19T16:41:00.001-05:00

by Dick DeBartolo and Gary Hellgren

I’m not cold, and you only think you are

2009-09-14T00:01:00.006-04:00

graphic by Andrea Moschietto

If I’m cold, then we need to raise the thermostat; if you’re cold, you must be delusional because it feels fine in here to me.

By Richard Pachter

This is anecdotal, not scientific, but I swear that men and women perceive temperature differently.

Judi Smith, humorist Dave Barry's assistant, tells me it's not just a matter of perception.

"These goose bumps are real, " she declared, and I knew that she was not making it up.

But I see plenty of mostly young women wearing sandals, flip-flops or other minimal footwear, short skirts, sleeveless tops and bare midriffs, shivering and protesting about the frigid interior temperatures in their offices.

I'm certainly not complaining, but I would suggest that rather than bowing to style or the desire to be provocative, they put on some clothes — or something — to cover their extremities.

START WITH SOCKS
Shoes and socks might be a good start, although those shocking pink-painted toenails will be obscured. Long pants would help too, as would a top with sleeves. As proud as one may be of a belly-button ring, sacrificing coolness for warmth may be wise.

But that's just me, and I'm not usually cold, especially indoors in South Florida. After all, I went to college in and around Buffalo, so I know what cold is. (It's bad. Very bad.)

I also know what to wear. I'm not Mr. Fashion, but I usually toil in my cubicle (and wander the halls) in a short-sleeved cotton golf-type shirt, cotton pants, and the ever-popular leather-shoes-and-cotton-socks combination.

No danger of my being profiled in Esquire, but I don't complain about the thermostat either — unless it's too high and a torpid malaise sets in, especially after a big lunch.

But plenty of women in my workplace — including Judi Smith — dress warmly and still suffer from the chill. One even keeps a blanket stashed under her desk, which she occasionally pulls out and drapes over her lap, as if she were at the Army-Navy football game. (Hope her team wins.) I've also heard rumors of stashed space heaters, but that sounds a bit far-fetched.

After digging around a bit, I learned that according to a study ("Comparison of Thermoregulatory Responses Between Men and Women Immersed in Cold Water," Tikuisis et al, Journal of Applied Physiology, October 2000), the difference in the way men and women respond to the same temperature is a function of their size and percentage of body fat and not some hard-wired physiological variation.

MY WIFE IS PERFECT
Makes sense, but I refuse to get involved in anything involving the assessment of body fat. I've been married too long to fall into that trap (to a woman of perfect weight and proportions, of course).

And I'll concede there are some offices that even I find chilly. There is one meeting room where I expect one day to discover ice-cube trays placed on its oaken credenza in testament to its near-frigid Fahrenheit mark. Another conference room could easily have meat hooks with sides of beef hanging from its ceiling.

In this age of sky-high energy costs, one would think that building management would aim to conserve, or at least equalize, room temperatures to eliminate frigid zones.

But it may be futile. WFOR/WBFS Communications Director Lee Zimmerman reports that in an attempt to offset the hot lights, the television news studio is usually kept at 67 degrees, though visitors and staff often feel chilly. "I can't tell you how many times I've heard 'Why didn't you warn me? I would have worn a sweater,' from guests," he says.

NO TRAUMA
Dr. James Kraut, a psychologist in Coral Springs, reports that his office's thermostat is subject to centralized control by the building's custodial staff. "It's usually a bit cooler than we prefer. We tried closing vents, but it's just no use. I keep a sweater on hand, which I often have to offer to my patients," says Kraut.

Hopefully, none are traumatized by the experience.

The solution may require a bit of group collaboration, but ultimately, your "cold" may be my "hot." In that case, it feels just fine in here, so keep your hands off that thermostat, willya!

originally published October 10, 2005 in The Miami Herald

Asking for money

2009-09-11T19:40:00.001-04:00

A few months back, I did a freelance job for a new client. They'd found me on the Web, read my stuff and wanted to work with me.

Their business was a bit technical, but they asked me to write about an upcoming seminar, keep it accurate but make it breezy and fun, with a little edge. Sounded like I'd be the perfect guy for the job.

They're based a few thousand miles away, though they supplied all sorts of source material. They answered as many questions as I had, and we bounced a few iterations back and forth by e-mail until they got what they wanted.

I cut them a bit of a deal on the price, as they'd dangled the promise of future jobs. But it was still worth my while and I had no complaints. They paid promptly and all were happy.

Shortly thereafter, one of the partners asked for a press release based on the article. I was happy to do it and explained that a press release needed to be "newsy" and that I'd have to basically start from scratch but I'd estimate about a two-hour job at my "normal" rate.

He was cool with that, I did it, sent it along with an invoice and waited. No feedback. Also, no payment.

Sent another invoice a month later. Still nothing. Today, I sent this e-mail to the partner, copying the requester:

Hi (person);

(Your partner) asked me to write a press release based on the article I wrote for you.

I explained that there would be an additional charge and quoted a price.

He gave me the go-ahead, I wrote it, sent it to him, sent an invoice and never received payment or any further communication from him.

If he's had an accident, is deceased or is no longer with you, I extend my sympathies.

Regardless, could you please see that I am paid for the work I was contracted to do and performed? I've attached the invoice. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Richard Pachter

I immediately received an e-mail from the requester. He said he was not dead but the invoice had been misplaced. Payment would be forthcoming.

I responded:

So glad that you are alive!

Will toast to your continued health upon receipt of payment.

best,
rap

Stand by.

UPDATE: Payment received.

Oh, behave!

2009-08-21T00:00:00.005-04:00

The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About ItTwo new books examine the importance of accountability and civility in the workplace

BY RICHARD PACHTER

As President John F. Kennedy said, "Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.'' When good things happen, there's usually no problem identifying the responsible party. But we've all encountered situations where there are few clues at the scene of a crime — or business problem — that would readily indicate responsibility. Funny how some "leaders'' have never made mistakes or are never involved when their subordinates screw up.

Regardless, one doesn't have to be a leader to act responsibly. Good behavior involves accountability and civility. If I may have your permission, with the able assistance of my editors and this newspaper, I'd like to humbly present two new books that consider these important issues.

How Did That Happen? Holding People Accountable for Results the Positive, Principled Way. Roger Connors and Tom Smith. Portfolio. 272 pages.

Connors and Smith are consultants who provide "accountability training'' for individuals and organizations. The notion that such a thing is not only necessary but is apparently a thriving enterprise disturbs me greatly. But after leafing through their book, I'm impressed by the thoughtfulness, intelligence and pragmatism they bring to bear on this sticky matter. It's not a matter of "blame,'' which is simplistic and can be divisive and unproductive. Instead, they view the issue holistically and systemically, which is a far more productive approach.

The requisite examples and anecdotes are included, which work well, but their assessment tools are worth the price of admission, along with the remedies they suggest. But, as with most problems, recognition of the situation and a willingness to deal with it are the first steps toward a solution.

The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It. Christine Pearson and Christine Porath. Portfolio. 240 pages.

You can rationalize and excuse all you want, but rudeness can hurt business. It's not just bad manners, according to Pearson and Porath, but incivility in general can be damaging -- if not disastrous. Customers, naturally, can be lost, but the deleterious effects of unkind and thoughtless words and deeds can have a major impact on all stakeholders. Life is too short to deal with nasty people but when there are choices, competitors gain an extra edge just by providing a respite from the rudeness.

The authors have ample data to back up their contentions, though almost anyone could intuit the fact that humans tend to void unpleasantness. They cite 12 percent of the workforce who say they've left jobs at which they were treated badly, but given the ability of some people to withstand pain and others' desire to remain employed at all costs, the actual number of those who've endured hostile workplaces might represent a much higher number. But some managers may not believe they have a problem, especially during this time of high and sustained unemployment. Regardless, this is a solid and thoughtful look at the little things that can make a big difference. The two Christines, Pearson and Porath, provide a useful summary at the end of each chapter and suggestions for assessing and addressing a variety of problems.

While every company may not be suffering from incivility, this book could help them avoid any such problems in the future.

published 8/17/09 in The Miami Herald

The Fune

2009-08-19T15:53:00.002-04:00

Back soon

2009-08-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

Please watch this in the meantime.

Get Back in the Box

2009-06-10T00:01:00.000-04:00

To succeed, don't let yourself get boxed in
Innovation and most out-of-the-box thinking will fail if the fundamentals are ignored.

By RICHARD PACHTER

Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out. Douglas Rushkoff. Collins. 336 pages.

The new age of marketing books is upon us. It has actually been going on for a while. The author of this latest entry, Douglas Rushkoff, is calling for a business Renaissance, or says that we're already in the midst of one (I'm not sure which). That's easy for him, since he's certainly the embodiment of, well, a Renaissance Man, having covered culture, media and technology as a journalist for NPR, The New York Times, CBS News and other venues, and has been a consultant to various organizations. He's also written graphic novels, the latest, Testament, is a science fictional explication of the Torah, which he refers to as ''a media hack.''

Whatever . . .

In this book, Rushkoff joins people like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Daniel Pink and the ''Cluetrain Manifesto'' guys who understand that business has changed dramatically, mainly due to increased choice, media fragmentation and the Internet. But, like dinosaurs with a huge bodies and tiny brains, many firms just can't seem to move fast enough, or break their old, bad habits. Worse, they seek quick fixes, fast turnarounds and overnight transformations without making the fundamental changes or commitments required to really improve the ways they interact with their customers and employees. And when the needle fails to move after their half-hearted atmospherics fall flat, they're baffled.

Rushkoff's mission here seems to be to bring companies back down to earth. They should rely on their core competencies, and anticipate and fulfill their customers' needs based on their own knowledge, experience and insights. Innovation is worthless unless it's backed up with what made the business successful in the first place.

Rushkoff provides a pleasant narrative, contrasting companies that get it with those that don't, adding asides and insights on what they're doing right or wrong. He's witty and a bit silly (but with a purpose), as when he asks, ''Who would you rather be? Steve Jobs or Bill Gates?'' to illustrate the differences between Apple and Microsoft, and how it's important and powerful for employees and customers to be engaged and have fun.

And that leads to another point; Rushkoff makes a strong case for employee involvement and empowerment, correctly pointing out that customers, employees and vendors all hold important stakes in the success of a business. This may be painfully obvious to all but the most oblivious, but anyone working in an environment where morale is low knows the effect it has on every interaction.

He is also quite wary of consultants, particularly those who seem to ''understand our business better than we do.'' Executives who feel that way, he says, are in big trouble. If an outsider knows your business better than you do, it may be time to look for another gig.

Rushkoff is a good writer, but there is very little herein that I hadn't read elsewhere. Getting back in the box isn't a bad idea at all, but he clearly values the out-of-the-box stuff as much as the next guru, so the title is a bit of a misnomer. Perhaps a better one would have been "Before You Get Out of the Box," but maybe I ought to stick to my fundamentals, too.

Published 1/9/06 in The Miami Herald.

Business can rock

2009-06-08T00:01:00.000-04:00

Two books extrapolate business insights and lessons from the world of rock 'n' roll.
BY RICHARD PACHTER

As much as I am obsessed with biz books, I often find business wisdom in tomes that seem to have nothing to do with commerce. A few years ago, for example, I reviewed a book about the underground culture of pick-up artists, since many of their principles and practices were applicable to sales, marketing, promotion — even human resources.

I once read a biography of Neil Young strictly for pleasure and realized that it, too, was a biz book, with lessons on branding, product development, marketing, logistics and more. Plus, he owned Lionel Trains at the time. I switched gears and reviewed the biography from a business perspective and got a lot of great feedback. The review was picked up by newspapers all over the country; even in Australia, much to my surprise and delight.

Here are two recent books from people who learned valuable business lessons from their rock 'n' roll experiences.

Jam! How to Run Your Business Like a Rock Star. Jeff Carlisi, Dan Lipson, Jay Busbee. Jossey-Bass. 254 pages.

Jeff Carlisi was a guitarist and songwriter in the Jacksonville-based band .38 Special. I'd worked with him a few times and was always impressed with his positive, professional demeanor. It should have been no surprise, then, to read this upbeat book that uses his career trajectory as the basis for some very smart and practical business and personal guidance.

Carlisi, now a principal in a corporate consultancy specializing in team building, is joined here by his partner, Dan Lipson, and professional writer Jay Busbee. The trio tells the story of how the band got started and developed, up until he left in 1997. Carlisi's carefully selected anecdotes emphasize hard work, collaboration, tenacity and other vital attributes. While there are few, if any, surprises herein, his breezy and entertaining text presents a solid primer for success in most any profession or endeavor. I'm sending a copy, in fact, to an itinerant musician I know who might benefit from learning these fundamentals.

Rock to the Top: What I Learned About Success From the World's Greatest Rock Stars. Dayna Steele. Brown Books. 135 pages.

Steele was a rock jock and radio station music director in Houston and her book is a bit more nuts and bolts that Carlisi's. She also utilizes an impressive résumé in an entertaining and instructive way, but her unique perspective -- from both the talent and the business end -- offers a view from each side of the stage.

The glitz and glamour of the music business during the latter part of the last century belied much its hard economic realities. Nowadays, it's far from uncommon to encounter entertainers who are more involved in their business than in their art. Steele's observations from the back and front of the stage are witty, incisive and applicable to a variety of situations. True tales of encounters with Michael Jackson, Sammy Hagar, David Crosby and others add flavor and atmospherics but the real value of this book is Steele's levelheaded and intelligent insights and extrapolations.

Gene Simmons, relentless marketer and TV personality, contributes the book's foreword and he was either paid a fortune to do so or recognizes and respects the author's expertise. My money is on the latter.

Published 05/25/09 in The Miami Herald

So, what's the story?

2009-06-02T20:59:00.012-04:00

Using the power of storytelling to make strong connections
BY RICHARD PACHTER

The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling. Annette Simmons. Basic Books. 272 pages..

When we're little, we love to hear stories. It's so deeply rooted, most never lose their hard-wired affection for tales. Perhaps it's the narratives' natural hopefulness as they attempt to make sense of the seeming randomness of existence. Or maybe we just like to be entertained.

Before written language, elders and shamans ensured the preservation of tribal legends and traditions by reciting stories conveying lessons and values to their people. Myth and parable are potent tools for maintaining cultural and religious continuity, observance and loyalty. Stories involve the listener in ways naked facts cannot.

Humans preternaturally identify with stories, filtering things through their own psyches and experiences. In McLuhanesque terms, storytelling is a "hot" medium, eliciting responses on a number of levels.

Tales resonate for a variety of reasons, according to Annette Simmons, a Greensboro, N.C.-based speaker and author. Lots of psychological explanations are offered, fortunately without excessive mumbo jumbo. Suffice it to say, stories tap into our consciousness — individually and collectively — in emotional and intuitive ways.

Marketing theorists (and six-year-olds) understand that most purchases are triggered by "want," not "need." Again, emotion beats rationality. It's the difference between "I love you because . . ." and a passionate hug and kiss. Arguments, after all, are usually won on emotion, not reason, in spite of all pretensions to the contrary.

Even most "logical" advertising (like Volvo's campaign emphasizing safety) is loaded with visceral subtext. No-brainers succeed because they're usually all-heart. The most memorable television commercials possess narrative threads, however thin they might be ("Wassup!?").

Companies tap into the power of stories for advertising and marketing, but there are plenty of internal uses. In addition to conveying corporate culture (a form of tribalism, to be sure) an organization's plans and goals can be communicated in this manner, or in variations thereof. Business models are, after all, attempts at telling a story in advance; a pre-metaphor, perhaps.

Great leaders set examples; living their stories and communicating by action (emotion), not instruction (logic). Stories are the best way to convey these things, says Simmons, serving up a host of stories to illustrate her points. Some, as you would expect, are more compelling than others, and fail to leap off the page. Others are more memorable (just don't ask me to recall them right now).

The problem is that Simmons covers a lot of ground, which tends to diffuse the focus. If any book begged for an abridged audio version, this is it, as an aural presentation of the material might make the process less cerebral and more affective. But if you have a little patience, Simmons' thoughtful book ably demonstrates the power of storytelling, and the many uses for it — mercenary and otherwise. Be careful, though; as the venerable storyteller Stan Lee once wrote, "With great power comes great responsibility."

published Dec. 30, 2000 in The Miami Herald.

Klaus Voorman

2009-05-29T10:49:00.001-04:00

This looks quite cool.