News & Opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Zig Ziglar: 1926-2012
By Sally Haldorson
"The prospect is persuaded more by the depth of your conviction than he is by the height of your logic. " "You don't sell what the product is --you sell what the product does. " "Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Best Books of 2012, Amazon Edition
By Porchlight
Amazon's editors have come up with another fine list of books this year. Their choices in the Business and Investing category are: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg, Random House Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Random House The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick Lencioni, Jossey-Bass Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll, The Penguin Press Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City by Brad Feld, John Wiley & Sons How Much is Enough? : Money and the Good Life by Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere by Vijay Govindarajan, Chris Trimble and Indra K.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Best Books of 2012, strategy + business Edition
By Porchlight
The strategy + business best of business books list is always one of our favorites of the year—one we always look forward to—and this year's does not disappoint. The strength of the list is in it's breadth and flexibility. The categories always change slightly to reflect the important topics of the year, and they choose experts on those topics to pick the best books published in those categories.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Author Pow Wow in Austin, TX
By Porchlight
In under two months, on January 13-15, the 800-CEO-READ Author Pow Wow will be taking place again in Austin, TX. Each year, we gather a small group of people from the publishing industry and writers to discuss the ins and outs of the business of writing business books. Most people are surprised to learn that the entire process is not how they thought.
Categories: news-opinion, publishing-industry
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Best Books of 2012, A Season of Lists
By Porchlight
The season of lists is upon us. The first ornament up on the tree was Steve Coll's Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, published by The Penguin Press, which took home the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year earlier this month. And there was another large nonfiction title related to economics—Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Into the Storm
By Sally Haldorson
Over the course of a long race, sailors will inevitably encounter setbacks. In an instant, a boat can go from leading the fleet to lagging behind. A major reversal can easily discourage the crew and, left unchecked, can deplete the crew's energy.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
ChangeThis: Issue 100
By Porchlight
In thinking of what to do for the 100th issue of ChangeThis, a lot of ideas were conjured up. But, in the end, we decided the most important thing we could do is to keep on doing the work we've been doing since Seth Godin turned the site over to us in the summer of 2005—act as a vehicle for moving ideas in service of authors and our audience. We did do a few special things with the issue, though.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder
By Sally Haldorson
This morning I perused the Amazon Top 100 for 2012. A few of our favorite books that made the top 20: Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise; Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit (our JCS review here); and Susan Cain's Quiet (our take here. ) Rounding out the top 40 is a book that's been sitting on my desk for awhile, daring me to crack it open: Nassim Nicolas Taleb's Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
A Conversation with Laurence Weinzimmer, The Wisdom of Failure
By Sally Haldorson
The Wisdom of Failure: How to Learn the Tough Leadership Lessons Without Paying the Price by Laurence G. Weinzimmer and Jim McConoughey is a thorough look at how leaders have often failed to learn from the mistakes they have made, as well as how leaders can begin to explore the fertile soil of their failures for the seeds of success. The book is well-organized and accessible, thought-provoking and instructive.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / News & Opinion
The Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year
By Porchlight
Steve Coll, a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, president of the New America Foundation, current staff writer for The New Yorker, and managing editor at The Washington Post from 1998 and 2004, has one more accolade to add to his long list of achievements. On Thursday night, after what Andrew Hill at The Financial Times described as "the closest contest in the history of the prize," he took home the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award for his excellent study of ExxonMobil, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power. The chair of the judging panel, Financial Times editor Lionel Barber, said of Mr.
Categories: news-opinion, publishing-industry
