I encountered Julien Smith while attending the first annual TribeCon during Voodoo Fest here in New Orleans.  Julien was asked to speak about ideas expressed in his then new book Trust Agentsco-authored by Chris Brogan. Initially, I had my doubts about his speech, thinking it was simply a rehashed Tribes, yet as Julien further explained [...]

This week we’re covering a particularly interesting book: Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. I should preface this review by asserting now that I am in no way a Dead Head. In fact, I am not very partial to the band’s music at all. In no way is my support for this book an extension [...]

This week, I have the pleasure of reviewing a book that I’ve been looking forward to reading for quite some time: Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Gary’s work, he is the raging ball of charisma that hosts Wine Library TV, an online video blog about his consuming [...]

This week’s review is of a highly detailed book that reaches into the enigmatic history of today’s music industry.  Most people today have come to the understanding that the modern record industry is run by an oligopoly consisting of the “4 majors,” Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group.  Another [...]

This week we will be covering Good to Great by Jim Collins. While, primarily corporate-oriented on the surface, Good to Great provides an extremely valuable look at what fundamental characteristics and practices constitute great leadership. For Good to Great, Jim Collins and his team spent years developing as empirical a set of data-driven criteria as [...]

This week I’d like to suggest Predictably Irrational from Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics and frequent NPR contributor Dan Ariely. Predictably Irrational is a fascinating read premised upon the idea that the way that economists traditionally attempt to justify human behavior and predict outcomes is fundamentally flawed. The problem, argues Ariely, is that economics presupposes [...]

The American Dream is dead according to Seth Godin. At least the old version as it applies to our careers is: Keep your head down/Follow instructions/Show up on time/Work hard/Suck it up…you will be rewarded. Linchpin is the longest of Godin’s books to date but it is an extremely powerful piece of reading that makes [...]

The Dip is the second book we’ve covered by Seth Godin (Tribes was the first) and in typical Godin fashion it’s a very short but enjoyable read. The book’s tagline: “A Little Book That Teaches You When To Quit (And When To Stick), basically nails the premise and the author proceeds to illustrate his basic [...]

It’s been an incredibly busy but rewarding week here in our camp and a lot of really exciting things are in the pipeline. Unfortunately that has meant that the time for blogging has been extremely minimal, but we promise books every Thursday and books there shall be. While the rigors of my schedule do not [...]

Made to Stick is a great book from brothers Chip and Dan Heath about why some ideas and concepts are inherently destined for longevity and others are doomed to obscurity. The book is especially pleasant to read because the authors really practice what they preach by keeping all of the information concise, memorable, and implementable. [...]