I drastically changed my reading habits in 2019. Because I consumed so many books, I wanted to find a good way to run through what I liked and learned from these books. This year, I thought it would be good to present my thoughts in note form and provide the key takeaways I found in each book.
Hypergrowth: How the Customer-Driven Model is Revolutionizing the Way Businesses Build Products, Teams, & Brands – David Cancel
- It’s mostly about building a product team, but there are takeaways that can be applied to any company that wants to be customer driven.
- Everyone works in support so they have a direct line to the customer
Iconic Advantage: Don’t Chase the New, Innovate the Old – Soon Yu, David Birss
- Great book on branding
- Too often we try to create new messaging, and branding. Companies should take what has worked in the past and improve on it
- It’s easier and it gets you to success faster
- Put the customer first
Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. – Brené Brown
- Sympathize with people, don’t just go into problem-solving mode
- Empathy is infinite and renewable. The more you give, the more we all have
- I’ve watched Brené in person. I’ve seen her Netflix special. Read this book
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power: – Shoshana Auboff
- Google created a completely new industry and regulation wasn’t ready for it
- Google (and Facebook, and many others) makes money by watching what you do and then selling that information and access
- A dense book that I didn’t finish, but it was eye opening
The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting up to Speed Faster and Smarter – Michael D. Watkins
- 5 questions to ask:
- what are the biggest challenges the organization is facing?
- why is the org facing these challenges?
- what are the most promising opportunities for growth?
- what would need to happen to exploit these opportunities?
- if you were me, what would you focus on?
- I listened to this book when I was getting ready to switch jobs. Then bought the hardcover. Then re-read certain sections when things got rocky at my new job
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life – Mark Manson
- Life is about not knowing, and then doing something anyway
- This book was recommended to me when I was going through a lot of stress. I wish I had read it then.
- It’s all about taking responsibility for what you can own and dropping the rest
Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company – And Revolutionized and Industry – Marc Benioff, Carlye Adler
- Tactics dictate strategy – execute tactics in enough ways and it becomes a strategy
- The event is the message – act like it’s a success – the right mix of people is more important than the number of people
- When a competitor enters your space, it initiates the market
The Hard Things about Hard Things: Building a Business When There are No Easy Answers – Ben Horowitz
- Netscape damaged Microsoft because people started writing for the Internet, not Microsoft’s platform
- The best thing about startups: you only experience two emotions: euphoria and terror
- Startup CEOs should not play the odds – there is an answer. You just have to find it regardless of the odds
- If you investigate companies that failed, you’ll find that employees knew about the deadly issues far ahead of time
- In good orgs, people can focus on their work, and it will help the company and themselves
- Being too busy to train is equivalent to being too hungry to eat
- Nearly every company goes through life-threatening events – WIFO – “We’re effed, it’s over” – every company goes through this
- Focus on the road, not the wall
- In times of peace the company can focus on expanding the market and reinforcing the company’s strengths, in wartime the company is fighting threats (competition, market changes, macroeconomic change, etc)
- Holding people accountable – assume people have good intentions
- Promises, results, effort
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August – Claire North
- I bought this novel because I heard it was an inspiration for Jonathan Hickman’s House of X story
- Harry August is reincarnated and lives his life over again with all of the memories from his previous lives
- The chronology of the book jumps all over the place, yet I was able to keep up
- It was a fascinating concept that was really well executed
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t – Jim Collins
- There’s a reason why this book is on everyone’s “must-read” list
- Research findings on corporate greatness over a long time period
- You get evolutionary results through an evolutionary process
- When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy
- Manage the system, not the people
Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins – Mark W Schaefer
- Loyalty is more elusive than ever
- The huge disconnect between what a company thinks they’re doing and how it’s received by the consumers
- Today is the slowest day of technological change you’ll ever witness
- How much to spend on the marketing budget is determined by tweaking what was spent last year
- People want to feel loved. This is the evolution of loyalty
- Research shows only 13% of consumers are loyal to a brand
- The marketing departments of the future will be populated with extraordinary ideas that the customers will love
Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live – James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales
- The oral history of Saturday Night Live
- As a long-time fan, this was really interesting (and funny)
- Successful companies need a combination of great product, brand, and service
- Brand is how you build an audience and cut through the noise
- This book is a quick read, but full of great takeaways
The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups – Daniel Coyle
- Feelings of trust and closeness can be transferred through shared experiences
- You can’t be empathic when you’re talking
- Trust comes down to context
- Vulnerability precedes trust even though most people are afraid to be vulnerable until there is established trust
- Vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness
Herding Tigers: Be the Leader That Creative People Need – Todd Henry
- I loved this book so much I bought multiple copies to share with people
- Too much control today robs the future of creative ideas
- Just because someone has the skills and experience to do a job doesn’t mean they should do that job
- Without clear direction, everyone down the chain is paralyzed because everything is a last-minute scramble
- Expectation escalation can suffocate a team
- If you treat your team like a machine, that’s exactly what it will become. It will crank out predictable, uninspired work
- Create white space for your team – attention and time
Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes – Steve Gorman
- As a long-time Black Crowes fan, this book was great
- Learn how the band blew up a chance to write/record with Jimmy Page
- Like most bands, they broke up over money and ego
- It’s an entertaining, fun read that walks through years of frustration
The Burnout Generation – Anne Helen Petersen
- A book aimed at millennials to explain some of the stress they’re feeling
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert B. Cialdini
- Reciprocation
- Commitment and Consistency
- Social Proof
- Liking
- Authority
- Scarcity
The Will to Die – Joe Pulizzi
- The first fiction novel I’ve read in years
- After reading a few of Pulizzi’s marketing books, I was curious how he’d handle fiction
- A thriller that keeps you engaged while providing info on multiple industries
The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues – Patrick M. Lencioni
- This book is interesting in that it’s told in a narrative style
- The ideal team player is a combination of Hunger, Humble, and Smart (Emotional Intelligence)
- Culture is what defines a company. Having people that sway too far in any of those three directions will impact everyone
- This has led me to really focus on determining “hunger”
F#ck Content Marketing: Focus on Content Experiences do Drive Demand, Revenue & Relationships – Randy Frisch
- (This is the second book on this list with an f-bomb in the title)
- This book explains why the content experience is more important than just content marketing
- 70% of content created is never used
- Redefine the process that creates content to focus on the experience
Conversational Marketing: How the World’s Fastest-Growing Companies Use Chatbots to Generate Leads 24/7/365 – David Cancel, Dave Gerhardt
- I’m a huge fan of what Drift does
- I launched a Drift chatbot in early 2019 with great results
- Chatbots allow customers to interact with a company on the customer’s terms
- Search and content are crowded spaces – conversations are the next frontier because people want personalized experiences
