Category: Daily Life

This week @EllensAdventure asked me if I had any book recommendations. I’ve had this draft saved for a couple of months so this was the motivation I needed to get it written. Here are some of my favorite books (these are all affiliate links, I am making enough per month to buy a box of diapers, that’s not incredible but beats a sharp stick in the eye). These are a few that come to mind but this is by no means a comprehensive list.

Business Books:

Start With Why by Simon Sinek
Most business books are all about how to climb the ladder faster, this one asks if you have it leaning on the right building.

Permission Marketing and We Are All Weird by Seth Godin
The first is a classic, the second is cutting edge

New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott
Ignore the Social Media Guru baloney and get pragmatic advice here

Read this First by Ron Ploof
Book to give to your manager if they don’t get the New Rules

Marketing White Belt: Basics for the Digital Marketer by Christopher S. Penn
Starting properly by my Marketing Over Coffee co-host

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore
Required reading for selling technology, also applies to how trends and new ideas move through the world.

The Marketing Playbook by John Zagula and Richard Tong
A hidden gem that will give you a set of concepts that allow you to review and discuss any business model.

The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
A classic that explains why well managed organizations are not innovative. Critical to understand the weakness of large corporations.

Drucker on Management by Peter F. Drucker
Applies intellectual integrity to the practice of management. I have an edition called The Essential Drucker that appears to be out of print, this edition is an overview of his thought and is a good place to start.

Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
If you are in Marketing and write, you must read this.

The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz  and Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
Suddenly you are able to understand why people do the things they do, even when it doesn’t make sense.

And a spoiler – keep your eyes out for Market Like Hero coming soon!

Running:

Born to Run by Christopher MacDougall
A fantastic story about ultra-marathoning, midfoot strike, and the greatest race the world has never seen

ChiRunning by Danny Dreyer
The quest to run more efficiently and without pain. I wish I had read this 15 years ago.

Life Skills:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
This book puts a framework around things you probably already do to succeed – making it a repeatable process.

Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution by C. Robert Atkins
Consult your doctor before changing your diet – that said, this book opened my eyes to the fact that so much of what is taken as fact about diet and nutrition is about as scientific as examining bird entrails. I’d be 300 lbs or dead without this book.

The Art of War (Shambala Press Edition) by Sun Tzu and Thomas Leary
Rock solid strategy.

On Speaking by Charles Osgood
An easy read and a good place to start

You can Negotiate Anything by Herb Cohen
Just like public speaking, negotiation can be nerve-wracking. And also like speaking, anyone can do well at it if you practice. This book gives you the guidelines.

For Fun:

Harry Potter is worth reading, maybe they will wake up and offer it on Kindle someday.

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
Argued to be the greatest graphic novel ever, if you like the current Batman movies, you’ll like it.

Superman: Our Worlds at War Epic and grand in scope, with many different artistic styles, this huge graphic novel is a great escape.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore Forget the movie, this is a great story (18 and older only)

Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
is the funniest book I have ever read

Have fun reading and feel free to add your suggestions in the comments.

I remember when it began, around 1987. I had saved enough money mowing lawns, and managed to talk my parents into driving me to the Lechmere (Best Buy before there was a Best Buy) an hour away in Albany, New York. For $400 I got the second model Discman that Sony made and two CDs – Wang Chung’s Mosiac and Van Halen 5150. I didn’t have enough to complete the 1987 holy trinity by adding Bobby Brown, Don’t be Cruel. Maybe not Sophie’s Choice, but a tough decision. After years of listening to worn out cassette tapes I was blown away. Through college I bought while I still had summer cash to burn, and sold in the spring to get the cash to make it to the next summer.

Fast forward to the same renaissance in video, I replaced my 40 or so favorite films with DVDs, loving that the wouldn’t get eaten by dirty play heads, and the soundtracks were pristine.

Now, 25 years later I’m at a tag sale one of the neighbors is having. They have a box of CDs that people are looking through and a six year old girl asks “Daddy, what are those?”. One of the men thumbing through the box says “Honey, these are CDs, this is how we used to buy music.”

And it struck me there that the transition was over. I’ve been walking around with my music on an Apple device of some kind for years, the last of the CDs in a box in the basement, but it wasn’t until the past two years that I started thinking “If I was going to take the time to watch The Matrix again, there’s no way I’d watch the DVD when I can get it on the Apple TV in HD.” Slowly the bookcase of DVDs is shrinking as they get replaced with their virtual twins. I’ve waited my whole life to be able to watch a movie while traveling on my iPad. My son is born into a world where Toy Story is the first movie he sees, and he can take it with him wherever he wants and watch it at any time.

Although it’s shaken up the media world, I’m enjoying this new thing.

Note: I first published this post in September of 2009. I’m reminded of a Bill Gates quote: “We overestimate the impact of new technologies over the next 2 years, and underestimate its impact in 10 years”. I went back to this post for another writing project I’m working on and decided to update it and clean it up. I’m still interested in any comments and feedback so I’ve decided to update the publish date to give it another shot at life:

The moderator for the session I wrote about yesterday pulled together some interesting comments from the session last night (even some of mine!). Some very good stuff from the person that stepped up to ask where the PR panelists were, including strong points on PRWeb for SEO.

There are some interesting academic arguments and defenses from PR specialists but I think people are losing sight of the fact that these are literally entrepreneurs working part time in their basements or other below C class office space, and Mike was dead on saying “I haven’t  seen a PR shop that would get out of bed for less than $4K/month”. Guys clipping coupons for a case of Ramen Pride between coding are not possible clients.

After a night’s sleep it came to me that while the writers/bloggers were saying you can get by without PR people, you have marketing gurus saying you don’t need the writers/bloggers. You’re the expert in the space, you can create your own content. Why work around some other pub’s schedule, or spend time bringing a journalist up to speed on your specific niche when you can publish your own stuff and own the content, track it, and do with it as you please?

Stepping beyond the academic arguments that could be debated ad nauseam, Mike asked the big questions:

Is the “junior staff leverage” model really dead, and if so, what business model will support the next generation of great marketing services firms? The truth is I don’t know. But it seems to me that’s the conversation worth having among the “PR” digerati… not the semantic argument about what PR is or isn’t, but how, in the end, the people delivering it will build a sustainable and productive business.

Before I get into my answers, it’s a good idea to expand the definition of PR beyond influencing writers. Some good stuff already written on that from last night.

…PR is about developing a broad communications program that includes:

• Building a long-term strategy that establish lasting relationships with your core audiences;
• Creating content and managing conversations that engage those audiences directly; and
• Reaching industry influencers (media relations gets lumped in here).

Tactically this means that the communicator or agency you hire should have skill sets that include: writing ability; audio and video skills; creative thinking and the ability to connect with influencers.

That got me thinking about what the business model would look like. By 2012, most marketing, PR, and ad agency positions that revolve around tactics will be reinvented – a huge opportunity here. This is what I think it might look like (keep in mind that me writing this is a lot like all of the jackasses that start restaurants that go out of business because they think that eating out most of their lives is actual foodservice experience):

An Agency FROM THE FUTURE!

I don’t see a scenario where the existing junior staff model can work. It has in the past because of communications friction (trying to call all relevant reporters about hot stories from all your clients every day, hard work but low skill level).

The big idea is the Embedded Agent. Someone who can go into an account a day a week or more to shoot video, record audio and create other relevant content. Ideally they would be paired with a subject matter expert (SME) at the client who will ultimately speak on behalf of the client. Think about building your own Robert Scobles (when he was still at Microsoft) or Scott Montys. This forces a schedule of content production that can be used in a number of scenarios and at the same time will serve as SEO activity.

The agent’s team should also include a Preditor (Producer/Editor) who assembles the raw footage from the Agent. Preditors have access to the best tools and a support network of their peers – no client would be able to reproduce the the effectiveness of the Agent/Preditor team so this is a huge value add. This team would need an admin to handle scheduling as the Agent will be moving around a lot (let’s say with a 3 client load), and the Preditor needs long stretches of uninterrupted time for work – somebody needs to field calls and emergencies.

Beyond the teams are infrastructure that the client has access to that cannot be reproduced without huge expense by the client – the remainder of the value add. Audio/Video production and Photography, specialists in a variety of disciplines including CRM, Lead Generation, whatever the agency can leverage that clients need.

Influencer is the last category, executives that have access to people with markets. You can get on the Today show? Clients will pay for that. Having a strong database here would allow this system to scale to multiple people instead of a the single performer limitation.

Ok, enough with the BS, let’s see if I can backsolve this to a profitable business…

Teams (with benefits, taxes, etc.) Fully loaded agent – $200k, Preditors $120k, Admin $50k = $370k per team/3 clients=$123k, charge $150k to cover fixed expenses etc.= $12,500 per month for the client. The client is getting more than 1/3 of an agent and Preditor (at bare minimum $9k per month). So for 30k per year they get all the value and don’t have the impossible task of finding 1/3 of an agent and Preditor. All the specialist stuff can be sold ala carte for big margin.

Any opinions out there? Is this real or candyland?