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  • Eliminate, edit and perfect…Becoming Steve Jobs on stage

    16 January 2010

    On a fairly regular basis I get the opportunity to present to large rooms of people.  Whether it's an Ignite Phoenix, a guest lecture or a large convention like the one Vemma has me preparing a presentation for there's one man who is the basis for my slide design and half of the way I present information.  That man is Steve Jobs. (For those wondering the other person I obtain inspiration from is my friend, Gary Vaynerchuk.  His energy and pure passion is much closer to my natural state of being.) I'm not the first geek to be enamored by the presentation skills of Steve Jobs, nor do I expect to be the last.  With that in mind, here's my quick review of Carmine Gallo's The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.  Gallo has an amazing eye toward the storytelling and performance aspects of a Steve Jobs keynote and while this book is broken into three distinct sections (story, experience and rehearse) that reflect the way Jobs presents.  This can be useful if you've never presented before and have few bad habits you have to work through but the sections could be more helpful for those of us who have ...

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  • One heck of a day: The Ren Men and Wired to Care

    06 January 2010

    Over the last two days I decided to blog about some of the things that had come across my desk; namely Wired to Care and, through a thin veil, The Ren Men. Needless to say that I was shocked that both reached back out to me and do so in such meaningful ways. Let's start with last night's post and bring you all up to speed. I quickly wrote about playing the role of connector and doing things that give perspective. The reason why that post had a very different feel was because it was literally minutes after I had emailed a key member of Gary Vaynerchuk's staff who I feel fortunate enough to call a friend and one of the nicest guys I've come across professionally, Matt Sitomer. I was on the high of simply helping someone achieve a goal that they had had the confidence to make it public. Grant and Alan, the guys behind the Ren Men Show, stated in an early episode of their podcast that their major eustress goal was to get in contact with Gary V. I feel pretty fortunate to consider several members of the Vaynermedia ...

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  • Wired To Care: Why empathy needs to be an ingredient for success

    04 January 2010

    I'm not entirely sure how Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy came across my to-read list but I am extremely happy it did so.  I was so impressed while reading this book that I raced back to my computer and bought a copy for Vemma's CEO because I tend to think those of us at Home Office have no idea how our actual member base performs business day to day. The book basically espouses that in order to be successful businesses must begin to show empathy for everyone involved in the creation, production, sales and consumption of products.  Without this ability to relate our ideas for what will and will not create a response in our desired clients and coworkers will seem off base and possibly irritating.  What I especially enjoyed was how Dev Patnaik showed that including empathy on a single level did not adequately change the environment to create the desired result but rather multiple areas of responsibility were required to be empathetic to their customers to be able to score big wins.  Case studies involve companies that anyone should recognize and can be understood and applied to businesses of any size.   The ...

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  • Crush It! – A Knowledge Bomb

    27 November 2009

    I feel it necessary to clearly disclose that I am a Gary Vaynerchuk fan boy.  I also feel it necessary to state that both he, his brother (AJ) and several members of the staff at Vaynermedia I consider to be friends of mine. Finally, AJ and Gary helped me get my current job at Vemma which was a consulting client of Vaynermedia. All that stated, here’s my quick review of Crush It!Yes, I’m a month and a half late on doing this review, I know.  I took the time to read this book cover to cover now three times just to make sure that I am not having my fan boy status for Gary overcome my opinion on this book.  I’m happy to report that this book is verifiably a knowledge bomb.  Give this to any entrepreneur or student who has a feel for what the marketing and job landscape is going to look like in 3-5 years time and this book will change their view and more importantly give them the tools to go make their own success story.It starts with finding your passion and then becomes an orderly walk through each of the ...

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  • Tactical Transparency – Get Transparent or Get Exposed (or Worse, Regulated)

    13 November 2009

    The final conclusion section of the final chapter in Tactical Transparency starts with "Transparency is not a choice. It is a legal, moral and competitive requirement."  I very strongly believe this to be the case and that's part of the reason why I choose to live my life as transparently as I do.  I acknowledge that it isn't for everyone and that leads me to a second great point that is reiterated throughout the book by Shel Holtz & John C. Havens: being transparent doesn't require that you expose everything. It definitely presents enough value to read.  That stated it reads more like a playbook made for mid-high level managers with moments where they try and write for the C-suite who all are hesitant to get involved in social media. The format of the book is entirely reflective of business cases/proposals I've seen in my short experience inside the Cubicle Nation.  Maybe for some folks that style is interesting but for my tastes overarching sections and then the old "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell you what you told them" chapter format feels more to me like an overworked and over-prepared Powerpoint presentation instead of ...

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  • Six Pixels of Separation – We’re All a Click Away

    29 October 2009

    Unlike most my reviews, this one is being written about two weeks after I read the book.  While I don't feel that has hurt my recall of the books major points I expect that the minor ones have been overwritten by the books I've read since. The premise of Mitch Joel's (@mitchjoel) book really boils down to the fact that we're closer than we ever have been.  Instead of six people away we're now six pixels away from anyone and everyone.  The immediacy of information on an individual is at first startling but brings forth what he calls the Trust Economy.  Through the course of the book he speaks of a lot of areas where social media have begun to change human behavior and while initially being viewed as negative that in the end it really is positive.  Overall a lot of the core messages in this book at those that are repeated by most social media pundants: You are your own brand and it doesn't hurt to be in a small niche, you're fighting for people's attention and not the platform to speak, hyper-personalized news and media streams are the way to go, full commitment to moving forward in ...

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  • 750 words on Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

    14 September 2009

    This last week the CEO of the company I work for walked up to my desk, handed me a copy of Trust Agents, gave me a fist bump and walked out without saying a word to me.  I think it’s pretty awesome that he is aware of the new books coming out regarding social media.  It’s shocking to me that anyone of his stature would go out and buy a copy, hand it to me and provide no instruction on what I’m supposed to do with it. Anyway, let's get into the 750 words or less on the book: Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Julien Smith (@julien) are well known to anyone who's been in the social media space for any serious amount of time.  I had the opportunity at SXSW 2009 to sit in on one of Chris' panels and can't begin to tell you how much he lives what he preaches in this book and still have enough words to do a review justice. Where last week's read, Socialnomics, was a series of case studies on how businesses can and have used social media to hang some wins up on the board, this ...

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  • 750 word book review: Socialnomics by Erik Qualman

    07 September 2009

    I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth and forgot the Deep Listening project walkthrough.  I did what I do from time to time and got absorbed in work and a book.  Given that I couldn't leverage my Immersive Reading (posts on that will be coming soon) it took me more than a few hours to read the book I'll be reviewing in this post, which if you haven't guessed by now is Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.  So here's 750 or less words on what my thoughts were:   Erik Qualman (@equalman) writes what I feel is one of the most approachable primers on the social media realm.  Fortunately for me I hadn't come across Erik's blog or really any content of his before the promotional video he did on YouTube (http://bit.ly/17wfby) so I came into this with little expectations for the book.  Fortunately he proved he has a serious feel for social media early on and how much it stands to change not only the business to consumer interaction but how consumer behavior would change. The book opens with some very interesting stats on the growth and importance of social media and how interruption marketing is quickly being seen ...

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Copyright © 2010, Kade Dworkin