Reality Check

D

oes your company make people happy?

For years,Guy Kawasaki has been chief evangelist for Apple Computers, otherwise called Director of Communication. More recently, he has turned into a business angel and successful author. His latest book, Reality Check, is very timely. Never have corporations, their managers and their employees faced such a reality shock in all of the history of capitalism. What can be done in this situation? Quite simply, be an entrepreneur, be an “intra-preneur”, innovate, change, assume a leadership role, all of which means to decide! For him, “Innovating is not an event. It is a process.” The responsibility for a company is to create great products that make segments of people very happy. Yes, you have read correctly: “make segments of people very happy! Apple, Startbucks, Pixar, Nespresso, Disney have understood that success is the art of making customers happy. This leads us to a new definition of marketing: the art of making people happy.  Thank you, Guy Kawasaki, for offering several provoking ideas on how to make the reader happy!

The main idea: The ultimate goal of innovation is not so much good products or technologies, but making people happy. Every corporate manager should remember to never ask people, read that “customers”, to do things he would never do or like to do himself.

• KAWASAKI Guy, Reality Check, New York, Penguin Group, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59184-223-1

Discover the site and blog of Guy Kawasaki : www.guykawasaki.com

Tribes : We need you to lead us

N

o, not now !

Seth Godin is an authority on marketing in the United States and on Internet. His books have been a great success. Among them, The Purple Cow, The Dip, Meatball Sunday and Permission Marketing have struck people with their pertinence and their flair. With Tribes, Seth Godin shows how new social networks and new technologies for communication have changed the nature of leadership. He challenges his readers, asking, “How many fans do you have?” Yes, Barak Obama won the American elections by using new social networks, such as Twitter, Basecamp, Craigslist, Squidoo and so on. Today, companies must integrate these tools in their communication externally and internally.  A passionate, stimulating book on leadership in the age of Twitter !


The main idea : The greatest enemy of change is not “No!” It is, “Not now”. “Not now” is the surest way to resist change. It reinforces the status quo without seeming to do so, which makes it even more dangerous. Be careful of those who tell you “No, not now!”  These are the real brakes on change in your organization. 

• GODIN Seth, Tribes, London, Piatkus Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7499-3975-5.

Discover the site and blog of Seth Godin: www.sethgodin.com

Inside Steve's Brain

W

hat if the secret of Apple’s success was inside of Steve Jobs’ brain?

Steve Jobs'life is a modern fairy tale. It is an extraordinary technological, commercial and human adventure that  Leandrey Kahney tells in his latest book  Inside Steve's brain. This is the story of extraordinary success. Yet when Steve was young, he was not good at school. Worse than that, he was even a border line delinquent! The author analyzes the way this amazing character works and shares a few lessons about managing innovation. Beyond such breakthroughs as Mackintosh, Apple Computer, Next, Pixar, IPod and IPhone, this publication uncovers several of Jobs’ secrets: as a perfectionist, he does not tolerate any compromise with excellence!  Elitism:  he only works with the best, les A Players !  Passion: be passionate and have fun working 90 hours a week !  Forcing Innovation : pushing forward again and again! Above all, Steve Jobs has always succeeded in making a unique blend of technology, design and marketing. This is the Jobs’ Touch. With INSIDE STEVE'S BRAIN the reader plunges into the heart of the creative process which has spelled the success for Apple for many decades. One of the great secrets of Jobs is to believe in impossible ideas! Then he carries them out with his teams!

The main idea : For Steve Jobs, creativity means simply connecting. Connecting people! Connecting talent! Connecting technologies! Connecting dreams! And triggering luck! Luck is a part of the game… 

• KAHNEY Leander, Inside Steve's brain, New York, Penguin Group, ISBN 978-1-59184-198-2., 2008
  

What got you here won't get you there

C

hanging to become grater 

Marshall Goldsmith is a coaching and personal development star in the United States. His conferences and workshops are unforgettable. In fact, nothing is more difficult to manage – and to go beyond our own success. Goldsmith describes twenty habits that stop us from growing and realizing our professional dreams. Before knowing what we need to do and to carry out, it is important to identify which behaviours are poisoning us… and stop them! The key to personal change is exactly that: accepting that calling ourselves into question is indispensible and then acting.
A challenging and motivating book that gets us to change.

The main idea : The “stop-to-do list” is as important as the “to-do list”. “What am I going to stop doing to make my life lighter, tonic and decisive in accomplishing what I want to succeed in?”  is the first question to ask ourselves.

• GOLDSMITH Marshall, What got you here won't get you there, New York, Hyperion, 2007, ISBN 1-4013-0886-4

Against the Odds: An Autobiography

A

n English Don Quichotte in the land of home appliances

Until James Dyson invented the vacuum cleaner without a bag, our epoch was missing an emblematic inventor like Thomas Edison (1847-1931). 
Against the Odds is a passionate autobiography by this British inventor and dynamic entrepreneur. This book, more than another other shows what the creative approach is and the difficulty of moving beyond creativity (the idea stage) to innovation (the production stage), then from innovation to success : today one English household out of every four has a Dyson.  Here is a real contemporary adventure book that takes us from England to New York, from a round bed in Caesar’s Palace to creative investors in Tokyo. 

Question: Can someone who is creative create by himself ? When we see that the book finishes with a thank you from the author to more than … 1500 people, we understand that the answer is no.

Dyson’s philosophy for companies is summed up in just a few points :

• Think in an illogical way! Never think like everyone else does.
• Always have a holistic approach towards design; never separate engineering from design.
• Everyone has a right to be creative and to make creative contributions.
• Encourage collaborators to be different, as a deliberate policy.
• Treat the customer like a friend.

The main idea: Be sure to think different than others. Never hesitate to shake up your usual way of thinking. 

• DYSON James, Against the Odds: an autobiography, Texere, 2003, ISBN 1587991705