January 2011
23 posts
16 tags
#13/111: Where Good Ideas Come From
What is it about?
Steve Johnson tries to find an inherit structure in innovation in nature and our life. He explains seven different characteristics of innovation and environments which supports innovation. However he remarks that not all these principles are necessary for innovation!
Key points?
Adjacent possible: Innovation is about widening the existing border of knowledge.
Slow hunch:...
6 tags
Neuro-Menus and Restaurant Psychology |... →
efficiency:
Restaurants are great test labs for testing neuromarketing techniques. It’s easy to change offerings, menus, and pricing, and one gets immediate feedback on what’s working and what’s not.
8 tags
#12/111: What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20
What is it about?
Tina Seelig talks about Stanford, scientist at Stanford and graduates from Stanford. In addition, this book is about her friends and her family.
Key points?
Give yourself permission: Don’t wait till people say that you can do it, just do it.
Conclusion
You recognize really fast that this book was written by an academic in an academic environment. You could summarize...
18 tags
#12/111: Inbound Marketing
What is it about?
Do you want to boost your customer base? Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shan show you how. Inbound Marketing focuses on building relationships and delivering remarkable content to your customers instead of interrupting them with TV or radio ads. Furthermore there are several steps for each chapter which shows you how to execute these ideas.
Key points?
Track your progress:...
8 tags
The Startup Daily - Great Ideas from Great Books →
What is this? The Startup Daily brings you a short daily email with the best tips, ideas, and advice from great books on entrepreneurship, business, marketing, management, etc. Sometimes the ideas will be the main theme of the book, sometimes the ideas will be ancillary. I do my best to cover everything from practical specific tips to big picture thoughts and wisdom, from both new books...
16 tags
#11/111: Go-Givers Sell More (including a Special)
What is it about?
Bob Burg and John David Mann describe how to change your way of selling. They focus on five laws which are based on giving value first and also to be able to receive value by others.
Key points?
There are five laws: Law of Value (i.e. give value to others), Law of Compensation (reach people and build relationships), Law of Influence (help people to reach their goals), Law of...
11 tags
#10/111: The Non-Designer's Design Book
What is it about?
Robin Williams explains four simple rules to create better and clearer designs. She explains each rule with examples and uses these examples in other categories like color or typography.
Key points?
Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity and don’t be a wimp. Proximity means that you should group relevant information together. If you use contrast it is important...
17 tags
#9/111: :59 Seconds
What is it about?
Prof Wiseman writes about a lot of psychological misconceptions in various topics like creativity, relationships or happiness. For each of these topics he cities scientific studies, busts old myths and gives valuable tips.
Key points?
There is many great material in this book, so here is an example. You want to come up with a creative solution to a problem: You can...
12 tags
#8/111: Baked In
What is it about?
Bogusky and Winsor shows different examples for merging your product and its marketing. They present how innovation changed companies and how to improve collaboration between companies silos.
Key points?
Do not disconnect marketing and product development. The product itself should be your marketing instrument, e.g. Apple’s Ipod.
Conclusion
This book offers some...
16 tags
#7/111: The New Rules of Marketing & PR
What is it about?
In the first half of this book, David Meerman Scott explains different platforms, e.g. blogs, news releases or social networking. In the second half he writes about planning your marketing strategy and tips for execute them on these platforms.
Key points?
Segment your customers. Do not try to sell your product instead try to help your (prospective) customer. Give away...
7 tags
Execute your idea, now!
I just read about a story related to threewords.me. Mark Bao (creator of threewords.me) built his first prototype in about two days and released it. This led to an hype on facebook and shortly he got millions of visitors.
And there is the story of Brandon Watson. About one and a half years ago he wrote about a new app he wanted to build:
The app [my3words] will have user accounts, which you...
12 tags
#6/111: Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur
What is it about?
Stuart Skorman tells about his business and private life. He started several companies in his life, worked as a band manager and played high stakes poker for two years. All in all a pretty adventures life.
Key points?
Choose your business idea/model on logic and profitability. He tried to make an educational business to give something back to the world but forget to make it...
8 tags
WatchKeynote: Customer Development 2.0 (“Why Accountants Don’t Run Startups”) by Steve Blank
(via @andykiteman)
7 tags
WatchAbout this talk: Let’s raise Kids to be entrepreneurs
Bored in school, failing classes, at odds with peers: This child might be an entrepreneur, says Cameron Herold. At TEDxEdmonton, he makes the case for parenting and education that helps would-be entrepreneurs flourish — as kids and as adults.
ahmadtaleb asked: Love the blog idea, I will definitely have to catch up on my reading. Do you have a twitter that one can follow? I'd love to get the word out about you blog, I don't have many followers on twitter but I've got some big names in presenting that do follow me, they might find this interesting.
11 tags
#5/111: Blue Ocean Strategy
What is it about?
There are red and blue oceans. Red oceans are highly competitive markets (e.g. commodities). In contrast blue oceans are markets with a low rate or non competition. The authors explain how to construct & execute a blue ocean strategy.
Key points?
There are several tools to construct and execute a blue ocean strategy. Some new ideas are targeting non-customers and tipping...
10 tags
9 tags
#4/111: Making Ideas Happen
What is it about?
A lot of people have ideas. But only a few execute them. Why? Scott Belsky shows that many creative minds struggle in organise themselves. He gives advice on managing oneself and use your community to help realizing your ideas.
Key points?
If you want to execute your ideas you have to be organized. To improve or kill ideas liberally share them with your community. To...
7 tags
12 tags
#3/111: Crush It!
What is it about?
Gary Vaynerchuck, wine lover, writes about his passion for social media marketing. He tells us about how he learned to do business in his dad’s liquid store or with selling baseball cards. Furthermore he gives a brief introduction to different forms of social media marketing and building his own personal brand.
Key points?
Write about your passion. Be extremely good...
12 tags
#2/111: The Art of Non-Conformity
What is it about?
In my opinion it is about questioning existing behavior. Do we have to go the graduate school? Do we have to get a real job? Do we have to stay in the same country we were born?
Key points?
It is not bad to do things for yourself. It is also not bad to do things for others. Try to leave an imprint. Don’t ask for permission!
Conclusion
I really love this book....
7 tags
#1/111: Screw it, Let's do it
What is it about?
You probably know Richard Branson or at least Virgin. This book is about his life, his business and his family. He talks about Student, one of his first businesses and some of his adventures, like flying around the world in a balloon.
Key points?
He recommends you to live the life to the fullest. You should do things you love. Be happy!
Conclusion
All in all a nice book if...
11 tags
Motivation
So what is my motivation in reading 111 books in one year? Good question.
Basically I love learning about new things. Therefore I rather read non-fiction books. You will find all books I read with a little description/summary.
If you have any question, please ask me! Have fun reading ;)