Meatball Sundae

It is one of the books which is not complex but very simple in reading. Godin writes in a simple, teasing and amusing way. If you have any interest for Marketing, you'll pass the book pages as they were just a simple story.

One of the main difficulties with Seth Godin book is that he opens up many parenthesizes and you can be a bit distracted. But while you read it you understand that there is nothing new but you feel that there is something that we know about the marketing industry but never say. Meatball Sundae is less about Marketing and much more about business philosophy - how things have changed and how most companies have not.

The author has shown fourteen trends that have changed the marketing scene and he certifies his theories with real-life case studies and examples, certainly those which have worked and those which have not worked.

On the other hand it seems that Seth Godin is a bit strict and too much stacked with his fourteen trends of the marketing. Certainly the examples shown by him illustrate nicely his recommendations but there are many practical examples of well known companies which have over passed those trends.

Nevertheless, the author seems to be good at telling dramatic and simple stories that motivate anyone at business. By describing business profile books about successful companies you can always think that of ‘that is impossible and I can never do that." Meatball Sundae is a wonderful book to motivate people of business and especially of marketing by giving the idea that everything is possible and anyone can have a successful business.

BILLIONS OF ENTREPRENEURS

       I guess it is not a surprise that some countries like China and India raise while some western countries fall down. The author changes the second part saying that without western countries falling. There might be reasons for him. Firstly, he doesn’t want to have problems in western countries. Secondly, by doing so he doesn’t want to damage the book sale since you sell and earn there. The last reason is that he hasn’t studied physics and that’s why he has no concept of balance. There are two more countries that will play very decisive roles in the future. In fact, Bill Clinton twice mentioned the name of the most important one in his talks during his visits to some universities.

       In general the book is one of the most interesting ones in this term. It also mentions that one advantage of these two countries are that by using developed countries tools they find new ways to play the game. Everything turns in the universe, and turns to its origin. The question is 'Where did the civilization start?'

PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL

         This book reminds me of "The Elephant and The Rider", as there are different aspects that play their roles on our decisions and human is more complicated that just being a creature of logic. And those aspects will continue playing roles on us. We can mention mothers and some other people who love somebody to support the idea but if you watch the film 'I, Robot', there is a perfect example there to support the idea.

       There is an interesting question on the book worth discussion. The question that stays in the middle between 'conventional' and 'behavioral' economics;

       'Should we view the field of economics from the perspective of 'how people behave' or 'how they should behave'.

       Sometimes you get surprised to see some scientists or experts in some fields discussing. For the above-mentioned question you want to say 'what about the balance or moderate/middle way'. As some people say that devil shows you two variant and asks you to choose one of them, there are some other variants or at least the third one to choose from. 

       Firstly, we should sometimes look into matters in simpler ways. Secondly, we should put the compulsory parts in the centre, keep them in front of us and decide on others according to the basics. About the famous pilot's mistake mentioned in the book 'Sway', what's the compulsory part/idea? Of course, passengers' lives. So, don't take any risks about the vital parts. But the pilot put the fame of the company into the first place and the consequence was terrible. First things are first. I think the solution is to know or not to forget at the time of decision what the basic thing(s) is/are or what matters most.

CHANGING MINDS

In this book, Mr Gardner applies his cognitive framework to the task of persuading people to adopt new ways of thinking about matters of importance.He comes up slickly with a list of seven memorable elements called levers that all beginning with the same letter `re` including reason,research,resonance, redescription,real world events,resistance and resources and rewards.
In the book,Margaret Thatcher is given as an example for the changing the minds of English people by using correctly real world events.But Robert Shapiro,a lawyer who, as head of Monsanto, tried to change the world` s mind about genetically modified food and he failed because of unprepared for resistances.
In my opinion,for the changing theminds of human, showing the reason and datas to individuals is the highest effect.For example if a person wants to make diet to decrease his or her weight, you can show some datas from individuals who made diet for a definite diet program and this person belives the effect of diet program and continues. Also for elections in a country if you can why the chosing of this person is important and giving datas for his or her projects and showing the previous bad conditions to the voters, they can change their ideas if they don`t have constant or dogmatic thoughts.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

How successful people become EVEN MORE SUCCESSFUL?

The book attracted me with its title and I think “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” it is kind of motto which we have to follow in our daily life. Everything is constantly changing and methods of yesterday will not bring you success tomorrow.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith has learnt a lot from the management guru, Peter Ducker, one of his tutors and has successfully coached many CEOs of world’s leading corporations. In his book he does very vivid comparison of our lives to the “You are here” map and
gives pieces of advice to those who do not have well-developed internal “GPS navigator” in order to appoint themselves.

Successful people who already reached their success tend do not notice 20 Key Bad Habits which might stop them from reaching even more success. I would like to highlight just several of them, the ones I have faced mostly in the professional & private life and on my opinion, the most recognizable ones:

Winning too much
Speaking when angry
Withholding information
Making excuses
Not listening

So by knowing them we could recognize them in ourselves and / or others and help to / get rid of them. But how to do so? Dr. Marshall Goldsmith helps us here as well by providing with 7 tips of “How We Can Change for the Better”:

1. Feedback
2. Apologize
3. Advertise
4. Listen Attentively
5. Express Gratitude
6. Follow Up
7. Feed Forward

Also we have to remember as a compass the following: “The same beliefs that lead to our success – can make it very difficult for us to change behavior – and, as difficult as it is to change our own behavior, it is even more difficult to change others’ perception of our behavior.”

The book is great, to be read by everybody.

Sincerely,
Tatiana

Made to Stick

I really liked the way the authors modeled the criteria that ideas must have in order to be sticky.

For an idea to be sticky first of all it should be simple. After that it should make the audience to:

Pay attention (by making the idea unexpected)

Understand and remember it (by making the idea concrete)

Agree / believe (by making the idea credible)

Care (by making the idea emotional)

Be able to act on it (by making a story)

However, I still think that the term audience strongly forges the values of unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility and emotionality in each idea. In other words, a certain idea may be unexpected/simple etc. for a certain audience but for another it may not. Therefore it may be sticky in some circumstances and loose in some others.

In my opinion the SUCCES acronym is a prerequisite for a sticky idea but most important of all is to find a suitable audience which is likely to find the idea a SUCCES.

BR

S.K.

Book 8: What Got You Here Won't Get You There

This book of Marshall Goldsmith was really an outstanding book in my opinion. I think that it should be a must read for the managerial staff but not only, it is a very worthy book for everybody. In my mind, human communications in every level are the basics to succeed. So it helps us to be more aware of our actions so that we can better correct bad behaviors, always try to behave positively and become even more successful.

Section Two: “The Twenty Habits That Hold You Back From The Top” is just by reading the title an excellent, well found heading. All the 20 habits are explained wonderfully and show us that just by some attention and patience we can correct our behavior and be better than our colleagues/ friends expect us.

Section Four: Pulling Out the Stops – Changing Rules. Here the author talks about seven rules which may help people in the way to change. “If you obey them, you will be stacking the deck in your favor” says Goldsmith.

I believe that this book was “The best advice I ever got”, just remains to always remember and apply…