Review by Julie Anne Eason
http://JulieAnneEason.com

Would I recommend?

I highly recommend Yes to anyone who has to convince anyone to do something. Whether you’re in a boardroom or a playroom, the techniques you learn in this book help you be more persuasive in all aspects of life.

Application: 5

Yes gets a 5 sticky rating for application because the authors flat out tell you how to apply the concepts—primarily in business situations, but also in your family life, school, lots of other situations where you need to persuade people.

Ideas: 4

I’m giving this one a 4 sticky rating only because I’ve read the ideas in Cialdini’s previous book, Influence. However, if you’ve never read anything about the psychology of influence and persuasion, you’ll probably rate it a 5. The ideas are that powerful. What I love about this book over Influence is that the authors go one step further and explains how using the techniques can backfire. So you get both the Dos and Don’ts.

Style: 5

I love how short the chapters are. Just a few quick pages and you have the gist of the concept as well as how to apply it to your life. Where Influence had a tendency to go on and on, Yes gets right to the point. Each chapter is a self-contained idea. So, you can flip through the pages and start reading at any point. If you have an instance where you need a persuasive technique, you can just thumb through the book and get lots of solutions.

My Biggest Insight:

Persuasion techniques can backfire. You may know everything there is to know about social proof, but do you know how it can make someone say “No Way” instead of yes?

Some of the Powerful Concepts in This Book (and how you start applying them right away):

The chapter titles say it all:
-When does offering people more make them want less?
-Does fear persuade or does it paralyze?
-How can you become a Jedi master of persuasion?
-When can the right way be the wrong way?
-Which single word will strengthen your persuasion attempts?
-How do you get to yes in any language?

And there are 50 of them!

Where to Get This Book (Nope, this ain’t an affiliate link)
http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Scientifically-Proven-Ways-Persuasive/dp/1416576142/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269899949&sr=8-1

•  Paperback: 272 pages
•  Publisher: Free Press; Reprint edition (December 29, 2009)
•  Language: English
•  ISBN-10: 1416576142
•  ISBN-13: 978-1416576143
•  Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.9 x 0.8 inches

Thanks to Julie Anne Eason
http://JulieAnneEason.com

Review by Sarah Louise Ferrara

Sticky Rating:

Application Rating: Two stickies
Ideas Rating: Five stickies
Style Rating: Four stickies

Would I recommend Linchpin?

I don’t just recommend it. I insist on it. Linchpin is my first experience with Seth Godin, now legendary in marketing circles. Having heard and read such raving from his fans, I was curious to read his most recent publication in the wake of the publicity surrounding its release.
It took a few chapters to get used to his style, which is direct, easy to read and extremely passionate, with a free, almost stream-of-consciousness style. You can feel his energy, enthusiasm and passion on each page. The book is all about one question: Are you indispensable? And if I’m to judge the author on the criteria he himself sets out in this book, Seth Godin is definitely, absolutely a linchpin. The question is: are you?

Overall stickiness:

I’d rate Linchpin as a five-sticky book, despite having only given two stickies for application and four for style. It gets a full five stickies overall simply because this could be the book that changes your life, for ever, and for the better. Even if you think you already know about the concepts explored in Linchpin (and I’m betting that you will; he has a special knack for creating new vocabulary – “emotional labour”, “the lizard brain”, “thrashing” and, my favourite, “ship” – to concisely define concepts and phenomena almost everyone will have experienced in their lives), his words will jump out from the page and speak directly to your soul until you feel the irresistible urge to do something about them.

Application:

It’s a two-sticky on application. Although highly inspirational, this is not a how-to manual. Godin even tell us why not:
“There is no map. No map to be a leader, no map to be an artist. I’ve read hundreds of books about art (in all its forms) and how to do it, and not one has a clue about the map, because there isn’t one.”
Simply put: if there is a map, there is no art. So no step-by-step instructions to follow here, I’m afraid, although the chapter on Resistance does offer some excellent tips on how to fight the Lizard Brain (more on that later).

Ideas:

The magic of this book lies in the ideas, and the way they are expressed. As you read, you might feel (as I imagined I did) the synapses in your brain sparking and crackling as new connections and neuropathways are born and formed. The author’s own passion for his “art” is palpable and infectious. Linchpin is thought-provoking on a grand scale: on my Kindle I made notes on or highlighted no less than 38 sections. Not one paragraph, not one sentence goes to waste. Page after page, he fires ideas at you with little or no time to digest the last before another one is heading your way. For this reason, you might find it easier to read in short bursts, to give the ideas time to settle in your brain and make themselves at home before you move on to the next section, because there’s no respite. And you’ll definitely want (and need) to read it more than once.
It must be said that none of the ideas are particularly new. It doesn’t matter. You need to hear them again, and Seth’s passionate style will tug at your heart and soul, forcing you see the ideas and concepts from a fresh angle: your own.
The author has a specific talent: he takes a generic idea, but will make you, the reader, feel as if he has been looking over your shoulder and is now speaking directly to you, about your situation. Throughout the book I found it to be specifically, spookily applicable to the situation I find myself in at this very moment and my niche; other reviewers have said the same. This ability to speak directly to the heart and guts of the reader means everyone gets to take away something different from the experience (and it is an experience) of reading the book.

Style:

Seth Godin’s style is wonderfully direct, conversational, and alive. You won’t nod off with this book;  his words reach out, grab you by the throat and won’t let go until you get as excited and  passionate as he is that being indispensable is vital. It doesn’t matter if you are a CEO, small business owner, artist, author, store assistant or waitress. His message is direct, loud and clear: be a linchpin, not a cog. Be indispensable, and make it meaningful.
Having said that, the book is lacking a rock solid structure, and seems to consist of a series of stream-of-consciousness blog posts strung together. I can’t call them articles or essays: they just don’t have the form. I don’t necessarily consider that to be a negative point, as the author’s passion and drive make it flow. His habit of repeating himself works – in its own way – to drive the point home, and overall it all fits together well to provide a unique, signature style.

My Biggest Insight:

My favourite part of the book, and biggest insight, is the chapter on the Resistance and the Lizard Brain. This is not a new concept; the term “resistance” was coined and the concept covered in detail by Steven Pressfield in The War of Art, and Godin refers to this book and its author several times. If you’ve read The War of Art, you’ll know exactly what the resistance is. Seth Godin takes it one step further, providing us with some powerful imagery (the Lizard Brain, anyone?) and the definitive advice on how to fight the resistance, advice that is both the goal of resisting the resistance and the cure.
Simply: get it shipped.

Some of the powerful concepts in this book (and how you start applying them today):

Shipping means getting a project finished and out there. It means having the courage to share your vision and creativity with the world. Shipping means getting your product  – be it a blog post, ebook, website design or proposal – out the door on time, even if it’s not ready or perfect. The Lizard Brain (the author’s term for the brain stem, that prehistoric part of the brain we have in common with reptiles and which ensures our survival by forcing us to seek shelter against risky situations) wants you to tweak the project and polish it, rearrange it, rewrite it, start again, or preferably just rip it up and go home: anything other than actually getting it out there and exposing yourself to the world. Shipping is the antidote to the resistance. Godin says it over and over again: “Real artists ship”, and “as every successful person will tell you, the ideas aren’t the hard part. It’s shipping that’s difficult”. The only solution “is to start today, to start now, and to ship”.

Introductory concepts:

1) The old system of finding a safe job, following instructions, getting paid and being taken care of is gone. The old system consisting of factories and cogs within them who followed orders. The industrial age is over, and the rules have changed. Now talent and creativity, not obedience, are rewarded.

2) The new rules reward artists, or linchpins. A linchpin is someone who does work that matters, who is indispensable. They are someone we can’t do without.

3) Linchpins don’t wait to be told what to do next. They figure it out for themselves and do it.

4) Linchpins are in control of their Lizard Brains. The Lizard Brain is the part of the human brain stimulated by fear, and its job is to protect its owner from being laughed at or criticised. The Lizard Brain hates creativity and vision. The Linchpin’s biggest challenge is overcoming the primal instinct of the Lizard Brain to convince you to just keep your head down and survive. Otherwise known as the resistance, self-sabotage, fear of success, fear of failure, or fear of being laughed at.

5) Linchpins ship. They get the product out the door and into the world, and then they start work on the next. Linchpins hit the “publish” button even if it feels uncomfortable.

6) Linchpins are generous, sharing their art in the form of gifts. This can mean simply going over and above the call of duty, or literally giving away their art – not in a callous attempt to exploit the law of reciprocity, but out of generosity and a desire to create change in others.

7) Art is defined as “the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person”, and “a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another”. Art has nothing to do with paintbrushes and canvases; linchpins are artists, not painters. “If art is a human connection that causes someone to change his mind, then you are an artist”

Emotional labour is needed now. Emotional labour is doing something that is mentally or emotionally difficult: creating something that might attract criticism, engaging in personal relationships when you don’t feel like it, starting a difficult conversation when it could be avoided.

9) Linchpins are indispensable, and linchpins do work that matters: their “art”.

10) How do you know if you are indispensable? “If all you can do is the task and you’re not in a league of your own at doing the task, you’re not indispensable”. In other words, use initiative to create something unique, or if you are just going to carry out a task to order, make sure you do that task exceptionally well.

Where To Get This Book (Nope, this ain’t an affiliate link)
http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-You-Indispensable/dp/0749953357/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270899261&sr=8-1
Author: Seth Godin
Kindle Edition: 256 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group (February 4, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0749953357 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-0749953355 (paperback)
ASIN: B00371V91S

Thanks to Sarah Louise Ferrara

Review by Jon Pietz

http://www.brandxco.com

Sticky Rating: 4.5

Application Rating: 4-sticky
Ideas Rating: 5-sticky
Style Rating: 4.5 sticky

Would I recommend Drive?

I’d highly recommend this book. For a compact volume, it yields quite a lot to consider. As an employer, parent or person that simply needs to motivate oneself, you will never think about motivation the same way again after reading this book. It gives you the theory, the cases and the exercises to take motivation from the old carrot-and-stick 2.0 model to a new 3.0 model, based on what drives people now, and get better results wherever motivation is a factor. (Which is pretty-much everywhere.)

Overall stickiness:

On a scale of 1-5, I’d rate this book 4.5 on stickiness.

Application:

It’s a 4-sticky on application. We can use the principles and included examples as parents, teachers, and employers in large or small companies. There are a number of exercises included within the book to help you understand how to apply the principles on your own. The author has also pledged to follow up using examples collected from his community of readers to update the book in the future. So this application rating will likely go up over time.
Wherever creativity and right-brain type of activities are part of the mission, these techniques and ideas can be successfully applied. However, motivation 3.0 techniques tend not to work well with repetitive, analytical or left-brained types of tasks which are subject to little interpretation. These types of jobs—and activities require a rigid adherence to prescribed processes, and as the author points out, the principles here are less valid.

Ideas:

The ideas in this book are current, relevant, and will have a huge impact on the business world in the years to come. 5 stickies for this category

Style:

Dan Pink’s style is terse and to the point while still being user-friendly. I rate his style in this book 4.5 stickies.

My Biggest Insight:

The ideas in this book defy our current notion of work. Imagine having employees or partners who never need to be “managed” or motivated because they are so passionate and in-tune with what they are doing that they are pushing the company. The competitive advantage that could be derived from this book has the potential to change your business, your classroom and your life if you spend some time thinking deeply about how to apply it.

Some of the powerful concepts in this book (and how you start applying them today):

In many cases “Intrinsic” motivation is more powerful than “extrinsic” motivation in achieving organizational goals. When people are motivated by their internal desires of creativity and innovation, they often outperform those who have been trained to focus external motivators, such as money, or punishment. If you follow the three main components of motivation 3.0 as suggested by the author—autonomy, mastery and purpose—and build them into your processes, you have a roadmap for motivating effectively in today’s world, and outperforming your competitors.

Introductory concepts:

1) R.O.W.E. – Results Only Work Environment —used by Best Buy Corporate and other organizations to free up their workers and produce better results. The only thing that matters with your work is the results: the company does not track where, how, or how often you work—only the results. For Best Buy it meant a 15-20% increase in results, with a large increase in employee retention.

2) If-then rewards—if you do this, then you get that. The carrot and stick approach is losing its effectiveness as a tool. Offering more pay as an incentive—beyond what is the industry norm or what is considered a fair salary has little effect on happiness or productivity. But when bonuses and rewards are given after the fact (they must not be expected for this to be effective) they have a much more positive effect on productivity and happiness than if-then rewards.

3) Fedex days—giving employees one day to do nothing else but deliver one great big idea to improve your business. Also related to: 20% time —Successful organizations such as Google recently, and 3M historically, allow their employees to spend a percentage of their time working on projects of their own choosing which may ultimately become company products. Somewhere in the range of 80% these companies’ new innovations come from that free time.

4) Motivation 3.0.—Beyond survival (1.0), rewards and punishments (2.0), humans also have a third drive: to learn, create, and better the world (3.0).

5) Goldilocks tasks—work tasks which are neither too rote or to easy, nor too far above one’s head or too esoteric. When you hit the sweet spot where a job is challenging, yet attainable with hard effort, you are getting maximum motivation from your employees or students.

Where To Get This Book (Nope, this ain’t an affiliate link)?

Author: Daniel Pink
Hardcover: 256 Pages
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; 1 edition (December 29, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594488843
ISBN-13: 978-1594488849

Thanks to Jon Pietz

Brand X Communications http://www.brandxco.com

Reviewed by Suzanne Abate

http://www.bodisonb2bmarketing.com

Would I recommend Positioning: The Battle for your Mind?

First, some context.  I would recommend red wine over white (which is for cooking).  And that you watch all of Werner Herzog’s documentaries, especially Encounters at the End of the World.  I would recommend that you pay more to fly Emirates and that you don’t pass up the chance to dine at Bhukara, if you should find yourself in Cape Town.
I would not recommend this book if you like your information delivered with diplomacy and delicacy. But if what you like is unabashed conviction and history as persuasion, then this marketing classic is your compulsory reading.

Overall Stickiness:

Five.

Application:

Industry veterans (which I am not) will all tell you that in the nineteen seventies Al Ries and Jack Trout forever changed the way people think about marketing.  And the proof is in the circulation pudding – with millions of copies in print more than thirty years since its original release.
But the dedication (to the second best advertising agency in the world, whoever they might be) is somewhat restrictive.  This book belongs to every small entrepreneur and C-level executive.  To genius inventors and the world’s investors.  To all the ad agencies big and small, and, of course, to all of us marketers whose job it is to create compelling stories.

Ideas:

The idea is this: in today’s over-communicated society how do you create messages that get heard? By linking products (people, ideas, and services) to meaning in the mind of the consumer.  That’s positioning.
What follows are some monoliths: in the battle between “first” and “better,” first always wins.  Strategies for being a leader are fundamentally and always different from strategies for followers.  If you can’t find a hole in the market (to be first in) you must re-position how people perceive the competition. And, what’s in a name? Everything.

Style:

Each chapter of this book is like a shot of espresso: goes down fast and spins your wheels.  The core ideas are repeated like mantras and endlessly supported by historical case studies and comparisons.  When tallied, what results is a bible of common sense.  We are the disciples; and taking up these ideas is not only easy to do, it feels like a professional obligation.
But if you don’t want to take my word for it you can simply open up the table of contents.  Each chapter is named by its thesis and the summary overviews – written with the same candor and cut-to-it approach that governs the entire book – say it all.

Chapter 10. The No-Name Trap. Companies with long, complex names have tried to shorten them by using initials.  This strategy seldom works.

Chapter 11. The Free-Ride Trap. Can a second product get a free ride on the advertising coattails of a well-known brand? In the case of products like LifeSavers gum, the answer is no.

Chapter 20. Positioning a New Jersey Bank. One of the best ways to establish a position is to find a weakness in your competitor’s.

My Biggest Insight:

Bright minds repeat common and painful mistakes.  This continues at an alarming rate and on enormous financial scales.  The mistakes themselves are evidence that positioning works.  Old beliefs are seductive misleadings – we have to change the way we think about marketing.
My second biggest insight: Platforms evolve; principles endure.

Some of the powerful concepts in this book (and how you start applying them today):

-To be heard you have to find a new path into peoples’ minds.

-Marketing must be part of the plan from the outset; by the time you’ve named your product it may already be too late.

-When you’re leading never stop looking behind you and always be ready to defend your position.

-Creativity is alive in well in the concept of positioning; to apply it successfully you must learn to think from every angle.

Introductory concepts:

1) Positioning: the fifth “P” that intersects Product, Price, Place, Promotion.
2) Anyone can use positioning strategy to get ahead in the game of life.
3) Advertising cannot save a product that is improperly positioned.
4) The easiest way into the mind is being first.

Thanks to Suzanne Abate

Bodis On B2B Marketing http://www.bodisonb2bmarketing.com