PIXEL MAVERICK

I just finished reading Daniel Pink’s latest book Drive.  I am a big fan of Mr. Pink as a speaker, and now I am a fan of his writing as well.

I thought the concept of this book was very interesting, and would recommend it if you are someone who enjoys learning about what makes people tick.

One of the cool things that Mr. Pink did with this book was to provide a chapter at the very end of the book that provides the reader with a summarized recap — sort of the Cliff’s Notes version of the book breaking each chapter down to it’s main points.  In addition to the summary he provided a Twitter and Cocktail party version of a book recap to kick off this chapter.

Twitter Summary

“Carrots & sticks are so last century.  Drive says for 21st century work we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery & purpose.”

Cocktail Party Summary

“When it comes to motivation there is a gap between what science knows and what business does.  Our current business operating system — which is built around external, carrot-and-stick motivators — doesn’t work and often does harm.  We need an upgrade.  And the science shows the way.  This new approach has three essential elements: (1) Autonomy — the desire to direct our own lives; (2) Mastery — the urge to get better and better at something that matters; and (3) Purpose — the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.”

Video Summary

For those of you who prefer video to reading, this whiteboard sketch animation does a great job of summarizing the book too.

With every hardback book sale that the Kindle kills, a little part of one of my childhood dreams dies with it.

Maybe I watched too many Disney movies as a kid.  You know which ones …for some reason they were all set somewhere in Europe in right before WW2 broke out …whatever the plot of the movie was they live in a massively huge estate that was passed down through the generations and one of the rooms inside of it is this enormous study/ library with thousands of books sitting in two stories worth of bookcases.

That room became the technicolor vision for something I wanted.  It was probably less about the material desire for the items and feel of the room, and more about the aspirational desire on what sort of man I hoped to be by the time I was old and retired …someone who was scholarly and worldly enough to warrant & enjoy this type of room.

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly On the Plains...

So, for most of my adult life I have been going out of my way to purchase hardback whenever I purchased a book.  Slowly collecting the inventory needed to fill a study that would make Professor Higgins, Professor Brown, and Captain von Trapp a little jealous.

I even got my wife excited about this vision and into the effort of acquiring new hardbacks to add to the stockpile (...although there are definitely some concerns about her contributions since the majority of them seem to have pink, white, and light blue frilly colored covers and that is just not aligned with the mental picture).

Things were going according to plan, and then Kindle showed up and things began to fall apart.  Thanks to Kindle, the hardback appears to be a dying breed that will become extinct well before I can reach an inventory necessary of filling even the first story of my dream library.  How am I supposed to be worldly, wear cardigans, and lounge around in my palace of mahogany & leather without any books in it?  Concern level is high at this point.

My only saving grace hope is that The Kindle Effect will create an enormous supply of pre-owned hardbacks and I can go to Amazon.com and buy them all up for pennies per.  Keeping my fingers crossed for that occur.

Until it does …damn you Kindle, damn you straight to HECK!! (there is no cursing in Disneyland)

I purchased a great new book at the airport for my long flight to LA (online shoot for The Martin Agency) called What Would Google Do? I am about halfway through the book, and while some of it is predictable it is an excellent read so far.  The author really does a great job of applying the insight that the consumer is in control to a variety of industries.  I highly recommend it.

99.9999999% of all the books about Business & Succeeding in Business all just say the same thing and are total crap.  Most of these books say things that you think “Well, duh….I can’t believe I just wasted that much time/money on this!”.  Usually I am less pissed off about the money spent and more angry about the time I wasted getting to page 150 before I figured out it was just another author that tricked a publisher into letting him/her print another repackaging of common sense.

One author that definitely does not fit that mold is Malcom Gladwell.  I devoured both his books Tipping Point & Blink, which were not “Success” books but more of a cooler version of answering some of Jerry Seinfeld like questions…..why do things become really really cool/big/successful/popular……………and how much conscious/unconscious go into each decision we make.  Don’t paint me black & white because I am not proposing that what he writes is the gospel without flaw.  I just like that he makes you think about a topic differently.

I am eagerly awaiting his next book which IS about success, but in his own weird quirky way.  The book Outlier Gladwellizes about what the common characteristics of those who end up overcoming odds and being a success.  Guess what……about 5,000 books already do this, but they are all the common sense regurg type so I am hoping that Mr. Gladwell puts those dead trees to shame by telling us something new about what is common among these Gagillionaires (other than private jets and insider trading).

Cool hair btw

Anyone who has ever read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand has most likely been thinking of all the similarities between the world that Dagney and Hank lived in and what we are experiencing today.  While I understand that the bailout was necessary from a national and global economic stability standpoint, it definitely irks me to know that we are bailing out the hanger-ons and slackers who overextended themselves on the backs of those that worked hard to earn their profits and took care of their responsibilities.

Now that what’s done is done, it will be interesting to see how that bailout money is spent.  If I had to bet, it will be handed to the same people who created this mess to begin with and they will pay themselves handsomely before pitching the remaining pennies to those who really need it.

If you have not read the book, I suggest you do

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand