...thomas a . meyer How Great companies Get Started in terrible times Innovate! Innovate! How Great Companies Get Started in Terrible Times THOMAS A. MEYER John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright © 2010 by Thomas A. Meyer. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose...
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...eISBN: 978-1-58836-596-5 1. Social psychology. 2. Contagion (Social psychology). 3. Context effects (Psychology). I. Heath, Dan. II. Title. HM1033.H43 2007 302'.13—dc22 2006046467 www.atrandom.com Designed by Stephanie Huntwork v1.0 To Dad, for driving an old tan Chevette while putting us through college. To Mom, for making us breakfast every day for eighteen years. Each. C O N T E N T S INTRODUCTION WHAT STICKS? 3 Kidney heist. Movie popcorn. Sticky = understandable, memorable, and effective in changing thought or behavior. Halloween candy. Six principles: SUCCESs. The villain: Curse of Knowledge. It’s hard to be a tapper. Creativity starts with templates. CHAPTER 1 SIMPLE 25 Commander’s Intent. THE low-fare airline. Burying the lead and the inverted pyramid. It’s the economy, stupid. Decision paralysis. Clinic: Sun exposure. Names, names, and names. Simple = core + compact. Proverbs. The Palm Pilot wood block. Using what’s there. The pomelo schema. High concept: Jaws on a spaceship. Generative analogies: Disney’s “cast members.” CHAPTER 2 UNEXPECTED 63 The successful flight safety announcement. The surprise brow. Gimmicky surprise and...
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...Unleashing the Ideavirus 1 www.ideavirus.com Unleashing the Ideavirus By Seth Godin Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell ©2000 by Do You Zoom, Inc. You have permission to post this, email this, print this and pass it along for free to anyone you like, as long as you make no changes or edits to its contents or digital format. In fact, I’d love it if you’d make lots and lots of copies. The right to bind this and sell it as a book, however, is strictly reserved. While we’re at it, I’d like to keep the movie rights too. Unless you can get Paul Newman to play me. Ideavirus™ is a trademark of Do You Zoom, Inc. So is ideavirus.com™. Designed by Red Maxwell You can find this entire manifesto, along with slides and notes and other good stuff, at www.ideavirus.com. This version of the manifesto is current until August 17, 2000. After that date, please go to www.ideavirus.com and get an updated version. You can buy this in book form on September 1, 2000. This book is dedicated to Alan Webber and Jerry Colonna. Of course. Unleashing the Ideavirus 2 www.ideavirus.com STEAL THIS IDEA! Here’s what you can do to spread the word about Unleashing the Ideavirus: 1. Send this file to a friend (it’s sort of big, so ask first). 2. Send them a link to www.ideavirus.com so they can download it themselves. 3. Visit www.fastcompany.com/ideavirus to read the Fast Company article. 4. Buy a copy of the hardcover book at www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970309902/permissionmarket. 5...
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...Outliers THE S T O R Y OF S U C C E S S MALCOLM G LAD W E L L # 1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink $27.99 $ 3 0 . 9 9 in C a n a d a Why d o s o m e p e o p l e succeed far more than others? T h e r e is a story that is usually told a b o u t extremely successful p e o p l e , a story that focuses o n intelligence a n d ambition. In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell a r g u e s that the true story o f s u c c e s s is very different, a n d that if we want to u n d e r s t a n d h o w s o m e p e o p l e thrive, we s h o u l d s p e n d m o r e time l o o k i n g around them — at s u c h things as their family, their birthplace, or even their birth d a t e . T h e story o f s u c c e s s is m o r e c o m p l e x — a n d a lot m o r e interesting — than it initially a p p e a r s . Outliers e x p l a i n s w h a t the B e a t l e s a n d Bill G a t e s have in c o m m o n , the e x t r a o r d i n a r y s u c c e s s o f A s i a n s at m a t h , the h i d d e n a d v a n t a g e s o f star athletes, why all t o p N e w York lawyers have the s a m e r é s u m é , a n d the r e a s o n y o u ' v e never h e a r d o f the w o r l d ' s s m a r t e s t m a n — all in terms o f g e n eration, family, c u l t u r e , a n d c l a s s . It matters w h a t year y o u were b o r n if y o u want to b e a S i l i c o n Valley billionaire, G l a d w e l l a r g u e s , a n d it matters w h e r e y o u w e r e b o r n if y o u want to b e a s u c cessful p i l o t . T h e lives...
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...The Power of Eye Contact Your Secret for Success in Business, Love, and Life Michael Ellsberg For Jena May I gaze into your eyes forever . . . los ojos . . . mudas lenguas de amorios. ( . . . the eyes, silent tongues of love.) —MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, from Don Quijote1 Contents Cover Title Page Epigraph A Note to Readers Introduction Chapter One - What Bill Clinton Knows About Eye Contact Chapter Two - How to Become a Master of Eye Chapter Three - Eye Flirting, Part I Chapter Four - Eye Flirting, Part II Chapter Five - The Eyes Are the Windows to the Sale Chapter Six - How to Wow a Crowd with Eye Contact Chapter Seven - If Looks Could Kill Chapter Eight - Truth and Eyes Chapter Nine - Eye Love You Chapter Ten - Gazing at the Divine Chapter Eleven - Going Deeper Epilogue Ralph Waldo Emerson on Eyes and Eye Contact Notes Works Cited Interviewees Free Bonus Material for Readers Acknowledgments About the Author Advance Praise for The Power of Eye Contact Copyright About the Publisher A Note to Readers I welcome your comments, questions, critiques, feedback, corrections, stories, experiences, and anecdotes. Please write to me at michael@powerofeyecontact.com. I won’t answer everything personally, but I will read it all and will answer the most interesting questions and queries. I may also post your questions, stories, or anecdotes on the book’s blog, www.powerofeyecontact.com/blog. So when you write, let me know if you’re OK with that, and if so, how you’d...
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...Instantly How to Connect Anyone with LEIL LOWNDES New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto Copyright © 2009 by Leil Lowndes. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-07-154586-0 MHID: 0-07-154586-7 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-154585-3, MHID: 0-07-154585-9. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps. McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. To contact a representative please visit the Contact Us page at www.mhprofessional.com. TERMS OF USE This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“McGraw-Hill”) and its licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act...
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...2003 Preface The Changing World of Advertising and Promotion Nearly everyone in the modern world is influenced to some degree by advertising and other forms of promotion. Organizations in both the private and public sectors have learned that the ability to communicate effectively and efficiently with their target audiences is critical to their success. Advertising and other types of promotional messages are used to sell products and services as well as to promote causes, market political candidates, and deal with societal problems such as alcohol and drug abuse. Consumers are finding it increasingly difficult to avoid the efforts of marketers, who are constantly searching for new ways to communicate with them. Most of the people involved in advertising and promotion will tell you that there is no more dynamic and fascinating a field to either practice or study. However, they will also tell you that the field is undergoing dramatic changes that are changing advertising and promotion forever. The changes are coming from all sides—clients demanding better results from their advertising and promotional dollars; lean but highly creative smaller ad agencies; sales promotion and direct-marketing firms, as well as interactive agencies, which want a larger share of the billions of dollars companies spend each year promoting their products and services; consumers who no longer respond to traditional forms of advertising; and new technologies that may reinvent the very...
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...characteristics: It is unpre dictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9 / 1 1 . For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives. A BLACK SWAN Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate oppor tunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the "impossible." For years, Taleb has studied how we fool our selves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this reve latory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don't know. He offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and ben efiting from them. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applica tions, The Black Swan will change the way you look at the...
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...Companies, 2003 Preface The Changing World of Advertising and Promotion Nearly everyone in the modern world is influenced to some degree by advertising and other forms of promotion. Organizations in both the private and public sectors have learned that the ability to communicate effectively and efficiently with their target audiences is critical to their success. Advertising and other types of promotional messages are used to sell products and services as well as to promote causes, market political candidates, and deal with societal problems such as alcohol and drug abuse. Consumers are finding it increasingly difficult to avoid the efforts of marketers, who are constantly searching for new ways to communicate with them. Most of the people involved in advertising and promotion will tell you that there is no more dynamic and fascinating a field to either practice or study. However, they will also tell you that the field is undergoing dramatic changes that are changing advertising and promotion forever. The changes are coming from all sides—clients demanding better results from their advertising and promotional dollars; lean but highly creative smaller ad agencies; sales promotion and direct-marketing firms, as well as interactive agencies, which want a larger share of the billions of dollars companies spend each year promoting their products and services; consumers who no longer respond to traditional forms of advertising; and new technologies that may reinvent the very process...
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...THE Professional Practice S E R I E S James W. Smither Manuel London EDITORS Performance Management Putting Research into Action A Publication of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Performance Management The Professional Practice Series The Professional Practice Series is sponsored by The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Inc. (SIOP). The series was launched in 1988 to provide industrial and organizational psychologists, organizational scientists and practitioners, human resources professionals, managers, executives and those interested in organizational behavior and performance with volumes that are insightful, current, informative and relevant to organizational practice. The volumes in the Professional Practice Series are guided by five tenets designed to enhance future organizational practice: 1. Focus on practice, but grounded in science 2. Translate organizational science into practice by generating guidelines, principles, and lessons learned that can shape and guide practice 3. Showcase the application of industrial and organizational psychology to solve problems 4. Document and demonstrate best industrial and organizationalbased practices 5. Stimulate research needed to guide future organizational practice The volumes seek to inform those interested in practice with guidance, insights, and advice on how to apply the concepts, findings, methods, and tools derived from industrial...
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...solve problems 4. Document and demonstrate best industrial and organizationalbased practices 5. Stimulate research needed to guide future organizational practice The volumes seek to inform those interested in practice with guidance, insights, and advice on how to apply the concepts, findings, methods, and tools derived from industrial and organizational psychology to solve human-related organizational problems. Previous Professional Practice Series volumes include: Published by Jossey-Bass Customer Service Delivery Lawrence Fogli, Editor Employment Discrimination Litigation Frank J. Landy, Editor The Brave New World of eHR Hal G. Gueutal, Dianna L. Stone, Editors Improving Learning Transfer in Organizations Elwood F. Holton III, Timothy T....
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...P A R T I Discovering Momentum 1 1 The Power of Momentum Where’s the Impetus? Momentum. Most businesses get it at some point: the impression that everything they undertake succeeds effortlessly, as if they’re being carried along by a tailwind that increases their efficiency and propels them on to exceptional growth.1 Some hold on to it. Most don’t. Slowly, imperceptibly, the tailwind turns around and the momentum disappears, without anyone quite realizing what has happened. The company is still growing, but not as strongly as before, not as efficiently. Everyone’s maxing out, but it seems like there’s molasses in the works. Sound familiar? Sooner or later, it hits you in the face. Imagine you are meeting up with a senior analyst whose opinion counts with some of your company’s biggest investors. You think you’re on safe ground—after all, your company is doing better than the competition. But the analyst is in full gimlet-eyed, illusion-killing mode. “That’s nothing to crow about,” she says. “Yeah, you’ve got reasonable growth, but it’s nothing exceptional. You’re a safe bet, nothing more. Okay, I might tell my mom to buy, but 3 The Momentum Effect then she’s happy with inflation plus one. The way we see it, you’re really grinding it out. We reckon the strain’s getting harder, too. There’s no impetus—no momentum.” Words like that can really take the gloss off a day. The next time you gather your team, you don’t congratulate them on beating their targets—you...
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...The Engine of Capitalism Part IV. Choices 25. Bernoulli’s Errors 26. Prospect Theory 27. The Endowment Effect 28. Bad Events 29. The Fourfold Pattern 30. Rare Events 31. Risk Policies 32. Keeping Score 33. Reversals 34. Frames and Reality Part V. Two Selves 35. Two Selves 36. Life as a Story 37. Experienced Well-Being 38. Thinking About Life Conclusions Appendix Uncertainty A: Judgment Under Appendix B: Choices, Values, and Frames Acknowledgments Notes Index Introduction Every author, I suppose, has in mind a setting in which readers of his or her work could benefit from having read it. Mine is the proverbial office watercooler, where opinions are shared and gossip is exchanged. I hope to enrich the vocabulary that people use when they talk about the judgments and choices of others, the company’s new policies, or a colleague’s investment decisions. Why be concerned with gossip? Because it is much easier, as well as far more enjoyable, to identify and label the mistakes of others than to recognize our own. Questioning what we believe and want is difficult at the best of...
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