Actionable Books

“A handbook like this—full of advice from those who have already navigated the world of blogging—is one of the easiest ways to ensure that you develop and stay true to your core blogging goals and values.” Blog, Inc., pg 8 There’s a reason why blogs were, and to a certain degree still are, known the Wild West of new media, a barren, uninhabited place ungoverned by rules and protocol. Unlike traditional print journalism, with its longstanding conventions, blogs and blogging seemed to explode out of nowhere, with the rules being made up as the medium grew. But over time an etiquette has emerged, and Oh Joy! blogger (and now author!) Joy Deangdeelert Cho has endeavoured to set it down in her new book, Blog, Inc.: Blogging for Passion, Profit and to Create Community. “I distinctly remember other design bloggers asking me what the ‘rules’ were and thinking, ‘Wow, I don’t know if there are any.’ Thankfully, the blogging community has grown by leaps and bounds since then, and we’ve started to pay more attention to how we can be a more responsible form of media as well as build successful blogs and relationships with each other.” This is the handbook that Grace Bonney, who wrote the forward, wishes she had when she wrote her first blog post, and the one you’ll be glad exists now—whether you’re just starting a blog, or looking to take it to the next level. Golden Egg The 5 Variations “Blogs can be just one kind or incorporate different types…” Blog, Inc., pg. 11 There are five main types of blogs that you can create: Personal, Topical, Talent, Behind-the-Scenes News, and Community/Collaborative. Here’s a brief overview of the different variations: Personal – “A personal blog can highlight whatever aspect of your life you choose to share with others.” A personal blog can chronicle your travels, or even document your pregnancy. If you’re weary about sharing intimate details of your personal life, the author reminds us that you can always password-protect your posts. Topical – “A topical blog showcases your interests, passions, and hobbies.” You don’t have to limit yourself to just one topic. Some of the most interesting blogs feature two or more topics, such growing your own vegetables (gardening) and using them to create a gourmet meal (cooking)! Talent – A talent blog can showcase your portfolio, whether you’re a web designer, an artist, a hairdresser, etc. “Keeping a blog that showcases your work not only helps you to connect with other talented folks in your field,” writes Deangdeelert Cho, “but also can be a great marketing tool to reach potential customers and clients.” Behind-the-Scenes News – A behind-the-scenes news blog is great for a business to show their consumers what they’re up to. “For the same reasons that documentary TV shows or movies pull you in, consumers love having a sense of involvement or getting a behind-the-scenes picture of their favorite personalities and brands.” Community/Collaborative – A community/collaborative blog is a joint effort between two or more bloggers who “share similar interests, hobbies, or skills”. This saves time, and can cover more ground if the two bloggers live in different cities. Deangdeelert Cho says that you don’t have to pick just one, that your blog can indeed be a mixture of any of the different variations. Your blog will develop over time, and will tell you what it wants to be. The following two GEMs will offer some tips for once you’ve got going. GEM #1 Consistency Is Key “If you can’t commit to daily posts, consistency is key in keeping your readers interested and coming back for more.” Blog, Inc., pg. 62 One of the most important things to consider when writing a blog is to keep the schedule of your posts consistent. Many full-time bloggers are able to churn out multiple posts each day, but for most people, especially those who are just starting to blog who have other commitments, this simply isn’t feasible. So post consistently.

“It is ironic that a significant advance in technology . . . would shine a light on our need to have more human organizations, but that’s exactly what’s happening.” Humanize, page 91 We live in a social world, now even more so as a result of the dram...

“Self-control is a vital strength and a key to success in life.”  Willpower, pg. 13 Ever have a goal that seemed out of reach?  If you are like 99% of the people I know, you have tackled a change, resolution or new self-help project that became too difficult to see through to the end.  If those goals are still on your life to do list, Willpower can help you reach them, by teaching you the physical and mental elements necessary for developing the self-control you need to keep you on that path. While I am not convinced that willpower is the greatest human strength (I would argue our capacity for compassion would top any list), I do agree that strengths in willpower and self-control are key for anyone who wants to set and achieve a significant goal. The authors of this book, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, have spent a lifetime analyzing willpower and its effects on human life. Although scientific, with numerous studies referenced throughout, the structure and approach are easy to follow, and the reader is left with a workable set of approaches for improving willpower and self-control. Golden Egg Influence Great Outcomes “Exercising self-control in one area seemed to improve all areas of life.”  Willpower, pg. 136 The authors provide extensive examples of how those who were able to develop skills to master self-control in one aspect of their lives (such as exercise), led to abilities in all other aspects (e.g., they smoked less, drank less, kept their homes cleaner, etc.).  Building a strong foundation of strength in self-control gives us the ability to exert willpower in many aspects of our lives.  This becomes particularly important if the goals you set require persistence and dedication, as it can be too easy to get off track. GEM #1 Boost Willpower and Self-control “To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make the body want to go and do that very thing.” Mark Twain, as quoted in Willpower, pg. 234 Our minds can play physical tricks on us, as felt in the cravings for the very thing we are trying to eliminate from our life.  The authors provide extensive evidence connecting our body’s sugar (glucose) levels to our ability to exert self-control.  If your glucose levels are low, so is your willpower; plus, you deplete glucose by exerting willpower as well.  “Even just expecting to exert self-control makes the body hungry for sweets.” (pg. 51) So how to overcome what might seem like a losing battle?  The authors recommend planning for a period that requires strong self-control, particularly in ensuring you manage the physical impact of willpower exertions. Some of their tips include: -          Small, frequent (healthy) meals to “feed the beast” with low glycemic foods (they mention vegetables, nuts, raw fruits (apples, blueberries, pears) cheese, fish, meats, olive oil and other “good fats” to regulate your blood sugar levels. -          Ensure adequate sleep – “by resting, we reduce the body’s demand for glucose, and we also improve its overall ability to make use of glucose in the bloodstream.” (p. 59) -          Try small physical self-control routines (like using proper posture, or always using “yes” instead of “yup”) which can strengthen your brain for bigger tasks, like dieting or quitting smoking -          Tackle only one change at a time.  You don’t have enough willpower to handle multiple changes. -          Defer the reward – tell yourself “not now, maybe later" is sometimes enough to trick your brain into avoiding it altogether. GEM #2 Routine and Good Habits “ . . . their willpower gradually got stronger, so it was less readily depleted. . . (a)s long as you were motivated to do some kind of exercise, your overall willpower could improve.” Willpower, pg. 137 The example above talks about exercise but it applies to any scenario where you need to exert self-control.  Doing so can help build willpower that can apply to all aspects of your life.

Brandwashed airs the advertising industry’s dirty laundry. Written as an exposé, Martin Lindstrom cites example after example of the manipulative ways marketers use to persuade unwitting consumers to buy. He reveals the psychological, emotional, and rational tricks that advertisers employ, such as using sex, fear, peer pressure, and nostalgia. Interestingly, both consumers and marketers can gain significant value from the book’s lessons. Golden Egg Knowledge is Power “This now-legendary Axe campaign […] is a fascinating example of just how deeply companies and marketers probe the depths of our inner psyches – our hopes, dreams, and daydreams.” Brandwashed, page 93 Most of us are aware of those Axe commercials – an awkward teenage boy uses Axe and suddenly becomes an irresistible target for a hoard of scantily clad women. It’s a heterosexual male’s fantasy come to life. Literally. To pull off this advertising campaign, Unilever conducted an extensive online survey of 12,000 boys and men, aged 15 to 50, from around the world. They asked deeply personal questions about self-confidence, rejection, relationships, and sex. Then, they followed 100 participants of the aforementioned demographic and recorded their activities and behaviour while they were out at the bar. This data was analyzed and segmented into psychological profiles, which were used to determine a target audience and a corresponding marketing strategy. Is it any wonder that the campaign was such a huge success? To the tune of $71M in 2006 and a whopping $186M in 2007, in fact. The more companies know about you, the better they can sell you. That’s why they spend so much time, money, and effort to conduct such elaborate consumer research and glean valuable knowledge. With this information, they’re able to sell to you without you realizing that you’ve been sold. That’s pretty powerful… and scary! GEM #1 Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware) “Our brains are prone to forming mental shortcuts […] known as somatic markers, that link cues from our physical world to specific emotional states […] Shrewd companies are able to actually plant these somatic markers in our minds by creating associations between some positive emotion and their product.” Brandwashed, page 199 Take Lindstrom’s example of the “goji berry” – a magical fruit purported to have any number of health-boosting and healing qualities. Magic is certainly expensive – a 32oz. bottle of its juice retails anywhere from $30 to $50 at American health food and organic stores. Yet there is no concrete scientific research to prove that goji berries live up to their hype, and no such health claims have been endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration. This is where we, as consumers, can turn the tide. We have power too, in the form of free-flowing information. We currently live in the ultimate information age. There’s no such thing as an unanswered question thanks to Google and Wikipedia. We can probe, question, detect, reveal, and investigate to our heart’s content. Unbiased, democratic information is the best shield against manipulative marketing. And although not every source is created equally (in terms of legitimacy), the fact that we can access information created and disseminated by parties other than the one selling us, makes a huge difference.  This makes it much more difficult to advertisers to hide the ugly truth. After all, it’s much easier to defend against manipulation, when we’re aware of the myriad ways that we can be manipulated. Try it yourself. Google some of your favourite brands, and see if you like what you find. Make sure to look past the first few pages, as those companies use search engine optimization to hide any unsavoury details. Easier still, have a gander at the nutritional label of your favourite health bar. Does it have a “healthy” sugar and saturated fat content? Is it loaded with unpronounceable chemical ingredients? GEM #2

"The same psychological tricks apply whether you're setting a price for text messages or toilet paper or airline tickets." Priceless, page 7 This is not a book about coming up with prices, it's about understanding them. More accurately, it's about our fundamental misunderstanding of what prices even mean. Poundstone frequently references Dan Ariely, Kahneman and Tversky, Richard Thaler, and others who will be familiar to those of you who like to read about how our brains work – and how they often don't. A series of short (2-5 page) treatises which build and focus as you move through the book, he begins with our cluelessness about prices, gives us some psychological grounding, shows us good and bad pricing in action, and gives us greater awareness of our limitations and how to shore them up. Golden Egg Prices Are Imaginary Numbers "Yard sales reveal a truth we might not care to admit in a business deal: prices are made-up numbers that don't always carry much conviction." Priceless, page 9 Just as we assume teachers have the answers at the back of the book, we assume that prices are part of some rational business logic. They are not. Our first reaction to that truth is denial. We spend money every single day and we want to believe that it makes sense. Awareness that we are predictably irrational makes it easier to believe. Poundstone shows that once we're aware that pricing is psychology, not logic, we can nudge ourselves back in line to some extent. Humans are very good at comparisons. This is heavier than that. One is larger than the other. Louder. Softer. Brighter. We are lousy at putting size, loudness, weight on any kind of absolute scale. It's why the carnival chap who guesses our weight is so impressive: most of us have no clue what a gallon of milk weighs, we just know that by the time we get to the third flight of stairs it's the heaviest thing in the world. Fortunately, our ability to compare can help us significantly, if we know what to compare. Let's take two examples: anchoring, and marketing in thirds. GEM #1 Meaningless Unrelated Numbers Affect Our Beliefs About Prices "This isn't something we're aware of -- it takes experiments with groups to demonstrate it statistically -- but it is real nonetheless." Priceless, page 14 Is the average summer temperature in San Francisco higher or lower than 500 degrees? What is the average summer temperature in San Francisco? A slightly different pair of questions: Is the average summer temperature in San Francisco higher or lower than 32 degrees? What is the average summer temperature in San Francisco? Folks presented with the first pair will consistently guesstimate higher than folks presented with the second pair. Even though both 500 degrees and 32 degrees are ridiculous for San Francisco's summer, they affect our guesstimates. We anchor to the number offered, and adjust away from it. The way we're wired, though, we consistently fail to adjust far enough. When Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky proved this with extensive research, even the scientific community refused to believe it. Economists ignored it for decades. Whoever quotes a number first in a negotiation sets an anchor which, like it or not, affects the other party's perception of what they'll have to pay or accept. The antidote to anchoring is to consider the opposite. Make a list of reasons that party's number could be inaccurate. This seems commonsense, but anchoring is an unconscious feature of how our brains work. Its effect can only be mitigated consciously, and even then, not entirely. When you can, be the first to say a number in a negotiation. Get the other party anchored to your number, and you'll be less susceptible to anchoring's effects. GEM #2 Marketing In Thirds "[T]hey could make the students want one beer or the other, just by adding a third choice that few or no one wanted." Priceless, page 152

“Imagine a world where all your reps- or at least many more of them – performed like stars. What would that be worth to you?” The Challenger Sale, page 15 Wouldn’t it be great if you could bottle what your best sales reps do and sprinkle it over all the rest? In the quest to do just that by understanding what top-performing sales reps do, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, authors of The Challenger Sale, performed an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps and discovered something that is shaking the ground as a breakthrough! They dethroned traditional beliefs and identified specifically who the stars are and what they do differently than the others. You may be surprised! Golden Egg One, two, three, four... Five! “The five profiles are statistically derived, but they accurately and completely describe the five most common profiles found in the real world.” The Challenger Sale, page 19 After a massive and sophisticated statistical analysis, Dixon and Adamson discovered that every sales rep falls into one of five distinct profiles. Think of reps you know. Do you know these types? 1)      The Hard Worker Always willing to go the extra mile Doesn’t give up easily Self-motivated Interested in feedback and development 2)      The Challenger Always has a different view of the world Understands the customer’s business Loves to debate Pushes the customer 3)      The Relationship Builder Builds strong advocates in customer organization Generous in giving time to help others Gets along with everyone 4)      The Lone Wolf Follows own instincts Self-assured Difficult to control 5)      The Reactive Problem Solver Reliably responds to internal and external stakeholders Ensures that all problems are solved Detail-oriented Which category do you think houses the most successful reps? Well, maybe the title of the book gave it away but yes, the Challenger. Shock of all shock, it was not the relationship builder that we had put our bets on for so long. They were the loser category! GEM #1 One clear winner and one clear loser “In our study, only 7 percent of all star performers fell into the Relationship Builder profile, far fewer than any other. And this finding should be a real red flag for all sales leaders encouraging their reps to simply go out and ‘build deeper relationships’ with customers.” The Challenger Sale, page 24 Have you ever heard a senior Sales Director say “It all boils down to the relationship”? And people nod in agreement. After all, who are they to argue? But maybe after reading The Challenger Sale they would! Conventional wisdom has long held that in complex sales, relationships are the basis of all sales success. Over the last ten years however there has been a flip-flop. Customer relationship is the result and not the cause of successful selling. I hear reps say all the time “I have such a great relationship with him but he just won’t use my product!” That’s because customers today are likely to say “I have a great relationship with her but her competition delivers better value so I buy from them.” Reps traditionally have felt they are there to serve and support their customers. Their goal was to keep things friendly, and not rock the boat. The research presented here suggests that customers are looking to suppliers to challenge their thinking and bring new ideas to address their toughest problems in ways they would not have thought of on their own. GEM #2 What makes the rock stars rock? “When you ask people to compare their rock stars with their losers, you find that they can dissect the losers with surgical precision but find it hard, if not impossible, to put their finger on exactly what makes their rock stars rock.” The Challenger Sale, page xiii So let’s capture a clear picture of what this ideal Challenger rep does. The three pillars that make a Challenger is their ability to teach, tailor, and take control.

3 Seconds: The Power of Thinking Twice, is a concise and clear explanation of how one small idea can have a great impact on many areas of your life. Written by psychologist Les Parrott, the ideas presented in this book are geared to actively help you c...

"It's not an elitist club; it's a middle-class leaderless movement." The $100 Startup, page 8 How are people like Gary Leff, travel hacker and consultant, earning a yearly five-figure sum part-time, just by helping clients land cheap dream itinerari...

There has always been a certain mystique that surrounds willpower. We are in awe of the athletes who seem to have it in bulk, and we are constantly trying to get more of it for ourselves. We can always use more willpower: for our diets, for our familie...

If you could come up with that one killer idea, that one moment of brilliance, what would it be worth to you? Probably a lot. And that is why Chris Griffiths wrote GRASP The Solution; to give you the strategies that will help you use the most powerful tool you have for making big things happen—your mind. Every great innovation began as an idea in someone's mind.  But even though there are a lot of minds in the world, not enough of them understand how they work or what strategy or process to use to get the most out of them. Chris Griffiths shows us how the mind can approach an idea from different angles, using distinct categories of thinking. Once we understand those categories and know when to use them, we will have access to an invaluable process for creating solutions to our most perplexing problems. Golden Egg Think About Your Thinking "The killer ideas and solutions that drive your business forward don't just simply fall from the sky. They come from using the power of your mind - your thinking." GRASP The Solution, page 36 It seems that we have no problem thinking about various aspects of our life to make them better—we think about our diet, we think about our fitness, we think about our appearance—but how often do we think about our thinking?  Griffiths says that if you take just one thing away from his book, it would be to think about the strategies you employ for your thinking. Our minds are at the core of everything we do, all our reasoning, problem solving, planning, motivating, communicating, and actions. It's the starting point for every possible pursuit or task.  So the more effectively we utilize and strengthen our minds by increasing our thinking skill, the more successful we'll be in everything we do.  In other words, it's all mental. And Griffiths lays out principles and a system for training your mind to generate solutions to any problem or need.  Innovation blooms from the soil of your mind. GEM #1 Practice Purposeful Creativity "Strategy is what makes creativity purposeful so we can promote unconventional and original thinking, but with practical relevance." GRASP The Solution, page 53 Creativity isn't just an artsy ambiguous concept for those who make crafts or paintings. Creativity is foundation from which anything new is born, and therefore deserves our most serious treatment.  Griffiths offers a solid functional process for applying a purposeful strategy to your creativity.  He calls it 'The Solution Finder', and explains how it combines three operative thinking modes to create the most productive environment for your mind. The three modes are: Generative - we generate a wide range of possible options. Analytical - we analyze these options and gather information in order to converge to a single solution. Selective - we strengthen and reinforce our chosen solution and decide how to take it forward. Two additional modes of thinking, Reactive and Proactive, are added to create a memorable acronym: GRASP.  Each mode is described in detail and helps the reader conceptualize why their minds think in certain ways. With these modes as the foundation, a 4 step process is laid out to find your solution. Define the problem using 'Five Wives, One Husband, and a Map' (a creative way to remember the technique.) Generate ideas using the correct brainstorming strategy and multiple tactics for looking at the problem differently. Evaluate ideas using convergent thinking. Build your solution and convert it into reality by making plans and taking action. "When you provide structures, processes, and systematic techniques, you dramatically increase people's potential to think creatively so that it becomes a regular, everyday prospect" (page 270). 'Purposeful practice' of creativity will help you develop the skill of creating new ideas, just like the practice of any skill is necessary to become proficient. GEM #2 Daydream Productively

"Turning pro is not for everyone. We have to be a little crazy to do it, or even to want to. In many ways the passage chooses us; we don't choose it. We simply have no alternative." Turning Pro, page 5 Steven Pressfield knows more about suffering than I do. If you've ever tried to create something, you know what that means, but I'll spell it out for anyone who's confused. Everything worth doing is art. The obvious stuff - writing, painting, sculpting - is art, certainly. There's another kind of art though, and it exists in your business, in your life. If you're trying to do something with real meaning, something not quite orthodox, you have felt what traditional artists feel every day: Resistance. In Pressfield's earlier book, The War of Art, he detailed what Resistance is, and how to combat it. It was originally titled The Writer's Life so it's no surprise that it's slanted toward those who share Pressfield's profession. But as a man of broad vision, he knows that we all face Resistance, what Seth Godin calls the lizard brain. When we try to do something important, the voice in the back of our head tries to stop us. In many cases, it wins. Even those of us who've read and re-read The War of Art until it's worn have succumbed to Resistance. We needed more than awareness. We needed a tool, a path, a flashlight. Turning Pro is a flashlight on the path. Golden Egg There Are Two Paths: Amateur and Pro "[W]hat ails you and me has nothing to do with being sick or being wrong. What ails us is that we are living our lives as amateurs." Turning Pro, page 5 The core of Pressfield's message is that when we continually give in to Resistance, whether it's by avoiding our art, by embracing addictions of all kinds, or by working a "shadow career" where we do something close enough to pretend, but which is not our real art, we are still an amateur. He uses his own definitions of the words "amateur" and "professional" but he uses them in a sense any of us can understand. The distinction is not about the quality of our work or whether we get paid for it. It's about belief. Commitment. Integrity. Turning Pro is about deciding that it's time to put on your big boy pants and do the work. To sit down, day after day, 9 to 5, and type out the words, or hammer at the anvil, or whatever it is you have to do to create your art; your contribution to a better world. A pro creates habits to enable success in the daily battle against Resistance. A pro shows up in the morning, sits down, and gets busy. An amateur sleeps in, or gets up early but has other things to do before the work. A pro works. An amateur tweets. A pro's life isn't easier than an amateur’s. It's not harder, either. But it is, most definitely, different. GEM #1 Are You an Amateur or a Pro? "The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits." Turning Pro, page 20 An amateur is stopped by their fears, lives for the opinion of others, is easily distracted, seeks instant gratification, lacks self-compassion, seeks permission, and will be ready tomorrow. The pro shows up every day, acts in the face of fear, is dedicated to mastery, is not distracted, and does not wait for inspiration. You know whether you're an amateur or a pro. Thing is, others don't. They can't tell if you're doing a great job at a shadow career, or a mediocre job of something amazing. Nobody else can know about that glowing coal hidden in your gut. But you know. And you know which list you're on. If you're a pro, I salute you. If you're an amateur, shame on you for withholding your grace and art from a world that could sure use some of it. And lest anyone take offense at my shaming, it is, in fact, my shaming. I'm an amateur. Oh, I'm real good at a lotta things. But I know where I fall. I haven't turned pro. Not yet. I see it. I know it's out there, on the fringe of the woods. But I'm still huddled by the fire, building courage.

"Probably the most common - and damaging - misunderstanding about personality type is that introverts are antisocial and that extroverts are pro-social. ... neither formulation is correct; introverts and extroverts are differently social." Quiet, page...

"Innovation success remains as elusive as ever. Even when firms come up with great new ideas and follow them up with great implementation, failure is not only possible but likely. How can we do better?" Wide Lens, page 5 In Wide Lens, Ron Adner provides a new methodology and set of tools with which to plan innovative projects. You will see the blueprint for success more clearly, using a wider lens. This new view doesn't eliminate obstacles or dependencies; it merely lets you see them while there's still time to do something about it. You will then be able to more accurately assess the risk and chart the course for your projects accordingly. "This book is about seeing interaction between your own execution risk and the risks that are introduced by your ecosystem partners,” explains Adner. “It is about how to revisit your strategy to proactively manage these interactions and, in this way, drive better outcomes." You will find examples of excellent execution of truly innovative products that were first to market, yet doomed to failure. It's only upon examining them with a wide lens that the causes are readily evident. Had these companies looked at all the pieces that relied on external partners and assessed their risk, they could have identified and planned how to solve these problems before it was too late. As Adner explains, "it is no longer enough to manage your innovation. Now you must manage your innovation system." Wide Lens is the perfect toolkit for learning how to do that. Golden Egg Shift Your Focus "Choosing to focus on the ecosystem, rather than simply on the immediate environment of innovation, changes everything – from how you prioritize opportunities and threats, to how you think about market timing and positioning, to how you define and measure success." Wide Lens, page 6 Steve Jobs was a true pioneer and innovation leader, a serial creator of successful products. He demonstrates in multiple examples what it takes to succeed in an interdependent world. And with good reason, for it wasn't really the products that he created that were so revolutionary, but the way he created an ecosystem that produced the successes. In fact, in only one case was his product—the iPad—the first to market. The iPod and iPhone arrived much later than the competition in the same arenas. But as you will see, innovation is not about arriving first—It's about making sure an ecosystem is ready at launch time. When you manage a project that relies on adoption chain partners delivering important pieces to your innovation, by assessing the entire ecosystem you will realize just how critical to success their efforts really are. Including ecosystem challenges doesn't really change the scope of your innovation project, it changes the extent to which you include external risk as a piece you actively manage. "A narrow lens will leave you focused on execution risk, prone to ignore the implications of co-innovators and adoption chain partners," Adner says. Using a wide lens to assess your innovation transforms the key strategic choices you make to achieve success. GEM #1 Value Blueprint "The value blueprint is a map that makes your ecosystem and your dependencies explicit. It lays out the arrangement of the elements that are required to deliver the value proposition—how the activities are positioned, how they are linked, and which actor is responsible for what." Wide Lens, page 84 Traditional project planning would utilize a supply chain model and a very linear sequencing of events and producers along the way. However innovation requires fully mapping out your ecosystem and assessing for each segment or partner the two types of risk associated with innovation ecosystems: Co-innovation Risk and Adoption Risk. To map out your value blueprint, you'll identify who the final target of your innovation is—your end customer. Identify what your own project is that you'll deliver. Identify each supplier for the inputs into your project.

"How can any person, organization, or idea become more trusted and more believable?" Likeonomics, page xxiii You don't need to be told there's a believability crisis. Whether you're stuck buying a used car or listening to political ads, you know you have a hard time believing what these folks are saying. And you know why: for far too long, businesses of all kinds have focused on profit over good behavior. Rohit Bhargava, author of Likeonomics: The Unexpected Truth Behind Earning Trust, Influencing Behavior, and Inspiring Action, would probably love it if everyone were altruistic enough to be likeable just because it's the right thing to do. He's sharp enough to know that we'll take more notice if he points out one of the inevitable side-benefits of likeability: a more profitable, less stressful business. Golden Egg Likeability has social, economic, and political value "[M]ost people chose to work with the ‘Lovable Fool’ (low competence, high likeability) rather than the ‘Competent Jerk’ (high competence, low likeability.)" Likeonomics, page xxxiii Harvard Business School professor Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo, professor of decision sciences at Duke University, discovered something which will seem innately obvious, yet commercially nonsensical: most of us would rather work with someone who is less able, but more likeable. In a survey involving a Silicon Valley tech company, a division of an IT corporation, a U.S. university, and the Spanish country office of a global luxury goods corporation, they plotted respondents and their coworkers against two characteristics: likeability and competence. Two of the corners in this box were obvious: everyone wants to work with the Lovable Star, and no one wants to work with the Incompetent Jerk. But what about the Competent Jerk and the Lovable Fool? Surely in a business setting folks would choose ability over likeability. You know that's not what happens. We'll take someone likeable but less able any time. In your own work, if you're already capable, being likeable puts you squarely in the right corner: the Lovable Star everyone wants to work with. But even if you're less able, if you're still likeable, you take the #2 spot. Likeable beats capable. GEM #1 Likeability determines whether someone wants to help us or has to help us "The most popular sentiment toward anything isn't love or hate -- it is indifference." Likeonomics, page 29 When you have a choice whether to help someone or not, and how much to help them, what determines whether and how far you'll go? What makes you go online to give a good rating to one restaurant but not another? What makes you work hard to help one acquaintance with their job search, and, well, put in less effort for another? There are things in life we have to do. It's easy to put in the minimum effort and get on with what's really important to us. Other things we want to do. We care. We go the extra mile. Whether or not we like someone plays a critical role in whether we help them because we have to or because we want to; whether we give it our all or just get it done. It also determines whether others go out of their way for us or not. GEM #2 The 5 Principles of Likeonomics: Truth, Relevance, Unselfishness, Simplicity, Timing (TRUST) "Instead of thinking of ways to create a smarter spreadsheet, let's imagine how we might build a more useful framework to understand if the things we are doing are actually worth the effort." Likeonomics, page 55 Sometimes, just having a lexicon and a framework makes an idea easier to implement. When we know what to call things, how the parts fit together, they make more sense. Bhargava admits that when his research led to the 5 principles and he realized the acronym which naturally arose, he spent a good bit of time trying to debunk it, thinking it was too obvious. In each chapter it's clear how these principles are connected. The acronym, it turns out,

“Step back and look at all that you’re doing. What are you doing well and what not so well? What excites you and what doesn’t? What reflects your genuine calling, expertise, and brand, and what doesn’t? What will actually take you into the future? What...