Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 103

7 Useful Tips For How To Create A Really Great Corporate Event

Someone recently asked me to guess how many events I had spoken at in the last 3 years. I honestly can't remember ... and I'm not saying that to try and impress you. The fact is, in the last three years, I have participated in easily more than a hundred corporate events of all types. Some are internal seminars, while others are larger scale annual events or conferences. I've been invited to speak at everything from workshops for the military to networking events for young professionals. The t...

Timing - The Most Creative Lunch In History

NOTE: This is an excerpt from Chapter 8 of my new book Likeonomics all about Timing, the 2nd principle of Likeonomics. I hope you enjoy it!

In 1855, a Scottish clergyman named James Gall had an idea that should have changed every map ever created, but didn’t. It was four years before Charles Darwin would publish his Origin of Species, and Gall was presenting his world-changing idea at a Glasgow meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The world he lived in had long...

Simplicity: Plain Language & The Red Button That Reinvented Your Memories

NOTE:This is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of mynew book Likeonomicsall about Simplicity, the 4th principle of Likeonomics. I hope you enjoy it!

Annetta Cheek is a 25-year veteran of the federal government who now runs a nonprofit called the Center for Plain Language. There has never been a more important time for the Center to exist. ‘‘When you’re supposed to be a democracy, and people don’t even understand what government is doing, that’s a problem,’’ Cheek says. This is not just an American p...

Unselfishness: The World's Most Ethical Company & Why Collaboration Works

NOTE: This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of my new book Likeonomics all about Unselfishness, the 3rd principle of Likeonomics. I hope you enjoy it!

The biggest clue that Jim Sinegal is not your ordinary CEO came in an article in The Seattle Times a few months before his retirement. The headline read: ‘‘Jim Sinegal takes pay cut in last year as Costco CEO.’’

If that seems like an extraordinary thing for a CEO to do, it’s not all that makes Sinegal and the members-only warehouse retailer Costco...

Relevance: What Canada’s Favourite Storyteller Can Teach You About Marketing

NOTE: This is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of my new book Likeonomics. I hope you enjoy it!

Sometimes making a big statement is the only way to break through the noise. We often describe things in terms of love and hate, but there is a third and more powerful category that explains how most of us act when it comes to the vast majority of issues in the world—indifference.

It is impossible to care about everything. Things like irrelevant products and over-the-top sales people are easy to tune out....

Truth: The True Story Of How Oprah Became Oprah

NOTE: This is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of my new book Likeonomics. I hope you enjoy it!

The truth is more important than the facts.

—Frank Lloyd Wright

Always tell the truth. That way, you don’t have to remember what you said.

—Mark Twain

Phil Donahue didn’t know it yet, but his days were numbered. His self-titled Phil Donahue Show had been nationally syndicated since 1970, and by 1984 he had risen to become the undisputed king of daytime television, watched by millions every day.

That year,...

How To Be A Better Entrepreneur, Friend, Parent, Marketer & Human

NOTE FROM ROHIT: Likeonomics is now AVAILABLE - if you read my previous post and decided to wait to buy it because I asked you to, thank you!!

Please purchase your copy of Likeonomics RIGHT NOW!

About four months ago I was sitting at home during an unseasonably warm evening in late January. It was the night of the State of the Union address, and was feeling that unshakeable mixture of happiness and sadness that happens usually on the last day of an amazing vacation. That day I had just deliv...

The 5 Ways Media Will Cover The Facebook IPO & Why We Really Care Anyway

The big news all day today is going to be the Facebook IPO - and of course you would expect the media to care. Lots of "virtual" money is going to be changing hands, there will be nonstop media coverage throughout the day. To help you navigate the coverage, I figured I would take a stab at segmenting it into the five media "takes" on the story that you will likely see throughout the day:

The "Social Media Is Too Shiny" Take: We are totally in the midst of a bubble and Facebook is the poster...

Yahoo's CEO And The Modern Believability Crisis

I don't actually have a degree in Irish Poetry. I share this because recently at a few events I may have mistakenly mentioned that I did. See, I studied English literature at Emory University in the late 90s. While there, I took exactly two elective classes specifically on Irish literature and as most people who study that field already know - Emory has one of the best collections of Irish literature and poetry in the world. So I did focus on Irish Poetry, but the degree that I earned in 1997...

Why I Don't Want You To Buy Likeonomics (And This Isn't A Marketing Trick)

A few days ago I got the first shipment of my new book Likeonomics to my house. Right now the book is sitting in front of me and I really want to ask each of you to go out and buy it - but I can't. In fact, it really helps me if you DO NOT buy it yet - and the reason why explains a lot about the nature of timing, business, and what is broken with the publishing industry itself.

Book sales, like movie sales, are reported on a weekly basis through a reporting system called called Bookscan. The...