Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 219

Can A Hashtag Send You To Jail?

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

It's completely depressing to watch the news coming out the Nepal earthquake. So much senseless death, and a reminder that no matter what plans we make in life, we are all just babies in the eyes of Mother Earth. The amount of tragedy this past weekend has been so very hard to stomach. With that, both Facebook and Google have rolled out services to help families check to see if their loved ones are okay, and to help them be located. Good on them for these efforts.
Jennifer Pawluck is a 22 year old who was just found guilty of harassment, after posting a photo on Instagram. She took a picture of someone else's graffiti work and posted it with some anti-police hashtags. The photo upset the officer, his wife and children. The arrest happened in 2013, and the verdict came down last Thursday. Once again, social media can be a risk when you don't understand the implications of being a publisher and the law that go along with it. 
YouTube celebrated it's 10th anniversary. It's hard to imagine that YouTube is already ten years old. It's even harder to imagine another business coming in a disrupting their model. Well, not so fast. That disruptor could be Facebook. Just as YouTube was lighting their candles to celebrate their birthday, Facebook jumped in and spat out the candles by announcing that they now serve up four billion video views to its user base every single day, up from three billion in January, and just one billion back in September. Of those four billion views, 75 percent come from mobile devices. Facebook is getting serious about video too. 
App of the week: TVFoodMaps.

Listen here...

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Stand Out With Breakthrough Ideas

Episode #459 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

I can be old and cynical when it comes to building a personal brand. It used to be that digital media allowed all of us to present ourselves in a three-dimensional way. While that statement still stands true, we have a swath of people presenting themselves in really silly and unprofessionals ways online. Figuring out how to make a statement that is both authentic and professional can be a challenge in this Instagram world. Still, when it comes to people who really understand how to decode success, I trust Dorie Clark. Her first book, Reinventing You, was a fantastic read and she's back with Stand Out. In her latest book, Dorie tackles the super-huge challenge of how people (like you and I) can come up with breakthrough ideas that make us invaluable to the businesses that we work for. She also believes that this is the one (and potentially only) thing that will give us all the ultimate career insurance. With that, she is also a speaker and writer for Harvard Business Review and Forbes. Enjoy the conversation...  

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #459.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #253

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

Getting out of my Skinner Box - LIMN This . "My friend Jim Stogdill writes good screed. Here's his lament about a life lived interrupted, and how he found his way out of it." (Alistair for Hugh).
The Bot Bubble - New Republic . "I have bot followers. They seem to follow me to make themselves look legitimate. When I see them I report them; but I can't handle the flood. This surprisingly candid exposé goes inside a bot farm. You won't believe what happens next. ;-)" (Alistair for Mitch).
Mouse Utopia Experiment . "I'm shocked that I hadn't heard about this before. I guess that it was the kind of sensational research that spawned all sorts of dystopian sci-fi, and some real policy thinking as well, back in the 50s, 60s and 70s when the experiments were going on. Dr. John Calhoun wanted to study growth in mouse colonies, where the normal stresses are removed: unlimited access to food and water, no predators. But, limited space. The colony grows exponentially, then plateaus, and then all sorts of bad things happen (random violence, infertility, cannibalism, self-inflicted solitary withdrawal, etc...). The population then plummets, and never recovers. The implications - to the degree they are transferrable - to human organization are wide ranging: from thinking about designing better spaces for large populations, to the problems of generous welfare systems. But, if you are sitting down to write some dystopian sci-fi, I suggest you watch this first." (Hugh for Alistair).
Swiss Postal Service Will Start Using Delivery Drones in Pilot Program This Summer - Slate . "When word came through the transom of Amazon's plans for drone delivery services, I first thought it was a kind of marketing ploy. But, the reality of drones doing real work (other than killing people) is coming soon. The tech will get better and cheaper. The applications will be far ranging. I guess if you are in the bike courier business, anyway, your job is going to be changing soon." (Hugh for Mitch).  
Why can't we read anymore? - Hugh McGuire . "Our buddy, Hugh, used to write a whole lot more. I miss his style and rantings. Don't get me wrong, I'm blessed that he makes the time to contribute his links and thoughts here weekly, but I do miss his writing. I'm thrilled that he decided to take another run at a topic that we all know is near and dear to his heart. In this fascinating piece, Hugh looks at reading and what happens when we move from books to screens... and if it's such a big deal." (Mitch for Alistair).
50 Years of 'Avengers' Comic Book Covers Through Color - Wall Street Journal . "It doesn't matter whether you appreciate comic books or not. This is a prime example of how digital publishing can (and should!) do things that print cannot do (well). My main gripe with the vast majority of traditional media websites, is that it doesn't do much beyond ' copy and paste' their written content to the Web, or they subject us to these awkward videos being created by people who are much more adept with a keyboard than a camera. Good on the Wall Street Journal for doing something original, digital and compelling with a topic that is already over-played in the media." (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

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 limn this

All Businesses Can Act Like They're From Silicon Valley

Corporate culture is a huge part of what makes a business successful.

There's a statement that no single business professional would ever challenge. The problem, of course, is that cultures are often hard to control, understand and nurture. Sometimes they happen in an organic way, and sometimes they come from a strong management team. There are instances when an individual's brand is the corporate culture (Steve Job, Elon Musk, etc...), and there are instances when the culture is affected by outside forces. All of us struggle with corporate culture. How to define it. How to work it. How to make a corporate culture work towards better business results. When we look at some of the more interesting brands, we often marvel at the perks and benefits that come along with it (and how it attracts and retains the talent). A lot of the attention over the past few decades has been given to Silicon Valley, when it comes to newish kinds of corporate culture. As "present" at Twitter is, it is still a relatively new organization that is growing at a massive click, as it struggles to maintain their corporate culture, while evolving with the realities that come with being a publicly traded company.

Can your business think like Twitter?

Earlier this week, Fortune Magazine held its 2015 Great Places To Work Conference. With that, the event featured a very interesting (and in-depth) conversation with Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo, about how the company has changed, how they maintain culture and how transparent they really are (both to the public and to their employees). Fortune Senior Editor, Christopher Tkaczy, does a great job of probing and dissecting Twitter. Within this interview also lies many interesting tips, tricks and strategies that any business can apply, as they adapt to the digital transformations that we all face on a daily basis.

Twitter sounds like a great (and transparent) place to work...

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Your Streaming Live Brand

It's a race to see which brands will be first on Periscope (or Meerkat).

This is nothing new. It happens all of the time. Some brands really do embrace an early-adopter ethos and score big earned media points by doing something (anything) with the latest and greatest shiny object that is capturing our attention. Right now, that object is the ability to live stream (with fairly good quality) from your smartphone, and Twitter is the prime gateway. If you've tinkered with Meerkat and Periscope (and, if you have not, you really should), it's an eye-opening experience. The quality really is remarkable, and the ease with which anything can now suddenly be "live" should spark the imagination and the new brand narrative opportunities. Of the two services, it's hard to say which one will prevail (Meerkat was first out of the gates and got a lot of buzz at SXSW, but Periscope seems to have the inside track, simply because it is owned by Twitter). Regardless of who wins this battle, the main question is this: will users truly adopt live streaming from their devices?

The answer is obvious: Yes. Yes, live streaming video will be a sight to behold.

So, what is a brand to do? Streaming opens up a new vocabulary and opportunity for brands to better connect with consumers. With that, we're going to see the typical trappings follow suit. There's the basic opportunities: brands being able to pay for things like sponsorship, advertising, product placement and partnerships. I call these "typical trappings," because they all fall within the paid model. It's not that they're easy to do well, but they're obvious and quick ways to get a brand name into something. There's so much more that brands are going to have to do, when streaming like this becomes more commonplace, and part of the ever-expansive media landscape.

And, make no mistake about it... streaming is now, next and the future of marketing.

So, what is your live streaming brand? Have you watched the new Netflix series, Daredevil? I'm in the middle of it (and... loving it, but then again, I have a proclivity to all things comic book). You have an entire new series on-demand and streaming like Daredevil, you begin to realize how much "time spent" with media is happening. I half-jokingly commented on Facebook the other day, that Daredevil is one of the best thirteen hour movies that I have ever watched (this season of Daredevil is thirteen one-hour episodes). It's hard to argue that this Netflix model has further perpetrated the binge-watching media consumption habits of people, while adapting us to the idea that streaming enables consumers to pay for access over ownership. Meerkat and Periscope push this new way that consumers are connecting with media by making the experience both live, and that much more portable (or mobile). The challenge with a streaming brand is that it is a moment in time. If it's happening and your target audience isn't in the know, connected to it or even near their device, you're going to experience a well-known phenom that I described in my second business book, CTRL ALT Delete, as "digital tumbleweeds and virtual crickets." This happens when brands pull out all of the stops and the content simple doesn't connect. The outcome of this is, typically, an internal mantra that "digital doesn't work," or "we're having a hard time finding the ROI," or "such and such platform doesn't convert for us." All of these comments are cringe-worthy, because it becomes this pointing-of-the-finger strategy, instead of looking within at what the brand may have done wrong. For a brand, streaming live is going to be a massive multiplier of these fears and concerns.

The live streaming brand strategy.

First-mover advantage is critical. Understanding what's happening on these platforms, and what consumers are connecting to (and who they're loving on it) is job one. From there, the exercise of figuring out what you brand can do in the live streaming place, to put some semblance of a flag in the ground is a worthwhile exercise. If for no other reason, than to figure it out and tinker with a new media format. At best, you may quickly discover that there are boundless opportunities to tell your brand narrative in a new way. At worst, you will simply be ahead of the competition in knowing what a new technology is and is capable of. Better yet, you may - in the process of tinkering and doing - find something new, interesting and dynamic to say. Other digital content is somewhat flat in a live streaming world. Think about it. It's always there. Your blog post, your podcast, your Twitter feed, whatever. Consumers can get to it on demand. Live is a very different animal. Mobile and live is a whole other species. It's a "now you see it, now you don't" moment. Approaching a live streaming opportunity in the same way that you might approach building a strategy for YouTube is a sure way to set your brand up for failure and disappointment. It's also easy to get negative about a brand's real role in a streaming live world. That is a defeatist attitude. I don't know if Meerkat or Periscope will offer panacea to your brand. I do know that streaming live is going to play a major function in what digital marketing can offer to brands.

Plan now. Plan later. Streaming live and your brand is the new next.    

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Big Can Often Be Much Better

How many times a day do you read about a brand messing up?

It's a sport at this point. Some people make a living by showing brands just how much other businesses are screwing up, as some kind of warning/lesson. A bad customer experience is about as prevalent in the online feeds of the world as selfies and what people are eating for dinner. It has become so commonplace, that most of us read it, shake our heads and continue buying from the same brands, in the hopes that what happened to our friend won't happen to us. My friend, Jay Baer, is in the middle of promoting his new talk and soon-to-be book, Hug Your Haters. My other buddy, Scott Stratten, offers an endless supply of case stories that act as real warnings, along with brands that have turned a challenge into an opportunity that they later leveraged to tell a better brand narrative. We have not tired on the topic of better customer service, and continue to demonstrate how the Internet allows brands to understand the issues, overcome them and even come out of the other side being in a much better place.

It feels like this is always a challenge for the bigger brands.

We often hear the phrase, "bigger is better," but don't believe it when it comes to corporations. Take a brand like Apple. Putting aside their market capitalization, their stunning technology tools and retail environments, there are many people who struggle with their products and services. The Internet is littered with issues (and, I have had my own... just like anybody else). Still, when it works, it is something to marvel.

How Apple gets it so right. (Warning: this is a "market of one" story).

The other day, I noticed that the letter "I" on my MacBook Air keypad was getting loose. By the following day, it had lifted. The key still worked, but the last thing I needed was to loose that letter in some random airport. I figured I would book a Genius Bar appointment, and pray that I would not have to relinquish the computer for a bunch of days to get one single, dorky key replaced or repaired. I went to the Apple website, clicked the link for a customer support rep to call me, and took a deep, meditative breath. It took about five seconds before my phone rang with a message that the average wait time would be fifteen minutes due to the high volume of traffic. I was at my desk, so I switched over to speaker phone and got back to work. Within two minutes, someone was on the other line, we went through the issue, and I got booked into a meeting the next day, at the exact time I needed it. I went over to the store, thinking that this would take about an hour, and that there was a high possibility that I would leave the store frustrated and without my laptop for a bunch of days (either that or the "I" button would be replaced with "Z" or something like that). I was served, it was replaced on the spot, and the Apple employee even changed other keys that were worn. Yes, I have AppleCare, so there was zero charge. I was thanked, and asked if there was anything else that they could help me with.

I was stunned.

It seems simple enough, but knowing the business, there is so much elegance going on behind the scenes to make what seems like an easy fix... easy to fix. They set the expectations that the phone call might take a while, but it did not. They made the reservation at the store happen in a quick and efficient manner. I was not left waiting for days to get an appointment. The in-store experience over-delivered, because they did not make me sit around and they had the pieces in stock. They were able to solve it at that moment, and not push the computer over to a conveyer belt of technical support that the consumer could not see. They didn't just resolve the current problem, but looked to fix other problem spots as a precaution.

It wasn't a big deal.

...And that's the point. Most of the customer complaints are not big deals, but because of process, the size of the organization, supply chains and more, the littlest of issues are often the ones that create a proverbial "pebble in the shoe" for the big organizations. For all of their foibles and fall-downs, Apple never felt like a bunch of silos between customer support on the phone, the digital experience and the in-store experience. It all felt like one connected channel (the true omni-channel experience). Again, this is a market of one tale (and I've had unresolved and frustrating experiences at Apple as well), but this experience did demonstrate that big organizations can make things happen, if they're willing to take these complex circumstances and design for elegance and simplicity. No one tossed my problem over to another department. No one complained that my issue wasn't their problem. And, a smile, handshake, kind voice and a willingness to try to make everything right still goes a long way.

Big can be much better.

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Digital Advertising Is The New Mass Media

That was a tough title to write.

I was there in the beginning of online advertising. The very early days. The days when banner ads had to be hard-coded on to a website. The days when targeted banners were often sold in a sponsorship format, because there was tremendous value, but never enough impressions to go around. Those were the days when the idea that brands could pay to rank on a search engine seemed both foreign, and like the search engines were poisoning the well. They were interesting times. Mostly, because the promise of what could be was so real. The ability to target messages on specific sites to specific people. Millions of websites, each with a passionate and active user base. Plus, it was the Internet! Super-measurable! We will know exactly how many people saw they ad, clicked on it... and would take action. Real advertising. No waste. A new dawn, where indie publishers could build new and different platforms from the mass media entities. The bigger media companies were skeptical about the Internet's power and new crop of content makers were blooming.

Digital advertising is now a $50 billion dollar business.

The Internet over-delivered on its promise. For all of it's marvels and foibles, the Web really did deliver many new types of content and media formats. It enabled brands to connect with consumers in a myriad of ways, and it has introduced newer business models to the world in a highly disruptive and beautiful way. That's a far cry from plugging a cable into your phone's wall socket and connecting through data instead of voice. For all of the problems that come with the Internet today, it really has empowered businesses and individuals in ways that many of us old-timers could never have imagined. My pedigree in this space is in the media and marketing realm. The IAB announced today that, "U.S. digital advertising revenue rose 16% to $49.5 billion in 2014 compared with the prior year... The report, prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers U.S., shows that fourth-quarter 2014 numbers reached $14.2 billion -- up 17% from $12.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014. Hidden in the numbers: social media advertising jumped 57% to $7 billion in 2014. During the second half of the year, social-media revenue was $4.1 billion, with the increase reflected in the 55.0% compound annual growth rate of social from 2012 to 2014, as a result of years building up social networks." (source: MediaPost - IAB: Digital Ad Revenue Approaching $50 Billion Annually).

Belly rubs and lollipops in the boardroom.

There is good reason to celebrate. The numbers continue to increase, and in doing so it validates what many of us believed. Watching ad dollars shift. Seeing brands wake up to the possibility that advertising can be something a whole lot more relevant than the traditional 30 second spot. Still, in this powerful news about the industry's dominance and growth was something deeply troubling. It's this: "the IAB data ultimately makes clear to us once again that Google and Facebook continue to dominate the industry, as the two companies capture more than 40% of non-search digital advertising, and more than $30 billion, or 60% of the industry, if we include search, as well." That's not a typo. Sixty percent of the industry's revenue is going to two players. We used to complain about the fact that there were only three major television networks that a brand had to deal with, if they wanted to reach the mass. I'm not a Google or Facebook apologist. I am a deep and proud evangelist for both brands - and what they're capable of doing to connect with the right kind of customer. With that, the Web stills offers us so many other places to get information, connect and share. It's - somewhat - disappointing to see this number, and then be faced with the reality that the Internet is very homogenous. For all of its diversity, niches and types of media (text, audio, images and videos), brands and agencies are still acting in a very traditional manner. They're looking for mass reach and achieving it with very traditional types of advertising solutions. Most of it still acts as an interruption instead of an opportunity.

What should be a better signal than the sound of advertising dollars shifting over? 

It's not about the amount of dollars that have shifted over. The reasoning for the shift is that the money follows the eyeballs. The bigger thought lies in the first paragraph. It's the idea that better data, better targeting, higher focus on relevancy and the depth to engage in a more profound way should make that dollar many times more efficient than when it was being spent in another channel. While many brands will claim that this is the reason why the dollars are shifting, it still feels like we have only begun to scratch the surface on what this really means. Many brands still believe that online advertising is cheaper than other media and that they can plaster messages in more places.

Fundamentally, that can be true, but why not make those advertising not just cheaper ad faster, but smarter?  

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Welcome To Mobilegeddon

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Big changes at Google (and big problems for many businesses) are happening this week. The non-news item is this: over 60% of Google's traffic comes from mobile. Google is all about the user experience, so starting this week, the search engine will rank websites that are mobile/mobile-friendly ahead of others when a consumer is searching from their mobile/tablet. What does this mean? If you/your business doesn't have a mobile website as of April 21, you will be penalized. While Google made this announcement about two months ago, many businesses are still not complying. Sadly. 
Etsy is an online marketplace for handmade goods. And yes, there is plenty of "good" on Etsy. You can spend hours there finding the quirkiest of things (like pillows that are made out of classic comic book covers) to some pretty amazing paintings for your living room. The company went public last week, and their shares closed 86% higher on their first day of trading. The company raised over $287 million by selling 16.7 million shares before trading, valuing the company at nearly $1.8 billion. Stock went up close to $35 by mid morning. Etsy is now worth more than $3.5 billion. But guess what? Still, no profits. It's not that new of a marketplace, and it's always hard to understand the movement of Wall Street, but someone is going to need to figure out how Etsy (and not just the artisans who sell on the platform) is going to make real money now. 
How many households in the US don't have a landline? Before you answer that question, don't think about New York City, Silicon Valley and the other major hubs. Think about the deep south, more rural areas or even more troubled areas (and yes, there are lots of those). Last week, GfK Mediamark Research sent out a report stating that 44% of US Households don't have landlines. That's staggering. This cell phone-only population has grown by 70% since 2010, when only 26% of US adults lived in cell-phone-only households. 
App of the week: SlideShare.

Listen here...

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Real Marketing Technology

Episode #458 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

The title "Marketing Technologist" gets tossed around a lot these days. Most brands believe that this is an individual who can understand and implement better marketing automation solutions. I think that's short-sighted. For over a decade, I have watched Stephan Spencer become a true marketing technologist. This is someone who deeply understands how to use technology to make marketing better. Not a little better. Exponentially better. We first met in the early days of speaking at the Search Engine Strategies conferences. From there, Stephan went on to publish three seminal books on digital marketing (The Art of SEO, Google Power Search and Social eCommerce). After hearing him talk about the brand opportunities in the digital space, you will want to do two things: One, hire him (which isn't easy). Two, wonder how you can truly evolve your marketing team and think more lucidly (hint: have a notebook handy when you listen to this show). Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #458.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #252

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

Choose Boring Technology - Dan McKinley . "A great manifesto on why we don't want to be surprised by the tech we rely on." (Alistair for Hugh).
In the Age of Information, Specializing to Survive - The New York Times . "We've always had too much information, apparently. And we're getting smarter. But where, asks this post, are the Edisons and Michaelangelos, the geniuses who synthesize across domains? One answer may be that we simply cope with information by specializing. Historian and physicist Stanley Goldberg said of Einstein, ' t was almost as if he were wearing special glasses to make all that was irrelevant invisible.' I want my glasses!" (Alistair for Mitch).
Generation X Is Sick of Your Bullshit - Gizmodo . "The best part of this Mat Honan article is the comments ... wherein a series of earnest Gen Y'ers explain why Mat Honan is wrong (and why Gen X sucks). And Gen X just leans back on its sofa, with a sigh, nods, says, ' ou're probably right,' closes its eyes and tries to think of that scene from Heathers instead of listening to whatever it was that Gen Y is going on about." (Hugh for Alistair).
Cell Phones in Africa: Communication Lifeline - Pew Research Center . "Data about cell phones in Africa are always amazing to me. In Nigeria, 89% of people have cell phones, and 27% have smartphones. Meanwhile, landline penetration is near zero." (Hugh for Mitch).  
Inside Moleskine's Plan To Sell You More Than Just Notebooks - Fast Company . "Moleskine is a company that I love. I also love Field Notes. I keep notebooks stashed everywhere. I don't fill them up and move on to the next one. I use all different kinds for a myriad of reasons. I have a Moleskine collection. Not by decision, but, I just can't stop... and I don't know why. That's a half-lie. These books scream to me: 'put some words in here!' My MacBook Air can give me a similar vibe, but nothing like a good Moleskine. In an Evernote world (and yes, I know they have done some work together), I wonder if there's a huge future in notebooks. If there is, my bet is on Moleskine." (Mitch for Alistair).
11 Books By CEOs That Will Teach You How To Run The World - Business Insider . "I was really surprised by this list (and not in the good way). I spend a ton of my time slogging through business books (it's my genre of choice). I haven't tackled all of these, but I have read a lot of them. Are they the best of the best? I guess that's subjective, but for my dollar, I'd have chosen some work from people like Tom Peters and Douglas Rushkoff (to name a few) that go a whole lot deeper and wider. What would be on your list?" (Mitch for Hugh).

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