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Effective Listening Is A Professional Achievement-achieved Only Through Hard Work.

-Tom Peters

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Effective Listening Is A

Tom Peters

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Effective Listening Is A Professional Achievement-achieved Only Through Hard Work.

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Effective Listening

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Communication Is Everyone's Panacea For Everything.

Good Communication

A Good Collection Is More Than Just The Sum Of Its Parts.

It Boils Down To Studenthood-in-perpetuity / Curiosity-in-perpetuity / Applied Fanatic Restlessness. That Is, A Belief That Life Is One Big Learning Experience. Something Mysterious Happens To A Curious, Fully Engaged Mind - And It Happens As Often As Not, Subconsciously. Strange Little Sparks Are Set Off, Connections Made, Insights Triggered. The Results: An Exponentially Increased Ability To Tune Up / Reinvent / Wow-ize Today's Project At Work.

The Winners Stun Us Not By Their Cleverness, But By The Fact That Every Tiny Aspect Of The Business Is Just A Touch Better Than The Norm.

I Would Not Be Surprised To See Interesting New Forms Of Expression And Literary Genres Develop As The E-book Movement Matures.

You Can't Think Your Way Out Of A Box; You've Got To Act.

I Find Digital Content Much Easier And More Rewarding To Interact With On Screen Than Printed On Paper.

How Do You Achieve Excellence?...stop Doing Non-excellent Stuff!

You Are Who You Go To Lunch With! Break Bread With Cool And You Will Become More Cool. Conversely: Break Bread With Dull And Well, You Can Figure It Out.

Progress Is Mostly The Product Of Rogues.

Life Is Pretty Simple: You Do Some Stuff. Most Fails. Some Works. You Do More Of What Works. If It Works Big, Others Quickly Copy It. Then You Do Something Else. The Trick Is The Doing Something Else.

Inspiring Visions Rarely (i'm Tempted To Say Never) Include Numbers.

All Business Success Rests On Something Labeled A Sale, Which At Least Momentarily Weds Company And Customer.

Congratulations

I Wrote The Book Based On A Blog That I Keep. I Also Tweet. I Don't Think That For An Incredibly Old Fart I'm Totally Behind The Power Curve. I Really Believe That The Essentials Of Human Relationships Remain The Same.

Ultimately, I Think That The Growth And Sustainability Of The E-book Movement Depends On Authors And End-users (readers).

Like It Or Not - And Often We Don't - Power Is A Pervasive Phenomenon. From Midnight Decisions In The Oval Office That Risk The Lives Of Young Americans To Quarrels Over The Kitchen Table, Power Is Part Of Every Human Equation. Yes, It Can Be - And Often Is - Abused, In Business As In All Arenas Of Endeavor. But It Can Also Be Used To Do Great Good For Great Numbers. And As A Career-building Tool, The Slow And Steady (and Subtle) Amassing Of Power Is The Surest Road To Success.

Skill At Creating, Exploiting, And Exiting Crucial Alliances Beats Ownership Of Fixed Assets

Creating In All Employees The Awareness That Their Best Efforts Are Essential And That They Will Share In The Rewards Of The Company's Success.

Don't Let The Vision Be Shot Through With Holes, But Be Damn Sure Some Of Your Best And Brightest Are Shooting At It -- With Bazookas As Well As Sniper's Rifles.

Organize As Much As Possible Around Teams, To Achieve Enhanced Focus, Task Orientation, Innovativeness, And Individual Commitment.

Unless You Walk Out Into The Unknown, The Odds Of Making A Profound Difference In Your Life Are Pretty Low.

Dot The I's, Cross The T's, Answer The Phones Promptly, Send Out Errorless Invoices, And In General Never Forget That The Devil Is In The Details.

The Top Athletes Are Consummate Pros Who Work Obsessively At Their Craft. Approach Yours The Same Way.

We Are All Michaelangelos.

It's Relatively Simple. If We're Not Getting More, Better, Faster Than They Are Getting More, Better, Faster, Then We're Getting Less, No Better Or More Worse.

An Era Similar To The One In Which The Black Rotary Phone Dominated Its Product Category May Not Recur Anytime Soon.

...high End Does Not Necessarily Equal High Price. It's A Matter Of Attitude.

Design Is So Critical It Should Be On The Agenda Of Every Meeting In Every Single Department.

Print-based Libraries Developed In An Age Of Scarce Printed Resources.

You Are Your Projects!

One Reason (among Many) That Women May Well Take Over The World Of "virtual Enterprises" Is That They Seem To Have A Greater Instinct For Networking. And The Unfettered-by-machismo Males Who Have Taken To Networking Will Do Better Than Those Who Shun It As "sissy Stuff." But Truth Is, It Has Always Been The Age Of "networkers"; And In An Era Where Organizations Depend More And More On Tenuously Connected Outsiders To Get The Job Done, It Will Only Become So.

Reward Excellent Failures. Punish Mediocre Successes.

Smile If It Kills You. The Physiology Of Smiling Diffuses A Lot Of Anger And Angst. It Makes Your Body And Soul Feel Better.

Organizations Exist To Serve. Period. Leaders Live To Serve. Period.

The Magic Formula That Successful Businesses Have Discovered Is To Treat Customers Like Guests And Employees Like People.

Execution Excellence! (show Up On Time! Leave Last!)

My Real Bottom-line Hypothesis Is That Nobody Has A Sweet Clue What They’re Doing. Therefore You Better Be Trying Stuff At An Insanely Rapid Pace. You Want To Be Screwing Around With Nearly Everything. Relentless Experimentation Was Probably Important In The 1970s-now It’s Do Or Die.

"old" Is Deﬁnitely Not Cool In America. Never Has Been.

Authors And Publishers Want Fair Compensation And A Means Of Protecting Content Through Digital Rights Management. Vendors And Technology Companies Want New Markets For E-book Reading Devices And Other Hardware. End-users Most Of All Want A Wide Range And Generous Amount Of High-quality Content For Free Or At Reasonable Costs. Like End-users, Libraries Want Quality, Quantity, Economy, And Variety As Well As Flexible Business Models.

Hire Disrespectful People.

The Market May Never Coalesce Around One Basic Design, Or Even Around Two Or Three Dominant Devices.

Change Is Not So Much About Being The First One To Embrace A New Idea, But Being The First To Forget An Old One

The Best Leaders Are The Best Notetakers, Best Askers, And Best Learners.

Formula For Success: Under Promise And Over Deliver.

Remember My Mantra: Distinct... Or Extinct.

If The Person You Delegated To Does The Job Twice As Well As You Would Have Done It, Consider Yourself A Leader.

Had Twitter Been Invented Earlier, My Books Would Have Been Shorter.

If I Read A Book That Cost Me $20 And I Get One Good Idea, I've Gotten One Of The Greatest Bargains Of All Time.

Mistakes Are Life. Mistakes Are Not To Be Tolerated...they Are To Be Encouraged. The Bigger The Better.

If You're A Leader, Your Whole Reason For Living Is To Help Human Beings Develop - To Really Develop People And Make Work A Place That's Energetic And Exciting And A Growth Opportunity, Whether You're Running A Housekeeping Department Or Google. I Mean, This Is Not Rocket Science.

Screw-ups Are The Mark Of Excellence.

A While Back, I Came Across A Line Attributed To Ibm Founder Thomas Watson. If You Want To Achieve Excellence, He Said, You Can Get There Today. As Of This Second, Quit Doing Less-than-excellent Work.

Every Collection Reflects The Ideas Andvalues And Interests Of The Individual Or Group Who Developed The Collection.

Authority Never Matches Responsibility. That's One Of The Great Myths And Delusions Of All Times. Winning Managers And Individual Performers At All Levels Know That Effectiveness Means Building Your Own Network And Creating Your Own Authority. Those Who Succeed Always Reach Far Beyond Formal Deputation, Take Initiatives, And Take The Heat When Things Go Awry. That's True In The Military In Times Of War, True For 200 Person Manufacturing Firms, And True At Giant Automakers Or Software Companies.

Good Managers Have A Bias For Action.

I Found Myself Declaiming, Full Flower, For An Hour On The "utmost Importance And Urgency" Of Blogging, Telling Him In No Uncertain Terms That, Especially In A High-end Niche Business, Blogging Is "the Premier Way" To Have "intimate Conversations" With His Clients. Funny Thing, I Believe It!

Divas Do It, Golfers Do It, Pilots Do It, Violists Do It, Sprinters Do It, Soldiers Do It, Surgeons Do It, Astronauts Do It...only Business People Think It Isn't Necessary To Train.

The Little People Will Get Even, Which Is One Of A Thousand Reasons Why They Are Not Little People At All. If You're A Jerk As A Leader, You Will Be Torpedoed. And Usually It Won't Be By Your Vice Presidents; It Will Be On The Loading Dock At 3am When No Supervisors Are Around.

Listen To Everyone. Ideas Come From Everywhere

As Project Chief You Are Creating A Narrative, A Story, A Good Yarn. If You Look At The Process-journey That Way, You And Your Gang Will ... Dramatically Up The Odds Of A Wow Outcome!

Winners Must Learn To Relish Change With The Same Enthusiasm And Energy That We Have Resisted It In The Past.

Do It, Fix It, Try It.

Listen While You Can, So That You Can Lead When You Must.

Mastery Is Great, But Even That Is Not Enough. You Have To Be Able To Change Course Without A Bead Of Sweat, Or Remorse.

Transforming Leadership, [is Defined As] Leadership That Builds On Man's Need For Meaning, Leadership That Creates Institutional Purpose ... He Is The Value-shaper, The Exemplar, The Maker Of Meanings ... He Is The True Artist, The True Pathfinder.

Opportunity Is Not "knocking." It Is Pounding On Your Door.

Customers Perceive Service In Their Own Unique, Idiosyncratic, Emotional, Irrational, End-of-the-day, And Totally Human Terms. Perception Is All There Is!

One Percent Improvement In 1,000 Things Is Better Than 1,000% Improvement In One Thing.

As A Consumer, You Want To Associate With Brands Whose Powerful Presence Creates A Halo Effect That Rubs Off On You.

Books Were Rare,expensive, Time-consuming To Create And Copy, And Difficult To Transport. That Is Why Collections Ofprint-based Books Developed Around Centers Of Religious Belief, Learning, And Wealth. It Was Cheaper Andeasier For People To Come To The Collection Than For The Collection, Or Parts Of The Collection, To Go To Thepeople.

Nothing Good Or Great Can Be Done In The Absence Of Enthusiasm.

I Don't Know What It Means To Manage The Human Imagination, But I Do Know That Imagination Is The Main Source Of Value In The New Economy. And I Know We'd Better Figure Out The Answer To My Question-quick.

Now That Gigabytes Of Accessible, Malleable Information Can Be Carried In One's Pocket, We Probably Will Start To See Some Widespread Shifts And Trends In How And Where People Interact With Digital Documents.

Ready, Fire, Aim. Do It! Make It Happen! Action Counts. No One Ever Sat Their Way To Success.

With Most Competitors Moving Ever Faster, The Race Will Go To Those Who Listen (and Respond) Most Intently.

An Ability To Embrace New Ideas, Routinely Challenge Old Ones, And Live With Paradox Will Be The Effective Leader's Premier Trait.

Lists Simplify, Clarify, Edify.

The Most Important And Visible Outcropping Of The Action Bias In Excellent Companies Is Their Willingness To Try Things Out, To Experiment. If You Wait Until You Believe You Are Safe, Sure To Be Without Occasional Foolish Feelings, You've Most Likely Waited Too Long.

Have You Thanked A Front-line Employee For Carrying Around A Great Attitude ... Today?

Leaders Don't Create Followers, They Create More Leaders.

Leaders Trust Their Guts. "intuition" Is One Of Those Good Words That Has Gotten A Bad Rap. For Some Reason, Intuition Has Become A "soft" Notion. Garbage! Intuition Is The New Physics. It's An Einsteinian, Seven-sense, Practical Way To Make Tough Decisions. Bottom Line, Circa 2001 To 2010: The Crazier The Times Are, The More Important It Is For Leaders To Develop And To Trust Their Intuition.

The Workplace Revolution That Transformed The Lives Of Blue-collar Workers In The 1970s And 1980s Is Finally Reaching The Offices And Cubicles Of The White-collar Workers.

We Are No Doubt In The Great Age Of The Brand.

Cost Does Not Equal Value... And Low Cost Parts Decrease Brand Equity For A Very Long Time.

One Simply Cannot Pay Tribute To Stephen Covey Without Saying At The Outset That He Was A Lovely Human Being.

Leaders Understand The Ultimate Power Of Relationships.

In The Great City Of San Francisco, Where I Used To Live, At 2 In The Morning Every Other Victorian House Has Somebody Who Is Writing The Great American Novel. And The City Is Not Loaded With James Joyces Or Virginia Woolfs. But Entrepreneurship Is About Distorted Views Of Reality.

Life Is Too Short For Non-wow Projects.

Life Is Too Short

Today Brands Are Everything, And All Kinds Of Products And Services - From Accounting Firms To Sneaker Makers To Restaurants - Are Figuring Out How To Transcend The Narrow Boundaries Of Their Categories And Become A Brand Surrounded By A Tommy Hilfiger-like Buzz.

Something Mysterious Happens To A Curious, Fully Engaged Mind - And It Happens As Often As Not, Subconsciously. Strange Little Sparks Are Set Off, Connections Made, Insights Triggered

I Think Economics Is About Passion. Economic Progress, Whether It Is A Two-person Coffee Shop Or Whether It Is Netscape, Is About People With Brave Ideas. Because It Is Brave To Mortgage The House, When You've Got Two Kids, To Start A Coffee Shop.

The Manager, In Today's World, Doesn't Get Paid To Be A Steward Of Resources, A Favored Term Not So Many Years Ago. He Or She Gets Paid For One And Only One Thing: To Make Things Better (incrementally And Dramatically), To Change Things, To Act - Today.

Effective Visions Are Lived In Details, Not Broad Strokes.

We Often Hear That The Digital Age Has Resulted In A Devaluing Of Time, Space, And Place. But I Wonder If Theseclaims Are Exaggerated.

Bold Botches Are To Be Cherished.

What Is My Personal Strategy For The Next 10 Hours? Who Can I Talk With Or What Can I Volunteer For To Learn Something New?

My Half-baked Reading Of History Is That We Continue To Go Through These Waves Of Entrepreneurial Explosion Followed By Merger Mania And Consolidation. Out Of That Come Big Sluggish Companies That Eventually Collapse Under The Weight Of What They've Created, And Are Killed Off By The Next Wave Of Entrepreneurs.

Quality Involves Living The Message Of The Possibility Of Perfection And Infinite Improvement, Living It Day In And Day Out, Decade By Decade.

Excellence Is Not An Aspiration. Excellence Is What You Do In The Next Five Minutes.

I Am Confident That For The Foreseeable Future (barring Some Catastrophic Event Affecting Economic, Energy, Electrical, And Communications Systems), Many Subpopulations That Use Information Intensively (e.g., Students, Academics, Library Patrons, White Collar Workers) Will Be Using Some Sort Of Portal Information Appliance.

Accept Change As A Friend. And Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously.

Accepting Change

I Urge You To Set A Tough, Quantitative Target For Adding "differentiators" As I Call Them, To Every Service You Provide.

The Dumbest Mistake Is Viewing Design As Something You Do At The End Of The Process To 'tidy Up' The Mess, As Opposed To Understanding It's A 'day One' Issue And Part Of Everything.

Rewards Should Go To Teams As A Whole.

Don't 'tolerate' Mistakes. Embrace Them!

Test Fast, Fail Fast, Adjust Fast.

The Good News - And It Is Largely Good News - Is That Everyone Has A Chance To Stand Out. Everyone Has A Chance To Learn, Improve, And Build Up Their Skills. Everyone Has A Chance To Be A Brand Worthy Of Remark

Statistically And Emotionally, I Believe That The Way I Can Be Of Help To Society Is By Doing What I Know And What I've Been Good At.

I Endorse A Lot Of People - Sometimes People Say I Endorse Too Many Books. And My Response Has Always Been The Same: If I Can Get One Case Study That Can Give Me One Good Idea That I Can Implement For $25, Or For These Days One-third Of That On Kindle, I've Gotten A Very Good Deal.

Effective Listening Is A Professional Achievement-achieved Only Through Hard Work.

Effective Listening

Forget Loyalty. Or At Least Loyalty To One's Corporation. Try Loyalty To Your Rolodex-your Network-instead.

It's This Simple: You Are A Brand. You Are In Charge Of Your Brand. There Is No Single Path To Success. And There Is No One Right Way To Create The Brand Called You. Except This: Start Today. Or Else.

Gandhi And Mandela And Churchill And Jfk And Reagan And Thatcher And Sarkozy And Franklin And Washington Set The Tone To An Incredible Degree-their "personal Style" Was Their "brand." ("it" Starts With Personal Style Of The Tip-top Leadership Team. Sorry To Be Politically Insensitive, But Who Would Give A Hoot About Tibet If It Weren't For The Look And Style Of The Dalai Lama?) Boss At Any Level: You're Either On The "it" Boat-or Not.

It May Be Primarily Property Taxes In The Case Of A Public Library, Or State Taxes And Tuition In The Case Of An Academic Library At A Public University, But The Funding Sources Of Most Libraries Continue To Have A Strong Geographic Component.

Business Isn't Some Disembodied Bloodless Enterprise. Profit Is Fine - A Sign That The Customer Honors The Value Of What We Do. But "enterprise" ( A Lovely Word ) Is About Heart. About Beauty. It's About Art. About People Throwing Themselves On The Line. It's About Passion And The Selfless Pursuit Of An Ideal.

Management Is About Arranging And Telling. Leadership Is About Nurturing And Enhancing.

When You Choose A Managerial Path, You Are Choosing To Devote Your Life To People. Period.

Digital Content And Electronic Networks Have Changed The Basic Environmental Conditionsin Which Documents Are Created, Distributed, And Used.

A Vibrant, Rich, Growing Corpus Of Public-domain Books Is A Vital Public Good - Similar To Parks, The Infrastructure Of Basic Services, And Other Hallmarks Of Any Advanced Society.

It Doesn't Matter What Product Or Service You're Offering; There Is Unlimited Ability To Improve The Quality Of Anything.

We're Going To See Leadership Emerge As The Most Important Element Of Business - The Attribute That Is Highest In Demand And Shortest In Supply.

If You Love Your Company And Love What You Do, You Will Serve Your Customers Better-period!

Excellent Firms Don't Believe In Excellence - Only In Constant Improvement And Constant Change.

Business Book Writing For Me Is When Some Set Of Ideas Gets Stuck In My Mind, I Write A Book About It. I Haven't Got A Theory And I Haven't Got A Framework.

Brand Inside Is More Important Than Brand Outside For Sustained Success.

Business Is About People. It's About Passion. It's About Bold Ideas, Bold Small Ideas Or Bold Large Ideas.

We Cannot Innovate Without Opening The Door To Havoc.

Think About The Market, Think About The Design, And Think About Who Is Going To Design For That Market. Hit The Mark.

Formula For Success: Underpromise And Overachieve.

Inspirational Business

Forget All The Conventional 'rules' But One. There Is One Golden Rule: Stick To Topics You Deeply Care About And Don't Keep Your Passion Buttoned Inside Your Vest. An Audience's Biggest Turn-on Is The Speaker's Obvious Enthusiasm. If You Are Lukewarm About The Issue, Forget It!

All White-collar Work Is Project Work. The Single Salient Fact That Touches All Of Our Lives Is That Work Is Being Reinvented.

Train Everyone Lavishly. You Can't Overspend On Training.

I Believe In The Age Of The Internet, Facebook And Twitter, That Relationships Are Everything.

Hire For Attitude. Train For Skill... More

Don't Settle For Less Than Is Possible.

Even A Poor, Out-of-datecollection Reflects In Its Own Way The Values Of The People Who Created It And The Community It Serves.

Are Your Customers Saying Wow?

Nearly 100% Of Innovation-from Business To Politics-is Inspired Not By "market Analysis" But By People Who Are Supremely Pissed Off By The Way Things Are.

The World Has Not Just "turned Upside Down". It Is Turning In Every Which Way At An Accelerating Pace.

The Populations Of Most Cities Around The World Continue To Grow. The Reasonspeople Congregate In Cities Are Various And Complex, And The Dawn Of The Digital Age Has Not Put Much Of Adamper On The Human Urge To Congregate.

Start By Identifying The Qualities Or Characteristics That Make You Distinctive From Your Competitors - Or Your Colleagues. What Have You Done Lately - This Week - To Make Yourself Stand Out? What Would Your Colleagues Or Your Customers Say Is Your Greatest And Clearest Strength? Your Most Noteworthy (as In, Worthy Of Note) Personal Trait?

We Found That The Most Exciting Environments, That Treated People Very Well, Are Also Tough As Nails. There Is No Bureaucratic Mumbo-jumbo... Excellent Companies Provide Two Things Simultaneously: Tough Environments And Very Supportive Environments.

I'm About As Far From Being A Flag-waver - You Won't Find Any American Flag Pins In My Drawer - As Someone Can Be.

He Who Makes The Quickest, Coolest Prototypes Reigns!

And Remember: Everything In Business Is A Paradox. To Be Excellent, You Have To Be Consistent. When You're Consistent, You're Vulnerable To Attack. Yes, It's A Paradox. Now Deal With It!

Remembers Everything

I Used To Be Skeptical When Educators And Technologists Predicted That We May Be Entering A New Era Of Oral Culture, In Which Audible Information Will Be At Least As Important As Visible Information. Now That I Have Adopted Into My Own Daily Life A Device That Makes Music And Spoken-word Files Easy To Access From Anywhere, I Have Tempered My Skepticism.

Are You Placing Enough Interesting, Freakish, Long Shot, Weirdo Bets?

The 10 Or 12 Artists I Have Known Really Well All My Life Are At Least As Competitive As Professional Athletes. They May Express It In Slightly Different Terms, But You Look At The Jackson Pollocks Et Al., And They Are As Interested In Wall Space In The Galleries As Joe Montana Is In The Percentage Of Completed Passes. So The Notion That Symphonic Conducting, Or Stage Play, Or Pure Art, Is Not A Competitive Business Is Real Bullshit.

There Is No Such Thing As An Insignificant Improvement.

Self Improvement

Self Discipline

Many Flagship State Universities Have Wonderful Digital Libraries That Are Accessed By People Around The World. In Future, If Not Current, Budget Crises, Trustees, Board Members, And Administrators May Wonder Why These State Institutions - With An Articulated Primary Clientele Of Students, Faculty, And Staff Members And A Secondary Clientele Of All Citizens Of The State - Should Be Spending Resources On A Digital Library That Is Used By Many People Beyond The Primary And Secondary Service Populations.

The Trouble With Much Of The Advice Business Gets Today About The Need To Be More Vigorously Creative Is That Its Advocates Often Fail To Distinguish Between Creativity And Innovation. Creativity Is Thinking Up New Things. Innovation Is Doing New Things... The Shortage Is Of Innovators.

Be Guided By The Axiom: There Are No Limits To The Ability To Contribute On The Part Of A Properly Selected, Well-trained, Appropriately Supported, And, Above All, Committed Person.

Public Speaking Is A Skill That Can Be Studied, Polished, Perfected. Not Only Can You Get Good At It, You Can Get Damn Good At It And It Makes A Heck Of A Difference.

Public Speaking

A Career Is A Portfolio Of Projects That Teach You New Skills, Gain You New Expertise, Develop New Capabilities, Grow Your Colleague Set, And Constantly Reinvent You As A Brand.

Companies Have Got To Learn To Eat Change For Breakfast.

Portability Of Lots Of Information Should Not Be Underestimated.

The Greatest Difficulty In The World Is Not For People To Accept New Ideas, But To Make Them Forget Old Ideas.

When It Comes To E-book Playback Devices And Software, I Have Always Thought That The Emphasis On Ergonomic Concerns As A Tipping Point For The End-user Population Was Misplaced.

Leaders' Careers Will Usually Be Determined By Their Handling Of One Or Two Critical Events That No One Could Possibly Anticipate Or Plan For.

Knowing When To Take Your Losses Is An Essential Part Of Eventual Success.

A Little (or More) Boat Burning Would Do Many Enterprises A World Of Good.

I Think It's Wonderful To Save The World, But You Need To Be Part Of The World, Too.

Never, Ever Rest On Your Laurels. Today's Laurels Are Tomorrow's Compost.

I Imagine A School System That Recognizes Learning Is Natural, That A Love Of Learning Is Normal, And That Real Learning Is Passionate Learning. A School Curriculum That Values Questions Above Answers...creativity Above Fact Regurgitation...individuality Above Conformity.. And Excellence Above Standardized Performance..... And We Must Reject All Notions Of 'reform' That Serve Up More Of The Same: More Testing, More 'standards', More Uniformity, More Conformity, More Bureaucracy.

It's Not Enough To Be Close To The Customer. You've Got To Be Glued To The Customer.

For Me, Reading Is Reading.

Usage Tends To Be Global, While Funding Tends Tobe Local. When We Allow It To Happen, Usage Of A Digital Library Is Remarkably Diverse And Widespread.

Stellar Teams Are Invariably Made Up Of Quirky Individuals Who Typically Rub Each Other Raw, But They Figure Out - With The Spiritual Help Of A Gifted Leader - How To Be Their Peculiar Selves And How To Win Championships As A Team...at The Same Time.

Winston Churchill Said That Appetite Was The Most Important Thing About Education. Leadership Guru Warren Bennis Says He Wants To Be Remembered As 'curious To The End.' David Ogilvy Contends That The Greatest Ad Copywriters Are Marked By An Insatiable Curiosity 'about Every Subject Under The Sun.'

If Not Excellence, What? If Not Excellence Now, When?

Your Calendar Never Lies. All We Have Is Our Time. The Way We Spend Our Time Is Our Priorities, Is Our Strategy. Your Calendar Knows What You Really Care About. Do You?

Who Comes First? Don't Be Silly, Says King Hal; It's Employees. That Is - And This Dear Watson, Is Elementary - If You Genuinely Want To Put Customers First, You Must Put Employees More First.

If, As I Anticipate, A Wide Array Of Personal, Portable Information/communication Devices Becomes Increasingly Important And Widespread For Information-intensive Users, It Will Be A Major Challenge For Libraries To Adapt Their Content And Services To Such A Diverse Technological Environment.

Confidence Means Non-paralysis, A Willingness To Act, And Act Decisively, To Start New Things And Cut Failing Ventures Off.

Become A "learning Organization". Shuck Your Arrogance - "if It Isn't Our Idea, It Can't Be That Good" - And Become A Determined Copycat/ Adapter/ Enhancer.

There Are Few Things That Will Take You Further In Life, Than Your Ability To Make A Good Presentation.

Now It Is Much Faster And Cheaper To Bring Thedocument To The User, Rather Than Ask The User To Come To The Document Or Collection.

Integrity May Be About Little Things As Much Or More Than Big Ones.

I Don't Read Many Business Books. I Read Good Fiction. Business Is About People, So My Favorite Business Books Are Anything By Dickens.

To Sell Is Above All To Master The Art And Science Of Listening.

Community Organizing Is All About Building Grassroots Support. It's About Identifying The People Around You With Whom You Can Create A Common, Passionate Cause. And It's About Ignoring The Conventional Wisdom Of Company Politics And Instead Playing The Game By Very Different Rules.

Trust, Not Technology, Is The Issue Of The Decade.

Digital Ink Technology Holds Substantial Promise In Terms Of Legibility, Portability, And Power Consumption, But I Am Less Confident About The Communication Aspect.

Excellence Comes From Human Beings Doing Things Of Value That Customers Find Memorable.

People Of All Demographic Categories And Geographic Regions Will Access A Good Digital Library.

If Future Competitiveness Depends On Treating People As An Important Part Of The Institution, The Least Respectful Thing I Can Imagine Doing To A Human Being Is Asking Him To Urinate In A Cup.

The Best Kept Secret In The Global Economy Today Is This: When Your Service Is Awesome You Get So Stinking Rich You Have To Buy New Bags To Carry All The Money Home.

Best Kept Secrets

Leaders Do Stuff That Matters.

The Drive For Control, Or The Perception Thereof, Is Truly The Strongest Force In Human Nature.

We All Know Of The Dangers And Inequities Of The Traditional Digital Divide: People Who Have Good Access Tocomputer Networks Have A Distinct Advantage - In Terms Of Both Life Opportunities And Quality Of Life, I Wouldargue - Over The Vast Majority Of The World's Population That Does Not Yet Have Good Access To Computernetworks. The "other" Digital Divide Points To An Increasingly Unstable Situation That Has Developed Inlibrarianship As Digital Libraries Have Evolved And Matured.

Remember: You Are The Only Human Being In The World Who Can Help This Particular Customer At This Particular Moment In Time.

Passion. The Life Of An Entrepreneur Is Occasionally Exhilarating, And Almost Always Exhausting. Only Unbridled Passion For The Concept Is Likely To See You Through The 17-hour Days (month After Month) And The Painful Mistakes That Are Part And Parcel Of The Start-up Process.

The Company's Most Urgent Task Is To Learn To Welcome, Beg For, Demand - Innovation From Everyone.

You Will Be Remembered, In The Long Haul, For The Quality Of Your Work, Not The Quantity Of Your Work. No One Evaluates Picasso Based On The Number Of Paintings He Churned Out.

In Today's Economy There Are No Experts, No 'best And Brightest' With All The Answers. It's Up To Each One Of Us. The Only Way To Screw Up Is To Not Try Anything.

I Don't Believe In Holy Writ. Buy Fifty Books Or Twenty-five Books, Take Three Weeks Off, Read Them And Make Up Your Own Theory. The Fact That You End Up Literally Burning Twenty-two Out Of Twenty-five Books Is Beside The Point.

The Idea Of Intimately Entwining With Customers [to Get Ideas] Is An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

Everyone Has A Chance To Learn, Improve, And Build Up Their Skills.

Celebrate What You Want To See More Of.

The Dominant Culture In Most Big Companies Demands Punishment For A Mistake, No Matter How Useful, Small, Invisible.

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