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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.

-Tom Peters

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Life Is Pretty Simple:

Tom Peters

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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.

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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.

Regardless Of Age, Regardless Of Position, Regardless Of The Business We Happen To Be In, All Of Us Need To Understand The Importance Of Branding. We Are Ceos Of Our Own Companies: Me, Inc. To Be In Business Today, Our Most Important Job Is To Be Head Marketer For The Brand Called You.

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.

Effective Visions Are Lived In Details, Not Broad Strokes.

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

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.

Want To Accomplish Something, Any-damn-thing? Sharpen Your Political Skills!

Only Those Who Constantly Retool Themselves Stand A Chance Of Staying Employed In The Years Ahead.

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.

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

Hire Attitude Train Skills.

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

What Gets Measured Gets Done.

Inspirational Customer Service

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Leadership Is About Tapping The Wellsprings Of Human Motivation - And About Fundamental Relations With One's Fellows.

Lists Simplify, Clarify, Edify.

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.

Formula For Success: Under Promise And Over Deliver.

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

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.

Mp3 Players And Flash Memory Devices Are Good For Data Storage And Playback Of Music And Digital Talking Books, But They Offer Little Or Nothing In The Way Of Visual Presentation Of Information And Communication.

Perception Is All There Is. If The Customer Think He's Right, He's Right.

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.

I Want The Public As Well As Libraries And Schools To Enjoy Unlimited Access To Public-domain Books. This Means No Charges For These Kind Of Texts Themselves.

What You Decide Not To Do Is Probably More Important That What You Decide To Do.

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

Power Lies In The Details, And The Tenacious Pursuit Of Such Hidden Levers Can Pay Off Enormously. While You Don't Want To Get A Reputation As A Prissy Worrywart, Worrying About The Details In Private Is Important. You May Think You Are The World's Greatest Speaker, But If The Auditorium's Sound System Is Singing Static - Well, Forget It.

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

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

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

As Far As I'm Concerned, The First Business Leader Who Was Able To Establish A Cult Of Personality Around His Tenure Was Lee Iacocca.

Cult Of Personality

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

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.

The Principal Reason, Invariably, Most "successful" Giant Companies Rather Quickly Become Also-rans, Or Just Amorphous Blobs On The Competitive Landscape, Is Their Failure To Re-tool In Anything Like A Fundamental Way. In Fact, The Worse Things Get, Typically, The More They Dig In Their Heels And Defend Yesterday's Turf.

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

How Do You Humiliate And Demean Someone And Then Expect Him Or Her To Care About Product Quality.

The Difference Between Great And Average Is, Mostly, Having The Imagination And Zeal To Re-create Yourself Daily.

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

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

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

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

The Widespread Availability Of Information Is The Only Basis For Effective Day-to-day Problem Solving, Which Abets Continuous Improvement Programs.

Give A Lot, Expect A Lot, And If You Don't Get It, Prune.

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

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.

Hire Disrespectful People.

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

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

Success Requires A Persistent Misreading Of The Odds.

The Selfish Leader Will Attempt To Lead Others For Their Own Gain And For The Detriment Of Others.

I Am My Clients. I Am Defined By Who I Do Business With.

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

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.

Collections Of Books And Other Documents, Either Printed Or Electronic, Are A Form Of Congregation.

The Simple Act Of Paying Positive Attention To People Has A Great Deal To Do With Productivity.

Productive Work

The Chinese Are Quite Entrepreneurial. Remember When Lenovo Bought Ibm's Pc Division. It Was Said That China Didn't Need A Brand Name, China Didn't Need To Buy Lenovo To Get Into The Pc Business, I Remember Reading A One-liner Somewhere Which Struck Me As Quite Possibly True, It Said The One Thing That The Chinese Had Not Been Able To Copy Or Figure Out Was The Way, In Terms Of Systems, That Americans - It Probably Would Be True For Europeans As Well - That Americans Install And Live By Their Management Systems, While China Is Still Quite Half-assed. Perhaps That Is A True Statement.

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Good Communication

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

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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.

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

Entrepreneurs Have No Memories. They Take On The World With A Completely Fresh View.

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

Only Pissed-off People Change The World.

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 Delivery And Presentation Media Are Important, And Each Format Has Its Advantages And Disadvantages, But Ultimately I Just Want To Read What I Want To Read, When And Where I Want.

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

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!

Work On Your Story! He/she Who Has The Best Story Wins! In Life! In Business! The White House!

If The Other Guy Is Getting Better, Then You'd Better Be Getting Better Faster Than The Other Guy Is Getting Better... Or You're Getting Worse.

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

Are Your Customers Saying Wow?

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

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.

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

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

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

If No One Is Pissed-off With You Then You Are Dead But Just Haven't Figured It Out Yet.

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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.

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

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!

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

Rewards Should Go To Teams As A Whole.

Lavish Credit On Anyone And Everyone Who Helped You The Least Bit.

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

Formula For Success: Underpromise And Overachieve.

Inspirational Business

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.

Fact Is, The Work Place To A Great Extent Is "where We Live." We Need Star Accountants. Boffo Saleswomen. Over-the-top Creatives In Marketing And New Product Development. And So On. But, Since We're Effectively Talking About "where We Live," Good Sense And Good Business And "good" Engagement Throughout The "supply Chain," From Vendor's Vendor To Customer's Customer, We Would Benefit Mightily-including On The P & L-if We Insisted (!) On: "pleasant." "caring." "engaged."

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

Anybody Who Is An Entrepreneur Is A Person Who Essentially Has Impaired Judgment. The Odds Of Success Are Zilch. This Valley Is Loaded To The Gills With A Whole Lot Of Totally Insane People Who Honest To God Believe That They Can Be The Next Bill Gates Or The Next Scott Mcnealy. And That Is Genuinely Stupid.

Some People Have Argued That Listening To A Work Of Literature Does Not Really Promote Literacy In The Same Way That Reading Does. Having Tried This For Several Months, However, I Can Report From The Trenches That, For Me, Immersive Listening Is As Intellectually Challenging, Stimulating, And Rewarding As Immersive Reading.

Momentum Is A Fragile Force. Its Worst Enemy: Procrastination. Its Best Friend: A Deadline (think Election Day). Implication No. 1 (and There Is No No. 2): Get To Work! Now!

Procrastination

Old: Be No.1 Or No.2 In Your Market. New: Find A Niche, Create Something New.

Quite Simply, No Matter How Hard You Try, No Matter How "open" You Are, You'll End Up Surrounded By "yes People." It's Hard Not To Believe People Who Are Repeating Your Own Ideas. Resist The Temptation.

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.

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

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

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

Appreciation, Applause, Approval, Respect - We All Love It!

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.

Steve Jobs Is Perhaps The Most Competitive Human Being I Have Ever Met In My Life, And Yet I Would Argue One Of The Most Artistic Human Beings I Have Ever Met In My Life. You Can Trash The Movies All You Want, But They Do Have An Artistic Component. And Yet Brutal Competition Knows No Peers When It Comes To Hollywood.

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

For Me, Reading Is Reading.

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

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

Portability Of Lots Of Information Should Not Be Underestimated.

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

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?

The Thing That Keeps A Business Ahead Of The Competition Is Excellence In Execution.

Screw-ups Are The Mark Of Excellence.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

Accepting Change

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.

For The Blue-collar Worker, The Driving Force Behind Change Was Factory Automation Using Programmable Machine Tools. For The Office Worker, It's Office Automation Using Computer Technology: Enterprise-resource-planning Systems, Groupware, Intranets, Extranets, Expert Systems, The Web, And E-commerce.

The Best Leaders... Almost Without Exception And At Every Level, Are Master Users Of Stories And Symbols.

The Race Will Go To The Curious, The Slightly Mad, And Those With An Un-satiated Passion For Learning And Dare-deviltry.

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.

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

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.

Progress Is Mostly The Product Of Rogues.

Advantage Comes Not From The Spectacular Or The Technical. Advantage Comes From A Persistent Seeking Of The Mundane Edge.

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.

Good Managers Have A Bias For Action.

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

Reward Excellent Failures. Punish Mediocre Successes.

The Whole Secret To Our Success Is Being Able To Con Ourselves Into Believing That We're Going To Change The World Because Statistically We Are Unlikely To Do It.

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

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

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.

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.

Listen To Everyone. Ideas Come From Everywhere

Take Someone New And Weird To Lunch Today

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.

Do It, Fix It, Try It.

The Common Wisdom Is That ... Managers Have To Learn To Motivate People. Nonsense. Employees Bring Their Own Motivation.

Make An Extensive Table Of Project 'deliverables'. Label One Column 'as Requested'. Create Another Column Labeled 'could Be'. Make Each 'could Be' Wild And Woolly!

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

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

If Silly Things Were Not Done, Intelligent Things Would Never Happen.

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

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

You Have To Stand Out If You Want To Move Up.

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

The Leaders Who Work Most Effectively, It Seems To Me, Never Say 'i'. They Don't Think 'i'. They Think 'we'; They Think 'team'.

The New Idea Either Finds A Champion Or It Dies. No Ordinary Involvement With A New Idea Provides The Energy Required To Cope With The Indifference And Resistance That Change Provokes.

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.

He Who Makes The Quickest, Coolest Prototypes Reigns!

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

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

You Can't Live Life Without An Eraser.

I'm Fundamentally Not Interested In The Fortune 500 Companies - In Us, Mexico, Anywhere. The Real Backbones Of Economic Growth Are Small And Medium Businesses.

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

Hire For Attitude. Train For Skill... More

One Potential Long-term Problem With Many Current Digital Libraries Is That They Grew Out Of And Aresupported By Bricks-and-mortar Libraries. Although There Is Nothing Inherently Wrong With That Arrangement, Inreality It Creates A Potentially Dangerous Situation That I Call "the Other Digital Divide."

Dangerous Situations

Bricks And Mortar

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.

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

Champions Are Pioneers, And Pioneers Get Shot At. The Companies That Get The Most From Champions, Therefore, Are Those That Have Rich Support Network So Their Pioneers Will Flourish. This Point Is So Important It's Hard To Overstress. No Support Systems, No Champions. No Champions, No Innovations.

Support Systems

But There's No Substitute For Getting Smarter Faster. And The Way You Get Smarter Is To Screw Around Vigorously. Try Stuff. See What Works. See What Fails Miserably. Learn. Rinse. Repeat.

I Think Economics, Content, And The Ability To Interact With Content In New And Different Ways Are What Will Drive The Adoption Of E-books.

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

Community. A Friend Started A Real Estate Brokerage A Few Years Ago. By The Time She'd Added Her Second Employee, She Was A Pillar Of Her 35,000-person Community. No Rule Says That Only The Local Banker Or Car Dealer Can Organize The Program To Raise Supplemental Funds For The Public Library Or Send The High School Band On A Well-earned Special Trip. Participating In Community Affairs, With Time More Than Dollars, Is Good Business From Day One. It Gets Your Name Around, Adds To Your Distinctiveness, And, Best Of All, Makes You An Attractive Employer (which Is The Key To Sustained Success).

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.

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.

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.

Because Nearly All Digital Libraries Are Tied To Bricks-and-mortar Institutions, The Funding Base Tends To Be Quite Localized.

Bricks And Mortar

Oh Lord, There It Is Again. The Question;" What Kind Of Business Should I Start?" Incidentially, It Has A Twin That Also Sets Me Off: "what Should I Specialize In During The Second Year Of My Mba Studies?" Sorry, But Those Are Two Of The Most Profoundly Upsetting Questions Anyone Can Ask - Upsetting Because The Answer Should Be Obvious: Do What Turns You On, Not What The Statistics Say Is Best.

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.

Business, Life Itself, Is Damned Hard Work If You Wanna Be Good At It. Actually, That's Precisely Wrong. Business Ceases To Be Work When You're Chasing A Dream That Has Engorged You. ("work Should Be More Fun Than Fun" - Noel Coward.) And If The Passion Isn't There. Then Biotech And Plumbing Will Be Equal Drags.

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

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?

'in Search Of Excellence' - Even The Title - Is A Reminder That Business Isn't Dry, Dreary, Boring, Or By The Numbers. Life At Work Can Be Cool - And Work That's Cool Isn't Confined To Tiger Woods, Yo-yo Ma, Or Tom Hanks. It's Available To All Of Us And Any Of Us.

You Can Only Improve What You Measure.

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

If Your Company Has A Clean-desk Policy, The Company Is Nuts And You're Nuts To Stay There.

Celebrate What You Want To See More Of.

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.

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

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

There's Nobody In The World That Wouldn't Change Places With The Americans. The Economy Is Phenomenally Large, The Entrepreneurial Class Is Very Alive And Very Well, The Universities, Despite Budget Problems, Still Turn Out Something Like 90 Percent Of The Refereed Academic And Technical Articles In The World. There's A Lot On Everybody's Agenda.

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.

Almost All Quality Improvement Comes Via Simplification Of Design, Manufacturing... Layout, Processes, And Procedures.

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

We Are All Michaelangelos.

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George Smathers

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