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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.

-Tom Peters

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Usage Tends To Be

Tom Peters

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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.

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

I Still Read Quite A Few Printed Books, But If Something Is Available In Digital Format I Do Not Print It Before I Read It.

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.

Don't 'tolerate' Mistakes. Embrace Them!

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

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

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.

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.

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

Hire Disrespectful People.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The Number One Premise Of Business Is That It Need Not Be Boring Or Dull. It Ought To Be Fun. If It's Not Fun, You're Wasting Your Life.

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

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

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.

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

Innovation Comes Only From Readily And Seamlessly Sharing Information Rather Than Hoarding It.

Information Sharing

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

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

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

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.

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.

You Are Your Projects!

What Gets Measured Gets Done.

Inspirational Customer Service

Effective Visions Are Lived In Details, Not Broad Strokes.

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.

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

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

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

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

They Say Plan It. I Say Do It.

One Size Never Fits All. One Size Fits One. Period

A Passive Approach To Professional Growth Will Leave You By The Wayside.

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.

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

If You're Not Confused, You're Not Paying Attention.

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

Accepting Change

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.

Have You Set High Standards In The Past That Make It Clear What Level Of Performance You Demand?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

Leaders Win Through Logistics. Vision, Sure. Strategy, Yes. But When You Go To War, You Need To Have Both Toilet Paper And Bullets At The Right Place At The Right Time. In Other Words, You Must Win Through Superior Logistics.

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

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.

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 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.

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

Bricks And Mortar

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.

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

There Is No Such Thing As A Minor Lapse Of Integrity

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

'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.

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.

Treat The Customer As An Appreciating Asset.

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.

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

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.

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

Who, Precisely, Are Your Dreamers? Are Their Dreams In Technicolor? Do You Allow Their Most Outrageous Dreams To Be Seen In Public?

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.

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.'

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

South Africa Has All The Tools To Compete In The New Global Village - An Eager Workforce, Ready To Take On Any Challenge.

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

Companies Have Got To Learn To Eat Change For Breakfast.

Screw-ups Are The Mark Of Excellence.

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

Send 10-ten!!-people Flowers. Today. As "thank Yous" For Good Things "small"-or Even Large-done In The Last Two Weeks.

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

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

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.

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

Portability Of Lots Of Information Should Not Be Underestimated.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Obviously, Despite Hard Work And Heroic Efforts, Many Dreams Don't Come True. But If We Don't Dare To Dream And Then Throw Muscle, Heart, And Soul Into Making The Dream Come True, Then Wow Projects-and All Of The Emotional, Intellectual, Spiritual, And Financial Riches That They Bring Will Surely Not Be Our Lot In Life!

The Unthinkable Is Thinkable. No: Likely.

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.

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

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

The Hyperfast-moving, Wired-up, Reengineered, Quality-obsessed Organization Will Succeed Or Fail On The Strength Of The Trust That Its Managers Place In The Folks Working On The Front Line.

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).

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

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

Celebrate What You Want To See More Of.

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

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.

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

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

Bold Botches Are To Be Cherished.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Good Managers Have A Bias For Action.

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

Lists Simplify, Clarify, Edify.

Take Someone New And Weird To Lunch Today

In Mckinsey's World, All Of Life Is One Of Two Things: Strategy Or Organization.

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.

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

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

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

Formula For Success: Underpromise And Overachieve.

Inspirational Business

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

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

Effective Listening

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

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.

A Completely Free Library Is As Rare As A Truly Free Lunch.

If A Window Of Opportunity Appears, Don't Pull Down The Shade.

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

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.

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

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

We Must Reject All Notions Of 'reform' That Serve Up More Of The Same: More Testing, More 'standards', More Uniformity, More Conformity, More Bureaucracy.

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.

Develop A Respect And Reverence For The Principle Of Variation: The Idea That The Message Ain't In The Mean, The Mode Or The Median - It's In The Differences That Occur Throughout A Population.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

If There Is A Single Tragic Flaw That Mars Our Biggest Enterprises, It Is Conservatism - The Failure To Fail, And Fail Big, In An Era Of Unprecedented Volatility And Ambiguity.

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

Musing On The Phrase 'waste Of Time.' So Much More Complex Than It Appears. Many 'wastes Of Time' Small Talk, Daydreaming Are Imperatives.

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

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

Swipe From The Best, Then Adapt.

Innovation And Business

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Day Firing Becomes Easy Is The Day To Fire Yourself.

Test Fast, Fail Fast, Adjust Fast.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Without Exception, The Dominance And Coherence Of Culture Proved To Be An Essential Quality Of The Excellent Companies.

I Don't Want The 35-year-olds In My Audience To Think Of Me As As 'pops' Giving The Kind Of Advice That Only 65-year-olds Can Understand.

Rewards Should Go To Teams As A Whole.

Do It, Fix It, Try It.

There Is No Such Thing As An Insignificant Improvement.

Self Improvement

Self Discipline

Are Your Customers Saying Wow?

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Formula For Success: Under Promise And Over Deliver.

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