Over the past year, I’ve read a ton of books, written blog posts, podcasted 50 + shows, and learned more than I can hope to remember most days. I decided to put some of it here, as guideposts for me. Maybe they’ll help you too. This is the stuff that has stayed with me, and are worth listing in one place.
Books:
Strengthfinder 2.0- Tom Rath
First, Break All The Rules- Marcus Buckingham
Now, Discover Your Strengths-Marcus Buckingham
The Truth about You- New Book by Marcus Buckingham
The Artist’s Way- Julia Cameron
The Red Rubber Ball-Ken Carroll
Meatball Sundae-Seth Godin
The Dip- Seth Godin
Small is the New Big- Seth Godin
Made to Stick- Chip & Dan Heath
The Starfish and the Spider -Ori
Wikinomics
The World is Flat-Thomas Friedman
Blown to Bits
The Social Web
Motivation: 6 ways to turn on the tuned out child- Richard LaVoie
the Self-disciplined Child- DR. Robert Brooks
Anne Ford’s books- Laughing Allegra and On Their Own
Predictably Irrational- Dan Ariely
The Ten Faces of Innovation
The Pirate’s Dilemma- Matt Mason
Messages to Remember:
It’s The Community, Stupid.
Core messages are best communicated by: stories, proverbs, simple, concrete, evocative, emotional language.
Messages stick when they are easily understandable, they make you care, and there is a call to action.
Maintaining a level of puzzle, mystery (JJ Abrhams the Mystery Box, Ira Glass’s you tube series on telling a good story) helps keep an audience with you. Mysteries are engaging and entertaining.
Avoid the curse of knowledge, ie. inside the fishbowl thinking. Remember what it was like not to know, and how many other people really don’t know, even when it’s as easy as breathing to you.
You need to learn how to spot good ideas even more than how to create them. This ability requires a certain openness of thinking, and depends a lot on your mindset.
After switching to a mac this year, I think I was suffering from Stockholm syndrome with my PC for years.
When we feel psychologically trapped in a situation, we fail to realize how bad it truly is for quite a long time-usually, a change, a break or some sort of “out of the box” experience is necessary until you can discover how truly warped the situation at hand has become.
The best ideas strike at weird times- keep a notebook handy.
Never forget that location and architecture matter. Space dictates use. This is especially true in real life, but equally true online.
Great content deserves great delivery. Even mediocre content delivered well may be more compelling than the best content delivered poorly.
A Bit more about Me:
on Twitter: LDpodcast Here’s a link to my twittercloud
Email- ldpodcast@gmail.com
My new page- www.whitneyhoffman.com
Need to call me? (302) 562-6507
