Books Worth Reading
Books Worth Reading
April / May 2010
Volume 8 Number 2
What Would Google Do?
Google is the world’s most widely used search engine. Its users conduct hundreds of millions of searches daily, many pursuing links from corporate ads. Each time you click on a company’s paid link, Google makes money. Already one of the best-known corporations on the planet, Google continues to grow tremendously as it sets the paradigm for booming Internet commerce. Author Jeff Jarvis explains what makes Google and other successful Web companies tick, and what your company can learn from its strategic concepts. He explains how to use a set of Internet business axioms he dubs the “Google Rules.” getAbstract finds (with little searching) that Jarvis provides an essential corporate road map for this era of radical change.
Jeff Jarvis. What Would Google Do? HarperBusiness, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2009. 272 pages. List Price: $26.99. ISBN-13: 978-0061709715
Tuned In
The iPod has been a monster hit since the day Apple introduced it to the marketplace in 2001. By 2004, the iPod owned 70% of the market for digital music players. Previous personal music players were difficult to program and use. Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his development team identified that problem, and they set out to solve it by using careful research and focusing on buyers’ wants and needs. Now Apple rules the market. How can your firm emulate Apple’s example? Marketing professionals Craig Stull, Phil Myers and David Meerman Scott detail the process market leaders use to establish breakthrough products. Although much of the advice is common knowledge, if not common sense, the book’s eclectic mix of corporate case studies, such as stories from Apple and TheaterChurch.com, make this guide an entertaining read. getAbstract recommends this manual to industrial designers, marketing professionals and other innovators.
Craig Stull, Phil Myers & David Meerman Scott. Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs, 2008. 224 pages. List Price: $27.95. ISBN-13: 978-0470260364
The Shift
Marketing certainly needs to be jolted into the 21st century, and this book may be a good first step in that direction. Scott M. Davis, working with Philip Kotler, who wrote the foreword, and with other chapter co-authors, urges tactical marketing executives to become “Visionary Marketers,” a transformation process that requires “five shifts” in practice and focus. To buttress his case for change, Davis includes real-world examples of top corporate marketers who transcended their traditional roles and earned the serious regard of senior management by affecting the bottom line. However, while his case studies have practical applications, he presents little new information and his descriptions of the five transformational shifts sometimes bog down. That said, he makes a compelling point that marketing must change and focus on the larger goals of the company, armed with superior knowledge of customers. As a result, getAbstract recommends Davis’ book to serious marketers who want to update and transform their tactics in a radial way and, by doing so, step into a more influential role in their companies.
Scott M. Davis. The Shift: The Transformation of Today's Marketers into Tomorrow's Growth Leaders. John Wiley & Sonc, Inc., 2009. 272 pages, List Price: $34.95. ISBN-13: 978-0470388389
Meltdown Iceland
Most people aren’t very familiar with Iceland, an isolated, homogenous, near-Arctic island. Now, thanks to award-winning correspondent and journalist Roger Boyes’s wonderfully told tale of its financial collapse, readers can learn what happened to the economy, politics and culture of this unusual, mostly-frozen nation. Iceland was the unlikely first victim of the 2008 global financial collapse—the actual canary in the coal mine. Its financial excesses, cronyism and poor governance serve as a microcosm of the problems facing the largest capitalist nations. Boyes’s financial case study flows like a novel. He is unafraid to draw biting conclusions from his detailed presentation: here, villains are villains, greed is greed, names are named. This fast-moving story puts the global fiscal meltdown into perspective. getAbstract rates this as important reading for anyone who seeks insight into the 2008-2009 international economic crisis, which began in this lone, cold outpost and then burst into global flames.
Roger Boyes. Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island. Bloomsbury USA, 2009. 256 pages, List Price: $25.00. ISBN-13: 978-1608190188
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