Rothacker Reviews

The Last Lecture - Brief Synopsis

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

"What wisdom would you impart upon the world if you knew your demise was to be immediate ?"  "What matters most to you?"

College professors are frequently asked to plan a lecture with these questions in mind.  The searing difference between Randy Pausch's last lecture and all of the others?  Prior to the lecture, Randy was told he really did have only a couple of months to live.

If you can read, are related to one other person on this planet and have a heart, you must pick up this book and listen to what Randy told his students and in turn told the world.

Remarkable Leadership

Remarkable Leadership by Kevin Eikenberry

Do you work for a living?  Buy Remarkable Leadership now!  Next.

"Jeepers Dave, we're not sure we got our money's worth with that review."

"Let me get this straight, you're paying me for this review?"

"Well, errr, uhhh..........no, but could you tell us a little more?"

Dave is a softy, he relents.

After reading Remarkable Leadership the first time, I closed the book and the first word that popped into my mind was prolific.  Remarkable Leadership is not just a book, it is a work.  Kevin focuses on thirteen core competencies.  They constitute Remarkable Leadership.  Each competency gets a chapter and Kevin weaves within each chapter components that entice you to participate.

"Participate Dave?"

Yes.  Kevin begins each chapter with a self-assessment.  This technique sets the stage for the book to become a conversation.  Then he provides in depth content on topics like continuous learning.  Kevin sculpts out each chapter with:

• Skill areas
• Your now steps
• Bonus Bytes
• Your Remarkable Principles
• Remarkable Resources

Bonus Bytes and Remarkable Resources direct you to an accompanying Web site that is packed with extra information.

If you are a teacher, mentor, manager, boss, coach, executive or otherwise bigwig, this book is for you NO QUESTIONS ASKED!  Jack Welch could benefit from reading Remarkable Leadership. 

"Daaaaave, we're feelin' a twist in the road ahead"

Do you know why Jack Welch could benefit from reading Kevin's book?  Because he isn't a bigwig anymore.  If you work, you need this book as much or even more than your manager does!!  Two reasons:

1. By understanding how your manager is trying to lead you, you'll become more effective.
2. You can become more effective.

Do you know that little guy who is dressed in white and sits on your shoulder?

"Now Dave, keep it together.  Don't loose it buddy."

Well, he kept asking me one question as I read the book.  He said, "Dave, what if you dropped the word leadership?"   I knew exactly what he meant.  I had the same thought myself.

"Your toast."

If  you approach reading Remarkable Leadership with the intent to become more effective, you will.   Nearly everything that Kevin talks about, can be instructive learning for every working person out there.  For instance, Kevin devotes time to the act of Listening.  Now, as much as you hope they would, do you think only leaders could benefit from advice on listening?  How about learning, dealing with change, communicating, telling stories, building relationships, networking, customer service, building values, creativity, innovation, collaboration, teamwork, problem solving, making decisions, responsibility, accountability, projects, processes and goal achievement?? 

"Dave!  You rebounded son!!"

Remarkable Leadership is a prolific book.  I would bind it with good, hearty stock, cover it in leather and cherish it for a lifetime.  But that's just me.

Remarkable Leadership was Smoked-n-Signed.

Made to Stick

Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath

Do you write a blog?*  Do you want more readers?  Do you want your message to be understood?  Do you want folks to tell others about your site?  Of course you do.  I think I know someone who can help.  Her name is Gabrielle.  Her friends call her Gabby.  Gabby's melting point, her flash point, the point where time stops, is in the study of how ideas spread.  What makes people remember other people?  What makes people want to tell others about those people?  The flint that caused her flame was The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.  Oddly, Gabby's fascination with idea-spreading was for years, a universe away from her day job as a professional recruiter and night time passion of her career advice blog.  That is until the time that she bought a case of Heath Bars and stepped in the largest glob of bubble gum ever.  Lets see what Gabby found out.

One evening as Gabby sat staring at her computer sipping a glass of Merlot and chewing on thirty pieces of Bazooka bubble gum while trying to forget about her recent break up with Glen, her mind drifted to her blog.  How can I get more readers, she wondered.  In one swoop of total randomness she entered "tipping point stickiness" into Google.  Then she scrolled to the thirtieth set of pages and saw Dan Heath's name.  Craving a Heath Bar at that very moment, she clicked on Dan's name.  A couple of clicks later and she was on the Made to Stick site.  A couple of days later Made to Stick arrived in the mail from Amazon.

In the introduction to Made to Stick, the Heath Bros give credit to Malcolm Gladwell for the inspiration behind their book.  That was was all Gabby needed to know.  She tore into the book.  Before even finishing the introduction, Gabby discovered a major flaw in her blog.  The lads call it the Curse of Knowledge.  She thought of it as speaking Latin to a Chinese audience.  She wrote for career guidance professionals while her audience consisted of those looking to change careers.

Gabby finished the book in two days.  She discovered that the Bros wrote the book around six principles to help people spread successful ideas.  Reading the book a second time, Gabby sipped at these simple principles while thinking of her own writing. 

The first was Simple.  The Bros said to find the core idea and to express it in the form of a compact idea.  Gabby thought, "what was the core idea behind her blog?"  And how could she convey this in a short, simplistic and powerful way?  The Bros spoke of proverbs, metaphors and analogies to help this process.

The second was Unexpected.  How does she get a reader's attention?  The Bros said to break a pattern.  They go on to tell a story about a journalism class and how its teacher rocks their world with one simple exercise.  This story was Gabby's most favorite part of the book.  She would never forget it. 

The third was Concrete.  This one hit home.  If you know your readers, you'll converse at their level.  The Bros said, "we forget that other people don't know what we know."  Gabby thought, I need to know who is reading my blog and then talk with them on their level.

The fourth was Credible.  Gabby wondered, is my stuff credible enough to draw readers?  The Bros talk about finding credibility through friends, relatives, authorities and anti-authorities.  They also said it comes by way of stories, vivid details and statistics.  Credibility was a difficult principle for Gabby to envision.  The best she could take away here was to tell stories and fill them with vivid details. 

The fifth was Emotional.  The Bros said to make people care about our messages.  One way was to form an association between something folks care about and something they don't.  Another was to appeal to people's self-interest and identities.  Gabby knew that in order to reach people who were looking for career advice, she would have to form associations between their existing dilemmas and then a potential improved future.

The sixth was Stories.  Gabby's knees went weak.  She loved to tell stories.  This would be the first change to make on her blog.  She could tap into the wisdom of those who had walked the pathways of career change and by telling those stories, offer hope and inspiration to others.

Gabby read the book a third time.  She was so excited!  She was going to mold and bake the Heath Bros' six principles right into her blog.  Maybe one day her stuff would be so good that people would remember her and talk about her blog.  Maybe one day then, she'd be as popular as Penelope Trunk.

*I have a personal distaste for the word blog.  Ok, I hate it.  But this story isn't about me.  It's about you and the opportunity that you might have after reading the Heath Bros' book, to improve your, errrr, blog :-)

dave smoked-n-signed this book.

Writing to Change the World

Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher.

How many books can possibly be written on writing?  Probably just a handful more than line my book shelves right now.  Still, I bought Writing to Change the World and I am so glad I did.  Sure, the book's title appealed to my inner-revolutionary.  And the fact that the author was twenty in the sixties and lived in San Francisco helped too.  But I came to learn that to change the world I must start with me.  And this is precisely where Mary writes from.

Mary spends time in the first few chapters developing the sense of how writing begins within yourself.  Know Thyself, What You Alone Can Say and Growing Our Souls are the titles of these chapters.  But a story that she tells at the end of the first chapter after explaining how writing connects, sets the tone of the book and provides a glimpse into Mary the person.  I'll not tell the story, but I will tell you that it is magical, wondrous and inspiring!

In the second half of the book, Mary guides us through the writing process.  She provides thought for context.  She does not teach the mechanics, typically laced with the do's and don'ts of grammar.  Those who already write will appreciate her advice on research, observation, organization, interviewing and point of view.

Though I was originally attracted to the revolutionary aspects concocted by the title, Writing to Change the World, I came to find out Mary's book is not a manifesto for revolt.  Instead, for me, it is a gold digger's sieve.  It helps me to pan out the unwanted rock and keep the gold.  As Mary says:

Our goal as writers is to convey to readers the greatest meaning with the  most precise images and the fewest words.

Yes, Writing to Change the World will help those who wish to create change.  But the journey that Mary leads us upon will plain out help us to become better writers. 

Do Editors Ruin Stories?

Or rather should I say, do editors and others who act as gate keepers, prevent captivating stories from being told?

Rosemary comes up to me yesterday and says, "in her first twenty pages, this author violates every rule in the book."

A knot slowly began to form in my stomach.  This was a most excellent book.  If it were non-fiction I would have smoked and signed it.  As it was I definitely smoked it and still ended up high lighting interesting text.  The book, She Walks These Hills, by Sharyn McCrumb, was recommended to me by Dick Richards for the author's strong use of sense of place.

Since completing three novels last year, Rosemary has immersed herself in the technical side of writing.  She rattles off terms like plot, back story, POV's, dialog and theme like they were ordinary house hold items and like I am supposed to understand them.  The thing is, all of the books on writing that Rosemary has read, have been mine.  Plus, I've read a whole lot more.  So I do understand, sort of.  I refuse however, to let the technicalities ruin the melody in my head. 

That's fine.  I can stand up on my platform, be self-righteous and pompous as much as I want.  I am not trying to sell my stuff.  Rosemary however, is.  So she slices and dices on the advice of agents, editors, women in her writing group, writing coaches, writing partners and published authors.  I plead for her not to lose sight of her story. 

Maybe it's me, maybe I'm the dunce, but here is what is important when I read a book.  The story must be interesting and I must want to keep turning the pages.  The words must hold a tune.  And they must carry that tune throughout the story as if I were not even aware of it.  Or, if I am made aware it is at a point where emphasis is called for.  (These are the points that I usually high light).  Rosemary's books have all of the above.  She's got great story, her dialog flows and IMHO, her use of descriptive language is above the genre that she writes for. 

Why of course I am the doting husband.  But it irks the crap out of me when I hear someone babbling about two different points of view in a chapter that I just smoked through because I thought it was interesting.  Then again, maybe all that I accomplished here was to expose all of my own non-literariness to the world...

Book Reviews: dave Style

I want your words to take a voyage.  I want them to travel from your mind to your heart to your soul.  I want them to collect pieces of each.  Then I want them to leap from your pages and grab hold of my soul.  Cause when they do, my fingers will smoke about my keyboard hoping to reach out to the world and sing your praise.

I had been writing book reviews in my own little way since 2001, when a very scholarly fellow once said, "dave, you don't get very deep.  You're kind of like a cheerleader."  Okay.  So a few years go by when Rosa Say first asks the Ho'ohana Community to write a book review at Talking Story.  Brendon Connelly penned a book review of Lisa Haneberg's High Impact Middle Management, that gives grist for Webster's definition and illustrates with clarity the art of the proper book review.  Brendon's articulation would have caused my friend of the cheerleader remark to become stuck on the merry-go-round in ponder.  Though Mr. Connelly's work deserves to be in a book review hall of fame, I can't write like that.

To begin with, I am not too keen on being critical.  A book and its writer must resonate with me for me to review it.  If it does, I want to help the author, not be critical.  I think readers need to know in general what the book is about, but not in Cliff Note.  I am more interested in trying to interpret my feelings and how the author touches me.  I'm pretty sure that when I do like the author, I can hardly not be a cheerleader for her. 

Now I'd like to reveal a little dave character flaw.  I am selfish. 

I am sure that I've babbled about it here a half dozen times over the years but one of the greatest and most memorable feelings that I have ever experienced came upon the heels of a book review.  A week after writing the review, the author sold fifteen books and had leads for twenty-five more (the books cost 130 bucks).  The appreciation in his voice brought me to tears ( dave doesn't cry).

Well, that's about the extent of a dave-style book review, not deep, not critical, just hoping to make a connection with the author and tell a few friends about it.

Perception Sucks

Basically, this is a story about how incompetent I can be.

I have this penchant where if I see a bunch of people running in one direction, I want to run the opposite way as fast as I can.  I reminded myself yesterday and today, for that is exactly how long it took me to read this book, that this little attitude of mine is not always a good thing.

I became aware of this book about the same time I became aware of books about cheese, fish, fans and performing the art of management in one minute.  For some reason, and I have no idea on earth why, I lumped this book into that category.  About eight years later Victoria purchased a book by this author and raved about it.  "Dad, you gotta get this book!  Maybe though you want to first pick up the book Mitch wrote in 97." 

I am beginning to understand the meaning behind the word brand - A mark that is burned into flesh.  A perception that is burned into our minds.  Even with Vickie's enthusiastic endorsement, I couldn't buy the book.  This was a cheese-fish-fan book and I couldn't buy it. 

After ten years I finally listened.  I listened to someone say what this book was actually about.  I came to understand it is a true book - I never knew this.  So I bought the book on Friday, started to read it on Saturday and finished it today.  It is one of the best books that I've ever read. 

I am not going to review Tuesday's With Morrie because you've already read it.  I believe I am the last person in America who hadn't.  I will say that it is extremely well written!  I only say extremely well because I cannot think of anything stronger at the moment. 

You see, that's the thing about branding.  It matters not what the one with the iron thinks.  It only matters what the one who is getting his flesh seared, perceives.    

Brazen Careerist

Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk.

Today's world of work is not the same as your father's was.  Thank God!  Penelope Trunk, columnist for the Boston Globe and Yahoo Finance in addition to her own Website has written a spot on, insightful book titled Brazen Careerist.  Penelope hopes to provide a roadmap for Gen X and Y'ers to follow in pursuit of their own life's work.  Drawing on real world experience, she stories upon such topics as:

• Grad School
• Adventures
• Resumes
• Interviews
• Managers
• Office Politics
• Sex Discrimination
• Promotions
• The New American Dream

Penelope's work has been referred to as the modern day version of What Color is Your Parachute?  While the Brazen Careerist is a manifesto and rallying wake-up cry for Gen X and Y'ers, I find that it talks frankly and honestly to a whole other generation of folks.  Mine.  The Boomers.

As a Boomer manager, I feel as if Brazen Careerist is my own personal undercover spy, infiltrating the Gen X and Y'ers' world.  Of course for me, there isn't a trace of spying or undercover that goes into dealing with folks from these generations.  It is all about collaboration.  And if one wishes to collaborate, they must understand the other collaboratoree.  Brazen Careerist introduces us, stays in the conversation and provides that much needed understanding.

For Boomers who do not recognize the workplace change today, there is no help.  But for those of us who relish in the new environment and who cherish the spirit and attitude of those who will one day be placing us in nursing homes*, I find the Brazen Careerist positively fascinating!!

*Our Gen Y daughter has for sometime reminded us of her role in this potential eventuality, helping to explain why we should see and support her point of view...or perhaps our nursing home will not have all of the amenities that we would expect.  She tried to explain the concept of an outhouse...

Penelope Trunk

"One of the best posts on this site ever! I wish I had such focus." This is a comment in a post written by Guy Kawasaki at his site, How to Change the World.  Guy is interviewing Penelope Trunk about her new book Brazen Careerist. 

I am going to talk about Penelope's book soon here at the Reviews. I want to offer a point of view that differs from most others that I've read on Brazen Careerist.  I am also including Penelope in an upcoming RadioBack mission.  But for now I just wanted to point out this interview by legendary, rock star author blogger consultant rad guy Mr. Kawasaki.

Citizen Marketers

Citizen Marketers by Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba

You know what makes me mad as hell?  When corporate America will not acknowledge folks out there who evangelize their companies.  By the way, for a clear and crisp review of this book check out Mack's at the Viral Garden.  Oh, you might get a response.  It will be sterile, guarded and watered down just like the example that Ben and Jackie use. 

"We are flattered by Winter's enthusiasm for the Starbuck's experience...and, and we wish him well with his endeavors."

His endeavors?  Are you kidding me?  (slight off path diversion to the world of sports commentators...sorry).  Mr. Winter is a blog-writing Starbucks evangelist.  His mission is to visit every Starbucks store on the planet.  His endeavors Mr. Starbucks, is your meal ticket.  There are times when Mr. Winter must be true and authentic with his discourse.  He is quoted in Citizen Marketers:

"After about four stores, the coffee loses all taste.  After an extreme number of stores, I have to wash out the taste with water after every sip because it's starting to make me sick."

Well, Duh Mr. Starbucks!  What sane person would not feel the same way?  This gets back to authenticity, which is a main theme running through Ben & Jackie's work.  I am going to listen to a cat like Mr. Winter (Winter is his full, legal name) because Mr. Winter is authentic.  I can, as a sane adult human being, (my kids question the authenticity of that statement), discern the statement above which is obvious and eventual, for what it is, and act on a statement in which Mr. Winter describes an outrageously good cup of coffee at a certain store...if it were within my proximity.

Way back in 1998, Patty Seybold spoke of company transparency in her book Customers.Com.  Give the customer a 360 degree view of the process.  I believe the same should hold true for the Filters, Fanatics, Facilitators and Firecrackers who Ben & Jackie talk about.  Mr. Company, open up your gates and let these folks into play. 

You know what fascinates me?  How something or someone becomes viral.  Inevitably it must be found in the message.  The message of Citizen Marketers is that people are the message...and that's what fascinates me. 

This book was smoked-n-signed!  Pick up a copy today!