7:30 am February 28, 2011- Oakland, California Grass Shack Events & Media Headquarters.
I sat down to tackle a day which had a meeting production proposal and a couple video production proposals.
When I have typical day which has a full plate of work in store of me, I immediately look for a distraction. My eyes caught a book on my desk which I was almost finished with: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo. I picked it up and finished the last chapter.
Then, trying my best to avoid work; thought about what to read next? My usual tactic is a post Twitter or Facebook and ask my social network. This time I thought I would send out a bunch of emails to my peers in the events & meetings industry and see what has inspired them.
And you know what? Some of them actually answered my email.
It was Interesting I had already read a bunch of the books sent in.(see picture above) I also worked with a several of these authors (who are also speakers) and I actually grew up with one of authors.
Thank you to all that responded. Feel free to add more in the comments
So here we go!
My favorite novels of all time are The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy and Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.
My favorite business books are both from last year:
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action By Simon Sinek
Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin
Here are the great friends and peers in the events & meetings business who passed along their picks! I asked for only two books, but several gave me many more. I took the top two if they gave me more books. (sorry)
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Service America in the New Economy (Albrecht & Zemke)
The Experience Economy (Pine & Gillmore)
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Carolyn Ray
Never Eat Alone by by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose Tony Hsieh of Zappos
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Howard Givner
The E-Myth, by Michael Gerber. Great insight into why some people who are good at their craft do not always succeed in running their own businesses.
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Jason Falls
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell because it tries to uncover the nature of word of mouth movements.
The Now Revolution by Jay Baer and Amber Naslund because it operationalizes social media for companies to move to becoming a social business.
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Nancy Spooner
These books inspire me!
The 4 Hour Word Week by Tim Ferris
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
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Networking for People Who Hate Networking by Devora Zack
Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow by Chip Conley
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Carrie McAllen
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
I want to kick Spencers Ass! 
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Heidi Thorne
Any book by Seth Godin
All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World by Seth Godin
Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port
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Lara McCulloch
Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in Your Business by Frank Wilkinson
Book yourself Solid by Michael Port
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A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned
While Editing My Life by Donald Miller. I’m a sucker for storytelling,
and this book totally rocked it. Stories have a huge place in doing better
meetings, better presentations and better experiences.
Open Community Lindy Dreyer Maddie Grant Bottom line, this topic is more important to the success of associations than most people realize. It’s a short read and one that every Exec. Director should
buy for their entire board. It’s one of the biggest strategic needs and smart organizations will make community management part of their culture.
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Jessica L. Levin
UnMarketing by Scott Stratten. It has solid advice and it’s laugh out loud funny.
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Sam Smith
Terms of Engagement by Dick Axelrod
Brains on Fire by Robbin Phillips, Greg Cordell, Geno Church and Spike Jones
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Erica St. Angel
Groundswell by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li
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Mark McLarry
Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard
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Jenise Fryatt
Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up by Patricia Ryan Madson
The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott
Excellent for learning to develop your social media marketing strategy
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What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly
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Brett Bumeter
Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders
Hands down best business book I ever read was Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook (seriously)
(I made it required reading for all of my employees. Both so that they
could better catch crappy behavior including my own and avoid it themselves
once they got promoted above me).
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Michelle Bruno
“Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World” by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. It makes me think about the tremendous opportunities and potential of collaborative platforms to change business and the world.
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Kristi Casey Sanders
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni
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Traci Browne
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer (It’s always good to know how people make decisions)
Setting the Table by Danny Meyer (When it comes to customer service excellence, this guys got it down pat)
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Dennis Shiao
“Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry,” by Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler. Salesforce.com shepherded in the age of SaaS, and this book gives you behind the scenes tips, via a series of 111 plays (in a playbook style). My favorite sections are Part 2, “The Marketing Playbook: How to Cut Through the Noise and Pitch the Bigger Picture” and Part 3, “The Events Playbook: How to Use Events to Build Buzz and Drive Business.”
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Ruud Janssen
Social Media for Meetings & Events (due to be published in April 2011)
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Jon Pollard
I still feel there is a lot of value in what Jim Collins laid out in “Good to Great.” Most companies get the fundamentals wrong (or pay no attention to them). That book covers a lot of fundamentals.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins
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Jessie Gray Producer/Creative Director
The Art of the Start – Guy Kawasaki
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds
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Greg Ruby
Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. I am a naturally shy person and tend to despise the concept of “networking.” While many of the concepts he advocates in his book have been previously advocated by other authors, his writing style gets the message across in a format that worked for me. I try to re-read this book once a year to reinforce its message about building meaningful relationships with others. It’s been a great help to me in getting to meet folks in this industry.
Any book by Tom Peters but I like The Little Big Things: 163 ways to pursue Excellence. It is not your typical business book with graphs, analysis and mounds of useless information hiding nuggets. Tom’s writing style gets you usable information almost immediately and allows for the book to be read in one sitting or over time as well. I’ve been a Tom Peters groupie for nearly 25 years (and not just because he is originally from Baltimore ), but for his message that is is the small things that matter rather than the one big thing that will revolutionize the world.
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David Spark
Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath Really great book on how to package your ideas so others remember them. They did some excellent research on this book.
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The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing by Lisa Gansky. The book clearly marks a change in thinking, ushering in a sharing mentality and ushering out the ownership mentality. I see huge application for events with this idea.
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Tim Sanders
My fave book, ever, is The Art Of Happiness. It taught me an elegant but profound concept: Your mission is to participate in the end of suffering!
Excerpt of Tim’s new book Today We Are Rich can be found here
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Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking by Roger L. Martin
Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide by Harrison Owen
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- Interview With Greg Ruby of Ruby Consulting Show 166 (grassshackroad.com)
- Meetings Podcast Interview w/ Icon Presentation & Engage365 Jenise Fryatt Show 162 (grassshackroad.com)
- Carmine Gallo – The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs (itc.conversationsnetwork.org)
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