Summary – Martin presents the findings from his groundbreaking, three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study, a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of two thousand volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what drives us to buy and ultimately creates brand loyalty. 

Comment – I found Martin’s study of the impact of product placement fascinating. Do meticulously planned, shrewdly placed products really penetrate our long-term memory and leave a lasting impression? Yes, but only if the product plays a fundamental part of the story line and makes sense within the show’s narrative.  I can’t help thinking that this commonsense approach is also applicable to sponsorship decisions and results.  Certainly consumers are more likely to see and register a connection when a program is sponsored by an organization with complementary objectives, i.e., a healthcare company sponsoring wellness programs, versus little or no alignment in objectives, i.e., healthcare company sponsoring a professional sports team.

The chapter on subliminal messaging …. Call JDS Connects, NOW! Call JDS Connects, NOW! … was eye-opening, as was Martin’s study comparing brand loyalty to spirituality and religion.  

I highly recommend this book, which is a fun and lively read, to anyone working in the consumer advertising/marketing arena. Doing so will challenge you to rethink your beliefs about why your customers buy, and how to keep them buying in the future.

Summary – The candid book challenges leaders to commit to evidence-based management as a way of organizational life. And it shows executives how to turn this commonsense approach into common practice.

Comment – This book was presented to me as research that would challenge my argument for corporate cultural changes and investing in employee engagement. True you could pull out “sound bites” from this book, such as “We became fascinated with certain half-truths that we kept hearing again and again, ideas and principles that are partly right at times, but are flawed and misleading often enough to get organizations into serious trouble; beliefs like ‘the best organizations have the best people’,” and argue for a smaller recruitment or training budget. Needless to say, that is not the message of this book, but it did make for some lively conversation!

As the book states, there is danger in half-hearted approaches to implementing “new and improved” management philosophies, employing quick fixes, and bantering about buzz words, etc. without making a true investment in understanding what needs to be fixed, needs to be measured, and needs to be communicated.

The book’s exploration of “work is fundamentally different from the rest of life and should be” challenged some of my long-held and apparently narrow beliefs. The question is whether such segmentation really makes sense as a model for thinking about, managing, and living inside an organization.  But is it even possible to separate the domains in a world where technology blurs and destroys the boundaries?  Possible? Yes. Beneficial? Maybe.

Summary – The Enthusiastic Employee draws on 30 years of research and experience to show you exactly what managers do wrong and what they should do instead. Drawing on detailed case studies and employee attitude surveys in hundreds of companies, the authors offer research-proven solutions – not fads, nostrums, or phony shortcuts. Along the way, you’ll identify the dollars-and cents business case for high employee morale, learn exactly what employee moral means, and discover the specific managements practices that offer the greatest positive performance impact.

Comments – This is one of my favorite reference books on employee engagement, as evidenced by the numerous post-it notes sticking out of it. The book reveals that there are just three primary goals for people – from assembly-line workers to research scientists, from first time employees to those ready to retire, from North America or Europe. Regardless of position, age, or location, employees want to be proud of the work they do (achievement); they want to paid a fair wage (equity); and they want cooperation and congeniality among their co-workers (camaraderie).  This book pairs well with Gallup’s Q12 tool  www.gallup.com/consulting/52/Employee-Engagement.aspx

Summary – In The Gift of Fear, de Becker draws on his extensive expertise to explode the myth that most violent acts are random and unpredictable and shows that they usually have discernible motives and are preceded by clear warning signs. Through dozens of compelling stories from his own career and life, he unravels the complexities of violent behavior and details the pre-incident indicators (PINs) that can determine if someone poses a danger to us

Comment – My current United Way project required that I read this book, and I’m grateful that I did. Although I prefer to look for the good in everyone, the book taught me how to spot danger signals and how to get out of potentially dangerous situations. Note to self – It’s ok to be rude to strangers. This is an excellent book to give to a college-bound woman.

Gallup Management Journal - What Measuring Customer Engagement Reveals; http://gmj.gallup.com/content/18253/What-Measuring-Customer-Engagement-Reveals.aspx

Knol – The Positive Economics of Customer Engagement; http://knol.google.com/k/kyle-lamalfa/the-positive-economics-of-customer/3qaqcyh9n9xhm/4?locale=en#

Future Lab – Marketing & Strategic Innovation Blog – Branding, Customer Engagement, and Neuromarketing; http://blog.futurelab.net/2007/03/branding_customer_engagement_a.html

Advisor Today – Building Customer Engagement; http://www.advisortoday.com/archives/2003_march/WebExclusiveArticles/webexart_buildingcustomer.html

Employee Engagement

Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog – Employee Engagement & Training Business Transformation Is Simple. It All Comes Down to Three Things: Maximize Purpose, Creating a Bifocal Vision and Managing Change. The idea that business transformation is achieved through efforts from alignment of people, process and technology towards a strategic end-state is missing the bigger things – people and purpose. http://blog.futurelab.net/2009/01/business_trasformation_is_simp.html 

The Employee Engagement Network – Social network hosted by David Zinger, M.Ed., from Winnipeg MB Canada. David provides management consulting, education, and coaching for engagement. This site had over 1 million page views in 2008. www.employeeengagement.ning.com

Management-issues.com; Employee Passion – The New Rules of Engagement; http://www.management-issues.com/Downloads/Blanchard-Employee-Passion.pdf

American Society for Training and Development Members of ASTD – the leading association for workplace learning professionals – have access to a wealth of professional resources including exclusive research tools, timely publications, career support, discounts on books, conferences and professional development workshops, as well as endless opportunities to network with colleagues from around the world and right next door. http://www.astd.org/

Community/Board Governance

Board Source is dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations by strengthening their boards of directors. Its highly acclaimed programs and services mobilize boards so that organizations fulfill their missions, achieve their goals, increase their impact, and extend their influence. www.boardsource.org

Board Cafe is an electronic newsletter exclusively for members of nonprofit boards of directors. Short enough to read over a cup of coffee, Board Cafe offers a menu of ideas, information, opinion, news, and resources to help board members give and get the most out of board service. There are over 90 great issues in the archive! Sign up for a free subscription. www.compasspoint.org/boardcafe/ 

Nathan Garber & Associates – This site contains help-sheets, articles, and links to other resources to strengthen the nonprofit sector in general and boards of directors in particular. http://garberconsulting.com/

Business Volunteers Unlimited (BVU) strengthens nonprofits by involving thousands of volunteers from the community; engaging hundreds of business executives and professionals on nonprofit boards of directors; and providing leading-edge board and management consulting and training services for nonprofits. www.businessvolunteers.org 

Nonprofit and Public Service Center at Lakeland Community College supports the capacity of nonprofit and public service organizations through professional development programs and consulting services and fosters opportunities for networking and collaboration in order to help build community. http://www2.lakelandcc.edu/nonprofit/

General reference links

Management-Issues.com is an independent online resource which focuses on the leadership, management and people issues that are at the heart of the changing workplace. The site provides an objective platform for topical debate and informed opinion by thought leaders on management, leadership and human resources issues. Management-Issues has an extensive search engine presence and is a Google News source. http://www.management-issues.com/default.asp 

Workforce Management’s online site complements their printed publication, which is a mainstream business publication with a workforce management perspective. www.workforce.com/index.html

Soundview Executive Book Summaries are 5,000-word eight-page distillations of business books. A Summary covers the book’s main points and highlights and gives you a working knowledge of its contents. http://www.summary.com/cgi-bin/Soundview.storefront

Conference on Foundations is a Washington, DC, area-based nonprofit membership association of more than 2,100 grant making foundations and corporations. www.cof.org 

Emergingleader.com is a user driven site which serves both as a sounding board for fresh leadership ideas and a repository for lessons learned and experience gained. http://www.emergingleader.com/

The Public Relations Society of America, based in New York City, is the world’s largest organization for public relations professionals. The Society has nearly 32,000 professional and student members. PRSA is organized into more than 100 Chapters nationwide, 19 Professional Interest Sections and Affinity Groups, which represent business and industry, counseling firms, independent practitioners, military, government, associations, hospitals, schools, professional services firms and nonprofit organizations. http://www.prsa.org/ 

The Baseline Scenario is dedicated to explaining some of the key issues in the global economy and developing concrete policy proposals. Since it was launched in September 2008, articles on this blog have been cited by The Wall Street Journal (Real Time Economics), The Economist (Free Exchange), The Financial Times, NPR (Planet Money), and many other sites around the Internet. http://baselinescenario.com/

Duck Tape Marketing Blog, Author -John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of “Duct Tape Marketing – The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide.” He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system and Duct Tape Marketing Authorized Coach Network. http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/

Marketing Sherpa is a resource that publishes news, case studies and best practices data about internet and integrated marketing. www.marketingsherpa.com

McKinsey Quarterly – Free online access to a selection of articles reflecting McKinsey & Company’s latest thinking on a broad range of functional, industry, and regional topics. The site is updated at least twice a week with new articles and features. www.mckinseyquarterly.com/home.aspx

BNET Today – A great site for marketing and management articles. www.bnet.com

Summary – Why some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunities as well as talent — from the author of “Blink” and “The Tipping Point.”

Comments – After enjoying Mr. Gladwell’s last two books, I’ve put this one on my list. Should I keep it on the list?

Summary – Millions of Americans are beginning to work and live the way creative people like artists and scientists always have – and as a result our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing. Richard Florida chronicles the ongoing change in people’s choices and attitudes and describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant.

Comments – Hoping this book validates the benefits of increasing investment in the arts (supporting my passions for sustainability, CSR and non-profit board work). Does it? Also have The Flight of the Creative Class in the pile.

Summary – This consulting classic remains the definitive work on dramatically growing a consulting business. For the single practitioner, small firm principal, or aspiring consultant.

Comments – It’s good to have goals … and one million seems like a good place to start! I love this book – full of practical, implemental advice and recommended by one of my new favorite people (thanks, Lee!) The “how to write a proposal that closes business” section is alone worth the price of the book.

And a special note of thanks to my family and friends for their encouragement and steadfast support of this new venture. I will forever be grateful.