Book List

We are living in a time of social and economic reinvention. I think it will be remembered as an internet powered renaissance.

Jack and I spend a lot of time figuring out what is happening, exhorting each other to dig deeper.

Often when we are talking to clients and tell them what we have learned, they want to know where they can go learn it. Providing references and not forgetting was the reason for starting our book list.

The book list started as a document on a computer, then we were printing copies and giving them away, but hyperlinks on a piece of paper are hard to work, and soon adding books, videos, and seminars meant we were having an updating problem. That page was about to go to two, and was turning into an administrivial beast.

A couple of months ago I was in a board meeting for a group that had been unable to create an event landing page that would enroll attendees. There was a tale of woe about why, but the important thing was that the event was coming up and no one was learning about it or signing up.

During the meeting, I looked up at the screen behind the president of the organization and saw that he was constructing a landing/enrollment page using Google Docs...while running the meeting. He had it done in 20 minutes. It was a concrete example of what was required, and I figured there must be a way to append the doc to a website.

Fast forward a couple of months and another organization is falling behind publicizing an event. I didn’t know how to explain the Google Docs solution, but as we were coming up on the event, I wanted to lead rather than exhort.

I took our Book List, and pasted it into a Google Doc. Then I took the blog posts we had written about some of those books and linked them. That way someone looking would read what they had heard in a meeting.

There were other descriptive sources for the entries, so I added reviews that mentioned what I thought was important.

Jack suggested we use a link shortener like bit.ly/SLBooks to make it easier to export.

By then, we had something to publicize so we put links on our Plus pages, my website, Sales Lab website and blog. Now that we have created a new asset, we are looking for other places we can use it.

Want a whiff of the oncoming future? It’s good! Especially for those who are prepared! RSVP for The Final Frontier  at the Association of Information Technology Professionals,  6:30 pm, June 9th, at Alfio’s  in Chevy Chase. Please join us!