Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content


Colleen Jones - 2010
    Everyone wants them, whether to sell more products, spread good ideas, or win more funding. In our busy digital world, the way to results is influencing people on the web. But how?An ad campaign won't cut it. A Twitter account doesn't guarantee it. Manipulative tricks will backfire. Instead, you need quality, compelling web content that attracts people and engages them for the long haul.Clout explains the key principles of influence and how to apply them to web content. Along the way, those principles come to life with lots of practical examples. With this book, you'll: Discover why a technology feature, marketing campaign, SEO effort, or redesign aren't enough to influence online. Understand the business value of compelling web content. Learn 8 principles for influence from the art of rhetoric and the science of psychology. Find out what context is and why it's so important to influence. Jump start your planning for content over time with patterns and diagrams. Learn the basics of evaluation to determine whether your web content is making a difference.

Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day


Todd Henry - 2013
    But sooner or later all of our tomorrows will run out. Each day that you postpone the hard work and succumb to the clutter that chokes creativity, discipline, and innovation will result in a net deficit to the world, to your company, and to yourself. Die Empty is a tool for individuals and companies that aren't willing to put off their best work. Todd Henry explains the forces that keep people in stagnation and introduces a three-part process for tapping into your passion: Excavate: Find the bedrock of your work to discover what drives you. Cultivate: Learn how to develop the curiosity, humility, and persistence that save you from getting stuck in ruts. Resonate: Learn how your unique brilliance can inspire others. Henry shows how to find and sustain your passion and curiosity, even in tough times.

Jump Start Your Brain


Doug Hall - 1995
    A successful marketing manager and product inventor challenges conventional ways of thinking and reveals how to successfully market new ideas.

Identity Designed: The Definitive Guide to Visual Branding


David Airey - 2019
      Written by best-selling writer and renowned designer David Airey, Identity Designed formalizes the process and the benefits of brand identity design and includes a substantial collection of high-caliber projects from a variety of the world’s most talented design studios.   You’ll see the history and importance of branding, a contemporary assessment of best practices, and how there’s always more than one way to exceed client expectations. You’ll also learn a range of methods for conducting research, defining strategy, generating ideas, developing touchpoints, implementing style guides, and futureproofing your designs. Each identity case study is followed by a recap of key points.   The book includes projects by Lantern, Base, Pharus, OCD, Rice Creative, Foreign Policy, Underline Studio, Fedoriv, Freytag Anderson, Bedow, Robot Food, Together Design, Believe in, Jack Renwick Studio, ico Design, and Lundgren+Lindqvist.  Identity Designed is a must-have, not only for designers, but also for entrepreneurs who want to improve their work with a greater understanding of how good design is good business.

Make Good Art


Neil Gaiman - 2013
    He encouraged the fledgling painters, musicians, writers, and dreamers to break rules and think outside the box. Most of all, he encouraged them to make good art.The book Make Good Art, designed by renowned graphic artist Chip Kidd, contains the full text of Gaiman’s inspiring speech.

They Ask You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today's Digital Consumer


Marcus Sheridan - 2017
    Regardless of your budget, you are almost certainly overspending on television, radio, and print ads, yet neglecting the number-one resource you have at your disposal: the Internet. Content marketing is no longer about keyword-stuffing and link-building; in fact, using those tactics today gets your page shuffled to the bottom of the heap. Quality content is the key to success, and you already have the ingredients in-house. This book shows you how to structure an effective content strategy using the same proven principles that have revolutionized marketing for all types of businesses, across industries.Author Marcus Sheridan's pool company struggled after the housing collapse; today, they're one of the largest pool installers in the U.S., turning away millions of dollars in business they simply cannot accommodate every year. How did he manage it? He answered questions. This book shows you how Marcus's strategy can work for your business, and how to use your keyboard to bring customers through the door.Boost your company's web presence with methods that work Build a level of trust that generates customer evangelism Leverage your in-house resources to produce winning content Utilize tactics that work, regardless of industry or sector When people have questions, they ask a search engine. If you have answers, the right content strategy will get them to the top of the search results and seen by millions of eyes every day. Drop the marketing-speak, stop "selling," and start answering. Be seen as an authority, not just another advertisement. They Ask You Answer describes a fresh approach to marketing and the beginning of big things for your business.

60-Minute Brand Strategist: The Essential Brand Book for Marketing Professionals


Idris Mootee - 2003
    Period. In this economy ruled by ideas, the only sustainable form of leadership is brand leadership.The book offers a practical view of how branding decisions happen in the context of business strategy, not just in marketing communications. It brings in business strategy, customer experience, and anthropological perspectives as well.This new and adapted version of the book carries the design and follows the same format from the previous versions but includes many important additions, including information on how traditional branding is being challenged in a connected world as well as new case studies of companies that have applied similar concepts to achieve success.

Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web


Brian Solis - 2010
    It leads you through the detailed and specific steps required for conceptualizing, implementing, managing, and measuring a social media program. The result is the ability to increase visibility, build communities of loyal brand enthusiasts, and increase profits.Covering everything you need to know about social media marketing and the rise of the new social consumer, Engage! shows you how to create effective strategies based on proven examples and earn buy-in from your marketing teams. Even better, you'll learn how to measure success and ROI.Introduces you to the psychology, behavior, and influence of the new social consumer Shows how to define and measure the success of your social media campaigns for the short and long term Features an inspiring Foreword by actor Ashton Kutcher, who has more than 5 million followers on Twitter Revised paperback edition brings the book completely up to date to stay ahead of the lightning fast world of social media Today, no business can afford to ignore the social media revolution. If you're not using social media to reach out to your customers and the people who influence them, who is?

Healing Unplugged: Conversations and Insights from Two Veteran Healing Leaders


Bill Johnson - 2012
    They witness the miraculous regularly and see thousands touched powerfully by God. Yet it wasn't always so. For the first time, these close friends and esteemed leaders share their personal journeys behind life in the healing spotlight. In candid interviews with one another, they reveal how and why they first got into healing ministry; the breakthrough experiences that propelled them; the lessons that helped them grow over the years; how they learned--through trial and error--to see what the Father is doing in each situation; and the most amazing miracles they've seen. Inspiring, informative, unique, and vulnerable, this once-in-a-lifetime book contains material not previously taught on or talked about by either leader. Including specialized, detailed insights about healing, Bill and Randy give a rare and fascinating glimpse into the startup, failures, and successes of a life devoted to healing prayer.

Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges, and Contests


Gabe Zichermann - 2010
    Gamification is revolutionizing the web and mobile apps.Innovative startups like Foursquare and Swoopo, growth companies like Gilt and Groupon and established brands like United Airlines and Nike all agree: the most powerful way to create and engage a vibrant community is with game mechanics. By leveraging points, levels, badges, challenges, rewards and leaderboards - these innovators are dramatically lowering their customer acquisition costs, increasing engagement and building sustainable, viral communities.Game-Based Marketing unlocks the design secrets of mega-successful games like Zynga's Farmville, World of Warcraft, Bejeweled and Project Runway to give you the power to create winning game-like experiences on your site/apps. Avoid obvious pitfalls and learn from the masters with key insights, such as:Why good leaderboards shouldn't feature the Top 10 players. Most games are played as an excuse to socialize, not to achieve. Status is worth 10x more than cash to most consumers. Badges are not enough: but they are important. You don't need to offer real-world prizing to run a blockbuster sweepstakes. And learn even more:How to architect a point system that works Designing the funware loop: the basics of points, badges, levels, leaderboards and challenges Maximizing the value and impact of badges Future-proofing your design Challenging users without distraction Based on the groundbreaking work of game expert and successful entrepreneur Gabe Zichermann, Game-Based Marketing brings together the game mechanics expertise of a decade's worth of research. Driven equally by big companies, startups, 40-year-old men and tween girls, the world is becoming increasingly more fun.Are you ready to play?

Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising


Judith Williamson - 1978
    The overt economic function of this appeal is to make us buy things. Its ideological function, however, is to involve us as 'individuals' in perpetuating the ideas which endorse the economic basis of our society. If it is economic conditions which make ideology necessary, it is ideology which makes those conditions seem necessary.If society is to be changed, this vicious circle of necessity and ideas must be broken. Decoding Advertisements is an attempt to undo one link in the chain which we ourselves help to forge, in our acceptance not only of the images and values of advertising, but of the 'transparent' forms and structures in which they are embodied. It provides not an answer, but a set of tools which we can use to alter our own perceptions of one of society's subtlest and most complex forms of propaganda.Other books by Judith Williamson published by Marion Boyars are Consuming Passions: the Dynamics of Popular Culture and Deadline at Dawn: Film Criticism 1980-1990.

Wine Bar Theory


David Gilbertson - 2013
    It's not about cutting corners, it's about wanting the very best and not settling for less. It's a theory that can pave your road to success.Author David Gilbertson built a failing company into a successful multi-billion dollar business without getting up at 4:00am or working until midnight. He knows how to work better, and get brilliant results. Now in just 28 simple rules, he spells out the secret of his success; everyday accessible strategies for creative professionals, managers, students, entrepreneurs, and anyone who wants to get ahead in life. As one rule follows another, he builds a compelling narrative on paving the way to success (and getting that all-important time to go to a wine bar with friends, or just time to think).Covering workplace issues and business strategy, Wine Bar Theory shows you things you can do more easily, and things you don't need to do at all. It's about being effective and not just busy. This affordable, pocket-sized book is a business book like no other. Its creative illustrations are by Bill Butcher, whose work is seen in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and the Economist.

The Right It: Why So Many Ideas Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeed


Alberto Savoia - 2019
    Some of these ideas will turn out to be stunning successes that will have a major impact on our world and our culture: The next Google, the next Polio vaccine, the next Harry Potter, the next Red Cross, the next Ford Mustang. Others will be smaller, more personal but no less meaningful, successes: A little restaurant that becomes a neighborhood favorite, a biography that does not make the best-seller list but tells an important story, a local nonprofit to care for abandoned pets. At this very same moment, another group of people is working equally hard to develop new ideas that, when launched, will fail. Some of them will fail spectacularly and publicly: like New Coke, the movie “John Carter”, or the Ford Edsel. Others will be smaller, more private, but no less painful failures: A home-based business that never takes off, a children’s book that neither publishers nor children have any interest in, a charity for a cause that too few people care enough about.If you are currently working to develop a new idea, whether on your own or as part of a team, which group are you in? Most people believe that they either are, or will be, in the first group—the group whose ideas will be successful. All they have to do is work hard and execute well. Unfortunately, we know that this cannot be the case. The law of market failure tells us that up to 90 percent of most new products, services, businesses, and initiatives will fail soon after they are launched—regardless of how promising they sound, how much we commit to them, or how well we execute them. This is a hard fact to accept. We believe that other people fail because they don’t know what they are doing. Somehow, we believe that this does not apply to us and to our idea—especially if we’ve experienced victories in the past.Filled with detailed case studies, a lesson on creating your own hard data, a strategy for market engagement, and an introduction to the concept of a pretotype (not a prototype), The Right It is a groundbreaking, entertaining, and highly practical book delivers a proven formula for turning ideas, products, services, and businesses into successful endeavors.As Alberto writes, “make sure you are building The Right It before you build It right”.

To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History


Lawrence Levy - 2016
    “This is Steve Jobs. I saw your picture in a magazine a few years ago and thought we’d work together someday.” After Steve Jobs was unceremoniously dismissed from Apple, he bought a little-known graphics company called Pixar. One day, out of the blue, Jobs called Lawrence Levy, a Harvard-trained lawyer and executive to whom he had never spoken before, to persuade Levy to help him get Pixar off the ground. What Levy found was a company on the verge of failure. To Pixar and Beyond is the story of what happened next: how, working closely with Jobs, Levy produced and implemented a highly improbable plan that transformed Pixar into one of Hollywood’s greatest success stories. Set in the worlds of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, the book takes readers inside Pixar, Disney, law firms, and investment banks. It provides an up-close, firsthand account of Pixar’s ascent, how it made creative choices, Levy’s enduring collaboration and friendship with Jobs, and how Levy came to see in Pixar deeper lessons that can apply to many aspects of our lives.

Outbound Sales, No Fluff: Written by two millennials who have actually sold something this decade.


Rex Biberston - 2017
    In the past 30 years, there has been an incredible amount of research and growth in the sales profession to help modern sales professionals better serve their customers. However, after reading Rory Vaden's New York Times Bestseller "Take The Stairs" and learning that "95% of all books that are purchased are never completely read" and "70% of all books ever purchased are never even opened" we wanted to write a book that everyone could read and take action on immediately.This book is a step-by-step guide for the modern sales professional. We want to give you the framework, knowledge, and skills to fill a sales pipeline with highly qualified opportunities. It's all practical advice - no cutesy stories, no rants, and no product pitches.There are really only two ways to fill a funnel: inbound leads or outbound prospecting. We focus this book exclusively on outbound prospecting, because it's the half of the formula that an individual sales rep can control (that's why so many sales job descriptions include the phrase "we're looking for a hunter").