By way of Andrew Dalglish (Thanks!) I received this study today. It is very interesting to marketing managers as well as international organizations. Compare how far the Europeans have moved to replicate what we see in NAmerican surveys. Fascinating.

Conducted bi-annually the ‘B2B Barometer’ survey explores the budgets and priorities of 100 of Europe’s leading client side B2B marketers.    A few highlights include:

– 39% of B2B budgets are now allocated to ‘new media’ – 15% to web development, 12% to email, 10% to online ads, 2% to social media

– More is now spent on online advertising (10% of spend) than traditional print advertising (7%)

– 70% of B2B marketers plan to increase spend on social media in the next 12 months…but 57% feel they don’t know enough about this area

– Only 51% measure the return on their marketing investment

– 62% feel that marketing still plays a secondary role to sales in B2B organisations

check out the summary  (you can buy the full report for $165) at:

(http://www.circle-research.com/b2b-marketing-research/case-studies/b2b-marketing-research-trends.php

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The World in Six Songs. How the musical brain created human nature. Daniel J. Levitin. 2009. ISBN 9780452295483.

If you enjoyed his, This Is Your Brain On Music, here is the next one to extend your learning.  It is about six types of songs and how they perhaps came about as we evolved   The six fundamental forms:

• knowledge,
• friendship,
• religion,
• joy,
• comfort, and
• love

His work  fascinates me as he weaves songs that I grew up with along with many others I do not   know of, to illustrate exactly his points.  As he makes his point I hear the song(s) playing in my head to really reinforce the idea.  And then he shows you exactly why that is happening with the scientific proof.  This could be one of the most interactive books you will read.  Learning should be this much fun all the time.  This book will really have use to you if you lead people, sell to people and/or need cross cultural awareness.  Check out www.sixsongs.net.

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Life skills books .

Young Professionals Guide to Success.  Featuring advice from CEOs, sr. execs and community leaders. Ryan Kohnen 2009.  ISBN 9781934572252.  29 yr old Kohnen calls Gen Y Gen ADD and they need a kick in the butt.  From building relationships with mentors and peers to being the leader of your team (even if you are the youngest person), this book gives young professionals an inside look at how executives rose to the top. Pepsi Americas, American Heart Association, and DuPont are among the organizations that share invaluable anecdotes and advice. Readers will also learn from the mistakes and successes of a fellow young professional: author Ryan Kohnen.

No More Mister Nice Guy. The undoings of an african american executive company man. James Alston. 2008. ISBN 9780980243109. The author had a 30 plus year ascent and fall with Handleys Food Company (fictitious name), but you can almost tell who he is talking about. This is a heartfelt story about prejudice and how it still permeates US business. It reads like a novel, I just wish it was not true.

Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It. Cali Ressler & Jodi Thompson. 2009. ISBN 9781591842033. These two worked for Best Buy where they created the Results-Only Work Environment. youcontrol when, where, and how long you work. As long as you meet your objectives, the way you spend your time is entirely up to you. Suddenly, work isnt a place you go, its a thing you do. In a ROWE, there are no mandatory meetings or fixed schedules. You stop doing any activity that wastes time, and no one criticizes you for leaving early or coming in late.  No wonder Timothy Ferris liked!  check out www.caliandjody.com   This may be extremely useful for dealing with gen y and millennial generations.  I hooted at the stories and of course the FAQs.

Escape from Cubicle Nation. From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur.  Pamela Slim. 2009. ISBN 9781591842576.  Pamela Slim spent a decade traveling all over the country as a self-employed trainer for large corporations. She was surprised to find that many of the most successful employees at these companies harbored secret dreams of breaking out to start their own business. They would pull her aside after a meeting and whisper, I would love to work for myself, but have no idea how to get started. How did you do it?

So Pamela started a blog Escape from Cubicle Nation (www.escapefromcubiclenation.com) to share her experience and advice. Soon, questions and stories poured in from corporate prisoners around the world. As her blog gained popularity, she also interviewed some of the brightest experts in entrepreneurship on topics from finance to branding to marketing via social networks. This book is the result of all those blogs…And its funny, smart and full of really useful stuff.  Guy Kawasaki s forward is great – the book will help you to either shut up, suck it up or get out. .

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We are going cruising …again…Asia this time, with Princess. My wife has “worked” as a cruise consultant now since April and has already earned a cruise – this one! All I pay for is airfare, tips and side trips. Plus she qualifies for Elite (Platinum etc) status – free stuff and perks abound.

We leave Oct 1 for Beijing, ending in Bangkok Oct 21. This time we have some time at the front and back.

1. Arrive Oct 2 – Beijing. Xuanwu District.
2. Oct 5 – Leave Beijing
3. Oct 8 – Shanghai
4. Oct 10 – Okinawa
5. Oct 11 – Taipei
6. Oct 13 – Hong Kong (2 days)
7. Oct 16 – Hanoi
8. Oct 17 – Saigon
9. Oct 19 – Singapore
10. Oct 21 – Bangkok- head to Ban Krut
11. Oct 26 – leave Bangkok

Believe it or not Air Canada is the most comfortable filght we could book wrto time spent in the air and non stops. Be prepared!

I have already started to stockpile reading for the trip!

Customer Service books

The Starbucks Experience.  Joseph A. Michelli.  5 Principles for turning ordinary into extraordinary.  “This book gives you a series of practical, proven ideas and strategies that you can apply immediately to build a more successful business. Key the five steps are:

Reach out to entire communities
Listen to individual workers and consumers
Seize growth opportunities in every market
Custom-design a truly satisfying experience that benefits everyone involved

The five steps are:

1. Make it your own
2. Everything matters
3. Surprise and Delight
4. Embrace Resistance
5. Leave your mark

Take Their Breath Away.How Imaginative Service  Creates Devoted Customers. Chip R. Bell & John R. Patterson. 2009. ISBN 9780470443507.  A prolific pair of writiers in thi space.    I agree with their core belief that the key to a successful enterprise is value-added service, and the secret to great customer service is surprising customers with a value-unique experience. Take Their Breath Away provides ideas and insights for all who want to create a stunning, mind-blowing customer experience. Lots of case studies and stories from their experiences. A good read.

The New Gold Standard.  The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.  Joseph A. Michelli 2008. ISBN 978

0071548335.  The author emerged with the key principles leaders that any company can use to provide a customer experience unlike any other, such as:

• Understanding the ever-evolving needs of customers
• Empowering employees by treating them with the utmost respect
• Anticipating customers’ unexpressed needs and concerns
• Developing and conducting an unsurpassed training regimen

His five key principles are:

• Define and refine
• Empower through trust
• Its not about you
• Deliver Wow!
• Leave a lasting footprint.

Another thorough book – lots to learn here.

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HR book reviews.  There comes a time when too many books are waiting to write individual reviews – and this is a time .  Four notable HR books  follow:

The Essential HR Handbook. Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell. 2008. ISBN 13978

1564149909 This sheds light on the issues that  keep managers up at night. Pithy and pragmatic information that is very up to date.  If you have a wide range of employee ages in your company – very useful book.

Painless Performance Evaluations. Marnie E. Green  2006. ISBN 0131706756. A a collection of tools and methods, as well as a guide for those who are looking for new, more effective ways to manage performance.  Pragmatic, step by step guide. Lots of case studies.

A Managers Guide to Coaching. Brian Emerson & Anne Loehr. 2008. ISBN 139780814409824. Another fine book from AMACOM.  Coaching allows mangers to use employees’ emotions — which have great power and energy — to increase their
focus. This book  provides specific, powerful questions to ask when coaching and motivating employees to peak performance, and supplies sample conversations, responses, and different ways you can followup on them.

How Did That Happen. Roger Conners & Tom Smith.  Aug 2009. ISBN 9781591842583. These chaps wrote the book on accountability in every place.  As Kevin says, and I agree ,” It raises the dialogue about accountability”   This is a positive book, full of activities and get it down approaches and extremely timely.

Rock to the Top. What I learned about success from the world’s greatest rock stars. Dayna Steele. 2008. ISBN 9781934812068. From a completely different place comes this author She finds that artists who are successful concentrate on :

1. Passion
2. Confidence
3. Quality
4. Organization
5. Technology
6. Branding
7. Networking
8. Knowledge
9. Health

10. Appreciation

Sprinkle in lots of interview snippets with famous rock stars and you have a fast paced and compelling book. I read it in one sitting. What a lot of fun! A 2 hr plane ride book.

why new systems fail. theory and practise collide. phil simon. 2009. 9781438944241. From the back cover. More than three in five new systems fail. Many miss their deadlines. Others exceed their initial budgets, often by ghastly amounts. Even systems activated on time and under budget often fail to produce their expected results and almost immediately experience major problems. While the statistics are grim, there is at least some good news: This doesn’t have to be the case. Organizations often lack the necessary framework to minimize the chance of system failure at three key points: before, during, and after system implementations. The author has 20 years experience as a software consultant and believes presents such a framework with specific tools, tips, and questions from the perspective of a seasoned, independent consultant with more than a decade of related experience. The book examines in great detail the root causes of system failures. Case studies, examples, and lessons from actual system implementations are presented in a straightforward, and vry reada

ble manner.The book offers pragmatic advice for organizations both deploying new systems and maintaining existing ones.

Toyota Kata. Managing people for improvement, adaptiveness and superior results. Mike Rother. 2009. ISBN 9780071635233. From the back cover, this book provides new insight into the legendary automaker’s

management practices and offering practical guidance for leading and developing people in a way that makes the best use of their brainpower.Drawing on six years of research into Toyota’s employee-management routines,Toyota Kata examines and elucidates, for the first time, the company’s organizational routines–called kata–that power its success with continuous improvement and adaptation. The book also reaches beyond Toyota to explain human behavior in organizations and provide specific answers to questions such as:

• How can we make improvement and adaptation part of everyday work throughout the organization?
• How can we develop and utilize the capability of everyone in the organization to repeatedly work toward and achieve new levels of performance?
• How can we give an organization the power to handle dynamic, unpredictable situations and keep satisfying customers?

Mike Rother explains how to improve our prevailing management approach through the use of two kata:

• Improvement Kata–a repeating routine of establishing challenging target conditions, working step-by-step through obstacles, and always learning from the problems we encounter; and
• Coaching Kata: a pattern of teaching the improvement kata to employees at every level to ensure it motivates their ways of thinking and acting.

With clear detail, practical examples, and cohesive explanation from start to finish,Toyota Kata gives executives and managers at any level actionable routines of thought and behavior that produce superior results and sustained competitive advantage. I liked his approaches around improvement of process and coaching. as it seems very transferable.

The Road to Wisdom. Becoming . Dennis A. Butler. 2008. ISBN 9781607025207. By becoming aware, the author helps you unlocks the puzzle of yours and others behavior-who am I, and why do I behave the way I do-and provides definitive answers that will change how you understand yourself and others. You will see how “Perceptual World Views”-the shoulds, oughts, and musts you have for yourself and others-dominate your behavior. Through the authors change model, you will learn how to turn weaknesses into strengths and be the person you were meant to be in all facets of your life! (Book jacket.) Straight forward prose, with lots of tables and a lack of jargon. It is a real sit down at one time read. It helped me understand my sons’ behaviors more.

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Persuasion books. Yes!  & The Art of the Apology.

Yes!. 50 scientifically proven ways to be persuasive. Noah J Goldstein, Steve J Martin and Robert B.,Cialdini.  2008. ISBN 9781416570967.  Often counterintuitive, the findings presented here will steer you away from common pitfalls while empowering you with little known but proven wisdom. Whether you are in advertising, marketing, management, on sales, or just curious about how to be more influential in everyday life, this book  shows how making small, scientifically proven changes to your approach can have a dramatic effect on your persuasive powers.   You will recognize when people use these tactics on you. Good common sense guide.

The Art of the Apology. How to apologize effectively to practically anyone. Lauren M Bloom. 2008. ISBN 9780980084870.  Hey I am married, I need this book a lot! The author is a Washington attorney and has a clear easy to follow writing style. I found I could not put this book down.  Quick, enjoyable and oh so useful.

Negotiation books.

Negotiation Rules!. A practical Approach to Big Deal Negotiations. Jeanette Nyden. 2009. ISBN 9780981800479.  A Sales Gravy Book with a forward from Jill Konrath.  Short , right to the point and very useful to sales folks and buyers of all types. I recommend this as a personal library choice. She has really been there.

How to Negotiate Anything with Anyone Anywhere in the World.  Frank Acuff. 2008. ISBN 139780814480663. Another fine AMACOm publication.  This new, updated edition of this long-trusted guide provides readers with the savvy they need to negotiate with finesse and ease, no matter where they are.he book provides expert advice on business practices, transactions, and attitudes throughout the world (63 countries). I wish I had this years ago.  I used this book in preparation to my upcoming visit to Asia.  very helpful.

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1001 Ways to Market Your Books.  For Authors and Publishers. John Kremer. 2008. ISBN 139780912411491.  More than book this is the bible on book marketing. John has been writing the definitive newsletter and now blog on the subject since 1980s. Thanks for the review copy John!