What the heck is meatball sundae? As it sounds, it is a dish with balls of meat and whipped cream and a cherry on top. Not necessarily something you would want, would you? Replace the meatballs with ice cream and you have something you’d like – something that works well together and is a tasty treat.

This harmony, and the converse lack of harmony, is the crux of the book Meatball Sundae by marketing consultant and author Seth Godin. He uses this graphic example to state how you take your business products and services (the meatballs) and market it with today’s marketing tools, namely online (the whipped cream and cherry). Godin’s premise is you just can’t slap today’s progressive marketing techniques (blogs, viral videos) on staid products and services just as they are and how you have marketed them in the past, or New vs. Old Marketing as he refers to it. New Marketing is making a personal connection between the consumer and the emotion of the product or service, where Old Marketing is broadcasted, interruptive promotion as it has always been done in the past.

My greatest takeaway from this book is not necessarily a positive one – it is more unlikely to happen in an older organization than a newer one. In a newer company or firm, New Marketing is all they know, or could even have been the prevailing catalyst for the start of the business. Therefore, the firm is more in sync with what needs to be done to practice New Marketing.

In older companies, where marketing has happened “that way” for a long time and has worked, this understanding may not be in place, and unless it is guided throughout the organization, it will never happen. In most older, traditional companies, people are concerned more for their own jobs in a fluctuating economy than anything else, and are less likely to champion the cause of New Marketing. Despite this, many companies have taken a fresh look at what they do and sell and have made personal connections with their audience. It takes a different allocation of money and resources than before, but with such a perspective, they can see their results, measurable more than a billboard on a highway.

Meatball Sundae is a quick, lively read and full of many examples of companies and what they did well – and didn’t do well – in practicing New Marketing. I recommend it to newer or old companies, to help them in their thinking. Depending on the company, making such a leap may not be as wide as crossing an ocean.

When I read Meatball Sundae, it made me think of a book Godin wrote back in 2002, Purple Cow. I think I’ll re-read that one next.

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It would come as no surprise to my loyal readers that my favorite football team is the New England Patriots. My first book read this year was Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi’s autobiography. As the Pats moved through the playoffs, I thought it would be appropriate to read the book This Pats Year by Sean Glennon.

This Pats Year chronicles the 2002 season as experienced by a variety of Patriots fans each week, as well as the author, who happens to be a fan of the Oakland Raiders, a team that has a storied history with the Pats. This book evolved from a column Glennon wrote for the Boston Phoenix. And yes, I did find a real, business-related takeaway from this book!

My one takeaway is that it may be your product or service, but your customers will experience it in a variety of ways. In This Pats Year, the product is the NFL football games played by the Patriots and their opponents, and the customers are the dozens of fans highlighted in the book. Some are extremely loyal, some are not. Some love everything the team and organization do, some do not. One fan even lost his season ticket account for selling game tickets on eBay, but remains a fan of the team.

A similar product that came to mind after reading the book is music, especially in the light of the record industry’s attempts to hold onto their old business models as the digital age keeps moving forward. When a musician or group creates a song or songs, it can be interpreted in many ways by their fans, in ways they may not have anticipated (listening to individual songs rather than whole albums) or may even want (Charles Manson and the Beatles!). However there is little they can do about it, and in the end they hope to make money while still maintaining their integrity.

This type of scenario doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. Where it can be considered a lack of control by some, to others it can be a huge opportunity. Artists and record labels are slowly moving their catalogs online. A related opportunity to the Patriots is the development of Patriot Place, a retail and entertainment complex currently under construction around Gillette Stadium, where the team plays. Talk about a capitalization on your product!

Where This Pats Year may not be of interest to rabid fans of other football teams, it is a well-written observation of people in their consumption of something they believe in. I recommend people directly involved in the development and marketing of products and services to read the book, as it may help in the analysis of your own target markets. And if you are a Pats fan, I of course recommend it, and you may even know some of the people highlighted.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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What makes a great leader? The answer is surely not quick or short. Commonly it is discussed if someone is a born or made leader. But what if it is neither and you or someone discovers you are a leader, and what kind of leader are you? This is the premise of Your Inner CEO by Allan Cox.

Your Inner CEO takes the reader through this discovery – literally. Stories of Cox’s own personal experiences with leaders he has met, know and consulted to are married with exercises throughout the book that take you through this journey. They are broken into 9 steps, each one building on the previous to paint a picture of the kind of leader you could be, the kind others desire to be and be around.

My greatest takeaway from this book is leadership is not just about you. Where the model has been and continues to be where workers follow what the leaders does solely to make the leader succeed, in reality we all gain from all of us gaining. The leader brings out the best in all of the team so that all of the team, including the leader, succeed. If it fails, the team fails, learns from its experiences and moves on. This is something I have always followed myself – and anyone reading who has ever worked with me, feel free to comment on that statement! As a sole proprietor transitioning my business to a true company, I need to shed the role of control-freak entrepreneur and be a true leader and mentor.

Speaking of mentoring, another takeaway is mentorship is not dead. In a world where it seems being a contractor is the way to go and all we should hire, mentoring people pays for both the mentee and the mentor, and this book gives several examples of how to do it well. Many leaders and managers and people in general do not follow this - they hired a specific set of skills where the reality is they hired a person.

A final takeaway is leadership may be in all of us. We need to want to and try to seek it. As I have written before that entrepreneurship may be in us already the same goes for leadership.

I recommend Your Inner CEO to leaders, people who are about to be leaders as well as people who work on teams. Read the book through once then go back and complete the exercises, which is what I am doing now. There are accompanying online resources to it, including a Web site, wiki and Facebook group, the latter is how I connected with the author and learned of the book.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Starting out another year of reading I chose a book I have owned not too long, given to me by my friend Eric when it came out a few months ago. Never Give Up is the autobiography of New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi. Written with Boston Globe sportswriter Michael Holley, it tells the story of his life, focusing mostly on the stroke he suffered in 2005, weeks after the team won its third Super Bowl.

Bruschi’s story made national news, both the stroke itself and his return later that year to the team. This story tells his side, "the inside" I would all the “real” side of what he encountered within the year of his stroke. The background of his life story lays the foundation for his path through this episode of his life.

My greatest takeaway from Never Give Up is you will never truly know what is going on in “the inside.” I call “the inside” the private interactions of one or more people, including business partners or a couple married or in a committed relationship. Whatever you or I may see or experience from someone, it is on “the outside.” This is not saying what see of people on “the outside” is not genuine. It may well be, but it may not be as well. What happens on “the inside” is just for those there. We can all probably think of a case where we didn’t consider there was an “inside” or everything was or was not ok. Friends going through a divorce and my own move from Boston to Chicago come to mind as negative and positive “inside” events respectively. In the case of Bruschi dealing with his stroke and recovery, this book gives high-level insight with details of people and experiences.

Another takeaway is we must keep in mind we may never know the true “inside” when we react on the “outside.” Have you ever wondered why we didn’t get some business or haven’t heard from someone? I know myself I tend to think the worst – it may not be that I am not good enough, rather it could be the project was cancelled or the client wasn’t in a hurry to tell anyone.

In the book, Bruschi talks of how various people reacted to his stroke. Some wrote letters, some sent food. And some changed their tune, especially when Bruschi came back to football, though most of this came from the naysayers who didn’t have “the inside” information.

My last takeaway – don’t listen to sports talk! Talk about an entire industry centered on not knowing the whole story! Though I do reserve the right to rescind this takeaway if sports talk personalities and their listeners follow my first two takeaways.

Never Give Up is not just a book on sports, but is a story of a stroke survivor who happens to play football. I recommend you read this book, especially for those who themselves or a friend or loved one goes through trying times with an illness or medical condition, or may do so, which means this book is really for anyone.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Whenever something happens to an elected official – usually something bad – reporters often ask them how they feel their reputation will be after whatever happened. And more often than not, the politician will say history will judge them properly on their action. This is the basis behind the book Power Plays by political analyst Dick Morris.

Power Plays takes on several politicians from the last century and a half and categorizes defining moments in their terms, then compares and contrasts their actions to others – some who faced adversity and did well, and those who did not, and in either case why. It does so in a way that is not of a single opinion, quoting many books, authors and people who knew the subjects, which are all compiled in a lengthy format at the back of the book.

A takeaway from the book is that history repeats itself. Where the times or technology may be different, people tend to make the same mistakes of others, even those who held a similar position. Another is a reaffirmation of the popular phrase “keep your friends close and enemies closer” as in politics, and not much differently than in business, you must build bridges and get buy-in from those against you in order to achieve your own personal or group’s goals and tasks.

My biggest takeaway from the book was to simply be honest. This is something I have always strived for, and is usually the toughest thing to do. Whether it is the task at hand or a business situation or something personal impacting your role in business, the honest approach is usually the best path to take, and many times less complicated than a web of lies. And isn’t it more about how we overcome what has happened than what happened itself?

On the note of honesty, the book interestingly concludes with a comparison to former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s honesty with their respective countrymen about the realities of World War II in comparison to how former President Lyndon Baines Johnson handled communication during the Vietnam War. In his introduction to this section, he makes somewhat of a prediction about the war on terror in Afghanistan – the book was written in 2002 – and states that current President George Bush should follow the FDR/Churchill path of communication rather than the Johnson path in whatever happens in our fighting in the Middle East. It is interesting to read this part in 2007, and I will leave any political opinion to you when you read the book.

Power Plays is an enjoyable text on leadership and history and I highly recommend it. I was pleased I liked the book in the end. I bought the book at a reading Morris did shortly after it came out, along with another book he wrote, Vote.com, which I thought was horrible. Morris is listed as being “behind” the site along with his wife, and the book simply lacked any real substance in my opinion. Maybe that’s why Power Plays sat on my bookshelf for a long time? It was, however, worth the wait.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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