Today I’m talking to Mark Pearson, publisher and president of Pear Press. I came across Mark because I was interested in a book he published by John Medina, a N Y Times bestseller, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work.
The business model of traditional publishers is to publish 100 or so books per year, knowing they’ll have a few great books, a lot of good ones, and some bad ones.
Pear Press is doing things differently, and it’s a fascinating, admirable approach. They only publish one book per year, and they pursue it with full-hearted gusto. It’s gotta be a quality “great” book that can knock it out of the park and hit some bestseller lists.
In this interview, Mark and I discuss:
- Standing out in a sea of 800,000 new books published each year
- “Cut out the crap”: the advice Steve Jobs of Apple gave to the CEO of Nike, and what publishers can learn from this lesson
- Why exercise is important for the brain and taking a break from your desk is not slacking off
Visit Pear Press at www.pearpress.com.
Listen to my interview with Mark Pearson
Posted on August 26, 2010
Tech writer and coder. That’s the header on Gina Trapani’s website, and it’s strikes me as exceedingly humble for someone who was named one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology in 2009 and 2010.
Gina is the founding editor of Lifehacker.com, the popular blog on productivity in the digital age, which was nominated for Blog of the Decade and led to the bestselling book, Upgrade Your Life.
Even though things were going great at Lifehacker, Gina left after 4 years to find her next challenge. Currently, she is a Project Director at Expert Labs.org, where she’s leading development on ThinkTank, which is an open source crowdsourcing platform that the White House will use.
I could go on and on, but you’ll have to listen to the interview to hear what else Gina is up to.
- Why Gina left Lifehacker, even though she loved her title, her staff, and her paycheck (and how she decided when was the right time to leave)
- Why it’s a good thing when a new job makes you uncomfortable and maybe even makes you cry
- How doing work for free can lead to work that pays
- Being a distracted email-overloaded fool, and how to trick yourself into being productive and get peace of mindGet all the details on Gina’s latest projects at www.ginatrapani.org.
Listen to my interview with Gina Trapani
Posted on August 11, 2010
Alan Webber is the founding editor of Fast Company.
Fast Company has had a fundamental influence on my belief in Great Work—work that’s less hierarchical, more innovative, more creative, more design focused, more full of meaning and more engaging.
Alan has just published a fantastic book called Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self, which contains his wisdom and insights from 30 years in business.
In our talk, Alan sheds light on his top rules of thumb from the book:
- Ask the last question first: what’s your definition of victory?
- How to create an a-ha moment to create a solution that actually works
- Keep 2 lists: 1) What gets you up in the morning? 2) What keeps you up at night? And learn how these questions can help you find work that’s motivating and makes an impact on the world.
You can learn more about Alan
at www.rulesofthumbbook.com.
Posted on July 28, 2010
Alex Kjerulf is one of the leading experts about happiness in work and deeply committed to raise the sense of engagement, fun and passion in workplaces in his native Denmark and around the world. His book is Happy Hour is 9 to 5: Learn How To Love Your Job, Create a Great Business and Kick Butt at Work, which is pretty much one of the more excellent book titles around.
We talk about:
- How Alex made the leap from an IT guy to a Happiness maven
- Ways you can manage the “white noise” that keeps us buzzing
- Three practical ways you can increase your own happiness at work (and the happiness of those around you)
You can learn more about Alex at his blog Chief Happiness officer and follow him on Twitter at @alexkjerulf
Posted on April 16, 2010
