New Books in Business, Management, and Marketing

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear:--how Maura Nevel Thomas became an expert in time-management skills--why you need to use your to-do list differently than you think--how to determine your priorities--why life-hacks don’t help--and why being productive and being busy aren’t the same thing.Today’s book is: From To-Do to Done: How to Go From Busy to Productive by Mastering Your To-Do List, by Maura Nevel Thomas. Trying to remember a bunch of details and tasks isn't the best use of your brainpower. By collecting all of your tasks in one place, you can reserve your mental energy for work that drives significant results, both in your professional life and your personal life. Rather than just another book on time management, Thomas helps you figure out and then focus on the things that matter to you, to feel more in control, less overwhelmed, and a greater sense of accomplishment now that you're focusing on what's important to you.Our guest is: Maura Nevel Thomas, an award-winning international speaker and trainer on individual and corporate productivity and work-life balance, and the most widely-cited authority on attention management. Her proprietary Empowered Productivity™ System has been embraced by the likes of the U.S. Army, L’Oreal, and Dell. She is a TEDx Speaker, founder of Regain Your Time, author of five books, and was named a Top Leadership Speaker in Inc. Magazine. Maura is frequently featured in major business outlets including Business Insider, Fast Company, and Huffington Post, and she’s also a regular contributor to both Forbes and the Harvard Business Review, with articles there viewed over a million times. Follow her on Twitter @mnthomas.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, co-producer of the Academic Life. She is a historian of women and gender.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:--the links for the Brain-Dump PDF referenced in this podcast and directions for how to use it, which can be found on pages 18 and 19 in From To-Do to Done--Atomic Habits, by James Clear--Smart Change, by Art Markman--Attention Management: How to Create Success and Gain Productivity Every Day, by Maura Nevel Thomas-- The Happy Inbox, by Maura Nevel Thomas--The companion guide for From To-Do to Done: Download the guide now!You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DM us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John and Elizabeth continue their conversation with Daniel Souleles, anthropologist at the Copenhagen Business School and author of Songs of Profit, Songs of Loss: Private Equity, Wealth, and Inequality (Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press 2019).Dan’s work fits into a newish approach in anthropology of researching people with greater power and influence than the researchers themselves. That's sometimes called "studying up" and Dan and Elizabeth (who's writing a book about gold, after all!) have both thought a lot about it.Read the transcript here.Read Aneil Tripathy's RTB piece about actuarial time scales and how they shape the sort of anthropology that both he and Souleles practice.Elizabeth Ferry is Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. Email: ferry@brandeis.edu. John Plotz is Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative. Email: plotz@brandeis.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should we love work? In The Trouble with Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality (U California Press, 2021), Erin Cech, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, demonstrates how having passion for work fosters and reinforces a wide range of social inequalities. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and data analysis, the book combines qualitative and quantitative data to elaborate and theorise ‘the passion principle’ that underpins how the more advantaged justify the inequalities associated with education and the labour market. Alongside revealing who benefits, and who suffers, from the ideology that people must be passionate about work, the book gives strategies and ideas on how to challenge and change the passion principle. The book will be essential reading across academia and for anyone interested in contemporary working life.Dave O'Brien is Chancellor's Fellow, Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Edinburgh's College of Art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Using “community” as a tool to strengthen and enhance the value a company or organisation delivers to its stakeholders is a concept and idea that entrepreneurs need to understand.Richard Millington is both an entrepreneur and a world expert in online community management. FeverBee uses proven social science to develop successful online and offline communities for B2B organisations around the world. Over the past 13 years, Richard has helped to develop over 250+ successful communities, including those for Facebook, Google, The World Bank, Oracle, Amazon, Autodesk, Lego, The United Nations, Novartis, and many more. Richard is the author of the world’s most popular online communities blog and Buzzing Communities. Buzzing Communities has been widely cited as introducing best practice into developing successful online communities. Richard has delivered keynote talks in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Switzerland, Romania, Lithuania, and several others. Richard focuses obsessively behind cracking the ‘social code’ driving successful social groups. FeverBee’s approaches combines cutting edge social psychology with advanced data insights and a library of repeatable case studies. FeverBee shows organizations how to foster hosted online communities (not the social media kind) which can be used to identify and generate leads, increase repeat purchases, improve search rankings, drive a research agenda and resolve customer questions quicker than any customer service line. Since this podcast was originally recorded, Richard wrote a follow up book Build Your Community: Turn Your Connections Into a Powerful Online CommunityOur NBN interview with David Spinks who wrote “The Business of Community” is clearly relevant to those interested in the topic.Mentions and links: Derek Sivers review of So Good They Can’t Ignore You – by Cal Newport feverbee feverbee ROI Buzzing-Communities-Bigger-Better-Active feverbee compare platforms Wojtek the Solider Bear group on Facebook 2010 TEDxKrakow talk about the group TED and TEDx Fans in Poland Group backpacking light Community Building at events This podcast was originally recorded in 2017 for Project Kazimierz.The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal story of our carefully selected guests aiming for the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee.About Richard Lucas Twitter LinkedinRichard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to Jamie Mustard about his new book The Iconist: The Art and Science of Standing Out (BenBella Books, 2019).Ever feel like you’re “screaming” to be heard but in a world saturated by social media messages, et cetera, your “messages” are falling on deaf ears? If so, Jamie Mustard has a solution to propose. In short, you need to follow the Primal Laws of Attention. In essence, that means be bigger, brighter, and bolder than ever before in history to break through the clutter. In greater detail, those laws entail steps like the following: use repetition, deliver an emotional jolt by addressing the audience’s primary emotional concern, and practice transparency that establishes your authenticity. Most of all, engage in radical simplicity. If what you are saying can’t be readily understand, forget it. Then to back up that radical simplicity, the “shaft” behind that arrowhead of simplicity is sufficient information to make the messaging worthwhile. All of that—and more—delivered by Mustard in an impassioned episode.Jamie Mustard is a London School of Economic graduate; he’s also an artist, filmmaker, consultant, and a leading authority on branding, art, design, and media perception.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Politics. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By March 2020, the spread of COVID-19 had reached pandemic proportions, forcing widespread shutdowns across industries, including Hollywood. Studios, networks, production companies, and the thousands of workers who make film and television possible were forced to adjust their time-honored business and labor practices. In Hollywood Shutdown: Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID (U Texas Press, 2021), Kate Fortmueller asks what happened when the coronavirus closed Hollywood. Hollywood Shutdown examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected film and television production, influenced trends in distribution, reshaped theatrical exhibition, and altered labor practices. From January movie theater closures in China to the bumpy September release of Mulan on the Disney+ streaming platform, Fortmueller probes various choices made by studios, networks, unions and guilds, distributors, and exhibitors during the evolving crisis. In seeking to explain what happened in the first nine months of 2020, this book also considers how the pandemic will transform Hollywood practices in the twenty-first century.Joel Tscherne is an Adjunct History Professor at Southern New Hampshire University. His Twitter handle is @JoelTscherne. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest is former US Army general, Stanley McChrystal. A retired four-star general with 34 years of service, Stanley was the commander of all US and coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010. Previously, he served as commander of JSOC or the Joint Special Operations Command, overseeing the US military’s most elite units including Delta Force and SEAL Team 6. According to journalist Sean Naylor, in his Book, Relentless Strike, McChrystal was, “the general whose vision and intensity transformed JSOC into a global man-hunting machine.” His tenure included the capture of Saddam Hussein and the killing infamous terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.Today Stanley is founder and CEO of the McChrystal Group, a strategic consulting firm. He is also a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. His new book is, Risk. A User’s Guide, published by Portolio in October of 2021.Colin Miller and Dr. Keith Mankin host the popular medical podcast, PeerSpectrum. Colin works in the medical device space and Keith is a retired pediatric orthopedic surgeon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since 2011, Kevin Rabinovich has been working in youth civic engagement, community organizing, and design thinking. He is the founding organizer of TEDxYouth@Columbia, South Carolina’s TEDxYouth event. In this episode you hear Richard interviewing Kevin, and learn how his decision to found a TEDx Youth turned a young teenager into a formidable leader. It’s a deep dive into the world of TEDx organisers, and gives an insight into how volunteering can create opportunities.Relevant links Personal Website  Dangerously Persistent TEDxYouth@Columbia TED’s TEDxYouth description TEDFest How TEDxKazimierz chooses its speakers TEDFest Pre-event This podcast was recorded in 2017 for Project Kazimierz. The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal story of our carefully selected guests aiming for the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee.About Richard Lucas Twitter LinkedinRichard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this installment of our Recall this Buck series (check out our earlier conversations with Thomas Piketty, Peter Brown and Christine Desan), John and Elizabeth talk with Daniel Souleles, anthropologist at the Copenhagen Business School and author of Songs of Profit, Songs of Loss: Private Equity, Wealth, and Inequality (Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press 2019). Dan's work explores the world of private equity "guys" (who are indeed mostly guys) and the ways they are "suspended in webs of significance [they themselves have] spun" as Clifford Geertz puts it.Further, he explores the ways we are all suspended in these webs through the immense buying and managing power of private equity firms. Private equity investors buy out publicly traded companies, often through enormous debt (which is why these deals used to be called "leveraged buyouts" or LBOs), manage the companies and then sell them. They argue they are creating value by cutting fat in management; typically workers bear the brunt of the debt while executives--and the private equity firm and lawyers and others servicing the deal--receive hefty payments.Dan pulls off a tough feat in his book, helping us see the concerns and motivations of people he's working with as understandable and the people themselves as reasonable and even likeable, while also maintaining his own view of private equity as, generally speaking, a noxious force in society.We end with a discussion of the Occupy movement and how it helped to change public conversations about inequality and the power of finance (another angle on the themes we tackled in our earlier "Brahmin Left" conversations).Mentioned in this episode: Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians at the Gates: The Fall of NJR Nabisco Karen Ho Liquidated; ethnography of Wall Street, and of "smartness" Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, (John misremembered the title as Confessions of a Stockjobber) Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho (1991) The transcript for this episode is here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to David Avrin about his new book Why Customers Leave (And How to Win Them Back) (Career Press, 2019).There are three central themes to this book: immediacy (customers want instant gratification), individuality (offer flexible, customized assistance) and humanity (show interest and concern for those you are assisting). Of them, as David Avrin notes in this pleasing, semi-rant of an interview, immediacy should be the easiest for companies to act on. Unfortunately, automation is paradoxically making immediacy often harder to achieve. Other ironies worth noting from Avrin’s perspective include: companies trying to head off negative off-line reviews with surveys that don’t bring about change; and front-line employees who can figure out quicker than their managers what could and should be improved on. If upgrades don’t happen, what’s the solution? Run an exercise where employees are encouraged to formulate plans on how a competitor could undercut the company they currently work for by making the changes they detect would be beneficial. That move—or threat--would get management’s attention if nothing else will!David Avrin is a highly popular speaker and consultant on the topics of the customer experience as well as on marketing. He’s a former CEO group leader and speaker for Vistage International. This is his third book, following It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You and Visibility Marketing.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Politics. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices