Archive for the 'MBA On The Run' Category

I love my iPod. I’ve had numerous models over the last few years and each one of them has filled a unique niche. My video iPod has seen the most duty as my main conduit for audio books. The large capacity and small size of this unit make it ideal for taking audio along in the car.

I have found that listening to audio books while I’m driving is a great way to learn new things in an otherwise unproductive time. I’m a Kinesthetic learner (hands-on) by nature so the actual motion of driving (steering etc) makes it easier to learn things from these books than just sitting in a chair or lying in a bed listening.

My smaller iPods (mini & nano) have been very useful while exercising and on outside walking trips. Nothing makes a walk more enjoyable than invigorating music or a stimulating audio book. The small size of these units make them ideal for the high motion of physical activity. The Nano is especially useful as it is based on Flash memory which is not prone to skipping when the unit is jostled around.

Over the last year I’ve listened to over 60 audio books while driving or exercising. This has been an amazing experience as I have fulfilled my goal of participating in a successful Personal MBA program. Audio books are more limited in their selection, but there are hundreds to choose from in the business and personal development areas.

One of the new developments that represents a huge opportunity for parents is the new lower cost iPod shuffle. You can now get a 1 gig unit for $49 which will hold multiple audio books and uses flash memory that is perfect for the high activity lifestyle of kids.

Now you can get each child their own iPod and download age appropriate audio books. They can listen while walking to school or on the bus. The really cool thing is that many of the books that school age children are required to read for class are available in audio format.

Now your kids can literally do their book reading homework while in the car or out riding their bikes. This small iPod shuffle is the most bullet-proof of the iPod units and the light weight means they can take it almost anywhere.

Whether it is Huck Finn for the younger kids or Steinbeck for the older crowd, the audio version makes a great addition to the written book. I know when I was a kid that my reading sometimes meant skimming the book on the way to class. With audio books they will have heard the entire story through and will easily be able to go back and give a detailed book review.

The nice thing about the Apple iPod versus other units is the bookmark function. If you pause the audio at any point the iPod automatically puts in a “bookmark” which makes it easy to come back to exactly the right spot. Many other MP3 units do not offer this feature which makes studying the audio book much more difficult.

In short, the new less expensive iPod shuffle can help your kids learn while they play and get better grades too. If they should happen to drop the unit, it will most likely survive unscathed because of the lightweight design. And in the unlikely event they lose it, you’ll only be out $50, instead of hundreds for the other units.

Audio books are widely available through Amazon.com or from direct download from Audible.com or iTunes.

I’m an avid fan of Business oriented audio books. I listen to them almost every day while driving or exercising. Quite a few are resident on my new iTouch.

Audio books provide Learning and Entertainment at the stroke of the play button. If you don’t have an iPod or other MP3 player, you can buy them in CD format and play them in your cars CD player.

In the past year I’ve listened to over 50 business titles, which works out to thousands of written pages in paper bound books. I’ve raved about audio books for the past two years and even developed another blog around them. I thought I knew all there was to know about them… until…

Until my wife and I took a driving trip from Southern California to Seattle, Washington. Our car has an XM radio which provided satellite radio coverage throughout the trip. I brought along my iPod with a cadre of audio book business titles and we had one additional item that a friend sent along.

This item was housed in a colorful little box and I didn’t realize the magical power it contained until half way through the trip. On our way back from Seattle, we open the package, undid the shrink wrap and popped the contents into our CD player.

The item was a Fiction Based Audio Book from Carl Hiaasin.

This magical little book did something that my wife and I had never experienced before…

It cut our perceived travel time in half.

This book was so interesting and the characters so outlandish, that it took us from the 5 freeway in Washington state and transported us to a small town in Florida. The freeway disappeared and the everglades appeared in our minds. Hours passed and the book drew us further in with mystery and intrigue.

Dear readers… I have never experienced anything like this before. It was like we were traveling hundreds of miles an hour. The time flew by and suddenly I was aware that we weren’t in Washington anymore. As I saw the sign that said welcome to Oregon, I realized that this book had transformed our trip.

Instead of dreading the 18 hour journey, we now found ourselves transformed by the voice of the narrator, and we had a hard time stopping since we both wanted to know what was coming next.

The audio book was about 6 hours in length and we listened to it in two or three sessions over the first day. It cut hours of perceived time from our travels and made an otherwise boring trip into an exciting adventure.

If you travel often by car, bus, or plane be sure to pick up an iPod and download some fiction based audio books. One book that I can highly recommend to all audiences, especially if you have kids along is Carl Hiaasin’s book Hoot. A story about a middle school boy and his adventures in Trace Middle School in humid Coconut Grove, Florida.

Beware… Once the barefooted running boy runs past you in the story… you won’t be able to stop listening!

I have quite a few friends and co-workers who read this blog from time to time. I get a comment about a post every once in a while, but my post entitled “Learn it-Know it-Do it,” really hit a nerve with one of my mentors last week. Jeanne Nelson is a good friend, Toastmaster, and a voracious defender of librarians and the written word. She was rather upset with this post and took me to task on it.

The basic idea of the article is that we may read and listen to a lot of motivational and educational material, but we very rarely take action on the ideas presented. The post was based on a new book by author Ken Blanchard, entitled Know Can Do. Ken makes the point in his famous “fable” format that most people that attend his seminars or read his books never take any action to better themselves. The material literally goes in one ear and comes out the other… soon forgotten and never acted upon.

My discussion with Jeanne centered around the large quantity of audio books that have made up my MBA on the Run program for the past two years. In the post I made the point that while those books were read or listened too, many of the concepts covered were never acted upon.

Jeanne fired back that each of those books has changed my life in some way. They may be small imperceptible things, but each volume has added to the tapestry of my life. She made the point that reading a book will never leave you the same. She went on to tell me the changes she has seen in my life over the last few years. The words I use, the way I dress, and the presentations that I give have all been affected by what I have read.

She was right.

Some of the books I explored did not call for change on my part, while others painted a picture of other people’s success. Some called for direct action but did not fit my particular situation. Yet almost every book left me different.

I got to thinking about some of the more subtle changes that books have made. Things that might not be apparent in my actions but have made a profound change just the same. Three books quickly came to mind that really made a profound change in my “world view.”

1. The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, really opened my eyes to the world of marketing and spreading the word about a product or service. With colorful stories of Hush Puppy Shoes to Paul Revere’s famous ride, Mr. Gladwell takes us on a journey of “connectors’” and “mavens.” His writing style is contagious and I found that I couldn’t put this book down. When I see a popular product on TV or the net, I can’t help but think of the connectors that made it possible to get from the original idea to a finished product.

2. Primal Branding by Patrick Hanlon. Why is Starbucks more popular than its competitors? Why has McDonalds been so successful worldwide? Why is Coke more popular than Pepsi? Questions like these seem hard to explain. But Mr. Hanlon has come up with seven reasons that one brand is more popular than another. With ideas like a creation story, a creed, and icons, Patrick explained the subtle differences between a top rated company and a also ran. If you read this book you will never look at a company’s brand the same ever again.

3. The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. If You Had To Meet Someone In Paris On A Specific Day But Had No Way Of Contacting Them, When And Where Would You Meet? In this fascinating book, Mr. Surowiecki looks at many amazing aspects of crowds. From voting to traffic control, James takes us on a interesting adventure right into the heart of the largest crowds in the world. As to where and when people would meet in a city the size of Paris, over 40% of the crowd would go to the same place at the same time. After all wouldn’t you go to the Eiffel Tower at Noon?

For a book or a speaker to make lasting change in your life it takes focus and a willingness to change. Yet even if we don’t change on the outside and our ingrained habits stay the same, reading a book or attending a seminar will leave your mental landscape changed on the inside.

For a more comprehensive look on the subject, explore our previous post on the Three R’s of Change.

Technorati Tags: learning, books, ken blanchard

I read a fascinating blog post today by Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users on multitasking. The main point being that multitasking is a misnomer. It doesn’t make you more efficient… it actually slows you down. I agree with Kathy on the basic principle. I find myself having to deal with multiple tasks all the time. Kathy explains.. 

Our brains can’t do even two independent things that require conscious thought, especially if those two things involve different goals. But that’s OK, you might think, since multi-threaded systems on a single-processor aren’t technically doing two things at the same time.. they’re simply switching back and forth so quickly that they just appear to be processing simultaneously. But that’s the problem… the brain isn’t a computer, and in many cases the brain works much more slowly than a modern processor.

I find that when I can concentrate on one task at a time that I’m much less stressed and much more focused. The quality of my work is better and I usually am able to fully complete the task. The key thing is trying to use the same part of the brain at the same time. But that’s not to say that all multi-tasking is bad.

I’ve discovered a multitasking trick that has revolutionized my learning ability and helps me be more efficient when doing mundane tasks. This trick is so amazing that I have a hard time believing that it works. I realized it quite by accident over the last few months.

I started noticing that I could concentrate on educational audio books better when I was listening while walking, running, or driving in my car. If I just sat in a chair and listened I would have a much harder time concentrating and soon found myself fidgeting or falling asleep.

This has had amazing ramifications for me. I’ve discovered that I’m a Kinesthetic (Hands On) learner and that I learn best when I’m doing something with my hands or when I’m up and walking about. In school I could learn things so much better if I could do them hands on. This ability to do two things at once has changed my life. The key here is doing two things that use different parts of the brain.

It used to be that if I wanted to learn something, I would read a book. With my busy schedule trying to find the time to read on a consistent basis has been difficult to say the least. I have many books that were started with great intentions but have not been finished.  I find myself trying to read in the evenings when I’m tired and it usually ends up with sleep overtaking the reading process.

With Audio books on my iPod I can listen while driving or exercising. I have listened to over 30 Audio Books in the last year and I can honestly say that I’ve finished all but one (and that one had such bad narration I don’t think many people could get through it). Some of the better ones I have listened to multiple times. My comprehension of the material is much better than when I try to sit and read. If the material is fact intensive, I find it helpful to pick up the written book for reference and outline the material by hand.

If you are a kinesthetic or auditory learner I highly recommend that you give audio books a try. Load one up on a iPod or other MP3 player and take a walk or a short drive. I think like me you’ll find a whole new world of learning at your fingertips. The 30 audio books that I listened to had an average length of four hours. With standard written books this 120 hours of reading would take three weeks of 8 hour days to accomplish.

I listened to all 30 of these books while sitting in traffic, driving to work, or out on my daily walks. For most people this is totally unproductive time. For me I’ve discovered that my car and my walks have became a classroom!

For more information check out…

Learning Styles Quiz
MBA on the Run
Remarkable Audio Learning

Over the past year I’ve had the pleasure of reading and listening to a number of great books. Books that motivate and inspire and have changed my life for the better. I thought I would share my list with you today.

Most of these titles have been audio books that I have listened to while walking, driving, or just relaxing. The majority have been part of my MBA on the Run program. The thing that really sticks out about the whole experience is how much I have learned while doing mentally unproductive things such as driving or exercising.

Audio books that I have downloaded on my iPod just work well for me. I listen while going back and forth to work and while at lunch. It’s easy to jot down notes and you can easily stop or rewind the audio at any time. Over the next few months I will be reviewing these titles on my other blog, MBA on the Run.

I would like to encourage you to give audio books a try. You can buy the CD collections from Amazon or download the titles from iTunes. If you have an iPod or other Audio player you can take this learning experience wherever you go.

Enjoy…

Leadership Titles

• The First 90 Days: Michael Watkins
• Fit To Lead: Christopher P. Neck
• 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: John Maxwell
• 21 Most Powerful Minutes in a Leaders Day: John Maxwell
• Coach: Lessons On the Game of Life: Michael Lewis
• Becoming A Person of Influence: John Maxwell

Networking-People Skills

• How To Win Friends & Influence People:  Dale Carnegie
• How to Make People Like You: Nicholas Boothman
• 25 Ways to Win With People: John Maxwell
• Brag: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn: Peggy Klaus
• Never Eat Alone: Keith Ferrazzi

Business-Entrepreneurship

• The Wal-Mart Effect: Charles Fishman
• Millionaire Upgrade: Richard Parkes Cordock
• The E-Myth Revisited: Michael E. Gerber

Life Hacks & Organization

• Making a Good Brain Great: Daniel G. Amen
• Stumbling on Happiness: Daniel Gilbert
• 60 Second Procrastinator: Jeff Davidson
• Getting Things Done: David Allen
• Ready For Anything: David Allen

Success & Motivation

• Integrity: Dr. Henry Cloud
• The Success Principles: Jack Canfield
• Racing to Win: Joe Gibbs
• The Seven Hidden Secrets of Motivation: Todd Beeler
• Failing Forward: John Maxwell
• Today Matters: John Maxwell

Marketing & Branding

• Primal Branding: Patrick Hanlon
• All Marketers Are Liars: Seth Godin
• The Wisdom of Crowds: James Surowiecki
• The Big Moo: Seth Godin & Group of 33
• The Tipping Point: Malcolm Gladwell

Financial

• Rule #1: Phil Town
• Little Book That Beats The Market: Joel Greenblat
• Rich Dad-Poor Dad: Robert T. Kiyosaki

Innovation, Technology, & Creativity

• The World Is Flat: Thomas L. Friedman
• The Ten Faces of Innovation: Tom Kelley
• 10 Quick Steps to Blogging: Bryan Hoff
• On Writing Well: William Zinsser
• Blink: Malcolm Gladwell

Storytelling

• The Alchemist: Paulo Coelho
• The Fred Factor: Mark Sanborn
• Don’t Eat The Marshmallow Yet: Joachim de Posada

Inspirational-Spiritual

• If You Want To Walk On Water: John Ortberg
• The Purpose Driven Life: Rick Warren
• The Greatest Salesman In The World: Og Mandino

As I have been studying different audio books as part of my MBA on the Run program I have tried to come up with a workable set of values for rating businesses. The concept is to come up with a set of standards that may point to business success. The ratings need to be universal, concise, and easy to remember.

I’ve come up with five things that I think cover the major bases and form an easy to remember acrostic.

• Story
• Product or service
• Atmosphere
• Routine
• Key Values

Over the next few days I’ll post about each one in detail. The general synopsis is that each business has a unique story to tell about its products or services. When you experience this business you find a unique atmosphere, including colors, icons, and style that set the mood or tone for business transactions. The routine is the process you take to buy the product or service. It is the journey you take to the front counter or maybe the online path to the website. Once you have done business with the company you will come away with key values. This is the one sentence tagline in your mind about the overall business experience.

To give you an idea of the concept we’ll use United Parcel Service as an example. The story starts in 1907 with 19 year old messenger boy, Jim Casey, in Seattle Washington. He saw the need for a personal delivery system and started a business using bicycles to deliver goods to the local businesses. This story has evolved from its humble beginnings as a service company to one that offers hundreds of products and services worldwide.

The atmosphere is instantly recognizable… Brown. The simple icon that says UPS on the side of the large brown delivery trucks says more than the name of the business. It says quick service by following the simple UPS routine. Drop off a package at one of their retail locations or call the company for a pickup. The routine is simple and straight forward. You can track the packages progress on the web and you know that it will get to its destination on time.

The one sentence key value that many people come away with is “fast and efficient.” This key value is what translates into word of mouth advertising and drives millions of customers to do business with them on a daily basis.

Five simple business concepts that define almost every business. Get them right and your business will flourish… miss the mark on one of them and risk mediocrity… miss more than one and risk extinction.

Up next: Telling Your Story