The author makes an interesting point on finding your energy, the place at which you are happiest and most productive, and than building your career out of that energy.  He calls upon you to find your primary color.  “the energy that accompanies and grows from full engagement” (in the workplace. )  “working a job that requires you to constantly correct your weaknesses in the pursuit of a goal you are not passionate about sucks your energy away.”  It is easy to relate to this idea.  We all want to be happy.  We should naturally gravitate to  situations that allow us to stay positive,  be ourselves and stay within our comfort zone.

The author claims that you don’t necessarily have to know where you are going to end up.  Many of the success stories shared in the book are from people who have wandered from job to job, position to position. Mr.Smith points out how each step of their path has helped them to gain the experience necessary for them to achieve their final goals.  He calls this the “spark sequence”,  “exploratory events that;

• Build exposure to what lies ahead.
• Created confidence and skills.
• Allowed us to visit our new lives without quite going there.I may not be where I want to be right now but I am gaining skills and knowledge that will help me get there.”

These ideas rang true to me. Before I started my PA equipment rental company Calgary Sound Rentals I was working as an assistant manager at Wicker Land a wicker and rattan furniture store. At Wicker Land I learned about marketing, sales, management, accounting and more. These skills definitely helped me to succeed in building a strong foundation for Calgary sound rentals to grow on.

The author also argues that when creating a successful venture your intentions have to come from a place of good and should ultimately be selfless.

This book provides excellent examples to accelerate your career while giving insight into our nature, our relationships to one another and how to follow our own energy for a more successful career.

“The more we let external forces determine the work we do and the success we achieve, the more we discount the outcome and see the world through other peoples eyes.”

Many of the ideas in this book have been explored extensively on the web.  (As has everything else.)

I think if one were to read this book 10 years ago it would have been extremely beneficial. Nowadays even the most extreme Luddite knows what a blog is and possibly even how it works. If you don’t you are reading one right now and this book may be for you.

There are a few interesting tips on how to interact with your community by reacting to comments in a positive way and by encouraging a conversation. There is also mention of what kind of posts will get you noticed although I think now that there are so many blogs out there you have to go beyond many of the tips in this book. I did learn a little about track back and pinging as well as using handy tools like feedblitz to send users email notifications when you post, but it was not enough for me to recommend this book.

If you are looking to lean more about blogging maybe skip this book and check out problogger or blogging tips instead for excellent examples and posts on how to hone your craft.

If you have any great blogging resources please share them in the comments area.

A quick book review of Twitter Power by Joel Comm

Writing a book about twitter must be a challenge considering how temporary things are on the internet. Joel Comm the author of Twitter Power succeeds in his pursuit by being completely up to date at the time of it’s writing. He also wrote in a way for the book to be useful for the future growth of twitter by delving into broader topics such as what to post, why to post, how to use the service, and so much more. This book has you covered from sign up, to successful tweeting strategies for social media marketing.

Of particular interest to me were the suggestions on what to tweet. The author recommends a good balance between links, personal stories and marketing (promotions, contests, sales etc.) I also enjoyed learning about the many web pages and services that work with twitter (or with twitters information) to provide completely new ways of obtaining and giving information on the web.

You could take the time to discover effective practices on twitter, or you could simply read this book. Twitter power effectively culminates the authors experiences to provide you with everything you need for a rewarding twitter endeavor.

Twitter Power is a well written quick read that delivers everything you could ask for from a book on a service where you can only post 140 characters.

Follow me on twitter at @krisbenoit

I know that no book can tell you exactly what to do to sell a billion units of your product or how to become the most popular service supplier in your field but I was expecting a little more direct advice from the author.

The book is comprised of case studies on successful businesses and organizations. Although these case studies give a window into how to achieve the snowball effect, I felt like the author could have gone into more analysis.  In the cases he touches upon, the companies seem to have very little to do with there own success aside from having a quality product or service.  They either had a product that people wanted to talk about or there was a drastic change in another market that directly benefited them.

If I learned anything from this book it is that if you want to reach a tipping point you have to have a quality product that appeals to an enthusiastic market willing to promote your product for you…   or great timing.

Over all this book made very little impression and simply washed over me. The content was dry and the commentary redundant.