Hi, Don Campbell here from Expand2Web. I'd
like to do a little book review on a book
that I read recently. I read books all the
time and I find it a great way to step away
from my business for a little bit and get
new ideas that I can bring back in into my
business and share with other people too.
So I like to do these video book reviews and
just 'cause I like doing...reading the books
and kinda sharing what I found. And this book
I read recently was called "The Innovation
Secrets of Steve Jobs." This book is one of
my favorite books I've read in quite a while.
The author's name is Carmine Gallo, and Carmine
is a presentation coach.
You may have seen him. He's done another book
called "The Presentation Secrets of Steve
Jobs." And Carmine has studied Apple and Steve
Jobs for quite a while, and in his book, he's
really distilled some of the things that,
you know, he sort of distilled some of the
principles that Apple has used to be such
an innovative company and and how Steve Jobs
has driven that.
Obviously, you know, just yesterday Steve
Jobs resigned as the CEO of Apple, which was
really, you know, a sad day for me for two
reasons. One, Steve Jobs is one of my heroes,
you know, that I kind of look up to seeing
how he's, you know, really revolutionized
things like changed how we use the cell phone
and all kinds of things.
But also, you know, I hope that his health
is gonna to be okay. You know, I'm kind of...anyway...thinking
about you, Steve. Hang in there and keep defying
the odds.
So what's the big idea of this book? When
I read a book, I like...I use a method called
tag, cliff, and review so that I could capture
the great ideas in the book and remember them
later. Now the big idea...that's what I like
to do for every book, there's sort of like
the big idea. What's this book about?
This book is...I think really the big idea
is that having a vision, like a clear vision
for yourself or for your business, is the
key to innovation. It's the key to enjoying
what do too. And in the book he lays out seven
principles. So the author lays out seven principles
that he sort of distilled after observing
Apple over the years and the difference that
they've made.
And the first principle - I'll just kind of
just go through them quickly - the first principle
is to do what you love. Like don't settle,
right? Make sure that what you're working
on every day is something that you love and
that you get up and your passion is sort of
aligned with your aptitude and it's something
that gets you out of bed in the morning.
And, you know, there's a whole bunch behind...there's
like a couple of chapters on each of these,
so obviously I can't through that. But I just
kinda wanted to highlight what the seven principles
were, some of the things that I took away
from that, and then a couple quotes.
The second one is, "Put a dent in the universe."
This where he talks about having a really
big vision. He's saying, you know, don't just
go out there to do something and make money.
Try to make a difference in people's lives.
And he goes into sort of like this vision
statement for a company which is very different
from the typical corporate mission statement
that you and I have probably seen, and I'll
have a little bit more on that in a minute.
The third principle was to sort of kick start
your brain. And he goes through what he calls
iconoclasts, you know, and innovators and
the author kind of looks at these people who
really think outside the box and they sort
of kind of break the traditional ways of looking
at things so that they can move into some
new ground.
The fourth principle is selling..."Sell dreams,
not products." It's not all about the features
your product has here and trying to get into
a feature or price war. It's like, you know,
it's like, sell the dream. What is the change
you're trying to effect with your product?
And a good way to do that is asking, "Who
are your heroes?"
So I like that...you may have remembered the
Think Different campaign from Apple. And that's
what they did. They kind of stepped back and
said, "Who are our heroes and why?" And that
shows you sort of where we're going. And I
thought that was pretty cool, you know, and
so I kinda went through that exercise of thinking,
"Who are my heroes?"
And what do they represent? Why do I look
up to those people? And he also talks a little
bit about this interesting, I thought it was
kind of interesting, shareholder value versus
customer value. And he says good companies
focus on creating customer value consistently
and then shareholder value and all the other
things come later.
This is an area where I think maybe Microsoft
may have gotten it wrong is, I think they
were a little too focused on shareholder value,
and lost sight of what excites their customers.
And now everybody's kind of, you know, even
their shareholder value's not great because
of or hasn't grown significantly because of
that and I think this is it, there's a lot
of examples out there of companies who get
too operational and they focus too much on
the bottom line and then you kind of miss,
you know, the thing that made them special
in the first place, right, is the dreams that,
you know, their customers have.
The fifth principle was say no to a thousand
things. And this was really interesting. And
one of the quotes that I thought was kind
of neat is at one point the CEO of Nike had
asked Steve Jobs for you know just they were
meeting asked for some tips or some advice
and Steve told them, get rid of the crappy
stuff so that you can focus on the good stuff.
And really there's a whole section in this
book about some quotes and some insights on
how Steve Jobs and the crew at Apple how they
look at things and they say no to a lot of
stuff. And they say they're as proud of the
things they said no to as they are of the
things that they've built because saying no
to the little things that don't matter as
much allowed them do some things really, really
great.
I thought that was a very, you know, powerful
sort of insight. The sixth one is to create
insanely great experiences. And, you know,
good example of this is how Apple really looked
at the retail, when they rolled out the retail
stores. A lot of people told them this is
just a really bad idea, it's not going to
work and they set about changing the expectations
of a retail experience for the customer and
they made a big difference there obviously
it's been very successful for them.
So, you know they really focus a lot on the
user experience and they make sort differentiation
they say, you know, design isn't just about
how something looks it's how it works as well
and so that permits a lot of the things that
they do. And then the final, the principle
was about mastering the message and he talks
a lot about elements of a good story and he
goes through some of Steve's product introductions,
excuse me, and it talks about how he crafts
the message very carefully.
Like for the iPad or for even in 1984 where
he sort of pitted IBM versus Apple. IBM is
the big corporate giant and Apple is the underdog.
You may remember that famous commercial but
he always has, you know, done a good job of
telling his story and keeping a consistent
message throughout the marketing.
So, yeah, great book, The Seven Principles,
I mean, I highly encourage that you check
this book out if any of this sounds interesting
to you. A couple of last things, one is. One
of my favorite quotes from the book. There
were a lot of good ones but I always like
to pull out quotes in the back of the book
that I like and I appreciate, like to collect
those.
And I really like this quote from Steve Jobs.
He said, "Your time is limited so don't waste
it on living someone else's life". Right,
and for me that was particularly important
because, you know, I really had some visions
about what I wanted to do and that's what
led me to starting my own business three years
ago to try to fulfill some of my own visions
instead of trying to fill everybody else's.
So that was a cool quote and then, you know,
I also look at a book and say, how did it
change the way that I do things. This book
changed a lot of things for me. It confirmed
a lot of things that I've believed in and
articulated them pretty well. The other thing
though, one of things I would say is a big
take away, is I really spent the time to think
through and write down my vision for Expand2Web.
Even for my own lifestyle as a result of this
book, so that was prettyit 's a pretty cool
insight for me and it drove some action. And
I think if you read this book, it will probably
give you some really good ideas, too. So I
highly recommend it. Check it out. And if
you have any questions about it, you know,
just leave me a message in the comments below.
I love to talk about the book because obviously
I liked it very much, so. Hey, thanks for
watching.
