52 Books in 1 Year Challenge

January 18, 2014 by Raul Colon

My friend and New York Times Bestselling Author Julien Smith challenges himself to read one book a week. I have decided that 2014 is a good year to challenge myself.

Why?

I have always been an avid reader and in 2013 I regret not making more time for reading so I am going to make up for it this year.

The Real Challenge

With so much content flashing in our faces it can be difficult to get around to a physical or digital book. So far on the 18th of January I can say I have already covered 3 books and half way on my 4th.

My Plan

I plan to create a list of the books I will be reading and some others that might be on my radar. This also plays into my three words. By reading books I am sort of observing what others have for advice.

This way I can keep track of my goals by writing them down and sharing it publicly.

I am working hard towards making 2014 a great year; the last time I had a great year was 2010 and time has flown by.

My preference will be books that will help my business partners, clients, and prospective clients serve their audiences and public better.

Currently Reading

The Peacemakers (The Nemesis Engines Book 1) by Olivier Blanchard

List of Books Read

1. Refuel by DrLaPuma

2. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk

3. Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius – Erik Wahl

4. World Wide Rave by David Meerman Scott

5. Email Persuasion: Captivate and Engage Your Audience, Build Authority and Generate More Sales With Email Marketing by Ian Brodie

6. Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together by Pamela Slim

7.Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising by Ryan Holiday

8. The Small Army Strategy: A Guide for Turning Fans and Followers into Fanatics and Friends for Life by Srinivas Rao

9. 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

10. Mr. New York: Lew Rudin and His Love for the City by Seymour P. Lachman

11. Duct Tape Selling: Think Like a Marketer-Sell Like a Superstar by John Jantsch

12. Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives by Randi Zuckerberg

13. The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth: Entrepreneurship for Weirdos, Misfits, and World Dominators by Chris Brogan

14. Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus

15. Once Minutos (Spanish Edition) by Paulo Coehlo

16. The Power of Visual Storytelling: How to Use Visuals, Videos, and Social Media to Market Your Brand by Ekaterina Walter & Jessica Gioglio

17. Content Chemistry: An Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing by Andy Crestodina

18. Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality by Jacob Tomsky

19. Creativity For Sale: How I Made ,000,000 Wearing T-Shirts and How You Can Turn Your Passion Into Profit, Too by Jason SurfrApp

20. Alchemist – 10th Anniversary Edition by Paulo Coehlo

21. Absolute Value: What Really Influences Customers in the Age of (Nearly) Perfect Information by Itamar Simonson & Emanuel Rosen

22. The Power of No: Because One Little Word Can Bring Health, Abundance, and Happiness by James Altucher and Claudia Azula Altucher

23. La Bruja de Portobello: Novela (Spanish Edition) by Paulo Coehlo

24. The Year of the Brave Bear: Speak Up. Stand Out. Change Your World. by Berni Xiong

25. How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination by Sally Hogshead

26. Happy Work by Chris Reimer

27. Inferno, the Novel by Dan Brown

28. UnSelling: The New Customer Experience by Scott Stratten and Alison Kramer

29. Not for Sale by David Batstone

30. One Less One More by Robbie Vorhaus

31. The Art of Being Unmistakable by Srinivas Rao

32. Everybody Writes by Ann Handley

33. The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) by John Maeda

34. Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help Not Hype by Jay Baer

Books on My Radar

1. Ordovician by Colin Wright

2. Stop Talking, Start Communicating: Counterintuitive Secrets to Success in Business and in Life, with a foreword by Martha Mendoza by Geoffrey Tumlin

Just the Books that are Worth Reading

My only concern with this exercise is to make sure I complete books that are worth reading. Something I have learned from Chris Brogan and Julien Smith these past few years is that there are so many good books out there. Why waste time reading a book that is not up to par.

If you know of a book that might of interest to me feel free to mention it.

Book Review: The Third Screen – Marketing to your Customers in a World Gone Mobile

October 4, 2011 by Raul Colon

A few months ago I contacted Chuck Martin on how I could get a copy of his book and he was nice enough to send me a complimentary copy. These last few months have been filled with highs and lows both which have kept me very busy and gave me the opportunity to read this book by portions. In many years It had not taken me so long to read a book but I think I got a bit more out of it because I could focus on each section a bit more.

The The Third Screen: Marketing to Your Customers in a World Gone Mobile (affiliate link) pretty much summarizes how mobile marketing is very different from any other platform. I really enjoyed how he differentiates and gives good clear examples on how they are different focusing on the positive attributes that each platform or possible mobile effort can bring you.

Bring in the Experts

Throughout the book there are areas where Chuck makes sure to emphasize that for most specific mobile efforts you should bring someone that has experience with dealing with mobile efforts. We all have our areas of expertise and mobile efforts are so new to many of us that why would you clearly use someone that is not well experienced in the subject if you want your effort to be a win.

Some key takeaways from Chuck’s Book are

How mobile is revolutionizing the entire buying process from product research all the way though transactions based on location. He highlights how mobile is more about committing to interactions.
The importance of creating your efforts to the type of phone that your target market owns and uses. There is a universe of phones and if your effort is not aligned around the type of phones your target customers it might work against your.
Mobile Advertising is about hitting the moving target. Since it is transitioning near and away from products and services.
Risk of businesses that do not adapt is twofold:
- Companies will miss opportunities to the mobile trend.
- It will lose customers who find and interact with a competitor instead.
Taking into consideration the speed from App to Web and how that will affect your customers. Very useful when taking the decision of creating an app for your business or just using the mobile side.
The core of mobile is linking buyers to Sellers
The book also has a great set of questions that will help and serves a guideline for when you are ready to plan any mobile effort.
The risk of how you can kill your mobile effort if the only interaction you are creating is discounting.
Mobile is not incremental it is transformational.
How businesses can keep up with the use of mobile from uses to applications.
Attention spans are shorter on mobile
Immediate call to action
Customers can be reached on location

Overall The The Third Screen can serve as a guide for many of us who are interested in learning about mobile from unique apps, case studies, use of QR Codes, and understanding the behavioral changes mobile brings to this world. I recommend you to buy this book as a learning tool, which later you can keep around as a reference either to create mobile content or creating the policies around its use in many organizations.

I want to thank Chuck for the complimentary copy and congratulate him on the detailed job he did on this book which clearly helped me understand mobile a lot more.

If you want to buy your copy of The Third Screen feel free to click the image below. (Affiliate Link)

The joy of reading a book!

August 18, 2011 by Raul Colon

I have always been a fan of reading. My uncle used to read Archie Comics to me when I was a kid on summer vacations. I would spend two months with my grandmother and uncle. As a teenager, my dad worked at a book and magazine store (pre-borders) and I helped my dad with work. I was able to read magazines and books in between customers coming in and out.

One of the reasons I set up this blog was to share my thoughts on the books I read.

Take Notes

When I read a book, I transport myself into the book and most importantly I am always taking notes. I carry a pencil to jot notes in the margins of hard or soft cover books. On the iPad I am able to highlight and make notes that I can quickly reference later.

Complete Exercises and Goals

I always try to put into practice anything in the book that applies to me. I always make sure to complete any exercises the author has written about in order to get value. I have been able to find many solutions to complex problems by just running through an exercise of a book.

Once I finish the book

When I finish the book, I go over all my notes and highlights. I try to create a summary on the key points of the book. I do this for two reasons; one to refresh what I read and to tie all key points into how I will apply the lessons into my daily life. The other reason is for me to create a blog post on the experience of reading the book so you can have an idea if it is worth buying.

I only post good reviews

Rule of thumb if you see the book reviewed on my blog I recommend the book. On many occasions I receive books for review or I buy a book that disappoints me. In those instances I don’t review them. Since I know the effort the author put into writing the book I don’t feel that it would be right for the author to get a negative book review.

Reference

After reading the book, I usually share it with friends and family in conversations or on the blog. I keep the really good ones for reference. The advantage with the iPad is that I can carry my books around with me and when I need to look something up it is only a few touches and swipes away.

Do you have a ritual when reading a book? What other tips you have to get the best out of reading a book.

Read some of my book reviews:

Here are 6 book reviews of my favorite Business and Marketing books.

Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion & Captivation
Social Media ROI
Evil Plans
Thank You Economy
Content Rules
Enchantment

Two other books I recommend with there affiliate links.

Popularity Vs. Success! Do they go Together?

May 13, 2011 by Raul Colon

We had a great opportunity on Kitchen Table Companies (affiliate link) to talk to @ChrisBrogan and ask questions via Ustream a few days ago as part of the #KTCOH (Kitchen Table Companies Office Hours).

One of the things @chrisbrogan touched upon was the difference in trying to be popular and being succesful. I have been trying to look for ways to make this blog and some of my other efforts more successful. For me being popular is not an objective neither do I care. I have never been a fan of winning popularity contests. I rather share my values and thoughts and get disagreement than have everyone agree with me when I compromise my own value system.

Short Dictionary Definitions of Success and Popularity

Popularity – Well Liked with High Social Status.

Success – Accomplishing an aim or Purpose.

Why Nerds are not Popular?

One of the best examples I read online was “Why Nerds are Not Popular?“. This post written a while back got me thinking on some reasons why being popular and succesful can be two different things. I enjoyed the post so much I summarized it in the following lines.

Being Smart

Being Smart is one of the reasons that can steer you away from popularity (It also has a strong bond with being a nerd). It can complicate your life from a social standpoint since it makes you really focus on things that are important instead of making people do things to make others happy.

What motivates a Nerd?

A nerd can be motivated by doing well in school, building an awesome computer software, enhancing their writing skills, and overall creating things that can make other people say WOW!

Learning and wanting to be popular

Most nerds don’t get the part of wanting to be popular and that there is a learning process to become popular. At the end of the day they are more focused on beings successful and meeting there goals than wanting people to be happy around them.

My Definition and interpretation of success and Popularity from my point of view.

Overall I see how many in the corporate world end up getting promoted because they are playing the popularity game. Just a few weeks I lost a client because she did not want to hear the honest reason why I thought there effort was failing. She would have preferred me telling her to take the wrong route just to make her happy. I lost my client but I earned the respect of many at the client that agreed with me and long term there might be the possibility that this person realizes that I clearly wanted the best for her effort.

I strive to be successful although for me Success Is not having to cut the grass. I make sure that whatever I do I am completely committed. I am continously trying to reach a peak but as my online friend @margieclayman has taught me I start looking for a new one to climb once I reached the one I had in mind.

I see many people using twitter or facebook just worried about the count of followers or likes instead of actually extending themselves to serve a purpose. I am a firm believer that many of them think that success is winning a popularity contest. The main rason why this happnes is because there ego’s are more important than building a community.

I know many nerds that have taken play key parts in the global economy and they sure where not popular just browser over Warren Buffet’s biography The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (amazon affiliate link) and you can see how difficult it was for him to become one of the richest men in the world.

To all of you going after the numbers or are you winning a Popularity Contest? Can you go for being Mr. Popular and being successful at the same time?