Rating: 
Summary: Seth should stick to internet stuff
Review: Seth Godin has a ton of great ideas and about four of them are in this book. I have enjoyed other books and tapes by Mr. Godin and was hoping this would be another enjoyable read, it wasn't. He seemed to be talking about things he didn't really know much about so he filled it with a bunch of words that never said anything. Anytime he touched on internet business, you could sense his excitement and expertise. My advice, read something else by him first- such as his ideavirus book, now that is a good book.
Rating: 
Summary: Left me flat
Review: Seth Godin is becoming the new Tom Peters. I found very little of substance here, which surprised because I enjoy his Fast Company column. This was just a lot of high minded columnist talk from someone who will never have to do any of it.I prefer more down to earth authors who offer practical advice, not a lot of evangelist sounding advice.
Rating:
Summary: Left me flat
Review: Seth Godin is becoming the new Tom Peters. I found very little of substance here, which surprised because I enjoy his Fast Company column. This was just a lot of high minded columnist talk from someone who will never have to do any of it. I prefer more down to earth authors who offer practical advice, not a lot of evangelist sounding advice.
Rating: 
Summary: Love it..
Review: There arent many books that I agree wth more than 90 pct of, but this is one of them. Seth does a great job of presenting exactly what every executive must understand in order to compete in business today. Every CEO or businessperson has to put their own business in context of the world around them . Seth makes it clear that no business, no matter how successful or incumbent in their industry is in a vacuum and when its your business you better realize that if you dont zoom above the best, you fall with the rest :)... I go back to this book often as a reminder to keep on pushing myself to be a "zoomer" and let those around me be the same. I not only recommend it to friends, I have already sent a few copies to my buddies at the NBA.. Congrats on a great book Seth m
Rating: 
Summary: Unfortunate coincidence with Enron scandal
Review: This book advocates making it easier for employees to initiate small changes. He makes the case that companies need to evolve more quickly in the current environment, and he identifies policies and attitudes that are conducive to more rapid evolution. For example, he argues that most companies: --are too careless when they fill positions;
--are too lazy about firing managers who reduce employee effectiveness;
--often fail to take advantage of the talent in companies that they acquire. To make these points sound less dry, he compares hiring and firing to mating strategy. Mating strategies matter a lot in evolution, and Godin reasons by analogy that hiring and firing strategies matter a lot in corporate evolution. Throughout the book, the metaphor of evolution is used in this way to enliven the discussion. However, I don't think that Godin's ideas stand or fall on the metaphor. On p. 230, Seth Godin proposes a procedural rule that would make it difficult to turn down innovative suggestions. "appoint a CNO--a chief NO officer. No longer can someone say no to an idea and leave it at that. If you want to turn something down, you've got to pass it on to our boss. Then either he says yes or gives it to his boss. For a no to be official, it's got to be approved by the chief NO officer and countersigned by every manager along the way." It is Godin's misfortune to have this book released during the era of the Enron scandal. Enron sounds like a company where in order to stop something you needed to get the approval of a chief NO officer. In fact, on p.55 of this book, Godin cites Enron as a positive role model. To steal Godin's metaphor, I suspect that corporate bureaucracy is positively adapted to an environment in which managers are making bets using company dollars. Without the veto-wielding committees that Godin detests, there would be more Enrons. All that said, this is a valuable book that deserves to be read by business executives. In the post-Enron era, the challenge is to apply Godin's insights but with some appropriate checks and balances.
Rating: 
Summary: Learn about Darwinism from someone who understands it
Review: This book is about a good idea: understanding Darwinism as a way of understanding the dynamics of business. There's a lot we could learn from evolutionary biology to improve the way we do business. Here's one example: we should let "survival of the fittest" apply inside the company. Most firms don't do this actively, so they end up with a lot of dead wood. Ultimately, the company itself ends up less fit than its competitors and does not survive. Far better to push your employees to perform and retain only the best if you want your company to be around for long. Fine. So if ideas like this are interesting to you, you shouldn't be reading this book. You should get Richard Dawkins _The Selfish Gene_, Matt Ridley's _Genome_, Daniel Dennett's _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_, or even Mark Ridley's compilation _Evolution_. These and many other books make the central ideas of evolutionary theory available and engaging to a lay audience. No specialist background required. Don't think Seth Godin is doing you much of a favor by 'summarizing tons of technical work' for you--hardly! He appears to have read a few of these same 'populare interest' science books and given it all his own spin. This book really isn't worth the money. It would be better off as a 2-3 page magazine article; the other 250 pages are just fluff. It's so amateurish and undisciplined that it might as well be the author's precious journal of private thoughts and ideas. Reviews like this are rarely very helpful, I realize. You heard about this book and wanted to check it out. Well, I did. It was awful. Check into the books I mention above. They are brilliant works written by very smart, well-respected people. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: not as memorable as his other works
Review: While this is a good book, it lacks the original memorable concept that is really stressed in his other writings. He wants us to understand that change is a necissary part of life and success requires it. Many of the concepts of the new economy are exposed, such as fast feedback loops and using the internet in new creative ways. Here is the catch: We invest so much of our lives into who we are at that point in time that it is nearly impossible to change. If you are unhappy at your work, and it is not sending you where you need to be, then why are you there?
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