Remarkable Reading #32: THE WORK-LIFE EQUATION: Six Key Values That Drive Happiness and Success by William L.Maw and GO MOBILE: Location-Based Marketing, Apps, Mobile Optimized Ad Campaigns, 2D Codes and Other Mobile Strategies to Grow Your Business By Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner

The aim of this section Remarkable Reading is pay a tribute to the books that taught, share trends & insights into where our world in the 21st century is heading in a technology enabled world, and ask the right questions.

Bolded and italics quotes and references do not belong to myself  and belong directly to the author, .  The focus is to share valuable insights and teachings from the book to win business for the authors.

Two  Trends we'll be touching on are:

1) Reflection and evolution within mobile marketing

2)  Self-awareness and self-improvement in the 21st century as we further interact with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Like INBOUND MARKETING: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs, GO MOBILE: Location-Based Marketing, Apps, Mobile Optimized Ad Campaigns, 2D Codes and Other Mobile Strategies to Grow Your Business By Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner is a reflective and contemplative book about the evolution mobile (Smartphone's) has had on our purchasing and behaviour, and how we can utilize and harness the power of mobile marketing to our benefits.   Since the advancements within virtual, The Internet of Things  and wearable technology, changes in marketing will continue to evolve further.  Jeannie Hopkins and Jamie Turner have a tactical and problem-solving attitude in their writing and understand the mobile landscape and its potential in terms of e-commerce, geo-trigger, GPS and location, and the integration of mobile and social media marketing within your marketing mix.  A super-shmick refresher.

 

A few take-out's worth noting include:

 

Foreword:  xi - “Adding GPS (global positioning system) capability to mobile has transformed a once a mundane voice-only mobile phone into a targeted weapon focused on proximate surroundings.  With onboard GPS capability, the mobile user gains awareness of nearby people, companies, and locations, even in unfamiliar territory like the bar district of Tokyo.  When someone is using his or her mobile with relocation capability, the location of that person is pinpointed.  This is truly revolutionary”

Xii - “The challenge is to understand this new landscape in order to get your business into the mix at that precise moment of decision.  There are many ways to reach people via mobile, such as applications like foursquare, SMS messaging, image scanning such as QR codes, and others.  You will learn about all of these in this book through fascinating example of success from organizations large and small”

Introduction, xvi - “It’s worth noting, that mobile marketing isn’t just an evolutionary new technology; it's a revolutionary new technology.  More, it’s a once-in-a-generation shift in the way consumers connect with brands.  And it's going to have greater impact than radio, TV, and the personal computer- combined”

Page 26 - “You may remember a time not too long ago when people owned mobile devices for making phone calls only.  Today, mobile devices are used for shopping, watching videos, checking sports scores, playing games, and staying in touch with friends and families via social apps”

Page 147 - “Wouldn’t it be great if you could send a special discount to individuals when they walked past your store.  Wouldn’t it be terrific when they walked past your score?  Wouldn’t it be terrific if you could send a client a special greeting when he or she entered your office lobby”

Page 205 - “Mobile marketing is an exciting new opportunity.  As We've mentioned, it’s a transformative technology. One that ultimately is going to have a greater impact than the advent of radio, TV, and the PC combined”

Page 27 -  “With mobile access, there is no shortage of ways in which consumers can spend their time; they're wired  directly into an unlimited supply of information, including personal and work e-mails, local to world news, and social media networks.  That's why relying only on brand loyalty, or the effort to build brand loyalty, are tied to three specific elements: strong content, an interactive experience and user incentives”

Page 28 - “Because Smartphone's are using for conducting transactions, reading content, consuming entertainment, and acquiring information, today's businesses must learn to work within the limitations, and around the distractions, in order to make their mobile marketing effective”

Page 30 - “Tablet users are also more likely to watch video and read books; they also are more accepting of advertising and more likely to purchase after viewing as an than are users on smart phones or other devices”

Page 66 - “The Four Ps became an important part of the marketing vocabulory around the 1960s and helped marketers stay focused on the four most important components of their marketing programs.  You’ll want to keep the Four P’s in mind as you develop your campaigns, whether you’re using traditional marketing tools (like radio, TV, or print) or some of the newer tools (*like social media, paid search, or mobile marketing).

THE WORK-LIFE EQUATION: Six Key Values That Drive Happiness and Success by William L. Maw is a sparkling and shining example of a 21st century business book that teaches, educates, inspires, motivates and encourages us to reflect on our life and the world we live in to understand what it means to be happy in today's active times.  At the same time as being a business book, it is also a book about self-awareness, self-reflection, & self-improvement.  It's a virtuous and honorable attempt at understanding the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that can lead to our happiness, and provides a systematic step-by-step approach of what we need to understand and implement.

William L. Maw is a courageous, spruce and snappy writer who's ability to pinpoint with accurate detail stress zones, and what to question in order to become more self-aware (even if it's only 5% to begin with) is incrementally the book's biggest success point.  Bill Maw is a very gifted writer, and this is a book I will certainly revisit.

A few take-out's I found interesting are:

Introduction:  "While the focus of this book is more weighted to dealing with happiness and success in the workplace, you will find that many of the good and bad behaviour, themes, and solutions also apply to our behaviour, happiness, and success as individuals”

Xvi - “The annual cost of job stress to US corporations is $300 billion, and over 60% of workers in US workplaces experience this kind of stress because of workplace incivility; 12% report actually leaving their jobs because if incivility.

"Why is it that we allow millions of workers to be unhappy in their jobs, causing billion of dollars to be lost from the lack of productivity?  Why is it that we treat people, often those we spend the most time with every day, so poorly? What the heck is wrong with this picture?”

Xviii - “A happy place is a place of respect and camaraderie where positive energy rules.

A sad place is the complete opposite, totally dominated by an atmosphere of pervasive bad behavior and the prevalence of a penchant for mistakes, terrible decisions, irresponsibility, and failure. 

Xix - “This book starts with the need for deep self-awareness and a commitment to self-improvement and understanding who you really are as a person.  The majority of people out there at home and in the workplace are not intentionally mean-mannered.  They are, however, often victims of a stressful competitive environment where bad behaviors can set in.  What is needed is to realize that we can all make a concerted effort to reflect more consciously about our own  behavior (i.e., look in the mirror) and change certain behaviors for the better. This can start with you”

Page 4- “Some people thought that the exercises were cool while others felt comfortable performing them, but in the end they all did them.  Everyone has a different comfort zone level, and it is important to create a safe and inclusive environment where people are willing to take risks”

Page 7 - “Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, in a 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey talked about how he was still a kid from Brooklyn, scarred by his youth living in the poor housing projects and his shame of being poor.  This negative experience from his childhood, however, drove him to dream big, and now he is a successful billionaire and CEO of a company that embeds a culture of comprehensive health care and powerful workplace principles that his family and father were never offered”

Page 17 - “The need for self-awareness and self-improvement is a critical success factor in striving for happiness and success.  This has to start with a willingness and desire.  It requires pain and commitment.  Self-awareness and self-improvement can help you deal with your own issues and the issues you face from others ( e.g., intimidation, bullying, etc.)

Page 19 - “Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized b y positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.  Successes the accomplishment of an aim or purpose or the attainment of popularity or profit’

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm - Winston Churchill.

Page 29 - “Most of us understand the benefits of cooperating with other people.  Cooperation is an essential feature of any workplace and home, enabling us to function more effectively.  The principles of an organizational behavior support the view that a cohesive group is more than the sum of its parts and that synergy is the ability of a group to outperform even its best  individual member”

Page 36 - “ The term “harmony”: is derived from the Greek word harmonia, meaning “joint, agreement, concord.” It is more often used in music, but is also analogous to the way a team acts cooperatively.  I strongly believe that I have a harmonious team working for me today.  We all respect each other, especially when we have opposing views.  We are totally open with the facts, and there are no elephants in the room (i.e., big issues we're aware of but ignore).  We all trust each other, and there is a genuine sense of belonging;  by that I mean a reason for being there and a belief that,  with our skills, we can each contribute and make a difference.  This is what I believe helps create team harmony and a high-performance team”

Page 71 - “From the perspective of this book and the area of compassion, I  merely suggest that it may be fine to be selfish to yourself as an individual, but when there are others involved be it a family, a team, or a large corporation, we need to be conscious of being more selfish than selfish”

Page 75 - “Richard Branson says that delegation and compassion are the keys to running his Virgin empire, which earns over $20 billion in revenues.  Branson said in an interview on his blog “I admired Steve Jobs, although he was completely different from me”

Both books are uniquely individualistic to each other in terms of the topics they touch on, however the linkages to technology advancements and how we continue to cope, adapt, evolve, define & find happiness and ultimately enjoy the benefits of technology in the technological age is why I fully endorse both books.

You can purchase a copy of GO MOBILE: Location-Based Marketing, Apps, Mobile Optimized Ad Campaigns, 2D Codes and Other Mobile Strategies to Grow Your Business  here, you can follow Jeanne Hopkins on Twitter here, connect with her on LinkedIN here. You can follow Jamie Turner on Twitter here, add Jamie on LinkedIN here, and visit 60 Second Marketer here. 

You can purchase a copy of  THE WORK-LIFE EQUATION: Six Key Values That Drive Happiness and Success  here,  you can follow Bill Maw on Twitter here, and visit his website here. 

Thank you,

Praz aka Prashant

E: prashanthh2016@gmail.com
P: +6421 262 4326
Twitter: @prazhari or @internecessity
LinkedIN: Prashant Hari