Category: Writing
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When you’re looking for a ghostwriter
For complex topics with intricately intermediated audiences, one of the most difficult things you can do is to write a compelling book. My four books I have ghostwritten four books for three different organizations with widely divergent needs. All four books feature subjects of extraordinary technical complexity, and are intended for highly intermediated audiences. The…
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How to write a book — four steps for organizations
There are plenty of ways to write a book. Here are four steps for an organization. 1. Identify the effect you want to have: “What do we want this book to do? And to or for whom?” Before a word is written or a title is chosen or a launch date is picked, know first…
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Marketing power through organizational memory
Marketing, like everything else, depends on the whims of the marketplace: trends. What was current and exciting a few years ago is hopelessly out of date today, as the momentum of technology engulfs every aspect of business. How do you achieve long-term impact? For an organization seeking to elevate its reputation and to influence its…
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La Lengua Extraña
Sundays in Madrid are highlighted by El Rastro — an enormous flea market that dominates the area near the Metro stop La Latina. For our first El Rastro we were delighted to meet a young poet named Nuria Herrera. She sat among the vendor stalls offering to write poems on themes suggested by passers-by. When…
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Books read in 2016
Books! Best to worst. Paul Beatty, The Sellout Extraordinary, hilarious, brilliant. Racial stereotypes dancing in front of a funhouse mirror of satire, through a knowing lens of American literature and culture (both African- and Anglo-). More great comic one-liners per page than any other fancy hardbound book I’ve ever read. Jon Meachum, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power…
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Books read in 2015
Obviously I read far too few books this year. From the best to the least best: Ben Yagoda, The B-side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song A very interesting history of the evolution of popular American music, particularly with its insights in the twenty years following World War II. Tom…