PS: If you’re going to miss Friday Freebies too much, yell loud enough in the comments section and I’ll see what I can do for you.

Reality Check with Guy Kawasaki from Andrew Warner on Vimeo.

Garr Reynolds: Presentation Zen Webinar

Monday, December 15, 2:00 PM PST

Safari Books Online invites you to an exclusive webcast with Garr Reynolds, author of the best-selling book Presentation Zen. Don’t miss this one-time opportunity to learn how to improve the way you give presentations, from conception to creation to delivery!

To register for the Presentation Zen webinar, click here.

Garr is also doing a series of Presentation Reboot workshops with Nancy Duarte of Slide:ology fame in March of 2009. For more information, click here.

Steve Rendle: The North Face and sustainable materials

Steve Rendle, president of outdoor-gear maker The North Face, discusses how the company blends its research in sustainable materials with its development of new high-performance products. Take a listen right here: Steve Rendel, President of the North Face (mp3)

Marketing in a Recession from HubSpot

Friday, December 5, 12:00 PM EST
In a recession, marketing budgets are often the first to get slashed. For many that means cutting programs, cutting spending and cutting staff in order to make it through the economic downturn. But marketing in a recession isn’t about marketing less, it’s about marketing better and smarter. This webinar will share techniques for marketing more efficiently and effectively, particularly on a tight budget.

To register for the HubSpot webinar, click here.

BusinessWeek Videos

BusinessWeek.com has a complete free video section on their website on topics including technology, innovation, CEO’s, small business, investing and much more. Excellent content. To check out the videos, visit BusinessWeek.com’s media center.

Free Documentaries

If you like documentary films, you’re going to love FreeDocumentaries.org. There are literally hundreds of free documentaries online from filmmakers you’ve heard of and lots of independent filmmakers that you may not have. But they’re all worth watching. Check it out at http://freedocumentaries.org/.

Hot Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman

From The NY Times: The litany of dangers has been told many times before, but Mr. Friedman’s voice is compelling and will be widely heard…Heads will be nodding across airport lounges, as readers absorb Mr. Friedman’s common sense about how America and the world are dangerously addicted to cheap fossil fuels while we recklessly use the atmosphere as a dumping ground for carbon dioxide.

Chris’ note: Friedman rocks again. Best business book I read this year. If you like this kind of reading, check out T. Boone Pickens’ Energy plan video as well.

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam

From BN.com: The Back Of The Napkin proves that thinking with pictures can help anyone discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve their ability to share their insights. This book will help readers literally see the world in a new way.

Chris’ note: A great book. It changed the way I think and communicate ideas to others. Along with the next two books by Bert Decker and Garr Reynolds, they made a huge impact on my world this year.

You’ve Got to be Believed to Be Heard by Bert Decker

From the publisher: Effective communication is essential in business and in everyday life. The most powerful communicators reach not just our minds but our hearts: They win our trust. You can learn to impress and persuade other people by following Bert Decker’s program in You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard.

Chris’ note: I took Bert Decker’s course and he sent me his book to review. Amazing results and a great and informative book.

Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds

Nancy Duarte, CEO, Duarte Design: “Garr is a beacon of hope for frustrated audiences everywhere. His design philosophy and fundamental principles bring life to messages and can invigorate careers. His principles of simplicity are as much a journey of the soul as they are restraint of the mouse.”

Chris’ note: The book I’d been waiting for for a long time. If more people read this and use the Zen principles of design Garr espouses the world will be a much better place…well, at least boring lectures and conferences might be a bit better anyway!

Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte

From Amazon.com: Millions of presentations and billions of slides have been produced — and most of them miss the mark. slide:ology will challenge your traditional approach to creating slides by teaching you how to be a visual thinker. And it will help your career by creating momentum for your cause.

Chris’ note: Add this to your library along with Presentation Zen and You’ve Got to be Believed to Be Heard and won’t go wrong in a presentation ever again!

The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

From the publisher: Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as “The Oracle of Omaha.”

Chris’ note: Great biography. Informative, inspiring and very well written.

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by Andrew J. Bacevich

From The Washington Post: This compact, meaty volume ought to be on the reading list of every candidate for national office — House, Senate or the White House — in November’s elections. In an age of cant and baloney, Andrew Bacevich offers a bracing slap of reality. He confronts fundamental questions that Americans have been avoiding since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, first of all: What is the sole superpower’s proper role in the world?

Chris’ note: A powerful read written by a retired army colonel that is an indictment of American selfishness and how it has led us to the point we are at now. Hope you have thick skin when you read this!

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

From Amazon.com: Now that he’s gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the “self-made man,” he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don’t arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: “they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, “some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky.”

Chris’ note: Gladwell has done it again. Another excellent book from one of my favorite authors. Check out Malcolm himself talking about his latest book here.

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition by Guy Kawasaki

From the publisher: In Silicon Valley slang, a “bozo explosion” is what causes a lean, mean, fighting machine of a company to slide into mediocrity. As Guy Kawasaki puts it, “If the two most popular words in your company are partner and strategic, and partner has become a verb, and strategic is used to describe decisions and activities that don’t make sense” . . . it’s time for a reality check.

Chris’ note: Aside from Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki is one of the top people that have influenced my thinking and my writing. Guy sent me his book to read earlier this month and I couldn’t wait to read it!  It didn’t disappoint.  He’s continued his tradition of flat out saying it like it is and that’s what I love about Guy. Awesome dude and great book! Check out Guy talking about his latest book here.

And last but most certainly not least Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

From Publisher’s Weekly: Short on pages but long on repetition, this newest book by Godin (Purple Cow) argues that lasting and substantive change can be best effected by a tribe: a group of people connected to each other, to a leader and to an idea. Smart innovators find or assemble a movement of similarly minded individuals and get the tribe excited by a new product, service or message, often via the Internet (consider, for example, the popularity of the Obama campaign, Facebook or Twitter). Tribes, Godin says, can be within or outside a corporation, and almost everyone can be a leader; most are kept from realizing their potential by fear of criticism and fear of being wrong.

Chris’ note: What can I say? I mean, my blog’s name is a direct homage to Seth! The guy is awesome and so is his latest books. Just buy it, it’s worth it. And if you don’t want to buy it, download the audiobook for FREE from Audible.com.

And a few of my favorite non-business books this past year:

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

From BN.com: Although the title of Haruki Murakami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, gives you a fairly clear idea of the book’s subject matter, the choice of running as a subject for Murakami, who is better known for his novels and short stories than for his participation in the Boston Marathon (seven times), calls for some explanation. So, in the foreword to the book, Murakami explains: “I’m not trying here to give advice like, ‘Okay everybody — let’s run every day to stay healthy!’ Instead, this is a book in which I’ve gathered my thoughts about what running has meant to me as a person. Just a book in which I ponder various things and think out loud.”

Chris note: One of my favorite authors of fiction wrote a great memoir of one of my life’s love’s: running! It doesn’t get much better than this. After reading so many of his books, it’s the first time I feel like I got the chance to “know” the author. Great stuff. And if you’re over 40 like me, it’s really inspirational!

More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman

From Amazon.com: While writer and former literary agent John Hodgman had a considerable cult following before the publication of his first book, The Areas of My Expertise, the exact moment when Hodgmania hit fever pitch can be traced to his November 16, 2005, appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, when a “Famous Minor Television Personality” was born. Since then he has welcomed a new level of visibility as the Resident Expert on The Daily Show, appearing as the PC in the ubiquitous “Get a Mac” ads, and in bit roles in movies and on TV, so the world should be primed to embrace More Information Than You Require, Book Two in his Compendium of Complete World Knowledge (or, as it says on the cover, “New Ferret, Same Old Con”). Fun facts, bizarre trivia, and oddball photos (“Figure 51: Jane Addams, Pre-Antlers”) are crammed into every corner of the page with extended riffs on How to Tell the Future Using a Pig’s Spleen, What to Expect While Serving as a Juror, Gambling (“Sure Thing Number Three: Star Wars Slots”), How to Deal With Some Common Infestations, and of course, How to Be Famous.

Chris’ note: Yes, I’m a huge Daily Show fan and John Hodgman is hysterical. This book is filled with some of the funniest stuff you’ll read this year! Kept me in stitches.

Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

From Publisher’s Weekly: The much-anticipated third book in Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle continues to rely heavily on classic fantasy tropes. The novel launches with magician and Dragon Rider Eragon, his cousin Roran and the dragon Saphira on a quest to rescue Roran’s betrothed. The cousins soon split up, and Roran undergoes his own series of heroic tests, culminating in a well-choreographed and intense fight against an Urgal (a ram-human hybrid). Eragon, at the same time, encounters treacherous dwarves, undergoes even more training with the elf Oromis and gains a magical sword suitable for a Dragon Rider.

Chris’ note: I’ve loved this entire series so far. For a young writer, Paolini is really gifted. His worlds are rich and mysterious and his characters are well-developed. A thick book, but a quick read. Worth the time.

Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America by Steven Waldman

From Publisher’s Weekly: Various American evangelicals have claimed the founding fathers as believing and practicing Protestants who intended America to be a Christian nation. Secularists, on the other hand, see in the same historical record evidence that the founders were often Deists at best. Both views are grossly oversimplified, argues Waldman, cofounder and editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.com. In this engaging, well-researched study, Waldman focuses on the five founding fathers who had the most influence on religion’s role in the state—Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams and Madison—and untangles their complex legacy. They were certainly diverse in religiosity, with Jefferson a self-diagnosed heretic, for instance, and Washington a churchgoing Anglican who was silent on points of doctrine and refrained from taking communion. All, however, were committed to the creation of religious freedom in the new nation. Waldman deserves kudos for systematically debunking popular myths: America was not primarily settled by people seeking religious freedom; the separation of church and state did not result from the activism of secularists, but, paradoxically, from the efforts of 18th-century evangelicals; and the American Revolution was as much a reaction against European theocracy as a struggle for economic or political freedom. Waldman produces a thoughtful and remarkably balanced account of religion in early America.

Chris’ note: I first heard Steven Waldman on Fresh Air on NPR. Not only is he a great speaker, he is a great researcher and writer. Glad someone finally tackled this divisive topic and dispelled some long held misconceptions.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

From Amazon.com: A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave–”Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”–wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

Chris’ note: I can’t say enough good things about this book. To be super brief: Sobering yet life affirming! No two ways about this one, you have to read this now!

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

From BN.com: The Wordy Shipmates is New York Times-bestselling author Sarah Vowell’s exploration of the Puritans and their journey to America to become the people of John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill”-a shining example, a “city that cannot be hid.” To this day, America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means-and what it should mean. What was this great political enterprise all about? Who were these people who are considered the philosophical, spiritual, and moral ancestors of our nation? What Vowell discovers is something far different from what their uptight shoe-buckles-and-corn reputation might suggest. The people she finds are highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty. Their story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance.

Chris’ note: Sarah Vowell has an incredible way of making history fun to read about. I’ve read just about everything she’s ever written and it’s all really good. She’s witty, funny, sarcastic, and brilliant.

A Vineyard in Tuscany: A Wine Lover’s Dream by Ferenc Máté

From BN.com: In this intimate and uproarious story, two daring New Yorkers convert an ancient, abandoned farm into a world-renowned winery. This highly entertaining tale of how two dreamers struggle and thrive in idyllic Tuscany will enrich the lives of travelers and wine lovers alike.

Chris’ note: Much better than Under the Tuscan Sun!

Learn from the Smart People

MIT Open Courseware: MIT OpenCourseWare is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. They’ve also started a video lecture series and ew courses will be available every week. Join the smart people here.

University of Oxford Lecture Podcasts: Amazing lectures from some of the greatest minds in the world. To hear some incredible speakers, click here.

The Do Lectures: Get some inspiration from incredible speakers and presenters at The Do Lectures. Do something today here.

Webinars

Today, November 21, 9:00 AM PST: How to Use FaceBook for Business

Welcome to a world of conversations and relationships. Facebook is not an evil time-waster, a community just for college students, or something scary or irrelevant for marketers – even you B2B folks. Facebook is a tool (a social utility, as they would say) for connecting people with those around them. And, as with any social media tool, marketers have an opportunity to use Facebook to expand their online footprint and engage with customers directly. Join this free webinar to learn how to get started using Facebook to market your business.

Today, November 21, 10:00 AM PST: Effective Agile Product Management Through Automation

Presented by Christina Noren, Vice President of Product Management at Splunk. Sometimes it seems that agile development is an end run around effective product planning and market analysis. It also can undermine product positioning and roadmapping. Yet the benefits of a more responsive and productive product development team are too significant to ignore. Learn how the Splunk product management team is automating the Pragmatic Marketing Framework to feed continuous market-driven priorities into an agile development process, and then leveraging this automation for continuous communication back to its user community, customers and field organization.

Wednesday, December 10 and December 17, 10:00 AM PST: Agile in Turbulent Times

A Two-Part Webinar Series Learn how to quantify the benefits of Agile practices including faster time to market, increased productivity and higher quality. Find out where to expect significant cost savings and revenue increases, and get a toolkit for making the economic case for Agile adoption. If you’re worried about your company’s viability, your team’s success or your own job security, you won’t want to miss this webinar series.

Thursday, December 11, 8:00 AM PST: Agile Requirements: Not an Oxymoron

Traditional approaches of requirements seem to contradict how agile teams might approach requirements. Misconceptions abound about how agile projects develop requirements and whether they even do analysis. In practice, agile projects use requirements as the basis for planning, development and delivering business value. In this Webinar, requirements expert and agile coach Ellen Gottesdiener will describe how agile and requirements combine to form a sound and sensible union.

Live Symbian Event

Thursday, December 4, The Palace Hotel, San Francisco, California: Innovation in Action

For the first time the Symbian Partner Event (SPE) opens its doors not only to Symbian partners, but also to mobile developers, handset manufacturers, network operators, the Open Source Community and members of the press. Whether you are new to mobile or an experienced Symbian developer, SPE has something for everyone.

And finally, another free Seth Godin ebook…

Download The Tribes Q&A ebook here.

Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, talks to Andrew Warner at Mixergy about how blogs helped The 4-Hour Work Week become a best seller.

Windows Azure: Cloud Service Development Best Practices. A 2008 Microsoft Professional Developers Conference session from Sriram Krishnan. Sriram is a mild-mannered Program Manager on the Cloud Infrastructure Services team at Microsoft. Before this, he worked on Popfly and Visual Studio for Devices. His goes beyond the “Hello World” development experience, giving best practices across common tasks for serious service developers. These tasks include logging, debugging, deployment, management, and maintenance of individual services. In addition to good content, there is some good Presentation Zen here as well.

Webinars

Guy Kawasaki, John Jantsch and Penelope Trunk: a frank, real discussion about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Download the MP3 here.

More Guy and Seth Goodness
As promised last week, here’s a link to an MP3 recording of Guy’s conversation with Keith Ferrazzi and Michael Port.

And here are two Seth Godin goodies worth checking out:

• TODAY at 1:00 pm ET: Teleseminar with Seth, along with these two leaders who demonstrate how to effectively lead a Tribe: Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation.com and author ofStartup Nation and Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing and Founder, Word of Mouth Marketing Association. Click here to register for the event.
• Download an MP3 recording of Seth speaking with John Jantsch, bestselling author of Duct Tape Marketing and Dave Lakhani, bestselling author of Persuasion and Subliminal Persuasion. If you’d rather stream the audio, click here.

And here’s a free video of Seth speaking at the Inbound Marketing Summit:

Other Free Webinars

• November 7, 1:00 pm ET: Optimizing Landing Pages for Lead Generation and Conversion from HubSpot. Click here to register for the free webinar.
• November 11, 11:00 am ET: Agile Techniques for the Healthcare Industry. Click here to register.
• November 13, 11:00 am ET: 10 Fallacies About Software Metrics. Click here to register.

Whitepapers

• “FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report“: Discusses the changes that Web 2.0 and social-media are causing for companies. Really great read. Click here to get it free.

Podcasts

• Agile Toolkit Podcast: Agile conversation with some of today’s top thought leaders in Agile Development.

Not Entirely Free

• OK, technically this isn’t free, but you should check it out anyway. The folks that put on the TED Talks have a TED Book Club. Kind of like the Oprah Book Club for smart people. Check it out here.

Trick or treat!!! How about some treats? As part of my website and blog redesign, I’m using today to kick off my new feature “Friday Freebies”. Every Friday, I’ll be posting links to good, free webcasts, seminars, ebooks, whitepapers, videos, and cool downloads that I find interesting or useful. I hope you’ll enjoy Friday Freebies. Here’s the first batch of treats for you to enjoy:

Free Webinars and Teleseminars (Click titles for more information and to register/attend)

The Knack Book Tour with Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham: Today, October 31, 1:00 PM EST.

Reality Check Book Tour with Guy Kawasaki: Monday, November 3, 12:00 PM EST.

Agile Product Management Meets CRM: November 6, 9:00 a.m. EST.

Communication in Global and Distributed Teams: November 6, 10:00 a.m. EST. Click here for some related posts about distributed teams and communications.

Archived Webinars

Tuned In with David Meerman Scott, Craig Stull and Phil Meyers: Free download or streaming audio. Password: topauthor

The Secrets of Enterprise Agile Adoption – From Team to Organizational Transformation. A full series of webinars and whitepapers.

Cool Downloads

Back of the Napkin Visual Thinking Tools. A set of tools to help you start using visual thinking to solve problems and sell your ideas from Dan Roam.s

Guy Kawasaki’s Rules for Revolutionaries. A really great, short slideshow from Guy on how to get on the edge!

eBooks

Essential Skills for Agile Development by Ka Iok Tong

Not Quite Free, But Cool Anyway

I was contacted today by a representative of Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall and Pearson Education about their upcoming Voices That Matter: Crafting Software Conference taking place in San Francisco, December 1-4.  They have extended a $200 discount to any of our Agilistas Group members attending the conference. You’d simply have to provide the priority code CSNPKRB when registering to receive this $200 savings.

The conference features dozens of tremendous authors and industry experts that will be leading the discussions. The sessions are designed to be highly interactive so you will not only learn from the presenters, but from the ongoing discussions and Q&A taking place throughout the event with your colleagues that will also be in attendance.

If you’re not already a member of our Agilistas Group on LinkedIn, click here to join now.

And, if you’d like to see details of the event, you can find it at: www.voicesthatmatter.com/craftingsoftware.

Some Cool Free U.S. Election Stuff

FIRST DON’T FORGET TO VOTE!

Please, if you live in the United States, make sure you vote on or before Tuesday November 4!  Click here to find out where you can vote now.  It’s FREE to vote and your freedom depends on it!

Second, check out some great graphics (and really interesting results and free videos) of current election poll trends from Gallup.  Click here to visit Gallup’s 2008 Election Site.

That’s it for this Friday. Happy Halloween and enjoy!

I found it really shocking that 25% of CIO’s considered SQA “Nice to Have” and 15% apparently don’t even think about it. Why this is so shocking is that the same exact CIO’s who said that SQA is not really important to them said that their #1 management challenge is cost reduction. Hmm…consider the cost of software failures (both small and catastrophic) due to low quality. It could be in the millions from lost revenue, a reduced customer base, and let’s not forget about the law suits if you really messed up. Now, reconsider the cost reduction strategy. 40% of the CIO’s surveyed had not invested in any type of software automation at all. Only 1/3 made a significant investment of over $100,000 in testing automation, and another 18% were “just dabbling in it”. When you consider that really large companies could spend upwards of $250,000 on automated testing tools, it seems like a small amount to spend considering the large amount of money a company stands to lose due to catastrophic software failures.

To me, this cost reduction (or avoidance) strategy just makes no sense at all. I believe that CIO’s that ignore is discard the benefits of testing have a careless disregard for customer satisfaction, not to mention disregard for the long-term bottom-line health of their companies. To me, it’s a short-term, near-sighted solution, that in the long run can cause the demise of otherwise healthy software companies. So, do yourself and your customers a favor and make the investment in software testing. And if you decide to make SQA more than just a cost of doing business, make it a fundamental business practice or a strategic business imperative, you’ll have a competitive advantage over 56% of the rest of your competitors.

Note: The survey was conducted by Richmond Events and sponsored by Original Software. The respondents were all delegates of the CIO Forum in New York, their companies having average annual revenues of $5.8billion, and IT budgets of $764 million.

Click HERE to download the complete Software Quality and Testing: A CIO Perspective whitepaper.

• John Jantsch, bestselling author of Duct Tape Marketing
• Dave Lakhani, bestselling author of Persuasion and Subliminal Persuasion

If you haven’t heard John or Dave before, you are in for a treat. John’s also a columnist for Entrepreneur magazine and Dave is a regular expert on shows like The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.

So, if you missed this one, click here to download the MP3

Upcoming Tribes Book Tour Event

Wow, this is going to be a powerful talk. Tune in on Monday, October 27th and hear Seth with these three all-star experts:

• Keith Ferrazzi, bestselling author of Never Eat Alone
• Pam Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation (Portfolio, ’09)
• Dan Pink, bestselling author of A Whole New Mind and Adventures of Johnny Bunko

Talk about an all-star lineup! Keith will share tips about how he created an incredible Tribe called Greenlight Community. And, Dan and Pam always have powerful, insightful stories and examples to share.

Click here to reserve your spot at this live event now. And if you can’t make it, I’ll post a link to the MP3 download later next week.

Seth Godin‘s new book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us has just been released as a free audio download at audible.com. I took a listen today and the book is great (in fact, Seth actually reads the book). As most of you already know, I’m part of the Seth Godin Tribe. For those of you who don’t know who Seth is truly a marketing thought leader. His views on customer evangelism, edgecraft, branding, and marketing in general are unparalleled in my opinion. His down to earth, customer focused way of seeing the business world is awesome. One of his main points of marketing to the masses is the idea of creating tribes and tribe management. Tribes are the true fans who have a sense of depth of commitment.  Earlier today I wrote about the Schaar Tribe in New Holstein, WI.  So what are tribes and what is tribe management.  In his own words:

“Tribe management is a whole different way of looking at the world. It starts with permission, the understanding that the real asset most organizations can build isn’t an amorphous brand but is in fact the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them.

It adds to that the fact that what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.”

So, head on over to audible.com now and download your free unabridged copy of Tribes now and start building your own tribe.

• 60% of those surveyed interact with companies using social media

Of those 60%:

• 93% say a company should have a presence in social media
• 85% say a company should not only be present but also interact with its customers via social media
• 56% say they feel a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment
• 43% say companies should use social networks to solve customers’ problems
• 41% say companies should use social media to solicit feedback about products and services

Now, granted, this is an online survey, so the results may be a bit skewed. There is probably still a large population out there who have no idea what Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn even is (much less participate in online surveys). In fact, here’s a great post from Chris Brogan about keeping it real with real people (who aren’t geeks like us). But for those of your customers who are connected, you can’t afford to ignore the numbers uncovered by Cone in their study.

And, if you’re looking to start using social media in your marketing and PR efforts, HubSpot has a free webinar this week on How to Use Twitter for Marketing and PR. Here are the details:

Date: Friday, October 10, 2008

Time: 2PM EDT (GMT-4)

Duration: 1 Hour

Register here

• Agile Reporting and Metrics: Project Intelligence for Successful Software Delivery.
  Tue, June 24, ’08, 11:00 AM EST – Register Now!
• Getting the most out of Agile: “Agile made us Better, but we signed up for Great!”
  Thu, June 26, ’08, 11:00 AM EST – Register Now!

What you’ll learn
(from Agile gurus Ross Pettit, Sanjiv Augustine, Raymond Cuellar)

Agile teams, like all application development teams need to quantify the business value they deliver. Attend these webinars with Agile experts and get answers to questions like:

• What are the metrics we should be tracking?
• What’s useful and what’s not?
• How do I provide visibility into project progress to Management and other stakeholders?
• Practical tools and concepts that can make immediate impact on your team and make IT a GREAT delivery partner

See more: Details of the webinars

Using Lean Thinking to Improve Agile Testing: The New Role of QA

Register Now! http://www.sqe.com/go?WS061008E1

Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2008, 2:00 p.m. ET

Featured Speakers: Alan Shalloway, CEO. Net Objectives

Sponsored by: SQE Training

Learn More: http://www.sqe.com/go?WS061008E1

Agile Reporting and Metrics: Project Intelligence for Successful Software Delivery

Register Now! http://www.sqe.com/go?WS062408E1

Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 11:00 a.m. ET

Featured Speakers: Sanjiv Augustine, Co-founder and Board Member of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), President of LitheSpeed LLC

Roland Cuellar, Vice President of LitheSpeed LLC, Certified ScrumMaster and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt

Ross Pettit, Client Principal, ThoughtWorks

Sponsored by: ThoughtWorks

Learn More: http://www.sqe.com/go?WS062408E1

Over the last few years, the adoption of agile methods has rapidly spread and agile methods are now state-of-the-art. Many teams, projects and even organizations around the world are using Scrum, XP, Crystal Methodologies, or other well-known or self-made agile methods.

However, not every organization and project is succeeding in making agile work.
What makes an agile project successful? And how can we recognize common pitfalls or “smells” that prevent or limit success with agile?

With her experience in helping projects all over Europe establish the agile value system, Jutta Eckstein will use this webinar to highlight recurring common pitfalls that teams often fall into when applying an agile approach.

Learning Objectives:

• How to make failure transparent,
• How to recognize typical pitfalls
• How to prevent failure,
• How to set up teams for success
• Concrete proto-patterns for success

Intended Audience:

• Project Managers
• Change agents and promoters of agile methods such as coaches, ScrumMasters, consultants
• Project managers, product managers, development team managers
• Executives
• All participants should be experienced in applying agile methods.

Click here to register for the free webinar.

For more info on other webinars in the Software Best Practices Series click here.

The heartbeat of Agile software development is the iteration – the ability to create working, tested, value-delivered code in a short time box. Mastering this skill takes guidance and practice. In this paper, Dean Leffingwell describes the iteration pattern and the activities that a team engages in to meet this key challenge.

Download this white paper to learn about:
•  Iteration basics – the heartbeat of software Agility
•  The iteration planning process
•  Executing an iteration
•  Tracking iteration progress and adjusting

To download the whitepaper, click here.

Join ThoughtWorks’ Matthew Simons and Forrester’s Carey Schwaber, as they discuss how to ensure successful software delivery when working with distributed teams.

Do you face any of these challenges in your distributed development project?
• Disconnection on project requirements or estimation
• Decreased visibility into project status
• Erosion of trust among individuals in the project
If you do, you are not alone. Let’s face it; global collaboration is hard. Because software development is, at its core, based on communication. Every aspect of a project is fundamentally changed the moment that team members lose the ability to communicate face to face. As a result, it’s far too easy for a distributed software project to be unsuccessful.
And yet, the allure of distributed projects is very powerful: cost savings, 24/7 availability of development, access to talent and more. No wonder then, that Project Managers are expected to deliver results with Global teams.

Details

Date: April 8, 2008

Time: 10:00 A.M. PDT/1:00 EST

Register for the webinar here.

Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2008, 1:00 p.m. ET

Featured Speakers: Martin Van Ryswyck, VP of Engineering, Electric Cloud and Jim Bell, VP of Marketing, Electric Cloud

Description: In this presentation we will examine how geographically distributed teams can improve software production processes through asset reuse, shared infrastructure and resources, and repeatable processes. We’ll focus on the impact of distributed development on the back-end processes that follow check-in of new code: the build, package, test, and deploy tasks that are often the bottleneck to timely and efficient project completion.

Register here

Description from Rally:

“From Agile Development to Agile Delivery” will discuss the best practices and incremental adoption strategies that enable teams to take advantage of SaaS and SOA based delivery models to deliver customer value while relying on Agile development practices.

The free webinars

The IT Metrics and Productivity Journal runs an ongoing Software Best Practices Webinar Series.  In the coming weeks, the following webinars look pretty interesting:

March 12: Managing Iterative Software Development Projects

March 13: Lean-Agile Software Development

March 17: Analysis of New Development Technologies

April 8: Refactoring Your Software Process Toward Agiity

April 16: Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk

To see their entire webinar schedule, click here.

From my good friends at Rally Software Development, there are two live/on-demand webinars you can check out:

April 8 (and on-demand): Getting Started with Rally and Agile

On-Demand: How Product Management Must Change to Enable the Agile Enterprise

If you’re a fellow blogger, you might be interested in HubSpot’s free webinar:

March 19: Blog Marketing: Getting Found Online

..and a podcast

Check out the Grey Matters podcast featuring Lee Copeland and his Nine Forgettings.

Seth Godin: How do you avoid the meatball sundae?

The first is by one of the people who truly inspire me to do things differently, Seth Godin.  From Seth’s website:

In this brand new presentation, bestselling author Seth Godin outlines 14 trends that are changing businesses forever. He talks about how the new marketing landscape represents nothing short of an industrial revolution, and highlights the organizations and brands and products that are taking this new world by storm. By the end of an hour, Godin will have you looking at the world you live in very differently… the new rules create new winners (and losers) and there’s no time to waste.

Sign up for Seth’s presentation here.

HubSpot: Press Releases for Modern Inbound Marketing

This webinar is being given by Mike Volpe.  Mike Volpe is the VP of Marketing at HubSpot and has over a decade of Internet marketing experience.  He is a frequent blogger on the acclaimed HubSpot Internet Marketing Blog.  From HubSpot:

Press Releases are no longer just for the traditional media.  Today press releases are key opportunities to reach your market directly – effectively and inexpensively.  This webinar will cover how and why to write and distribute press releases for modern inbound marketing.
- Review the major reasons to distribute press releases
- Learn how to optimize press releases for SEO (search engine optimization)
- Learn how best to distribute press releases
- and more!

Register for the HubSpot webinar here.

4 Secrets from Agile Masters for Increasing Your Personal Agility and Performance

This is being presented by Christopher Avery, an Agile University Trainer for Knowledge Team Leadership.  From Agile University:

So what have I learned in twenty years of studying the personal agility of agile masters?

In brief:

1. Personal Responsibility beats Job Accountability every time. When individuals opt-in, engage, and own their actions and consequences, truth happens fast! You don’t need to focus on “driving accountability” when people are owning how they execute.
2. Climbing in the same boat together drives mutual coordination. A keen sense of shared responsibility is the single greatest predictor of teamwork, collaboration, and partnering.
3. Tapping into the power of peer motivation. Teams perform to the level of their least invested members because those members bring everyone else down. Always.
4. Making and keeping agreements that support flow. Agile masters ask for, make, and keep responsible agreements with everyone around them.

Register for the Agile University Webinar here.

Details:

Case Study: Agile Productivity at 5 Companies by Michael Mah

January 17, 2008 at 11:30 am EST

Register at the Cutter Consortium website

January 16, 12:00pm EST: Beyond Agile: How to Deliver Better Software, Faster with Matt Nolker

January 23, 12:00pm EST: How Good is Good? Quality Levels and the Cost of Perfection with Peter Hodgkins

February 6, 12:00pm EST: Scrum 101, with Sinan Si Alhir

April 16, 12:00pm EST: User Stories 101, with Sinan Si Alhir

They also have a series of podcasts available of past webinars that include:

How Product Management Must Change to Enable the Agile Enterprise with Catherine Connor

Integrating the Agile Development Process With the Pragmatic Marketing Framework with Jason Tanner

Agile: Friend or Foe to Product Management with Renée Thompson

Product Management: How to Increase Business Value by Transitioning to Agile with Levent Gurses

Agile Product Marketing & Management for Enterprise Software Start-ups with Aditya Bhelande

Lean, Agile, and Competitive Product Management with Sinan Si Alhir

The Basics of Agile for Product Managers with Laureen Knudsen

Agile Methodologies: How Product Management’s role is shifting with Laureen Knudsen at HP