"The Little BIG Things is ... the single best management book I've ever read." —Warren Bennis

Go to Garrison Keillor's Cool Friends interview

On a trip away from Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor took time to talk to us at tompeters.com. He and Erik had a great conversation about his latest book, A Christmas Blizzard, and many other topics, including a note from Julie Christie. We know you'll enjoy reading his Cool Friends interview.

View our Archives for past interviews.

Blog Roll

The 26th Story
800-CEO-Read
Ageless Marketing
andHow To Reach Women
Katya Andresen
Tom Asacker
Asiabizblog
Jordan Ayan
Martha Barletta
Dave Barry
Ed Batista
Becker-Posner
The Big Picture
The Bing Blog
Blog Critics
Blogging Innovation
John Bogle
BoingBoing
Boomer411
Brand Autopsy
Chris Brogan
BusinessPundit
BW Brand New Day
BW Management IQ
BW The Tech Beat
Cali and Jody
Ben Casnocha
Change This
Church of the Customer
Clear Path International
Conversation Agent
Cooking for Engineers
Copy Blogger
Core77
Coudal Partners
Mark Cuban
Aubrey Daniels
Design Gazette, jkr.co.uk
design*sponge
Jory Des Jardins
Betsy Devine
Don the Idea Guy
Dooce
Down the Avenue
Daniel W. Drezner
Esther Dyson
eHub
Frank Eliason
Judith Ellis
English Cut
Enterprise Media
Evhead
Steve Farber
Fast Company
Fast Lane
Brad Feld
The Fischbowl
Richard Florida
Ze Frank
Freakonomics
Free Business Tips
Gil Friend
gapingvoid
Dan Gillmor
Global Neighborhoods
Seth Godin
Good Experience
Gothamist
Great Leadership
Alan Gregerman
The Growth Guy
Health Affairs
Health Beat
The Health Care Blog
Dick Heller
Hyperthinker
IDEO Eyes Open
iinnovate
Influx Insights
Innovate on Purpose
In Pursuit of Elegance
Instapundit
Intelligent Investor
The Intuitive Life
Isenblog
Joi Ito
Rich Karlgaard/Forbes
Josh Kaufman
Guy Kawasaki
Leading Blog
Learned on Women
Jonah Lehrer
Martin Lindstrom
Chris Locke
The Long Tail
Made to Stick
John Maeda
Management by Baseball
MarketingProfs:DailyFix
Marketing to Boomer Women
Mavericks at Work
The Messaging Times
Metacool
Nick Morgan
Name Wire
Mike Neiss
Netwoman
No Bullet Points
The Nudge Blog
Nuts about Southwest
John O'Leary
Online MBA
Persistence Unlimited
Personal Branding
Dan Pink
Pink Slip
Play the Game of Life
Pollster
John Porcaro
Portfolio Careers
Virginia Postrel
Power Line
Presentation Zen
PSFK
Pyromarketing
Mitch Ratcliffe
Fred Reichheld
ResearchBuzz
Retailer Blog
Jennifer Rice
Dan Roam
Kevin Roberts
Scott Rosenberg
Rules of Thumb
Samizdata
Ian Sanders
Tim Sanders
Todd Sattersten
Mary Schmidt
Robert Scoble
Scripting News
Doc Searls
Andy Sernovitz
Rajesh Setty
Stephen Shapiro
Signal vs. Noise
Slashdot
Simplicity
Smart Mobs
Sorted Books
Springwise
Halley Suitt
Andrew Sullivan
Sustainable Work
Bob Sutton
The Talent Code
Bill Taylor
TechCrunch
The Technium
Third Age
Trend Hunter
Trend Watching
Trump University
Penelope Trunk
Trusted Advisor
Twist Image
Web Worker Daily
David Weinberger
What's Next
Susan Willett Bird
The Wisdom of Improv
WonderBranding
Wooster Collective
Steve Yastrow
Your White Room

dispatches from the new world of work

Innovation Equality Video

The video series continues with this short (1 minute, 37 seconds) spot about Innovation Equality. Watch the video on YouTube to find out what Tom means by that. You can also see other videos in the series by going to this page of our website and choosing from the list of titles.

[If you'd like a transcript in PDF form, we provide it here: Innovation Equality.]

Cathy Mosca posted this on 03/18, in Leadership.
Permalink | Comments (0) |

Audio Addition

Today we posted four more items in the audio section of The Little BIG Things page of our website. The four book pieces read by Tom make up the second section of the book, titled "Excellence":

#5 If Not Excellence, What? If Not Excellence Now, When?
#6 Whither Excellence? Or: Asleep at the Wheel.
#7 "Quality": You'll Know It When You See It.
#8 Excellence Is ...

You can hear Tom by clicking on the titles above, or go to the audio player on the book page to see the list of audio selections.

Cathy Mosca posted this on 03/17, in General.
Permalink | Comments (3) |

TLBT: Online Interview

It's not easy to get Tom and an interviewer in the same place, so David Meerman Scott made a video of himself asking questions, and we made a video of Tom giving answers. Apply a little digital sleight-of-hand, and voilà! We present an interview between David and Tom. Also, David gives a good intro to the conversation on his blog, where he lists parts of the video you might want to seek out. Thanks to David for his effort!

Cathy Mosca posted this on 03/15, in General.
Permalink | Comments (3) |

Link Roundup #14

There are a few books by Cool Friends:
Jason Fried has written Rework with David Heinemeier Hansson, his co-founder at 37signals. The back of the book states, in part, that "planning is guessing," and "inspiration is perishable."

Dan Heath and his brother Chip wrote Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard. They explain how the chances of sustaining change are increased if both sides of the brain are satisfied ... the emotional side as well as the logical side.

Richard A D'Aveni is a friend who hasn't yet become a Cool Friend. In Beating the Commodity Trap, D'Aveni points out that commoditization can happen to any business or product, even the most iconic.

Cool Friend Sylvia Ann Hewlett has an article on Bloomberg.com by way of HarvardBusiness.org, "Why Women Are the Biggest Emerging Market." We appreciate her adding her voice to Tom's.

Then there are a couple of quirky messages we got in the emails:
In response to Tom's video about First-line Supervisors, Marko Gregori directed questions to Tom about managing negative talk if you're working on a good product under a bad boss. Marko ended up by posting a blog asking for input, and you might help him out by contributing some thoughts on the subject.

Finally, Shed Simove, a creative consultant whose memoir is titled Ideas Man is offering ideas for bid on eBay. Please don't take this as a recommendation or advertisement. We enjoy putting some unusual web links in front of you. You can judge them for yourselves, and I'm sure, let us know if they're of interest or way off base.

Cathy Mosca posted this on 03/12, in General.
Permalink | Comments (2) |

Audio Update #2

The Little BIG Things is now available as an audio download through Amazon.com (although the link points you to Audible.com since Amazon now owns Audible). And as Erik mentioned, you can find it at iTunes. One fan alerted us that if you try to search by Tom Peters at iTunes (and some booksellers), you may have trouble finding The Little BIG Things as the author listed is Thomas J. Peters or Thomas Peters (who knew that search wasn't smart enough to do that yet?). We recommend searching by the book title.

Shelley Dolley posted this on 03/11, in Announcements.
Permalink | Comments (6) |

Strategy: Be Extraordinary

The video series continues with Tom describing a meeting with Barry Gibbons, former chief of Burger King. Asked to speak to the collected BK managers, Tom sparks Barry's realization that anything is better than being ordinary.

You can watch the video (time: 3 minutes, 5 seconds).

Or get a PDF of the video transcript: Strategy: Be Extraordinary.

Cathy Mosca posted this on 03/11, in Strategies.
Permalink | Comments (6) |

Listen Up! (Audio update)

The Little BIG Things is available as an audio download. At iTunes ($26.95), from Audible.com ($30.61/$7.49 [promo]), and other places we haven't tracked down yet.

Oh, and we're going to put audio files up at tompeters.com. One section a week or so. (There are roughly 40 sections in the book.) The four 'Ways' in the first section are up now.

Erik Hansen posted this on 03/10, in Announcements.
Permalink | Comments (7) |

Happy Publication Day!

We have a book! The Little BIG Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence. It's for sale in stores! It's for sale online! We're excited! We're happy! We're relieved. Many many thanks to Cathy Mosca, Shelley Dolley, Joy Stauber, Richard Weaver, Mike Slind, Sarah Rainone, all the folks at HarperStudio, Abbey Bishop, Shannon Waite, Charlie Macomber, Su (at House of Pretty), the community at tompeters.com, and countless others (check out the Acknowledgments on p. 511). And, of course, thanks to Tom for writing the book.

Frequent commenter MarkJF is hankering for an autographed book, and we're sure he's not alone. Since we no longer sell books at this site, Tom has signed a number of book plates. Send an email to tom@tompeters.com with your mailing address and we'll send you one to put in your own copy of The Little BIG Things.

Tom did record an audio version as well. It won't be available on CDs but will be a download. Not abridged. He read the whole book. We'll keep you posted on that.

Seth Godin added The Little BIG Things to his latest off-the-wall book list.

Our Cool Friend Chris Brogan reviews! it! here!

More info on our own The Little BIG Things page.

Erik Hansen posted this on 03/09, in Announcements.
Permalink | Comments (12) |

More Dispatches...

Master

Excellence, Version 2008

Now in TEN parts:

Part 1—General: Part 1.1, Part 1.2, Part 1.3, Part 1.4
Part 2—Leadership
Part 3—Talent
Part 4—Value Ladder
Part 5—"New" Markets
Part 6—The Equations
Part 7.1—Implementation
Part 7.2—Action
Part 8—13 Guru Gaffes
Part 9—Health"care"
Part 10—The Lists

New! Get the Mini-master, a 525-slide version of the
10-part Big Master:
Mini-Master | updated 4 Nov 2009

And, Ten Years in the Making:
The Healthcare Master—completely annotated | 9 Apr

Special

Specialized slides sets for Tom's hot topics. There are over 100 of these thought-provoking slide decks for you to explore. We encourage you to do so. Take your pick, spread them around! Sample subjects include:
The BIG Eight Courtesies | 28 Nov
The Five Courtesies | 25 Nov
Innovation 24 | 18 June
Quality & Excellence: The Quality 136 | 4 June
Heart of Strategy | 18 May
The Venturesome Economy | 21 Apr
The Talent 57 | 13 Nov
Tough Times: Excellence Execution | 4 Oct
Hammergren, addition to the Health"care" Master | 12 Aug
Iconic Books | 22 May

Event Slides

Recent events:

11-Year Archive

Introducing Project05, FREE 240-page PDF. Tom's back with a new volume of rants—if you liked Project04, you'll love this!

Find more FREE downloadable files on our Free Stuff page.

Free Stuff RSS feed

Re-imagine! has been re-packaged into four small-format plane-friendly books: Leadership, Talent, Design, and Trends. The big difference: Marti Barletta, author of Marketing to Women, coauthored Trends, and she added new content on Prime Time Women.

View a photo gallery of Tom's typical day.

As seen on public television, Tom takes his book on the road to profile how the following businesses, along with Deloitte & Touche, are excelling in a disruptive age:

TNT
Memorial Hospital
OXO
Ellie Mae
The Container Store
Jordan's Furniture

Produced for corporate trainers, the video is available through Enterprise Media, and individual case studies of the above listed companies are also available.

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