Comments

A success tip of my own if I might offer it. I tried to open "super polished" tips 1-50 on the Change This site. After waiting a few minutes for the download (8 minutes left to go on my super-fast corporate T1), I closed it without waiting and without reading. "Unpolished" tips 51-75 opened without a wait and got my full attention. Tip: sometimes good enough is good enough.

Posted by Ed Di Gangi at January 10, 2007 1:08 PM

Glad to see the "Damn It's" still in there. I've noticed the thin, healthy, walking-all-the-time Tom is still the passionate Tom that hooked us in 25 years ago. You too could have checked out years ago big guy. No McKinnell or Nardelli here...now go and do your "breathing" and "picture taking" nature boy.

Posted by scott swift at January 10, 2007 4:24 PM

Scott, it's 1:20 AM in Athens right now. Your comment made me glad I'm awake! You da man!

Posted by tom peters at January 10, 2007 6:23 PM

Success tip #69, Do Unto Others - Make Others Successful, got my attention. Reminded me of a couple of top managers I knew at Anthem Blue Cross (Wellpoint) who, no matter where they were placed in the organization, always grew their direct reports into the next generation of leaders. These top managers measured themselves primarily by one yardstick: how many leaders did I create this year? (Leadership was often demonstrated by taking on ridiculously difficult projects, not necessarily moving up the ladder.) These managers always seemed to direct attention to their people not to themselves.

Posted by John O'Leary at January 11, 2007 10:41 AM

Thanks for the fast response, and greasing my squeaky wheel. I made the comment, and the next time I hit your blog, there it was. thanks

Posted by John Newland at January 12, 2007 10:12 AM

I'm commenting here partly in hope that Cathy might read it... today I spent 2 hours searching the TP site trying to find a book Tom recommended a while back (Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers). I knew I remembered Tom commenting he had contributed the foreword, and I knew it was about blogging, so I searched under 'foreword', 'blogging' and various other keywords but to no avail.

I ended up running through every TP blog archive for the past 2 years. I had a blast! Some of the discussions have been so entertaining/moving/stimulating!!! Just one example - a debate on Tony Blair's legacy - 18 months later that might have had a very different tone (no pun intended).

In the end I googled 'foreword by Tom Peters' and guess what - found it within 3 minutes! Another lesson learned!

Conclusion #1: I recommend (as a downtime activity) dipping into some of the past posts on this site - often a new perspective gives extra significance to a comment or recommendation that may have been passed over previously; Conclusion #2: Cathy, would it be feasible to create a Recommended Books archive, as per the Cool Friends/Blog archives, so that we can find these recommendations later, when they might assume a heightened relevance?

Just a thought.

Posted by Stephen Spencer at January 12, 2007 12:08 PM