People First

Tom's new eBook, People First!, is at the iTunes store now. The subject is Talent. It's all about treating your employees like customers. Good for them, good for your bottom line.

Banner Note

You may have noticed we changed the banner here at tompeters.com today. We've brought back the New Zealand-themed banner that Joy Stauber at Stauber Design created for us. Tom has headed back to one of his favorite places, the coast of Golden Bay on South Island, New Zealand. While he's there, we'll celebrate a little New Zealand with him at the site.

Happy Christmas and Merry Holidays

From all of us working with Tom to you and your families, have a very peaceful holiday season.

In Search of Excellence eBook

It's with the greatest pleasure that we announce the publication of Tom's In Search of Excellence in eBook format. Thirty years after the original burst onto the scene, there's new technology—almost a new world—where books are concerned. Will kids born today have the bookcases full of hardcovers and paperbacks occupying so much space in their parents homes? Not likely. Tom's groundbreaking work is ready for the transition. It's available now for eBook readers; we hope a new generation of readers discovers In Search of Excellence and embraces it as did the last generation. The companies named in the book may not have survived into the present (though some notable "excellent" companies thrive), but that's not the point. Its lessons, such as "A Bias for Action" and "Close to the Customer," are as relevant now as the day it was written. Maybe more so.

Happy Thanksgiving

From all of us to all of you, if you are celebrating the American Thanksgiving, have a lovely holiday!

In Russia, a Public Event

On 17 November 2012, Tom will be appearing at the World Trade Center in Moscow. We're glad to announce this opportunity for the public in Russia to see Tom. To get further details, in Russian, about the seminar, you can visit the event page here.

You Matter To Me

Tom's newest ebook is now available! You Matter to Me is a very visual adaptation of the piece he wrote called Acknowledgement. We all need to know that the work we're doing is making a difference, and that someone sees that. This isn't about fawning all over the people who work for you or with you. It can be as simple as noticing someone's effort and acknowledging it. Here's how Tom sums it up:

It is to say, simply, that in any context, personal or professional, there is no greater gift to the person or persons with whom you are engaged than heartfelt (as well as headfelt) acknowledgement of their contributions and fundamental human worth; moreover, said acknowledgement almost invariably leads to greater commitment and better-served clientele and a happier bottom line.

MOAP #23
The Final Section

The final addition to Tom's "Mother of All Presentations" (MOAP) is available now at ExcellenceNow.com. You can download it as a PowerPoint or a PDF. Section 23 is a collection of classic presentations that join together Tom's work with a wide variety of focus.

We've been releasing a new section of MOAP every other week throughout 2012. We hope you've enjoyed each installment. Feel free to use and share the presentations. As Tom would say, "'steal' all you want!"

Award for Excellence in Leadership

Last night, Tom received the Warren Bennis Award for Excellence in Leadership from the Global Institute for Leadership Development. They invited him to speak as part of the award ceremony, and you can see his slides below. Tom has enormous respect for Warren and a passion for Excellence in leadership, so I'm sure his presentation reflects both.

Palm Desert Final
Palm Desert Long

Business Ethics and Other Oxymorons

On November 1st, Tom will be joining Nitin Nohria, Dean of the Harvard Business School for a conversation on business ethics, moderated by Donna Carpenter of New Word City. They'll be speaking at a Ford Hall Forum in Boston called Business Ethics and Other Oxymorons. Their conversation will cover a wide range of ethical issues, from morally committing to your business to partnering with others who aren't ethical to teaching ethics to business students. It should be a very entertaining discussion and it's free of charge. So if you're in the Boston area, please join us.

New Book by An Old Friend

Raj Setty has a new book, BLOGTASTIC! It was released last week, and it's completely free. You can see a blog post recounting how Raj came to write the book and why it's free on his website. You can get the book on that page or on its book landing page. (Email registration required.) Raj tells us that he thinks all our readers can benefit from his latest offering. Take a look!

See Tom in the Netherlands

On 9 October 2012, Focus Conferences will present Tom, in Breukelen, Netherlands, and implementing innovative strategies will be the topic of the day. If you would like registration information, you can find it here (in Dutch).

Public Tom Event

This is a reminder that an event featuring Tom is coming up on 4 October 2012 in Frankfurt. The seminar is billed as an "MBA in One Day." If you expect to be in Germany in October, you might want to take advantage of this opportunity to see Tom. Details are here (in German).

Vermont Public TV Interview with Tom

Recently Tom did a 30-minute interview with reporter Danny Frank of Vermont's Public Access Television, station GNAT-TV. The talk starts with the topic of small town life, proceeds through serving in the armed services in Vietnam, touches on In Search of Excellence, then takes off into the new economic realities: getting and (maybe) keeping employment, managing an excellent company, technology and social media, and more. You must scroll down on this page, www.gnat-tv.org/, and put "Tom Peters" into the search box above the words "Now Playing." We think you'll be glad you did.

Extreme Leadership

One of our favorite former colleagues, Steve Farber, is hosting the Extreme Leadership Summit in San Diego next week. Steve is always full of exuberance and passion, and considering the line up of speakers he's brought together, this is going to be a very powerful event. If you'd like to attend, Steve was kind enough to offer a 20 percent discount for people who hear of the event through us (enter TOM2012 in all caps at checkout).

Getting Stuff
(That Matters)
Done

A new short form ebook is now available thanks to our friends at New Word City. It's called Getting Stuff (That Matters) Done and it's all about execution. You certainly can't be Excellent if you're not getting anything done. So read the ebook and get started!

Stephen Covey,
A Tribute

We've been deeply saddened by the news of Stephen Covey's death. The Washington Post was kind enough to approach Tom about his thoughts on Stephen. You can find the tribute here.

Ebooks!

Perhaps you've noticed our new addition to the menu: Tom's Ebooks. Many of Tom's traditionally published books are available in ebook format (find them on the Tom's Books page). Of late, however, Tom has been partnering with New Word City to create short form ebooks. We thought it best to have one location for all the titles, and have also included the enhanced ebooks that were released just after the publication of The Little BIG Things. Keep checking back as more titles will be released soon.

Today, 2:00 p.m.
Office Hours with Dan Pink

Ask Tom "anything you want," during his session with Dan Pink on the Pink Blog, today, Monday, 14 May, at 2:00 p.m., Eastern U.S. time. You can listen to the Office Hours podcast live, by calling in to the phone number 703.344.2171 and using passcode 203373. Directions for how to pose a question will be given during the hour-long event.

Update 20 May: The discussion is now posted on danpink.com as an MP3 for downloading.

Upcoming Events

Tom has a spate of events over the next two months that are open to the public. Depending on where you are in the world, you may have a chance to see him. A week from today, he'll be speaking in El Paso, Texas for the Tecnológico de Monterrey. He'll be in Leon, Mexico on May 23rd with HSM. On June 13th he'll speak for EDaily in Seoul, South Korea, and on June 26th he'll speak in Tel Aviv, Israel for the Israeli Management Center. We hope you get a chance to see him!

It's the details...

Spring has sprung and Tom has made his return from New Zealand. This called for a new banner here at tompeters.com. Joy at Stauber Design Studio has done a beautiful job depicting a focus on fresh starts while keeping priorities and aspirations to the fore. For a very personal touch, she has included a photo that Tom took on a misty morning on his farm, a photo Tom's wife Susan took of Tom rowing, and one Tom took of Susan's lilacs budding. This banner communicates the importance of attention to detail, whether to observe natural beauty or to allow for more precise execution of a task, while reminding us of our continued pursuit of Excellence. We hope you enjoy it.

Center for Women in Business

The Center for Women in Business at Bentley College is holding its inaugural event, Moving from Conversation to Action, tomorrow. Tom will be there to have a lunch discussion with founder and leader, Betsy Myers. The event will be webcast live, to join in, visit this link and click on Join Webcast. The most exciting part of this event is that it features organizations who are already working to intentionally advance women in the workforce. They'll be sharing best practices as well as the challenges involved. Hope you can listen in.

25 April: End Malaria Day

We add our voice to the effort to raise awareness of malaria, and, more importantly, its prevention. Malaria No More is an organization committed to ending malaria in Africa by 2015. You can go to their website to donate now. There's also a booklet titled End Malaria, available at amazon.com, from which Malaria No More gets $20 with every book purchase. See its promo at YouTube.

eBook News

Almost all of Tom's books are available as ebooks now. If there's a particular title you're looking for, you can check the Tom's Books page to find out how to get it. Our friends at New Word City have been very busy lately working on Tom's short form ebooks. Two new titles have recently been released, Excellence Now: Purpose and Really First Things First. Apple has also been kind enough to group all the short form ebooks in one location in the iBookstore on iTunes. An Excellence Now room, if you will. Check it out.

An Update on Clear Path International

You may remember our good friend Jamie Hathaway who guest blogged here a few years ago. He co-founded Clear Path International, an NGO that provides services for landmine accident survivors. Recently, boingboing.net featured their work, and it was a great reminder to check in with what Jamie, et. al are up to. Jamie is in Afghanistan and reported on several projects that CPI is working on there in this blog post. We were also thrilled to hear of the positive outcomes of their work in Vietnam, started years ago, that he described during his guest blogs at tompeters.com. Jamie and his team risk their lives to help others. Can't think of a better example of servant leadership.

Off the Cuff Series

We're happy to announce the start of our Off the Cuff video series. A few months ago we asked for you to send us questions you'd like us to ask Tom on camera. The first question was posed by longtime fan Dave Wheeler, about how it came to be that Tom realized the importance of front line supervisors. We find the timing of this particularly remarkable, since it dovetails so well with the latest part of the Mother of All Presentations released at ExcellenceNow.com, First-line Supervisors Rule.

RSS at ExcellenceNow.com

You can now subscribe via RSS to ExcellenceNow.com so that you're alerted as soon as a new Part of the Mother of All Presentations is released. Go to ExcellenceNow.com and use the little orange button at the bottom of the Slide Set list to subscribe. Happy reading!

"Tom Peters Still Rocks"

We're quite excited about the overwhelmingly positive response we've seen to our new ExcellenceNow.com site. We hope you're finding lots of inspiration about why you do what you do from Part 2's Moral Basis for Enterprise, and are starting to focus in on your front line supervisors after this week's release of Part 3.

Erika Andersen wrote a kind review of the site at Forbes.com that we think you'll enjoy reading. She talks about her first encounter with Tom through In Search of Excellence, and describes him as a "tribal elder." As 2012 marks 30 years since In Search was published, perhaps that moniker is apt.

Trustworthy Business Behavior

There are a lot of lists out there, but Tom was quite pleased to be named one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior. Despite occasionally referring to himself as a card-carrying capitalist pig, anyone who is familiar with Tom's work, especially his latest book, The Little BIG Things, knows how deeply entwined Tom considers decency and success.

A Traveling Banner

Tom and his wife, Susan, have fallen deeply in love with New Zealand. Each year they spend several months there. Right now, they're making their way to the near-literal antipode of Vermont to begin their 2012 respite. To celebrate, we thought you'd enjoy a New Zealand-themed banner during the time that Tom is staying there. It was designed by the talented Joy Stauber. Tom took the center photo himself.

"This Is It"
MOAP
Excellence. Now.

This is it.
"It"/MOAP/Mother Of All Presentations/ excellencenow.com took three years to write.
And 45 years of preparation.

MOAP is in effect—23 parts and 4,096 slides—"all I know."

And all yours, no strings attached, to be used as you wish and released by us at the rate of one part every two weeks until more or less the end of 2012.

We were lucky enough—and surprised as the dickens—to find that "excellencenow.com" was available. It, along with slideshare.net [coming soon!], will be the home of and repository for MOAP.

The special bit is the "extreme annotation." We estimate 100,000++ words of annotation accompany the standard slides. The notion is that each of the 23 parts will be in effect a book—the story, or 23 stories, is intended to stand alone without further interpretation needed. (Annotations are also produced as slides, since our experience is that few pay attention to the standard indirect notes feature—and pay attention is what we hope you'll do.)

Why this format you may ask.
The answer in short: I do slides.

I have given somewhat more than 2,500 presentations (in 67 countries) on "this excellence stuff" since we began our initial organization effectiveness research at McKinsey in 1977. I've illustrated my presentations with "overheads" and glass-mounted slides—and, for the last 15 or so years, with PowerPoint creations. The slide is my unit of measure, my sub-atomic particle if you will; and since MOAP/excellencenow.com is some form of "summa," the slide format is fitting.

The 23-part presentation is, I believe, a coherent narrative, with a plotline that goes more or less from the alpha to the omega of my work. But, more practically, it is a reference encyclopedia of sorts. My goal is grand theft—that is, your grand theft of my material. This is "the stuff I care about" and the stuff to which I have, effectively, given my life. And I want to share as much of it as I can—all of it in fact. And hope that as you read through or skim the material, you'll find items or streams of thought that are of value.

I could go on, but for once I won't.
Excellence.
Now.
Have at it ....

(Below: Some have a fruit bowls on their desk. Some of us, traveling idea salesmen like me, adorn our desk with a bowl of plug adapters.)

[Special thanks to Joy Stauber for designing the new site, and to our friends at House of Pretty for bringing it to life.]

Harvey Mackay's New Release

Harvey Mackay is a world-renowned expert on selling, with past bestsellers in his name such as Swim With the Sharks and Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt, considered by some to be classics on the topic. His new book—just out—promises to be as popular: The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World. In exchange for your email address, get the first chapter here and see for yourself.

Recent Tom Interviews and Other Stuff Worth Mentioning

Julie Anixter (an old friend!) posted an interview with Tom at InnovationExcellence.com:
The Tom Peters Interview—"Excellence NOW"

An excerpt from Debbie Millman's book, Brand Thinking, in which she interviews Tom, appeared on the 800ceoread blog:
Brand Thinking with Debbie Millman and
Tom Peters

In the emails, Tom received this suggestion for enhancing one of his tweets. Kudos to Tom for getting 30 years' experience into 140 characters! We'll let him slide for leaving out the marching band:
Re-imagine! The Musical, from Shortcuts to Managing Right

Tom received another email stating that the "Tom Peters consultancy was ranked number 7 in the category of Independent Consultants/Trainers/Coaches" in the Leadership 500 ranking by the folks at Leadership Excellence. We're very proud of the London office of Tom Peters Company. They're doing excellent work based on Tom's principles.

Surviving the (Never-Ending) Downturn

In honor of Halloween, we're announcing a mini-ebook called Surviving the (Never-Ending) Downturn. After all, what's scarier than the economy these days? It's available in the iBookstore and is part of our Excellence Now ebook series. As mentioned earlier, we're experimenting with format, and this is a freshly designed short-form ebook of Tom's Recession 46 list.

Happy Halloween!

Excellence Now eBooks

It's no secret that Tom's passion is Excellence. What better subject matter for a series of ebooks, then? We're excited to announce that we're working with New Word City to publish just that: a series of ebooks about Excellence. The series is titled Excellence Now and will cover Excellence throughout a wide range of topics, from innovation to talent to, well, all things Excellent.

We're having a great time experimenting with ways to present Tom's oeuvre in digital format. For now, the ebook series is available for consumption on your iPhone, iPad, and through iTunes on any computer.

Much more digital content is in the works (ebooks, apps, etc.), so check back from time to time. For now, we'll start you off with the eponymous flagship ebook, Excellence Now. It's thoroughly inspirational and beautifully designed. If this doesn't light a fire under you to strive harder for Excellence in your work, we can't imagine what would. Enjoy!

Johannesburg in November

Tom will be giving a day-long presentation in November in Johannesburg, South Africa. Our friends at the Business Results Group are putting on a very special day on November 8 that's open to the public. The program is REINVENTING EXCELLENCE! Reinventing Leadership, Talent, Design and Trends. Find out more information here. If you're in the area, you really won't want to miss this rare event!

Tom Answers Your Questions

We'll be sitting Tom down in front of a camera in a few days. If you're a fan of The Little BIG Video Series, then perhaps you'd like to help us. Tom thought it would be fun to invite all of you to submit questions which he'll then answer via video. Not all questions will be answered, but if you send us a particularly great question, we'll capture Tom's response on video and we'll share it with the world. So put on your thinking caps and send your questions to tom@tompeters.com or tweet them to Tom (@tom_peters, #TPQA) before Wednesday, June 15.

Lecturing at Norwich University

Tom will be speaking at Norwich University as part of their Todd Lecture Series next week. It's Wednesday, June 15 at 2pm. This is a rare occasion where you can see Tom speak free of charge.

Yes, this event is free and open to the public, you just need to reserve a ticket. If you're in the area, please check it out. If not, the event will be livestreamed here. We've also heard that Vermont Public Radio will be recording the speech, and will let you know details about the broadcast when we're informed.

For Business Book Authors

When I'm not helping Tom with the cool projects he always has cooking, I'm helping other business book authors create and grow successful speaking careers. For those of you who aspire to be the next Tom Peters, or want spread your ideas as far and wide as possible, a few events are approaching that may interest you.

On June 21 and 22 in Portland Oregon, Todd Sattersten, Tim Grahl, and I are presenting BizBookLab Live. We are going to cover three important aspects in the career of every business thought leader—publishing books, building a tribe, and establishing a speaking career. Find out more about the event here.

I teamed up with these two because Todd Sattersten, former President of 800CEOREAD and coauthor of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, simply knows more about business books and the publishing world than anyone (no, really, he does). And Tim Grahl of Out:Think Group has been effectively building tribes for business authors—not just talking about it, actually doing it (his client list speaks for itself).

The three of us will be hosting a call on Thursday, May 5 at 1:00PM EDT. It's a rare opportunity to ask any question you'd like about publishing and marketing a business book, and how to leverage that into a speaking career. Sign up for the free call here.

Hope you find this information helpful. I hope you join us—the more the merrier! And thanks for listening.

Cool Friend Bill Taylor Webinar

Several of our Cool Friends are delivering webinars through G5 Leadership this year. The team at G5 was kind enough to offer a gift to our readership. Cool Friend Bill Taylor has a webinar coming up and they've given us a code for you to use to take part in the webinar for free. Here are the details:

Practically Radical by Fast Company magazine founder and New York Times bestselling author Bill Taylor is a game plan for game-changers to transform their teams and companies.

• Where to look for new ideas when you're stuck at status-quo
• Discover what your team or company is uniquely great at delivering
• How to get the greatest contributions from the most people and keep them engaged

Date: 9 March 2011
Time: 11 am ET (90 minutes)
Click here to register.
Discount Code: "tompeters"
Click here for more information.

A Day with Tom

Tom's still down under and will be giving a day long seminar next week in Auckland, New Zealand. On February 23, BNZ will be presenting A Day with Tom Peters. If you're in the area, be sure to come and say hello to Tom.

Public Event in Sydney

If you're one of our Australian readers, or will be down under next week, you may want to register to attend the National Business Growth Summit in Sydney. Tom will be giving an all day presentation on Wednesday, February 16. Don't miss it!

Daily Quote to Become Weekly Quote

With most people struggling to wade through the abyss that's become their email inbox, we've decided to change the Daily Quote subscription service to the Weekly Quote. Every Monday, you'll receive a quote from Tom delivered to your inbox. If you're not already subscribed, you can do so here. And if that's just not enough Tom for you, feel free to follow him on Twitter (@Tom_Peters), or check out his Free Stuff page for more developed thoughts.

Where's Your Blind Spot?

There's a new interview with Tom in The Globe and Mail: Tom Peters Sees Your Blind Spots. Despite its brevity, it's packed with good advice. Check it out.

Recent Honors

Tom has been mentioned in several "best" lists himself, lately. LeadershipNow.com listed The Little BIG Things as one of The Best Leadership Books of 2010. Under30CEO.com published
10 Books Every Entrepreneur Must Read From 2010 and had this to say about The Little BIG Things:

VERDICT Those who want to improve their business, whether a boss or an employee, will find great ideas in this compelling and very browsable book.

And if those weren't enough high praise, we were thrilled to see what the Financial Times had to say yesterday:

The Management Gurus Due for a Review

Gladwell, like Drucker, has the advantage of not being a business practitioner. He can observe impartially. Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great and most recently How the Mighty Fall, is similarly impartial, but the case studies in his books, as in many of those written by business school professors, risk ageing poorly. He would do well to follow the example of Tom Peters, who wrote In Search of Excellence in 1982 but has never stopped reinventing himself and developing new material, becoming a blogger and Tweeter at an age when many gurus would rather retire to their herbaceous borders. Peters is on Olympus. Collins has more to prove.

Never fear, those of us who work closely with Tom are doing our best to keep him grounded/deflate his ego as necessary (there are plenty of Greek god allusions, you can be sure).

Merry Christmas

From all of us at tompeters.com, may you have a day filled with peace and joy. No matter your observance this season, we hope you experience delight. Our thoughts, as always, are with our troops abroad and hope their homecoming happens soon. Happy Holidays.

The Red Bull of Management Thinkers

Tom's made it onto another list. This morning, Inc. announced its Year's Best Books for Business Owners. The Little BIG Things has been included and Tom was called "the Red Bull of management thinkers." We thought that moniker was particularly apt, and Tom was quite honored to have made it onto the list.

Tom's in the Top 5

Tom's tweets were recommended by OpenForum as one of the Top 5 Twitter feeds on Entrepreneurship. He joined Chris Brogan, Pam Slim, Becky McRay's SB Survival, and Anita Campbell's Small Biz Trends. We all know that using social media can be a powerful tool, no matter your industry, yet it's challenging to do it well on a consistent basis. Tom's been working hard to not only find the right balance of conversation and offering bits of wisdom at Twitter, but also tweet on a daily basis, so this was welcome praise.

MSNBC Quotes Tom

Last week, Tom was quoted by Tony Schwartz on MSNBC [forward the video to approximately 3:10]. While discussing leadership qualities, Schwartz quoted one of Tom's tweets. For more on Tom's leadership thoughts, or to have a conversation with him personally, you can follow Tom's tweets here: @tom_peters.

App Giveaway

Last week we had a surprise giveaway of Tom's The Little BIG Things Vook iPhone and iPad apps. We ask people to submit their own Two-Cent Candy story.

We received some remarkable stories (even a winning tweet!). Among the winning stories were those of a fantastic "Director of First Impressions," an eBay vendor who included popcorn in a box of purchased DVDs, and a spectacularly sanitary little sweets shop in India.

Our favorite came from a gentleman named Stuart:

My daughter was flying from London Heathrow to Philadelphia to a friend's wedding and left her hat, the wedding present and her travel details on the bus which transferred her from the car park to the terminal.

Only realising what she had done minutes before check-in she was trying to "be brave" when through a throng of people came her "knight in (shining) dayglo," the bus driver, carrying her forgotten belongings.

He had no need to do it. And it can't have been easy delivering her things personally but he did it and made my daughter's day.

And those of you who enjoy parsimony of words will appreciate this tweet sent from Daryl of 360Construction:

"When 360 began, we'd jump at the chance to fix a rickety doorknob. Today, no matter client size, our people check/fix doors."

Congratulations to all the winners. And many thanks to all who participated, as well as our friends at Vook.