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
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
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
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
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
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

Tom's Books

The Little BIG Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE, 2010

The Little BIG Things is a compendium of 163 ways to pursue Excellence—with tips ranging from the blatantly obvious, "Design Is ... Everywhere!" and "It's All About ... the Quality of the Workforce," to the wildly counterintuitive, "Boring Is Beautiful" and "'Failure'—Celebrate It!" to the often repeated, "The Customer Is 'She.'" Begun as a repackaging of the Success Tips from our blog, this book became so much more as Tom worked and reworked its contents. Now, its main message is that EXCELLENCE is the result of many small tasks, all of which can be practiced and mastered.

Available in hardcover in early 2010.

The Essentials Series (2005)

We took the content from Re-imagine! and put it into four smaller, plane-friendly books. Convenient for pocket or purse, these books each contain a sub-set of the chapters from Re-imagine! re-worked and updated, along with some relevant Cool Friends interviews. Upon publication of the larger book, many readers reported that a more portable format would be welcome. The Essentials Series is the response to that feedback.

View the Essentials Series notes.

Essentials: Leadership, 2005

A key—perhaps THE key—to leadership is the effective communication of a story. Instead of looking for things that have gone wrong in your organization and trying to fix them ... look for things that went right and try to build on them. Make work matter and give the WOW! factor free reign in your organization. Discover passion, persistence, and imagination to get results. Think weird and learn how to thrive in a disruptive age.

Available in turtleback.

Essentials: Talent, 2005

Don't pay lip-service to People-Power—make your organization truly talent-attractive. Your business can become an Awesome Place to Work—a place where Talent rules. Discover why the office slave is dead and the age of the Free Agent is now. Ensure that talent doesn't just support the brand—but IS the brand. Use quirky, energetic, and disobedient talent to create your Primary Competitive Advantage.

Available in turtleback.

Essentials: Design, 2005

Think designers are odd ducks who should be confined to their desks? Wrong! They should sit at the CEO's immediate right at the boardroom table. Create a whole new experience for your customers and turn what you provide into an experience. Discover why design is the Number 1 determinant of whether a product or service stands out—or doesn't. Learn how we are all designers at heart. See why branding is about nothing more, or less, than heart: What is your organization, why is it here, and how is it unique?

Available in turtleback.

Essentials: Trends (with Martha Barletta), 2005

Women are where it's at! And Boomers and Geezers are where damn near ALL the loot is! How you respond to emerging trends and exploit their potential is key to the success of your organization. Create a strategic vision for the future with revolutionary new ideas from Tom Peters and Martha Barletta. Discover how marketing to women is "the biggest trend in the world." Find out how you can target the aging population. Think about making that strategic realignment.

Available in turtleback.

Sixty, 2005

A limited-edition compendium of Tom's tenets. Sixty years of experience. Sixty articles of belief. Sixty TIBs (TIB=This I Believe). The ideas have been offered in other formats, but this fresh, new presentation has them leaping off the page. Lavish full color (Technicolor Rules!) and striking design (Design Matters!) in a coffee-table-sized collector's edition.

Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age, 2003

Tom teamed up with publisher Dorling Kindersley to present a departure in business books. Visually exciting and compelling to read, Re-imagine! presents reasons why COOL BUSINESS is NOT OPTIONAL.

More than just a how-to book for the 21st Century, Re-imagine! is a call to arms—a passionate wake-up call for the business world, educators, and society as a whole. Focusing on how the business climate has changed, this inspirational book outlines how the new world of business works, explores radical ways of overcoming outdated, traditional company values, and embraces an aggressive strategy that empowers talent and brand-driven organizations where everyone has a voice.

Click here for a conversation with Tom about the book, to check the footnotes, or to download a chapter.

Available in paperback, and audio (cd or download, both read by Tom).

The Reinventing Work Series 50List Books (1999)

With the White Collar Revolution upon us, and 90 percent of jobs in danger of major reconfiguration—or extinction—Tom wrote this groundbreaking series aimed at nothing less than a total reinvention of work (how we think about it, undertake it, bring ourselves to it). The books are in the form of "50 lists": The Brand You50, The Project50, and The Professional Service Firm50. Each contains 50 essential ideas for making this revolution an opportunity for dramatic change in our own working lives. These three books are as relevant today, if not more relevant, than they were when published.

The Brand You50: Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an 'Employee' into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!, 1999

Brand You ... is the worker herself.

Michael Goldhaber, writing in Wired, said, "If there is nothing very special about your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself you won't get noticed, and that increasingly means you won't get paid much either. In times past you could be obscure yet secure—now that's much harder."

Again: The white collar job as now configured is doomed. Soon. ("Downsizing" in the '90s will look like small change.) So what's the trick? There's only one: DISTINCTION.

Or as we call it ... turning yourself into a brand ... Brand You.

Available in hardcover and on the Kindle.

The Project50: Fifty Ways to Transform Every "Task" into a Project That Matters!, 1999

Funny thing ... the work itself always seems missing in most discussions of "management." (Maybe it's because we've expended so little energy studying white collar work.)

This is what we call the WOW Project. It's obvious ... in retrospect. The common denominator-bottom line for both the professional service firm/PSF and the individual/Brand You ... is the project. And for the cool individual in the cool professional service firm there is only one answer: the cool project.

THE PROJECT IS IT. I HAVE SPENT MY LIFE IN PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS. I AM MY PROJECTS. I AM AS COOL—OR UNCOOL—AS MY PROJECTS. PERIOD. MY PROJECTS ARE MY LIFE. MY PROJECTS ARE MY LEGACY. PERIOD.

Available in hardcover.

The Professional Service Firm50: Fifty Ways to Transform Your "Department" into a Professional Service Firm Whose Trademarks are Passion and Innovation!, 1999

You are boss of a 23-person finance department in a division of a big company. Or, rather, you were boss of the finance department. Now, per our suggestion-model, you are Managing Partner, Finance Inc., a full-fledged professional service firm that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of your division.

Goal: Learn from the best professional service firms! Transform your unit! Today, even after re-engineering done well, the "department" doesn't look much like McKinsey, IDEO, or Chiat\Day. (And that's an understatement!)

The aim, in short: Cool People working on Cool Projects with Cool Clients. The aim redux: A COOL Finance—Purchasing, IS, HR—Department. Why not?

The cool professional service firm is just that: cool talent, a portfolio of cool projects, cool clients. Period. Its only asset—literally—is brains. Its only product is projects. Its only aim is truly memorable client service.

Available in hardcover and on the Kindle.

The Circle of Innovation, 1997

Called "the first piece of postmodern management literature" by the Los Angeles Times, The Circle of Innovation boldly claims that "you can't shrink your way to greatness." It's about one BIG idea—innovation—that our fast-moving times (and customers) demand. With bold graphics and chapter titles such as "We are all Michelangelos," "Create waves of lust," and "You can't live life without an eraser," The Circle of Innovation challenges us all to transform our organizations, our careers, and ourselves.

Available in hardcover, paperback, and audio (cassette or download, both read by Tom).

The Pursuit of WOW!: Every Person's Guide to Topsy-Turvy Times, 1994

Published in 1994, The Pursuit of WOW! was served up as "a practical guide to impractical times." It's built on 210 numbered observations, all with a common bond of stepping out and standing out from the growing crowd of look-alikes. Along with the best of his columns, Peters includes questions and rebuttals that come from readers and listeners, as well as his own candid responses. Tom writes that The Pursuit of WOW! is "a clarion call for more personal and organizational spiciness in a world that will tolerate nothing less."

Available in hardcover and audio (cassette or download, both read by Tom)

The Tom Peters Seminar: Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations, 1994

Tom isn't only the best selling business author of all time, he's one of the business world's engaging and challenging speakers. After requests from thousands of his seminar participants for paper copies of the visual aids used in his seminars, Tom published The Tom Peters Seminar as his answer. The book contains the contents of a two-day Tom Peters seminar in early 1994. It's loaded with "how-to's," and it challenges its readers to reach beyond reengineering, total quality management, and empowerment, towards reinvention and revolution.

Available in paperback and audio (cassette or download, both read by Tom).

Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties, 1992

Published in 1992, almost 10 years to the day after In Search of Excellence, Liberation Management focuses largely on how the inflexible, hierarchical, bureaucratic, organizational structures of the past were being consigned to the shredder and replaced with semi-permanent networks of small, autonomous, project-oriented teams. While evolving the flexibility theme of Thriving on Chaos to deal with the accelerating pace of business change in the early '90s, Liberation Management shows the genesis of Tom's thinking on some of his most important concepts in 1999: Project work and the professional service firm as the model organization for the new economy, along with the self as brand.

Available in hardcover and audio (cassette or download, both read by Tom).

Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution, 1987

Published the same day as the October 19, 1987, stockmarket crash, Thriving on Chaos is focused on the turmoil requiring nothing short of a management revolution. In Thriving on Chaos, Tom declares that everything known "for sure" about management 15 years earlier is being challenged, and he forecasts (correctly) that the next 15 years would show even more change. The relatively predictable environment of the past was vanishing, requiring organizations and managers to embrace flexibility and a total love of change. Chaos and rapid change were becoming inevitable, and Tom claims that the winners of the future would deal proactively with chaos, seeing it as a source of market advantage, not a problem to be ignored.

Available in hardcover and paperback.

A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference (with Nancy Austin), 1984

Cutting through traditional data-based dogmas about management, A Passion for Excellence champions the innovative, commonsense, people-oriented spirit of In Search of Excellence. Through hundreds of concrete, real world examples, Tom and Nancy Austin focus in on the key areas of competence that add up to excellence, offering scores of anecdotes and practical insights to help all businesspeople on the road to leadership, success, and most of all ... excellence.

Available in hardcover, paperback or audio (cassette).

In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies (with Robert H. Waterman, Jr.), 1982

Ranked as the "greatest business book of all time" in a 2002 poll by Britain's Bloomsbury Publishing, this best-selling business book has long been a must-have for the boardroom, business school, and bedside table. You've read it before, perhaps. We suggest you read it again now!

Profiling 43 companies, In Search of Excellence describes 8 basic principles that made these organizations successful. Though many of the profiled companies have since lost their edge (or gone under completely), these 8 principles have shown themselves to be timeless: 1) A bias for action, 2) Staying close to the customer, 3) Autonomy and entrepreneurship, 4) Productivity through people, 5) Hands-on, value driven, 6) Stick to the knitting, 7) Simple form, lean staff, and 8) Simultaneous loose-tight properties.

According to the Wall Street Journal, In Search of Excellence is "One of those rare books on management that is both consistently thought-provoking and fun to read."

Available in hardcover, paperback, and audio cd, read by Tom.

Categories

Blog Roll

Tom's Books

The Essentials Series (2005)

The Reinventing Work Series 50List Books (1999)