Magazine: Inc., March 2013

My highlights.  You can find Inc. Magazine here, but they don't seem to be offering an archive anymore.

* Book Recommendation: They recommend Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.  The article also mentions a previous book NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children that also sounds interesting.  Adding both to my to-read list. (Disclaimer: Amazon affiliate links. Thanks for clicking!)

* What If Your Gut is (gasp!) Wrong? by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
This is a good, quick read about making quality decisions.  I had circled "premortem" as a fascinating term.  I'm also simultaneously reading "Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work" by the Brothers Heath (I will have completed it before this posts) and this article is a great primer to whet your appetite.



* Why It's Wise to Hire People Smarter Than You by Phil Libin

So I woke up.  And I made a new rule: Everyone who reports to me has to be much better at doing his or her job than I could ever be. 

Now we have [this problem].  I got really angry about this, and I stayed angry until I found someone in the computer who was angrier [...] than I was and who knew a lot more about [...] than I did [...].  And I put him in charge of fixing it.  Now I'm not angry anymore; I know a smarter person is handling it.

* What the Rolling Stones Can Teach You About Business by Norm Brodsky

Watching Jagger made me realize that enthusiasm and passion are different. Enthusiasm has to do with the way you feel about something that happens outside you. Passion comes from within. You don't need passion to be successful, although I do think that enthusiasm is essential. If you aren't enthusiastic about building a business, you won't have fun doing it, and you won't have the resilience required to succeed.

* Innovation: Freight Farms - Apparently not on their website (or visible from Google), an infographic that describes a company using networked cargo containers to place a self-contained one acre farm wherever it's needed all inside a 320-square-foot box.  With LEDs and climate controls and recycled water, these stackable containers can produce 900 heads of lettuce a week.  Here's their website - pretty cool.  www.frieghtfarms.com

* Two Reasons to Keep an Eye on Github by Will Bourne
If your company isn't on Github now, chances are fairly high that it will be soon. Article also gives me a third book to add to my list: Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson.

* A Job Listing Should Be Like a Love Letter by Jeff Haden
You don't need dozens of respondents.  You need just one.

* How Patagonia's Roving CEO Stays in the Loop by Leigh Buchanan
Ok, Yvon Chouinard's cool.  I've never been to Patagonia, but now I want to buy all my stuff there. Anyone who tells you to think carefully about whether you really need it before you buy it?  That's like something out of a movie.  Imagine, an outfit like Patagonia sending people... oh, wait. Sorry.