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| V 8:4 December 19, 2013
Today's secret number is 7
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- "Be the chief but never the lord."
-- Lao Tzu
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Why Read It? Mila Baker believes  that most of today's leadership theories are old wines in new skins and still rely on the leader-follower hierarchy. Yet hierarchy is breaking down everywhere in society, from politics to religion to social relationships -- and most particularly in computers and networking.
Baker's inspiration is the peer-to-peer model of computing, which is also mirrored in social networking technologies where a network with "equipotent" nodes of power -- think peer leaders -- is infinitely more powerful than a "client-server" (i.e., leader-follower) network. By creating organizations with leaders at all levels, architects of peer-to-peer organizations can build flexibility, resiliency, and accountability.
Why Read It? Over a decade ago, Kim  Cameron and his colleagues decided that rather than analyze what went terribly wrong with organizations and how to prevent it, they would look at what went extraordinarily right and how to replicate it. This research was the birth of positive organizational scholarship, a new field that focused on what they called "positive deviance" -- outcomes that far exceeded normal success.
In his previous book Positive Leadership, Cameron outlined four leadership strategies -- Positive Climate, Positive Relationships, Positive Communications, and Positive Meaning -- that characterize exceptionally high-performing organizations. Here he takes these strategies further by laying out tactics for implementing them.
Read an excerpt here and buy the book for 30% off.
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For academic desk copies, please contact Mike Crowley.
For media review copies, please contact Katie Sheehan. |
Leadership Networks
In this issue of the Communiqué,  we explore leadership and the different, practical ways of leading.
Mila Baker's model for peer-to-peer leadership is groundbreaking because of its effective application of a seemingly unrelated subject to leadership. For this issue's list, we present Five Lessons on Peer-to-Peer Leadership from Peer-to-Peer Computer Networks.
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Other News
+ There's a new and rather unlikely internet influence hub for writers and publishers that is making waves.
+ Lindsay Lohan is writing a book. That's all we're going to say on that.
+ Geeks will appreciate the Collins Dictionary's "Britain's Word of the Year."
+ Amazon's price changes seem chaotic and random, but there is a method to the over 2.5 million pricing changes the giant makes every day.
+ NPR has a new app that helps you find the sort of books you want to read.
+ Freelance writers have always had a challenging life -- even Jack London lamented how poorly he was paid for his work.
+ According to a new survey, almost 70% of readers stated they will not abandon print books.
+ Millions appear to dislike him, but he still had Amazon's best-selling book of 2013.
+ Do bestseller lists really have value or accuracy? One author debates their very existence.
+ A well-known author takes to his blog to tell publishers to stop bitching about Amazon.
+ Who says state control of media is necessarily bad? The king of Saudi Arabia just banned an Arabic version of Twilight.
+ We now have a winner for the best terrible Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2013.
+ Black Friday book sales weren't so great in the United States.
+ Amazon's amazing customer service comes at a terrible human price says one insider.
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Freebies
+ Free Excerpt from a New York Times Bestseller: The Reason I Jump, by Naoki Higashida. Read an excerpt here.
+ Free Tools: Download a variety of sounds to use in your multimedia project here.
+ Free Resources: Send your parents (or other technologically challenged friends or relatives) a tech care package.
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BK News: Phrases of Death
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Your Holiday Gift from Us
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 Our gift to you in this issue, in the spirit of the season is this: nothing. We aren't going to try and sell you something or talk about our big sale -- we won't even try and sneak a link into this piece. Nope, you get nothing but our good wishes and affection, and this little snippet. Happy holidays, everyone!
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Be a Pretentious Literary Snob
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 We provide you with obscure and impressive knowledge about literature and writing so that you can be a pretentious literary know-it-all.
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Free E-Book (for 48 Hours)
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For forty-eight hours, we are giving away e-copies of Positive Leadership, by Kim Cameron, and all you need to do to get it is answer just this one multiple-choice question. (And no, we won't ask you for your name or email or anything else.) This offer is available exclusively for BK Communiqué subscribers. But act fast! After midnight on December 20, 2013, you're going to have to plunk down $17.95 like everyone else. Go now.
And if you're curious about the results of the last one-question survey, you can see them here.
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