Living in More Than One World

It’s taken me several days to collect, curate, and organize my thoughts about my experience at the AWP/Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference & Bookfair, held last week at the Tampa Convention Center. I met interesting people, discovered writers I had known nothing about previously, and learned many new things about writing, editing and publishing.

Here are 9 takeaways to get you interested in AWP as an organization, and in learning more about the writers, editors and organizations that made the conference a success:

1. The Bookfair is a world unto itself. There were around 400 booths or tables in the exhibit hall.

You have exactly two weeks to apply to become one of the 2018 Google Public Policy Fellows. My familiarity with the program is through the Director of Public Policy at the American Library Association D.C. office, Alan Inouye, whom I wrote about in my December 6, 2016 post “ALA, Libraries and the Internet Economy: Partnering for Mutual Success,” about a “policy hackathon” held at Google’s D.C. offices.

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There is a concise overview of the Google Public Policy Fellowship program, and the 10th anniversary of ALA’s involvement in it, in the recent ALA District Dispatch post “2018 Google Policy Fellowship applications now open,” by Emily Wagner.

The recent New York Times article “Insurance 101: Butler Undergrads Write Coverage for Dogs and Pianos,” about Butler University’s student-run insurance company, brings to mind the 2017 book The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return, by Mihir A. Desai, an economist and professor at both Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School.

Desai’s book is worthy of all the considerable praise it has received, including various best of the year lists, and being long-listed for the coveted Financial Times and McKinsey Best Business Book of the year. He devotes considerable space to insurance, delivered in a style representative of the entire book: thoughtful, subtle and representing more than one point of view on the subjects he covers.

Every day I post quotes by Peter Drucker on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. I’ve curated these quotes over many years, and I find them to be inspirational and useful in my work and life. Here are some of my favorites, grouped by topic:

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Innovation

“Effective innovations start small. They are not grandiose. They try to do one specific thing.”

“The large organization has to learn to innovate, or it won’t survive.”

“Systematic innovation requires a willingness to look on change as an opportunity.”

“Innovation is not a technical term. It is an economic and social term.”

“The test of an innovation is whether it creates value.”

Self-Development

“Self-development may require learning new skills, new knowledge, and new manners.”

“The first priority for one’s own development is to strive for excellence.”
“Listening for the signal that it is time to change is an essential skill for self-development.”
“Self-development becomes self-renewal when you walk a different path, become aware of a different horizon, move toward a different destination.”
“Just as no one learns as much about a subject as the person who is forced to teach it, no one develops as much as the person who is trying to help others to develop themselves.”

Careers

“The manager of tomorrow will increasingly have more than one career.”
“We will have to learn to develop second careers for accomplished professional and managerial people when they reach their late forties or so.”
“Most of us, if we live long enough, must change careers.

My teaching semester at the Catholic University Department of Library and Information Science ended last August and I’m not teaching this semester. But I’m revisiting the opportunity to tap into the blank-slate beginnings of the new Spring 2018 semester to revisit/update/revise self-management strategies for teachers and students that I wrote about in 2013 and previously.

These strategies are also applicable beyond the campus, even if you are not teaching or enrolled as a student:

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1. Learn about and practice WOOP. This is a simple way to think differently about goal-setting and positive thinking, developed by NYU Psychology professors (and married couple), Gabriele Oettingen and Peter Gollwitzer.

If it’s really the most wonderful time of the year, one reason must be the publication of so many books of the year lists. As in past years, I have collected and curated some of the most informative lists for my year-end post. The amount and quality of these books is breathtaking. And it’s safe to say that many other noteworthy books did not make these lists, but are still worthy of attention. Here are 17 of the top lists, business-focused and otherwise, for 2017:

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Bloomberg: the Best Books of 2017

CNBC: 13 of the best business books of 2017

The Economist: Books of the Year 2017

Financial Times: FT Series: Books of the Year 2017

Financial Times: FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2017

(The winner is Amy Goldstein’s Janesville: An American Story.)

Forbes: Top 10 Business Books for 2017, by Shep Hyken

Fortune: Fortune’s Favorite Business Books of the Year

The Globe and Mail: The Globe 100

Inc.com: 12 of the Best Business Books of 2017, According to the Stanford Business School

The Irish Times: The best business books of 2017 and the ones to avoid

Library Journal: Best Books 2017

Los Angeles Times: Best Books of 2017/Best Non-Fiction

The New York Times: The 10 Best Books of 2017

Publishers Weekly: Best Books 2017

Strategy + Business: Best Business Books 2017

USA TODAY: 10 books we loved reading in 2017

The Washington Post: Best Books 2017

The Bloomberg list  is particularly intriguing, as it’s a survey of recommendations from major names in the business world, including Glenn Hubbard, Dean of the Columbia Business School (the above-mentioned Janesville: An American Story, by Amy Goldstein); Marc Andreessen, software pioneer/venture capitalist (Extreme Ownership: How U.S.

T. George Harris, who died at 89 in 2013, eight years after his longtime friend and collaborator, Peter Drucker, led a colorful, creative and productive life. Harris wrote and edited about many subjects, including civil rights, politics, business, psychology, careers, self-development, health and spirituality.

Photo credit: The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University

He was born in Kentucky, served in World War II and graduated from Yale. He became a journalist, as a reporter and later bureau chief and editor for Time and Look magazines. Harris was a media pioneer when it came to mind-body health, for instance as founding editor of American Health magazine, and particularly about how health intersected with spirituality.

I recently returned from this year’s Drucker Day (November 4) at the Drucker School of Management in Claremont, California, part of the Claremont Graduate University. The event attracted more than 400 alumni, students, faculty, staff, and friends of the school. The theme was “The Peter Drucker Path: Past, Present and Future.”

Photos Courtesy of Claremont Graduate University.

I’ve attended (and sometimes participated in) a number of these events, and have written about them, most recently at Drucker Day 2015. The morning keynote this year was by Renée Mauborgne, a professor at the business school INSEAD, and co-author (with W.

“I have been reading for years the acceptance speeches of Nobel prize winners.” – Peter Drucker, 1969.

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There is little wonder why Peter Drucker found inspiration in reading about winners of prestigious prizes. When he wrote the above, nearly 50 years ago in his book The Age of Discontinuity, it took some effort to find this information. Now, much of it is readily available on the Nobel Prizes’ website. We are at this time of year awash in inspiration, especially from the ongoing announcements of winners for the various Nobel Prizes. In addition, there is the MacArthur Fellows program (AKA ‘Genius Grants,’) which I wrote about in Create Your Future the Peter Drucker Way and in my October 8, 2012 post “Become Your Own Genius Grant Fellow.” In September, the Drucker Institute announced that We Care Solar, of Berkeley, Ca., was the winner of the 2017 Drucker Prize.

I was saddened recently to learn of the August 8th death, at 92, of Max De Pree, who had an illustrious career as CEO and Chairman of the innovative furniture/design company Herman Miller.

In 1989, after he retired as CEO but while remaining as Chairman, he also started a parallel career as a best-selling leadership author; particularly with his first book, Leadership is an Art; the follow-up Leadership Jazz, and in 1997, with Leading Without Power: Finding Hope in Serving Community. These slim volumes are eloquent, full of wisdom of various types, and spiritually reflective of De Pree’s deep Christian faith.