A concise celebration of the power of storytelling, pleasantly free of didacticism.
A debut marketing treatise on the benefits of crafting a compelling narrative for one’s business.
In these pages, marketing expert Riemer—an executive in residence at the University of California, Berkeley’s Hass School of Business—imagines how executives might work to better package and sell their startup story. The work opens with former CNN president Jon Klein’s foreword, in which he says that Reimer’s methodology helped him raise $4 million for his own startup. Riemer then offers his own account of a life of writing and storytelling. What will strike readers from the outset is the author’s dedication to colloquial, lively prose—a business-writing style that’s refreshingly stripped of tech jargon and focused not on a “two-sided market” of buyers and sellers, but rather on a “love story” that can lead to everyone living happily ever after. He divides the book into three sections—“How to Build a Great Story,” “How to Tell a Compelling Story,” and “How to Level-Up Your Story”—and provides concrete examples of how companies adapt to rapidly shifting markets and other unexpected occurrences, including the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, he keeps his focus on how a business tells its story. In the first section, for example, Riemer discusses the presentation of Facebook in the 2010 film The Social Network and the ways that screenwriters structure Pixar films, and incorporates sample storyboards that entrepreneurs can use to map out their ideas. In the second part, Riemer clearly discusses how corporate luminaries, such as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, reduced complex ideas into compelling narratives, building bonds between their companies and would-be customers. The work is lucid and tightly written, clocking in at fewer than 200 pages with little extraneous detail—a structural decision that befits the book’s overarching themes. In the closing chapters, Riemer challenges readers to understand that their story “is never truly finished” and that they should continue to work on an innovative narrative for customers to follow.
A concise celebration of the power of storytelling, pleasantly free of didacticism.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63299-469-1
Page Count: 200
Publisher: River Grove Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A vigorous defense of democratic capitalism worthy of the name.
A close look at the push-and-pull, often dysfunctional workings of democracy and capitalism.
Distinguished financial journalist Wolf, author of The Shifts and the Shocks, opens by noting his generally pessimistic outlook, which enables him to be pleasantly surprised when things don’t go down in flames. “I have never taken peace, stability, or freedom for granted and regard those who do as fools,” he writes. Considering the rise of authoritarianism and the supremacy of predatory capitalism, he has reason to be glum, but while he seldom brightens from his starting point, neither does he write off the democratic experiment as dead. Even so, he notes, “a liberal democracy is a competition for power between parties that accept the legitimacy of defeat.” A healthy capitalist economy is one that values things other than profit, which, the author argues, should not be the sine qua non of the reigning ideology but instead “a by-product of pursuing other goals, such as making excellent cars or providing reliable advice.” While the autocracies of Orbán, Erdogan, Xi, Putin, and Trump are essentially mediocre, combining “the vices of populism with the evils of despotism,” they can still prevail. But as long as capitalism does not slide into autarky and democracy does not devolve into authoritarianism, the joined system of democratic capitalism has a chance of thwarting the ambitions of, say, China, which by Wolf’s account represents the greatest existential threat to the West. Chinese officials do not necessarily want military dominance; rather, they seek to “make trade, commerce, and investment the foundation of a Chinese-led global order.” In order to maintain a functioning system of democratic capitalism, Wolf argues for the renewal of a social contract that renounces nationalism and extends citizenship as “the tie that binds people together in a free and democratic society,” creating a true level playing field.
A vigorous defense of democratic capitalism worthy of the name.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780735224216
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Jobs was an American original, and Isaacson's impeccably researched, vibrant biography—fully endorsed by his subject—does...
An unforgettable tale of a one-of-a-kind visionary.
With a unique ability to meld arts and technology and an uncanny understanding of consumers' desires, Apple founder Steve Jobs (1955–2011) played a major role in transforming not just computer technology, but a variety of industries. When Jobs died earlier this month, the outpouring of emotion from the general public was surprisingly intense. His creations, which he knew we wanted before we did, were more than mere tools; everything from the iPod to the MacBook Pro touched us on a gut level and became an integral part of our lives. This was why those of us who were hip to Steve Jobs the Inventor were so moved when he passed. However, those who had an in-depth knowledge of Steve Jobs the Businessman might not have taken such a nostalgic view of his life. According to acclaimed biographer and Aspen Institute CEO Isaacson (American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and a Heroes of a Hurricane, 2009, etc.) in this consistently engaging, warts-and-all biography, Jobs was not necessarily the most pleasant boss. We learn about Jobs' predilection for humiliating his co-workers into their best performances; his habit of profanely dismissing an underling's idea, only to claim it as his own later; and his ability to manipulate a situation with an evangelical, fact-mangling technique that friends and foes alike referred to as his "reality distortion field." But we also learn how—through his alternative education, his pilgrimage to India, a heap of acid trips and a fateful meeting with engineering genius Steve Wozniak—Jobs became Jobs and Apple became Apple. Though the narrative could have used a tighter edit in a few places, Isaacson's portrait of this complex, often unlikable genius is, to quote Jobs, insanely great.
Jobs was an American original, and Isaacson's impeccably researched, vibrant biography—fully endorsed by his subject—does his legacy proud.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4853-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
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