OK, a bit dramatic.

Last week, I read Dan Pink’s newest book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, the Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need, over lunch. It is a clever little book with six simple and perhaps counter-intuitive ‘learnings’ about one’s career. What is great about this book is it is usable (readable) for today’s market. It is literally a comic book, albeit one that is more high tech than comic, Bunko is done in manga, the Japanese form of comic illustration.

Up the difficulty scale a bit is Jason’s Alba’s book I’m On LinkedIn, Now What? I admit to signing up on LinkedIn several years back, and then being surprised when someone wanted to connect to me? I understand the six degrees of separation thing, but have not made proper use of it in a way that actually is trackable to helping us “get business.” But after hearing Jason speak last night to a group of recruiters in our JOBDIG offices, I need to re-visit my initial viewpoint of LinkedIn, and how to use it. His book is packed solid with useful tips and ideas for doing just that. There must be a DUMMIES book for LinkedIn, but not for me–I never did like carrying around a book-sign with me that identified me in quite that way.

Pamela Skillings‘ new book Escape from Corporate America should be required reading for everyone who is thinking about starting their own company. I should buy copies and hand one to everyone who tells me their dream is to be in their own business sometime. I am reminded of the Peanuts comic strip, that has Charlie leading off third base. Lucy says, ‘no one would try to steal home now.’ Then Linus, ‘not even Charlie Brown is dumb enough to try to steal home.’ The last panel is Charlie himself saying ‘I wonder if I should try to steal home.’ I think Skillings’ book is for all the startup Charlie Browns out there, with one foot on third, wondering if they should steal home. Her book shows us how to do it in a way that is not dumb, but smart.

All three are smart books and available at Amazon or your favorite local bookstore, like The Bookcase in Wayzata, MN.

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