In the 49th episode of the series we have a repeat appearance by Sabrina Horn, CEO of Horn Strategy
We discuss her new book "Make it, don't fake it". The book shows how authentic leadership eliminates the need for the shortcuts that sabotage success. “Fake it till you make it” just doesn’t work—at least not long enough to build a sustainable business.
It is being released this coming Tuesday. She sent me an advance copy and it has great quotes and monikers - Fake-o-meter, "Work-life balance? Here’s why I gave up on it" and " Leader and loser both begin with the letter L" but overall it is about values in the tech industry which is overwhelmingly driven by unicorn valuations and Wall Street attention.
It is part autobiography, part thank you to mentors like Dave Duffield and Geoffrey Moore, her parents, her employees and kids, but chockfull of examples on how to behave ethically in a variety of situations. She must identify "50 shades of lies" - some of the 'white lies" variety, some of the other extreme, fraudulent kind. She has spent a lifetime in PR, so this must have taken plenty of introspection on whether she and her firm(s) advised clients on doing the right thing, not just hyping what they had in their bags.
We also discuss activism around so many "causes" these days - racial/ gender matters, equality, climate change etc.
I particularly like the fact that she wrote the book during the pandemic. While so many of us were so distracted by the crisis and the politics of 2020 she managed to concentrate on her first book, and it is an excellent one.
Get a copy of the book, in the meantime, enjoy the sneak preview below.
Long live long-form content
I have just finished work on my eighth book. Correction - it’s NOT my book. I have narrated it for a visionary tech CEO and his incredibly innovative team. We interviewed over 50 of their customers, partners, executives and industry watchers. You will hear more about the book and the impactful trends they are driving in the next few weeks when they finish the imagery and other production details. I have also contributed a foreword to a book about automation in SAP world. You will similarly hear more about that shortly.
Every one of these books has been written since Mashable declared ‘How Twitter conquered the world in 2009’. Yes, social media has taken off exponentially in the last decade - and I have contributed thousands of blogs, videos and tweets to the world. But I am here to tell you books continue to be a far better format for storytelling. If you want entertaining, yet logical, content there is nothing like the long, written and graphical form.
The recent project showed me a book can be written in a few weeks, not years. We created the first draft in roughly 3 months. I have used Zoom interviews for previous books, but this time every single conversation (across 12 countries) was digital thanks to Teams and Zoom. The transcripts, by themselves, totaled over 2,500 pages. Then there was plenty of other industry research.
The intensity reminded me books are hard work and authors, editors, transcriptionists, project managers and designers deserve plenty of kudos. My way of saluting is to invite them to my video series. Here are some authors I have profiled in the last few months.
Sabrina Horn: Make it, don't fake it
Ray Wang: Everybody wants to rule the world
Ben Pring: Monster
Robin Gaster: Behemoth - Amazon Rising
Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway: The Startup Community Way
Rich Karlgaard: Late Bloomers
Evangelos Simoudis: Transportation Transformation
Many more coming. If you are an author or a publisher, happy to consider profiling your upcoming book. And if you have long thought about writing a book, I am here to cheer you on. Please drop me a note.
June 28, 2021 in Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)