I've spent quite a bit of time reading business bo...

2008-12-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

I've spent quite a bit of time reading business books in the past year (and quite a bit telling other people they need to read such books). This post made me think of two of them.

You talk about picking an area and differentiating yourself. I recommend doing this for both 360|Conferences [the company] and 360|Flex [One 'line' of conferences you put on]. What is the differentiator and how can you communicate that? Currently the 360|Flex site has no differentiating characteristic. A great book on this is Jump Start Your Business Brain by Doug Hall ( http://www.amazon.com/Jump-Start-Your-Business-Brain/dp/1578601797/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229373486&sr=8-1 ).

You also mentioned the goal is to turn 360|Conferences into a great company. For that, I'm reminded of the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. ( http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Companies-Leap-Others/dp/0066620996/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229373561&sr=8-1 ). It is an in depth research study on different companies and why some excel over the long and others don't. Warning, though, although awesome information; it can be a bit dry. And no tech-specific companies are covered because at the time of publication none had been around enough to qualify--I think they looked at 30+ years of historical data.

Comments on 360Conferences: Richard Branson of Virgin on business, specificall...

I've spent quite a bit of time reading business bo...