In April of 1998, Karl Krayer and I presented synopses of the first two books selected for the 1st First Friday Book Synopsis.  I presented The Circle of Innovation by Tom Peters, and Karl presented The Leadership Engine: How Winning Companies Build Leaders at Every Level by Noel Tichy.  (I’m a fan of Tom Peters, but Karl’s selection had the more lasting impact – a really good book!)  Except for a snow storm and an electric outage or two, we’ve met every month since then.

In April of 2011, we begin our 14^th year with two more terrific books.  They are:

Synopsis by Karl Krayer
Change the Culture, Change the Game:  The Breakthrough Strategy for Energizing Your Organization and Creating Accountability for Results by Roger Connors and Tom Smith.

Synopsis by Randy Mayeux
Practically Radical: Not-So-Crazy Ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry, and Challenge Yourself by William C. Taylor.

I will be posting soon (a time or two, I suspect) from the Taylor book, Practically Radical.  He is also the author of Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win, which I presented in November, 2006.

Here is one of many terrific quotes from Taylor’s earlier book:

Few companies consciously set out to be just another me-too player with another ho-hum business model, following a bland formula that’s hard to distinguish from everyone else’s.  But in industry after industry, that’s precisely how most companies wind up competing, which is why competition feels so unforgiving.

At the First Friday Book Synopsis, we have great food, great networking; we give away books (many books, thanks to our blogging colleague Bob Morris); we give away tickets to a future First Friday Book Synopsis; and we learn – from the presentations, and from each other.

I hope you can join us on April 1 , and help us launch our 14^th year of the First Friday Book Synopsis.