Does your future really depend on reading Mitch Joel’s new book Ctrl Alt Delete? I’d have to say a very definite maybe. If you’re the winner of last weekend’s record-breaking $600-million Powerball jackpot, it definitely doesn’t. If you are a marketer, someone who owns a business, someone who works at a business, an entrepreneur, a recent grad or someone who’s been in the same job for 25 years – then, yeah, this book could definitely help you. And if you did win that Powerball jackpot, read it anyway. You might get some great ideas on what to do next.
First, I must admit, I’m a long-time fan of Mitch Joel. His first book, Six Pixels of Separation, was the perfect book for where I was at that time. As I worked to move myself and Yaffe into the social media and digital age – it provided the right mix of education and inspiration to help me move the ball forward. His daily blog posts and weekly podcasts have kept me informed and provided good food for thought for meeting my own goals, those of this agency and those of our clients.
His new book, Ctrl Alt Delete, is again exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. The full title of the book is Ctrl Alt Delete. Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It. As the title suggests, the book is broken into two parts, one about how to take your business to the next level and the second on how to reboot your own personal life and career. In it, Mitch talks about how current technology and other factors are converging at this point in time, creating a sort of purgatory as we wait to see where this whole thing is going.
But, you can’t just stand still in this current purgatory situation. If you do, chances are your business will not adapt and grow. Chances are you will not be prepared to face a new reality in your work life. That’s the bad news. The good news is that this ever-changing climate offers plenty of opportunity to go around. And if you’re among those who grab for it first, you’re likely to not only weather the current economic storm, but to end up riding high on a new wave of success.
Mitch writes in an free-flowing style that serves up great nuggets of information in easy to understand bites. It’s a book that you could breeze through in an afternoon or spend weeks reading small chunks at a time (which is what I did). Each chapter tackles a particular issue or opportunity. At the end of the chapter, he lays out three to five lessons learned there– with new twists, so it’s not like reading the same stuff over again. This also makes it easy to go back after you’ve read it and get the highlights, as you work through your own plan on how you’re going to reboot your business and your own personal path.
Your company or your career path doesn’t need to be on the bleeding edge of technology to get a lot of value out of the insights in this book. In fact, if you haven’t done anything to get in front of this sweeping sea of change, this might be just the impetus you need to get moving. This is not to say, it’s strictly for the neophytes of the digital universe either. There are good, thought-provoking lessons for everyone at every level. That is something Mitch does so very well – he makes all this knowledge accessible to the uninitiated and still meaningful to current practitioners who are already harnessing the concepts bringing about all this change.
I recommend Ctrl Alt Delete as a good read for my clients, my contemporaries and anyone who wants to be relevant 5 years from now. Once we get there, Mitch is sure to have another book out to guide us along whatever new paths open up then. And I hope to see you all there.
Mike McClure, Rebooting my future now.
Don’t stress out, you’ll be just fine for your interviews. In general, it is two deliveries per day for most of the drug supply companies. What you will most likely do (after almost scratching your skin off.