Have you read these books? How Larry Page became a leader? The biggest danger?

"…out-learning the competition"

HEADLINES:

How Many of These Books Have You Read? All of the world-class authors/biz leaders listed below are keynoting the upcoming ScaleUp Summit presented by Fortune – May 24 – 25 in Atlanta. It will be followed by a one-day Scaling Up user conference May 26. There is important hotel and payment info below.

It's a star line-up this spring – and a great way to "read" a dozen books taught by the authors themselves:

• General Stanley McChyrstal – Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World. Commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Iraq, the military is moving away from command and control and so should we.
   
• David Butler — Design to Grow: How Coca-Cola Learned to Combine Scale and Agility (and How You Can Too). VP Innovation and Entrepreneurship, The Coca-Cola Company, Butler leads a platform called Coca-Cola Founders, investing in seed-stage firms. Before this, he built a successful company – he's one of us!
   
• Jim Whitehurst — The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance. CEO of RedHat, the leading open source software supplier, he's built an open organization to match, providing a real biz example of a team of teams. We love real case studies of successful growth firms.
   
• Denise Lee Yohn — What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest. Former head of Sony's first ever brand office, she's gone on to lead branding projects for Land Rover, Burger King, and other major brands.
   
• Aubrey Daniels — Bringing Out the Best in People – How to Apply the Astonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement (Third Edition 2016). Top 5 biz book of all time (my list), leading human behaviorist in the workplace, and long-time associate professor at Harvard.
   
• Erik Qualman — What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube and Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business. Listed as a Top 50 MBA professor, he was Academic All-Big Ten in basketball at Michigan State University and his book was nominated for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize.
   
• Marshall Chiles — Your Presentation is a Joke: How to Use Humor in Your Presentation to Increase Engagement and Likability. Marshall's comedy pedigree includes founding and building comedy enterprises such as: Laughing Skull Lounge (Atlanta, GA), The Laughing Devil (New York, NY), Morty's Comedy Club (Indianapolis, IN), Asbury Comedy Festival (Asbury, NJ), and The Laughing Skull Comedy Festival (Atlanta, GA).
   
• …and Ari Weinzwerg – author of a new book coming this spring, he's the always entertaining co-founder/CEO of Zingerman's Community of Businesses, which includes Zingerman's Delicatessen, Bakehouse, Creamery, Catering, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Coffee Company, Roadhouse, Candy Manufactory and the newest business–Cornman Farms.

The Biggest Danger — not knowing what you don't know! Of course you're not going to put all these ideas to work immediately – that's not the goal. Instead, it's to put all these data bits into your head for you to access later when needed (and we don't repeat books/speakers – so you'll miss an entire body of knowledge if you miss a Summit) – and to mine one or two practical and powerful ideas you can implement immediately.

Hotel Space Limited — now that we're getting close to 1000 executive attendees, it's difficult to get everyone in the conference hotel (Atlanta Marriott Marquis). If it's important to you to be in the same hotel ($155/night rate), then I would make reservations as soon as possible. Hotel codes sent to you once you register for the Summit – first come, first served.

Payment Change — because of the risk of credit card data theft (think retailer Target and others), we've changed to colleting the entire Summit payment when you register. When we were only collecting a deposit, it meant we had to keep your CC info to charge the balance later. We've been STRONGLY advised that it's much safer for everyone if we collect the payment once and be done with the transaction. We agree, given the increased risks of cybercrime.

See you in Atlanta!