Customer Reviews

The Brand You 50 : Or : Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an 'Employee' into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I remember an anecdote about a young writer who sent a manuscript to a famous author asking for criticism and advice (I forget who the famous author was. Faulkner?). The author graciously sent back a long, detailed reply which contained a nugget that I remember to this day. The author said, "You should be more judicious in your use of exclaimation points. A writer only gets to use three of them in his career." Meaning, of course, that if you overemphasize every other sentence, how to you get the reader to understand the importance of something that really needs the emphasis? If you have to use italics and caps and exclamation points to get your point across, you're choosing the wrong words.

Which brings us to Mr. Peters. If you're looking for some interesting and useful advice on how to market yourself and your career, this book is quite good. Peters does drive me up the wall a bit with his relentlessly energetic and optimistic tone, but he does give good advice. I don't think Tom takes into account how resistant some workplaces are to people who behave like he tells us to, and his irritating call to make everything you work on a "WOW" project makes me wonder if he knows what it's like to man the front-line trenches of corporate America. But again, what he writes is worth reading.

What I find fault with is the how Peters says it. He can't write a sentence without words in ALL CAPITALS and italics (which, alas, I can't show you in an Amazon review). And, of course, Peters loves exclamation points!!!! In fact the logo of his company is an exclamation point!!! He uses enough exclamation points that there is NO WAY to tell what is just ROUTINE INFORMATION and what is VERY, VERY IMPORTANT. See how INCREDIBLY IRRITATION this is??!!! Read "The Brand You 50" and you find all sorts of good info, but you'll have to hack through an ENTIRE BOOK that is written LIKE THIS!!!!!!!

...if you're serious about personal and professional growth. In his typically no-holds-barred style, Tom Peters scores with 50 (plus) strategies for breaking the shackles of faceless employee-dom and turning you into a rock 'em, sock 'em mini-firm --complete with personal "brand" and a passion for constant renewal.

...if you feel discouraged in today's business culture. With down-to-earth, "I can do that" tactical suggestions, Peters relentlessy lifts your hopes and revives the dreams long suppressed by "corporate." Like his "live" lectures, you'll feel like you just attended a revival meeting.

...if you're looking for more than your job offers. The 50 strategies get your juices flowing, help you diagnose your current position, and plan for the future. The chapters may be bite-sized, but they provide more than enough food for thought and reflection. Read it with savor.

...because it can change your life! This book played a key role helping me decide to quit my job and reach for what I really want to do. Read at your own risk!

Ever since he first blew my mind with "in Search of Excellence", Tom Peters has been on my "must read" list. He combines the utterly brilliant with the utterly obvious, fusing the two into the most powerful, most compelling vision of the possibilities of business I have ever encountered. I want to live in Tom's world, a world where work has meaning, purpose, passion and joy. "The brand you 50", is the latest chapter in this ongoing quest. If you have read his previous books, you will find no surprises, if you haven't, then read this book drunk, because he is going to scare the hell out of you. (and -maybe- set you free). In the book, Mr. Peters gives a list of things that an individual can do to thrive in the new economy. This is the Tom Peters vision of the world boiled down to its most pragmatic form. The author's views on what it takes to succeed has changed radically since "In Search of Excellence", but his absolute love for the topic burns hotter than ever. The only thing he could have done better would have been to combine "The Brand You 50", "The Project 50", and the "Professional Service Firm 50" into one book, instead of making me make three (expensive) trips to the bookstore.

Tom beats you up. He knocks you down and points out where you are weak. But when he is done you definately don't ever want to wear that mediocre suit to work again. His chapters are short and his homework is frightenly creative and challenging. I think it takes about a minute to read a chapter and a day(at least) to tackle his to do lists. Each to do is a groaning soul searching question that drags you down and lifts you up with a euphoric (and addictive)self-realization.

I decided to buy Tom's book after reading about a fifth of it in the book store. I described it to a new member of my Brand Me inner circle as a book I had to buy after I wrote down two quotes and laughed out loud three times.

The part I like the most about !'s book is the reaction I get from my inner circle when I share my things to do. "That is very very cool", "Storms, hurricanes, fires, natural disaster are churning in my belly after talking to you about it", "This is really exciting I am so eager to get started" are a few comments I have gotten since I started working on my brand.

Tom's book reads like he wrote it after 6 cups of coffee on a trans-atlantic flight and it probably was. So it doesn't flow as well it could. Also, if he really wanted people to take action as quickly as he says he does it would have helped to have some room to write right there in the book. I definitely recommend a workbook edition.

With a shortage of a million IT workers in the world it only makes sense that everybody start asking why they aren't doing what they absolutely love doing. Tom's book is a guide to start doing it.

Cheers, Kieran

There is very likely some information in this book that is insightful and helpful, but I couldn't find it.

The book reads as if you are attending a seminar taught by someone who was _really_ excited, and who had drank way too much coffee. I was really interested in hearing about brand and the new economy the author envisioned, but the book is just too distracting to read. I "read" about 1/2 of it, and I'm not sure if there were more than three full sentences that I had found up until that point. Text changes color, size, boldness throughout. Liberal and nonsensical use of punctuation is infuriating after the first page.
The book reads like a spoken seminar, and squanders the opportunity of actually being a book, which could have afforded a more in-depth look at the authors ideas.
I would highly discourage anyone serious about this topic from buying this book. It is more of a super-happy high school cheerleader dialog than any type of meaningful discussion.

There has been a lot written and said about how white collar employees will start acting like free agents in sports. This trend is already well advanced with software writers and other scarce professionals. Tom Peters has moved well beyond what has already happened to create a useful portrait of how to play this new role in order to have the most satisfaction and success. Further, he asserts that those in the non-scarce areas like human resources, purchasing, and so forth had better do the same thing . . . because 90% of these jobs will be gone in 10 years. I sometimes think that Tom Peters overstates things, but in this one area I think he is understating what needs to be done. Whether you are an employee, want to start your own firm, have friends and children who want good careers, or have just lost your job, this is an extremely important book on how to take charge of your own career (and to help those you care about do the same) to create the most benefit for those you serve (your clients, in Peters parlance)and yourself. Although you will recognize all of the ideas from having seen them elsewhere before, you will find the way he has woven them together to be practical, mutually-supportive and thought-provoking. I know that I got several good ideas from this book. As a business book author who helps people get a lot more with less ... and in less time, I found an additional benefit. This book is a great profile of how to be Tom Peters, the world's most successful business guru. I found this to be his most self-revealing book, and although I have always liked his work, I found that liked him personally a lot better as a result of what he shows about himself. If you are a Tom Peters fan, be sure to add this book to your reading list! You'll be glad you did. You'll live a much more interesting, meaningful, productive life as a result. This book is part of his 3 book series: Reinventing Work. I also recommend his book, Professional Service Firm 50, and you can read my comments about that book on that book's page on Amazon.com.

For more than a decade, Tom Peters has come to represent a push against the envelope of normal boring white collar work - so why should he change direction now? The Brand You 50 is the first volume in a number of of books that Peters plans to write over the next while under the umbrella moniker of 'Reinventing the Work'.

Again employing his trademark in-your-face style, Peters takes his 'Circle of Innovation' one step further by providing the reader with some great, whacky, and often off-the-wall ideas about how to thrive in the work world of tomorrow today.

While not quite worthy of a five star rating, I found this book to be entertaining, if not engrossing. It was easy to pick up and read tidbits over and over agian. I found the 'Todo' ideas at the end of every chapter (& I use this term loosely) to be the most valuable part of the book.

The mechanics where a little disoriented, and the presentation was real and meaningful, if not a little raw at times. If you have never read TP before, you might find this volume a little offensive and strong, but once past the rough exterior, I imagine most readers will not only learn something, but also come away with lots of ideas for personal use.

With this being an indicator of the flavor of the remaining '50' books, I suspect that we're in for a roller coaster ride in the world as TP sees it.

This is from a real reader, not some book distribution company looking to promote sales. I bought this book a year into a non-productive and demoralizing career change effort.

Not only did it freshen my resolve, it gave me things to do that worked.

If you are changing jobs by choice or by force, and especially if it has been a while since you "packaged" yourself to be marketed, you can't lose and will probably benefit a lot from this short little wonder. I owe it a lot. I had a fantastic new position and doubled my salary within two months of reading it.

It is so good, I have given a copy to a friend four times in the past year, friends who are as stuck as I was.

This set of 3 books by Peters (Brand You50, Project50, ProfessionalServices Firm50) has changed the way I think about my work, job, and career for ever. Every time I read a few pages, I go back to work with a passion and a commitment for and to WOW! that I never thought existed in me. Tom Peters has changed my world for the better. They are worth the money even if you just read one page.

Well, I just HAD to buy it! The idea of treating myself as a brand (by no means new) was so delectable. Brands are so stereotypical....was I a superbrand? I might learn something...then.... I thought well, he's a guru, and in his last book I seem to recall 30 of the 50 companies he raved about were in trouble five years later!

However, the cover, and the promise of a brand new me, finally won out. It was time to relook at my positioning statement and investigate parallel markets - Marketeer, market thyself! Nice one Tom. Really original and completely lacking in the usual pseudo-dirge of self-help books.