June 4, 2014

Learn Marketing Ideas from Top Marketing Thinkers

We’re excited to share this great list of marketing ideas from the world’s top marketing thinkers. With new and innovative marketing techniques developing at a rapid pace, LearnOutLoud has kept subscribers constantly updated with our Free Resource of the Day Emails. From this wide base of resources, we’ve carefully chosen the best, including several items from irreverent marketing guru Seth Godin, life advice from hotel-magnate Chip Conley, and the latest tips from the authors of the best-selling book Made to Stick. We also delve into resources that explore how marketing has become more and more about forming direct relationships between the customer and the business owner. Need to find new ways to sell more effectively to your customer base? Look no further:

1. Seth Godin on Standing Out

Seth Godin feels that days of status quo marketing through the television industrial complex are coming to an end. People are too busy to pay attention to the nonstop advertising of average products for average people. What grabs people’s attention is something remarkable, or rather something worth making a remark about. And their remarks spread the ideas or products to the world and make it a success. Learn about the cutting edge of spreading ideas with this talk by Seth Godin. This talk is available on streaming video and MP3 download from the TED.com website.

2. Marketing by Sharing

Jason Fried is the co-founder and President of web-based tools company 37signals and the author of the recent book Rework. He gave this talk at the Chicago Convergence conference about how companies need to stop hiding their secrets to success and start sharing the expertise knowledge they have about their field of business. He uses the example of chefs on television who give away all their recipes and cooking secrets, and who then become enormously successful. And he gives other examples of companies that have shared their knowledge to help market themselves instead of keeping their trade secrets behind closed doors. This talk is available on streaming video from YouTube.

3. Made to Stick

Check out this talk from the co-author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die delivered at the Books Inc. bookstore. Author Chip Heath talks about his extensive research into why certain things have stuck with the public as common collective knowledge. He discusses John F. Kennedy’s popular goal to put a man on the moon in 10 years, along with a few common falsehoods that have stuck such as “we only use 10% of our brains” and “the Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure you can see from outer space”. This lecture is available on streaming video from FORA.tv.

4. Relationships for Revenue Growth

Master networker and Never Eat Alone author Keith Ferrazzi delivers a talk at the “YES WE CAN” Avon Global Summit on the power of building great relationships in business. While many people have casual business associates, Ferrazzi demands that the business relationships we build need to go deeper and that we need to seek to enable others to contribute. When many people in the business world today don’t have time to focus on networking and relationship building, Ferrazzi tries to show how connecting to business associates on a personal level can open doors which we’d never thought existed, and he provides many examples of this in action. His talk gets a great response from the ladies of Avon. It’s available on streaming video from YouTube on the “keithferrazzi” channel and if you enjoyed it there are a number of other hour long talks which he delivered available on his YouTube channel.

5. All Marketers are Liars – Seth Godin speaks at Google

Seth Godin is one of the most popular business authors of our era with best-selling books like All Marketers are Liars and Permission Marketing. Seth recently gave a presentation at the Good Experience Live (GEL) conference on the subject of things that are “broken. It’s both entertaining and eye-opening to get Seth’s perspective on what’s wrong with the state of the world. Enjoy this video presentation courtesy of Google Video.

6. Chip Conley: Measuring What Makes Life Worthwhile

While businesses are obsessed with measuring the metrics of the tangible elements of their business, hotelier and author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow Chip Conley makes a strong case for businesses to measure the intangibles of business such as the feelings of customers or whether the employees find their work meaningful. After studying the “hierarchy of needs” developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow, Conley realized that there was a lot more to his business than making sure his customer’s basic needs were met. He set out to measure and improve the metrics of intangible benefits to his customers and employees, and his hotel business boomed to become the second largest group of boutique hotels in the world. This TED talk is available on MP3 audio download and streaming video.

7. Brendon Burchard Video Presentations

Brendon Burchard is the founder of Experts Academy which teaches people how to share their expertise and get their message out there, and earn money while doing so. He has authored Life’s Golden Ticket and his latest bestselling book that just came out is The Millionaire Messenger: Make a Difference and a Fortune Sharing Your Advice. On his website BrendonBurchard.com, Brendon offers a lot of free video presentations and he currently includes a free 12-minute walk through of a chapter from his book which contains 10 steps on how to become a Millionaire Messenger. In other videos he shares inspiring stories including talking about the near fatal car accident he was in when he was 19 years old that turned his life around. Brendon Burchard has worked closely with personal growth guru Tony Robbins, and he’s got a very dynamic way of presenting his advice. Watch some of his videos today!

8. Rory Sutherland: Life Lessons from an Ad Man

Ad man Rory Sutherland takes a look at his profession and shows how advertising makes regular things valuable and that this perceived value is often just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value. He makes many telling jokes about this matter such as why don’t we sell placebos as medication if they’re actually shown to work in the perception of the ailing person. Throughout the talk he makes his point that advertising can often do a better job at spreading an idea or a product than rational problem solving.

9. Johanna Blakley: Lessons from Fashion’s Free Culture

Johanna Blakley delivers an eye-opening talk on copyrights in the world of fashion. Because the courts have deemed garments as too utilitarian to be copyrighted, the fashion industry has a complete lack of copyrights when it comes to their designs. They do have trademarks over their brands, but when it comes to the design anyone can copy it. This has led to the fashion imitations we are familiar with, but Blakley points out this hasn’t really hurt the industry because the customers who are buying the fakes are not the same as the customers who buy the real thing. If anything Blakley feels this has spawned creativity in fashion as designers are able to mix and match with any designs throughout history and they increasingly try to make designs that can’t easily be copied. Blakley points to other industries where items can’t be copyrighted and she feels that the struggling industries of movies, books, and music might need to update their ideas on copyright in this new digital age.

June 3, 2014

Successful Business Leaders Give Free Advice on Audio & Video

In this list of audio and video resources, successful business leaders give free advice on how to get ahead in your career and keep your business thriving. Over several years, we’ve put a premium on showcasing business leadership resources as a part of our Free Audio & Video Resource of the Day Emails. With this list, you’ll learn from luminaries such as Andrew Carnegie, Richard Branson, Jack Welch, Cheryl Sandberg and more on what it takes to forge your own path in the business world. This list also features resources that help you stay on top of the ever-changing trends that can make or break even the most successful enterprises. Click below to get started:

1. JimCollins.com Lecture Hall

Listen to over 50 MP3 downloads and watch over 20 short videos in the JimCollins.com Lecture Hall. Jim Collins (author of Good to Great) provides succinct advice for leadership both in business and in the social sectors in this series of MP3 downloads and videos. Everyone can benefit from these lecture snippets which include great ideas such as how to make a “Stop Doing” list and how to evolve into a “Level 5” leader. They are also now categorized to help you find the audio & video you’re looking for. Enjoy these free audio & video resources from JimCollins.com.

2. Jack Welch on Winning

After his hugely successful 20-year career as chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch published a few books to share his leadership and management ideas. In this hour-long interview offered on C-SPAN, Jack shares the wisdom from his book Winning. With his candor and wit, Jack provides tips on hiring and firing, the importance of human resources, and much more. Get great leadership advice from Jack Welch, straight from the gut! Note: The audio volume on this video interview is a little bit low so you may want to use headphones.

3. Sheryl Sandberg on Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Sheryl Sandberg has served as the chief operating officer of Facebook since 2008, and she now has a bestselling book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. In this hour-long interview Chicago Tribune vice president Joycelyn Winnecke interviews Sandberg about her book and about the role of women in leadership positions. Sandberg informs us of the statistic that only 5% of Fortune 500 companies are run by women and why she feels it is a problem that so few women are in leadership roles. She tries to bring out into the open many of the double standards and unmentioned issues surrounding female leadership, such as the frequent dislike of women as they get more successful and the reference to leading women as “bossy”. This is talk is available on streaming video through YouTube.

4. Ken Blanchard: Lead Like Jesus

Management expert Ken Blanchard has authored over 35 books including the bestseller The One Minute Manager. In this recent talk from Biola University, Blanchard teaches leadership lessons from the Bible and Jesus Christ. He talks about the importance of all leadership to shift from self-serving to serving others. He provides many examples of this type of leadership in action such as the customer service expertise and values of Southwest Airlines. Blanchard’s lessons can applied in almost any area of leadership including business, church leadership, sports coaching, and the family. This 1 hour and 20 minute talk is available on streaming video from YouTube.

5. The EntreLeadership Podcast

Dave Ramsey is a bestselling financial author and radio host, and his team runs one of the most popular business podcasts on iTunes, The EntreLeadership Podcast. The podcast is hosted by Chris LoCurto, who conducts excellent interviews with today’s top business authors and leaders. At the beginning of each episode you’ll hear a lesson from Dave Ramsey himself. After the lesson LoCurto conducts an interview, and currently on the feed you can listen to interviews with leadership experts like John C. Maxwell, Robin Robins, Patrick Lencioni, Stephen M.R. Covey, Jim Collins, Tony Dungy, Tony Hseih, and, of course, Dave Ramsey. In a recent episode they feature the “Best of 2012” with podcast interview excerpts from the best interviews they conducted in 2012.

6. The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie

Librivox is offering a free audio book download of The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. In this unabridged audio book, the great Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie tells his life story from his humble beginnings in a cottage in Scotland to his rise to vastly expand the American steel industry and his late life as a philanthropist. Hear this “rags to riches” story from the man who lived it. This audio book is available as a free download through Librivox.org.

7. Leadership Styles & Ethics

Revisit some of his leadership wisdom with this free video interview and call-in show from C-SPAN taped back in 1989. In this 40-minute interview with Stephen R. Covey, he discusses his book Principle-Centered Leadership and how leaders in business and government must apply principles in order to be effective. He articulately answers questions from the interviewer and from callers across the United States, often addressing the leadership qualities of past American presidents and other political leaders. This interview provides excellent insight into the leadership ideas of Stephen R. Covey.

8. Leading at Google: Tony Hsieh on Delivering Happiness

Tony Hsieh is the CEO of the online shoe retailer Zappos.com and the author of the recent book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.. He spoke at Google on his book and the ways he has made Zappos one of the top rated places to work in the U.S. along with delivering some of the best customer service of any company. From their unconventional hiring methods to developing their unique corporate culture, Tony Hsieh shows how he grew Zappos to become an online retail giant that was bought in 2009 by Amazon.com for $1.2 billion. Hsieh also gives insights into his studies of the science of happiness and how he applied his findings to his business. Whether you’re a business leader or a regular employee, learn how you can create happiness in the workplace and deliver happiness to your customers. This Google Talk is available on streaming video from YouTube.

9. Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Podcast

Since 2005 a group at Stanford University has been podcasting talks from some of the most successful people in business and technology. The speaker generally gives an overview of their experiences as an entrepreneur along with advice for anyone looking to start a business. On this podcast you’ll hear from such thought leaders as former AOL CEO Steve Case, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, sustainability architect & co-author of Cradle to Cradle William McDonough, Former CEO of HP Carly Fiorina, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and people from Google, Yahoo, and dozens of other companies you’re probably familiar with. They have all their podcasts up on the feed going back five years. Learn from these successful business & technology thought leaders.

10. The Business of America: Masters of Enterprise – Lecture 1

Download Lecture 1 of this Modern Scholar course entitled Masters of Enterprise: American Business History and the People Who Made It taught by award-winning professor and historian H.W. Brands. In this first lecture called “The Business of America” Professor Brands gives a brief overview of the course and then proceeds to cover 200 years of American business history in 20 minutes from 1776 to the 20th century. He covers the importance of business in colonial times and its influence on the American Revolution. He then examines the 19th century which brought in industrialization and finance as important factors along with the central issue of slavery and its relation to business. And in the 20th century he briefly covers how businesses shifted their focus to the consumers who would buy all of the products that industrial capitalism was producing. This free lecture is available as an MP3 download or on streaming audio through LearnOutLoud.com.

11. A Conversation with Richard Branson

Entrepreneur, adventurer, political activist and all around firebrand Richard Branson sits down to talk about his plans for the future in this interview hosted by Bob Schieffer at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Starting with the formation of his company Virgin, Branson talks about how his uncompromising attitude and complete willingness to risk big has led to a worldwide reputation for innovation. He also gives a tantalizing glimpse at his latest venture, Virgin Galactic, the first large scale attempt to make private space travel a reality. This talk is available on streaming video from FORA.tv.

12. Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

Listen to former Microsoft employee and the founder and CEO of Room to Read tell his inspirational story of his decision to leave a lucrative job to go build libraries around the developing world. In this talk delivered at Cody’s Books, Wood tells about a visit he made to a sparse library in Nepal where he was asked to bring back books. Wood then set out to build a library there and has since grown his Room to Read organization to build over 5,000 libraries in Asia and Africa. This talk is available on streaming video through FORA.tv.

June 3, 2014

10 Free Resources for Career Development

LearnOutLoud’s collection of 10 Free Resources for Career Development showcases audio & video from teachers and leaders that are dedicated to helping others find their life calling. We’ve searched diligently for many years to bring you the best career advice we can find on the web, and here you’ll find audio & video tips on how to sharpen your Professional Edge, learn methods to optimize (and reduce) your workload from Tim Ferriss and even get spiritual guidance on how to find work that is aligned with your deepest goals. We also delve into how professional culture is changing in the modern world, how stress can be managed, and how the recent economic crisis has affected who can work where and why. Whether you are just entering the job market, yearn for a career change or want advice on how to adjust your work methods, this selection should have something to help you on your way:

1. 25 Life Purpose Lessons from Sounds True

Sounds True has launched a wonderful new section of their site that features 25 Life Purpose Lessons to help you grow in your passions, your career, and your wealth in the coming year. With 5-15 minute audio lessons from Sounds True’s best business & wealth teachers such as Rick Jarow, Mark Albion, John Mackey, Fred Kofman, and Vicki Robin, these 25 life lessons will propel you into 2010 with vision & motivation. They’ve thoughtfully divided these lessons up into three sections. Enjoy these 25 lessons from Sounds True! Please Note: These lessons are streaming audio only and not downloadable.

2. Take Control of Your Career and Your Life with Marcus Buckingham Podcast

Listen to or watch this podcasted class offered by Oprah.com, featuring bestselling author Marcus Buckingham. This eight-step course explores finding fulfillment in your career. Marcus Buckingham guides 29 students that are seeking personal success in their business and life. Throughout the course Marcus teaches you how to leverage your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. This podcast is available on audio & video download (for some reason the streaming doesn’t seem to be working too well). Enjoy the course!

3. Alain de Botton on the Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

Philosophical writer Alain de Botton discusses his latest work The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. For writing the book he surveyed ten different jobs and came up with many interesting observations about working in today’s society. For instance he found that much of the time at work people aren’t actually working, but that they are still working long hours. He also found that highly specialized work forces often perform the best, but when it comes to the individual they tend to lack a sense of meaning. Watch Alain de Botton make many more of these observations on this streaming video from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation available on FORA.tv.

4. Sue Morem’s Professional Edge Podcast

In this podcast, author Sue Morem points listeners to ways they can achieve success and satisfaction in their professional careers. On the feed she features her video podcast series The Job Seeker, as well as other podcasts on professional topics and interviews with career experts such as Sonia Choquette, author of How To Trust Your Vibes at Work. Start your work week with some professional advice from career expert Sue Morem.

5. Authors@Google: Marci Alboher & Tim Ferriss

Work Less & Do More! In this @Google Talk Author Tim Ferriss discusses his bestselling book The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. Also featured on the talk is Marci Alboher, author of One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success. Both authors discuss the ways in which individuals can stop being overloaded with work and start doing the things they’re really passionate about. Ferriss tells his story about how he went from working 70 hour weeks to traveling the world and becoming a world champion kickboxer and tango dancer all while keeping his job and learning to delegate his workload. Alboher talks about how she went from being an overworked lawyer to becoming a part time lawyer and part time writer while living in different parts of the world. They give tips about how they accomplished their multifaceted lives and encourage listeners to not delay pursuing their passions until retirement.

6. Jason Fried: Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work

37signals co-founder and Rework author Jason Fried makes some provocative suggestions regarding why work doesn’t get done in the workplace. He suggests that interruptions are the key component contributing to the lack work accomplished in the workplace and that managers and meetings are to blame. He relates the stage of work to the stages of sleep and in order to get the best work done one needs to go through these stages without interruption. This talk was delivered at the TEDxMidwest Conference and is available on streaming video and MP3 audio download.

7. Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet

Most of us face certain dilemmas in our jobs between living according to our own principles of doing good and complying to the need to make a good living. Maybe you may want to do good with your work and benefit others, but you also have to live up to the needs of a company or organization that has to make money. This talk, with co-authors Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, William Damon, and Howard Gardner, addresses such work-related dilemmas which they confronted in their book Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet. They specifically look at two professions and the ethics associated with the work. They discuss journalists & journalistic ethics, and they talk about bioethics and geneticists. Through analyzing these professions they are able to come to some interesting conclusions about the interplay between doing good work and making money, and other dilemmas faced in the workplace. Maybe thinking about this can give you a better understanding about doing good work this year in your occupation.

8. Sir Ken Robinson on The Element

After a witty intro, Sir Ken Robinson talks about paradigm shifts in the modern world and how the education system is failing to meet the imaginative demands of life in the 21st century. The idea of going to school and college in order to get a steady, well-paying job which you will hold for the rest of your life is now rarely the case, and the new skills needed in the 21st century, don’t necessarily match the narrow focus of any degree. When a majority of people don’t particular enjoy their jobs after they’ve been educated, Robinson feels that the education system is failing to help people find their passion and develop their skills towards meeting their passion in life. He presents ideas on how individuals can educate themselves in order to find not only what they are good at, but what they love to do. Because if people are doing what they love, then they’ll never have to work another day in their life.

9. The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class

Check out this popular lecture from YouTube EDU featuring distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren. Delivered six months before the peak of the financial crisis, professor Warren sets out to explain why maintaining a middle class living is a much riskier proposition than it was 40 years ago despite the fact that women have entered the work force. She goes through the hard data of what Americans are spending their money on and sees financial debt, housing costs, and health care as major factors which have led to this age of financial anxiety for middle class families. This lecture is available on streaming video from UCTV through YouTube.

10. Barbara Ehrenreich: Bait and Switch

In this talk given at Books Inc., author Barbara Ehrenreich discusses her book Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream which examines the difficulty of middle-aged professionals trying to get white-collar jobs in corporate America. In her bestselling 2001 book Nickel and Dimed she went undercover to expose the hardships of the working poor. In Bait and Switch she goes undercover in the corporate world to explore white-collar unemployment. In this talk Ehrenreich uses her characteristic wit to describe the many curious ways that corporations have used to justify their layoffs and to blame middle class workers for their own unemployment. Towards the end she mentions her non-profit group United Professionals which she formed in 2006 to organize activism amongst white-collar workers who are unemployed. This talk is available on streaming video and MP3 audio download from FORA.tv.

June 1, 2014

40 Free Short Stories, Poems, and Essays Read by 40 Great Narrators

Spoken Freely: Summer Shorts 2014

June is Audio Book Month! And to celebrate it Spoken Freely, a group of 40+ professional narrators, has teamed with Going Public by offering 40 audio short stories, poems, and essays read by 40 great narrators. You’ll hear short stories from authors like Edgar Allan Poe and O. Henry, poems by authors like W.B. Yeats and Walt Whitman, and essays by authors such as Dave Barry. Each selection is read by a great narrator from the audio book industry. On the Spoken Freely site you can go to the various blogs that are hosting the selections and stream them through SoundCloud.

You can get these selections by following the links here:

Spoken Freely: Summer Shorts 2014

The stories and narrators included through the month of June are as follows:

5/30 – 6/1 Sean Runnette, The Lost One, by James John Audubon @ PW’s Blog

6/2 Johnny Heller, Dave Barry’s Money Secrets, by Dave Barry@ Library Journal

6/2 Mark Turetsky, How Angelina Buglebrain Got Her Start. By Tom Angleberger w/author Tom Angleberger @ Nerdy Book Club

6/3 Hillary Huber, The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe @ Linus’s Blanket

6/4 Tavia Gilbert, Beautiful Things, by Michelle Webster-Hein @ The Reading Date

6/5 Robert Fass, The Garden of Adompha, by Clark Ashton Smith @ The Guilded Earlobe

6/6 Luke Daniels, Act 2, Scene 2 from Hamlet, by Shakespeare @ The Book Nympho

6/7 Jeffrey Kafer, Hearing Aid, by Jeremy Robinson @ Bob Souer’s Boblog

Poetry Week! From 6/8 – 6/14, we’ll be offering a delectable audio feast of poetry and only poetry! From Shakespeare to St. Vince Millay, Rumi to Dickinson, with modern poets in between!

6/8 Rachel Fulginiti, Jasmine Comes Up, by Rumi @ author MV Freeman’s blog

6/9 David Drummond, Wild Nights! Wild Nights! By Emily Dickinson @ Overreader
Patrick Lawlor, Miracles, by Walt Whitman @ Overreader

6/10 Paul Boehmer, Mother’s Ashes, by Kimberly Morgan @ Reading in Winter
Robin Miles, Sonnets 23, 74, by Shakespeare @ Truth, Beauty, Freedom & Books

6/11 John Lee, The Stolen Child, by W.B. Yeats @ Literate Housewife
Kathe Mazur , An Ancient Gesture, by Edna St. Vincent Millay @ Lakeside Musing

6/12 Amy Rubinate, Cassandra Campbell & Kathe Mazur, Sonnets 2, 4, 6 from Renascence &

Other Poems, by Edna St. Vincent Millay @ Lakeside Musing
Coleen Marlo, How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning @ AudioGals

6/13 Katherine Kellgren, Father William, by Lewis Carroll @ Overreader
Carrington MacDuffie, Al’s Boy, by Carrington MacDuffie @ Beth Fish Reads

6/14 Diane Havens, So Long, by Walt Whitman @ Author Michael Stephen Daigle’s blog
John Pruden, The Funny Little Fellow, by James Whitcomb Riley @ Going Public

…now back to short stories and essays

6/15 Dion Graham, Days Gone By, by Eric Jerome Dickey @ Literate Housewife
Gary Dikeos, The Higher Abdication, by O. Henry @ Going Public

6/16 Peter Bishop, The Moth, by H.G. Wells @ SFF Audio

6/17 Cris Dukehart, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams @ Book & a Latte

6/18 Peter Berkrot, John Mortonson’s Funeral, by Ambrose Bierce @ Jen’s Book Thoughts

6/19 Jo Anna Perrin, The Girl in the Blue Feathered Hat, by JP Perrin @ Literate Housewife

6/20 & 6/21 Gabrielle de Cuir & Stefan Rudnicki joint, two-day appearance at Joe’s Geek Fest
Selections: Too Far, and Man of Distinction, by Fredric Brown

6/22 Heather Henderson, The Curve of Time, by M. Wylie Blanchet @ PostHypnotic Press Blog

6/22 Scott O’Neill, Why I Don’t Believe in Santa Claus, by Matt Rothschild @ Rhonda’s Voice

6/23 Andi Arndt, Cedars of Lebanon, by Mary Miller @ Author Mary Miller’s blog

6/24 Bruce Coville, The Box, by Bruce Coville @ Book & a Latte

6/25 Paul Michael Garcia, Yard Waste, by Steven LaFond – w/author Steven LaFond @ My Bookish Ways

6/26 Day of Classic Horror, with Poe and Lovecraft!
Mike Chamberlain, The Statement of Randolph Carter, by H.P. Lovecraft @ MV Freeman’s blog
Dufris/AudioComics, Audio Theatre: Cask of Amontillado, by Edgar Allan Poe @ Jenn’s Bookshelves
John McLain, The Black Cat, by Edgar Allan Poe @ Going Public

6/27 Dawn Harvey, Something as Big as a Mountain, by Jane Cawthorne, w/author Jane Cawthorne at My Books, My Life

6/28 Tanya Eby, The Girl at the Gate, by Lucy Maud Montgomery @ Miss Susie’s Reading & Observations

6/28 Tish Hicks, How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country, by Carl Sandburg @ Going Public

6/29 Karen White, Sharks and Seals, by Susanna Daniel @ Every Day I Write the Book

6/30 Xe Sands, Virtue of the Month, by Kathleen Founds @ The Oddiophile

May 21, 2014

6 Tim Ferriss Talks on the 4 Hour Work Week, 4 Hour Body, and 4 Hour Chef

Tim Ferriss is the author of such bestsellers as The 4-Hour Work Week and The 4-Hour Body. He is also the author of the The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life. Watch these 6 talks to transform your life with the ideas of Tim Ferriss.

Tim Ferriss on The 4-Hour Chef

Ferriss recently delivered this talk at Google, covering The 4-Hour Chef and how he applied his path of accelerated learning to the art of cooking. With visual accompaniments, he briefly outlines his main points to learning quickly. He talks about how he simplified learning how to cook, and succeeded by not attempting to learn everything at once. This process also saved him a lot of money in expensive cooking tools. Ferriss finishes the talk by answering questions about diet and nutrition and much more.

4-Hour Everything: How Tim Ferriss Tracks His Life’s Data

This is a 25-minute talk he gave at the WIRED Health Conference last October, and it is the #1 most viewed video of 2012 on the outstanding video site FORA.tv. In the talk Ferriss reveals the data that he tracks in regards to his workouts, what he eats, and a whole lot more. While he acknowledges that some of the stuff he tracks might seem obsessive or absurd to outsiders, he is confident that technology (such as apps on smart phones) is making it a whole lot easier for people to track data corresponding to their health and well-being. And he feels that tracking isn’t limited to scientific data, but can be applied to certain intangibles such as your emotions. This talk will surely get you thinking about what data you should be tracking as you strive for better physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health in 2013!

Tim Ferriss: Accelerated Learning in Accelerated Times

Watch this recent talk from Tim Ferriss, who is the bestselling author of The 4-Hour Work Week and The 4-Hour Body. Through his ongoing learning experiments, Ferriss has developed a method for learning things quickly. He encourages people to disregard conventional knowledge when it comes to learning just about anything as most conventional learning strategies are slow and ineffective. He describes the rapid methods he used to learn languages and to accomplish some of the physical feats he accomplished in his book The 4-Hour Body. He closes the talk with giving people the best behavioral techniques for carrying out his methods until your goals are accomplished. It’s great condensed knowledge from accelerated learner Tim Ferriss. This talk was delivered at the Long Now Foundation and is available on streaming video from FORA.tv.

Tim Ferriss: The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Workweek

Tim Ferriss presents some of the findings in his latest book The 4-Hour Body in which he used himself as a guinea pig to find out the fastest way to the best results when it comes to the human body. He talks about his diet & nutrition as well as his fitness best practices. He also covers how he dealt with insomnia and the impact of cell phone use on male sperm count (which generates a lot of questions in the Q&A). Ferriss also addresses some of the skeptics when it came to his first bestselling book The 4-Hour Workweek. This talk is available on streaming video from FORA.tv.

Feel Like the Incredible Hulk with Tim Ferriss

4-Hour Work Week author Tim Ferriss teaches how he tackled his fears and learned to swim, speak the Japanese language, and become a championship tango dancer. By learning as much as he could about the things he feared and trying out as many different methods as he could to conquer them he succeeded. This brief talk was delivered at The Entertainment Gathering and is available on streaming video from FORA.tv.

Authors@Google: Marci Alboher & Tim Ferriss

In this @Google Talk Author Tim Ferriss discusses his bestselling book The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. Also featured on the talk is Marci Alboher, author of One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success. Both authors discuss the ways in which individuals can stop being overloaded with work and start doing the things they’re really passionate about.

Ferriss tells his story about how he went from working 70 hour weeks to traveling the world and becoming a world champion kickboxer and tango dancer all while keeping his job and learning to delegate his workload. Alboher talks about how she went from being an overworked lawyer to becoming a part time lawyer and part time writer while living in different parts of the world. They give tips about how they accomplished their multifaceted lives and encourage listeners to not delay pursuing their passions until retirement.

May 21, 2014

Sheryl Sandberg TED Talk and Lean In Talk

Sheryl Sandberg on Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Sheryl Sandberg has served as the chief operating officer of Facebook since 2008, and she now has a bestselling book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. In this hour-long interview Chicago Tribune vice president Joycelyn Winnecke interviews Sandberg about her book and about the role of women in leadership positions. Sandberg informs us of the statistic that only 5% of Fortune 500 companies are run by women and why she feels it is a problem that so few women are in leadership roles. She tries to bring out into the open many of the double standards and unmentioned issues surrounding female leadership, such as the frequent dislike of women as they get more successful and the reference to leading women as “bossy”. This is talk is available on streaming video through YouTube.

Sheryl Sandberg on Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

You can also watch the TED Talk she gave on women leaders a number of years ago. The overwhelming response to the talk spurred her to take further action in the area of women’s leadership:

Sheryl Sandberg: Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders

Chief Operating Officer of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg gives the statistics on women in leadership around the world and tells why she thinks women are not moving into these roles in politics and business. Sandberg gives examples of the subtle ways that women often shy away from the roles men are so driven to get and she encourages women to overcome these cultural barriers in order to get to a more equal balance of male vs. female leaders. This talk was delivered at TEDWomen.

Sheryl Sandberg: Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders

May 20, 2014

Neil deGrasse Tyson Podcasts, Lectures, and Debates

American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is arguably the most exciting public science advocate since Carl Sagan. Through his work as host of PBS’s popular NOVA educational show, and frequent high profile talk-show appearances, he’s provided an affable, no-nonsense, and often-times laugh out loud funny face to a field that many find intimidating. With these two streaming video lectures we’ve chosen from FORA.tv, we’re excited to showcase Tyson’s irascible take on some of the latest scientific discoveries.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Death by Black Hole

In this talk Tyson muses on why he’s always getting questions about natural disasters. Starting with a detailed description of what might happen to someone unlucky enough to get sucked into a Black Hole, he then discusses the more realistic threat of asteroids impacting the earth. He asks his colleagues why we often run from these potential disasters, when we might productively devise a means of stopping them from happening in the first place. After all, this is the 21st century!

Neil deGrasse Tyson: The Pluto Files

With the Pluto Files, Dyson regales the audience with the story of how he became the central figure in the debate over whether or not Pluto was an actual planet. Since the most distant body in our solar system was humbled to “planetoid” status, he’s received angry letters from school children and teachers alike, which he feels is indicative of how protective we are over our nearest planetary neighbors. Ultimately, he argues that Pluto’s “demotion” has led to a breakthrough debate over planetary definitions, which in turn has broadened our grasp of how to research, classify, and explore the universe.

And if you want to hear more from Neil deGrasse Tyson then check out his StarTalk Radio Podcast. In this series of podcasts, Tyson answers science questions and talks with scientists & celebrities like Bill Nye the Science Guy, Jon Stewart, and Whoopi Goldberg. Choose from over 80 podcasts:

StarTalk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson Podcast

And check out these five debates from the American Museum of Natural History moderated by Neil deGrasse Tyson and featuring panels of leading scientists:

2010 Rose Center Anniversary Isaac Asimov Debate: Is Earth Unique?

2011 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: The Theory of Everything

2012 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Faster Than the Speed of Light

2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: The Existence of Nothing

2014 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Selling Space

And if you haven’t checked it out yet you should definitely watch the new “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. This series is a follow-up to the 1980 television series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”, which was presented by Carl Sagan. The new series updates the script and adds in many stunning new visual effects. You can now watch all the episodes of “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” for free on Hulu.com with limited commercial interruption:

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

You can find all of the Neil deGrasse Tyson Audio & Video titles on our site right here:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Audio & Video

May 20, 2014

I Have a Dream Speech Analysis

It’s the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech. The “I Have a Dream” speech was our very first Free Resource of the Day back on March 1st, 2006, and we’re happy to feature it again on this 50th anniversary. Today we are featuring it on our podcast to be streamed on audio or downloaded:

Great Speeches in History Podcast

Welcome to our Resource of the Day e-mail! One of our favorite free titles in our free directory is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s classic “I Have a Dream” speech. Delivered on August 28th, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., King’s passionate call for justice and equality was the battle cry for the civil rights movement in America.

It is the first and latest podcast listed on our “Great Speeches in History Podcast”. If you click “Listen to Podcast” you will hear it, or if you scroll down the page (past the reviews) you’ll see it and you can click “Download File – 7.7 MB” to download it. It’s not listed yet on iTunes but if you “Subscribe Free” to the podcast then the “I Have a Dream” speech will download in iTunes. Please check out the other great speeches we feature on the podcast as well.

You can also get this great speech from the ultimate site for getting great American speeches on audio, AmericanRhetoric.com. Also on this page we link to a video of the speech on YouTube:

I Have a Dream Speech on Audio & Video

Also we have a few bonus free resources that feature analysis of the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech:

Why MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech Has Such Historic Impact

Learn more about the historical significance of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” and why it is considered a great speech with this free recent talk from the Aspen Institute given by philanthropist David Rubenstein. Rubenstein takes a look at some of the most famous speeches in history and analyzes why they are considered great from the historic time they were delivered to the rhetorical devices that were used in the speeches. Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” fits most of the criteria, except that King improvised from his originally written text to deliver the final stirring “I Have a Dream” oration. Rubenstein puts the speech in historical context and points out that the speech really didn’t come to prominence until after Martin Luther King’s death in 1968.

Art of Public Speaking: Share a Vision – Martin Luther King’s Dream

The Great Courses is offering this free video lecture from their course The Art of Public Speaking: Lessons from the Greatest Speeches in History. Professor John R. Hale uses Dr. King’s speech as an example of a great inspirational speech. He discusses the beginning of the speech and why it is not nearly as remembered as the final “I Have a Dream” part of the speech. He talks about how Dr. King invoked Abraham Lincoln and used Biblical phrasing in much the way Lincoln did in his day. And he mentions King’s ongoing optimism throughout the speech which helped to inspire the crowd. Professor Hale emphasizes points that you can use from the “I Have a Dream” speech to optimize your own public speaking ability.

May 20, 2014

5 Syrian War Documentaries from Frontline

Watch 5 free documentaries on the Syrian War from Frontline:

Syria Behind the Lines

Watch this recent PBS Frontline documentary to get an up close view of the ongoing Syrian civil war. Award-winning filmmaker Olly Lambert attempts to show both sides of the conflict by following a Sunni rebel soldier and a Syrian Army soldier serving in President Bashar al-Assad’s army. It’s a pretty horrific documentary depicting graphic imagery of the ongoing violence in this bloody conflict with a death toll surpassing 100,000. But, in light of recent events, it is definitely worth watching to get a glimpse into what is happening in Syria on the ground level. Note: It seems that only U.S. viewers can watch this for free. Sorry to our international users.

There are a four more short Frontline documentaries on the Syrian uprising that you can watch:

The Battle For Syria & The Regime

Syria Undercover & The Regime Responds

These two documentaries on Syria were aired in November 8, 2011. In the 30-minute documentary “Syria Undercover” reporter Ramita Navai goes undercover to see what is happening to protesters during the Syria uprising. She seems to enter one dangerous scenario after another as the Syrian army cracks down on the protests. In the second 20-minute documentary “The Regime”, Frontline takes a look at the history of the rule of the Al-Assad family over Syria since 1970. They examine the rule of the current President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and how his reforms may have led to the Syrian uprising during the “Arab Spring” movement, which President Assad is now trying to suppress.

Two of these are on Frontline’s audio podcast if you want to listen to them:

“The Regime” & “The Regime Responds” on Frontline Audiocast – PBS Podcast

May 20, 2014

Don Quixote Online Audio Book and Course

Firstly we wanted to let you know that Librivox.org has a brand new website with better design and functionality. The site makes is much easier and faster to browse their catalog of over 5,000 free audio books. You can now browse by category, author, title, solo vs. group narration, and recently added titles. Unfortunately they changed all of their RSS feeds, so most of the Librivox titles on our site aren’t playing in our podcast player, but we’re currently fixing that. Check out their great new site:

http://librivox.org/

Today’s free audio book is a Librivox release:

Don Quixote, Volume 1

Don Quixote, Volume 2

Don Quixote is considered the one of the very first modern novels. Follow the adventures of Alonso Quijano, a minor landowner who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to set out to revive chivalry, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthly wit in dealing with Don Quixote’s rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Quixote’s “lady” is Dulcinea del Toboso, an imaginary object of his courtly love crafted from a neighboring farm girl by the illusion-struck “knight” (her real name is Aldonza Lorenzo, and she is totally unaware of his feelings for her.) The two volumes of the novel were published in 1605 and 1615, respectively. This novel is read by a multitude of volunteers at Librivox and has an unabridged running time of 42 hours.

Don Quixote, Volume 1

Don Quixote, Volume 2

And for those of you who want to supplement your learning about The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, Yale University has put out an entire course on the novel:

Cervantes’ Don Quixote Yale University Course

The course comes from Yale University’s Spanish department, but you don’t need to know Spanish to take it. Nevertheless Professor Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria will teach you much about Spanish culture and history. This Yale course goes through the entire book chronologically, and in the course listings it says which chapters will be covered in each lecture. Enjoy greater understanding and insight into one of the greatest works of the Western Canon.

Cervantes’ Don Quixote Yale University Course