It's Just Good Business

It is a long weekend so I get more time to read.

I read an awesome book on Predictive Analytics (yes I get excited by different things) and reviewed it on the General Sentiment blog.

I read a short book - It's Just Good Business - the Emergence of Conscious Capitalism and the Practice of Working for Good by Jeff Klein.

I dislike the title - It's Just Good Business implies that that only reason to do good if because it is good for business.  I like the principle - the best donation is an anonymous one that is given without expectation.  But the book is great.

It is very easy to read.  Simple enough and short enough that I suspect it would even appeal to non-readers.

The gist of Klein's message is "Do good and succeed in business".

Klein talks about why.  He talks about the power of purpose, the interdependence of business, and conscious leadership (doing good can be a choice).

It has a series of 2 page company profiles of companies that do good business.  They highlight the things the companies do and their unique cultures.  I was struck by how many of those companies profiled had written books about their culture (Zappos, Whole Foods, Motley Fool, The Container Store etc).


I reviewed one of Klein's other books "Working for Good" on the Karma411 website.  Karma411 is one of the Canrock Ventures investments that helps causes raise more money by using social media.  I am helping Karma with some of their marketing testing.

All of Klein's books are smattered with great quotable quotes, some of which I will use for my Twitter stream.  EG - "Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person's physical, emotional and mental states"  Carol Welch

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For fun, last night, I went to the Melrose games (as a spectator).  It is a track and field event that has all the excitement of a major league sporting event.  The winning runners run almost twice as fast as I do.  I best get up from my chair and start training.