Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense, by Rory Sutherland (WH Allen, £20, hardback), asks many questions about things that appear to be counter-intuitive – or, at least, far from obvious. Why is Red Bull so popular – even though everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy toothpaste? Ad man Sutherland’s central theme is that human beings like to think they are rational, but in practice we are not. We are driven by unconscious desires and we are drawn to ‘the beautiful, the extravagant and the absurd’. If you want to influence people’s choices, put reason to one side and find ways to tap into ideas that are more alchemy than rationality.
Work Like a Woman: A manifesto for change, by Mary Portas (Black Swan, £8.99, paperback), is about ‘calling time on alpha culture’, according to the sleeve notes. In fact, Portas, who’s been billed on her TV series as ‘Queen of Shops’, is pretty alpha herself; certainly no shrinking violet when it comes to putting anyone who doesn’t meet her expectations firmly in their place. But here she is dispensing advice to working women on how to make a success of their careers, as well as offering tips to businesses in general on how to make themselves more friendly towards women and their needs in the workplace. Much is based on her own experiences, and the way she has remodelled her own business, stepping down from CEO to be Chief Creative Officer.
If you’re interested in the media tycoons of the golden age of print journalism, Max Beaverbrook: Not Quite a Gentleman, by Charles Williams (Biteback Publishing, £25, hardback), is essential reading. Beaverbrook, owner of the Daily Express in its heyday, was also a politician, a government minister in two world wars, a confidante of Winston Churchill and, before all that, a speculator in financial markets. This biography gives an account of his early years in Canada, how he established himself in the UK, and his fiery relationships with a succession of prime ministers, making the Express the world’s biggest-selling daily newspaper along the way. According to the author, he was also a serial philanderer who was ‘loved and loathed in equal measure’. In short, the kind of character for whom the phrase ‘larger than life’ was invented.
A Brief History of Doom, by Richard Vague (University of Pennsylvania Press, £23.99, hardback), examines a series of major financial crises over the past 200 years in the US, UK, Europe, Japan and China – including the Great Depression and the financial crisis of 2008 – and analyses what was at the heart of each of them. The over-accumulation of private debt is fingered as the main culprit and the best indicator of future financial crises. In each of the cases examined in the book, there was a pattern: the rapid growth of loans produced widespread overcapacity, which then led to the spread of bad loans and bank failures. This, says Richard Vague, is the script that financial crises invariably follow. Happily, he offers some tools for politicians, bankers and others to spot the danger signs and nip the next crisis in the bud.
PODCASTS
Media Business
MBI, the publisher of weekly trade magazine Broadcast, has launched a podcast exploring the film and TV industries. In the launch episode of the Media Business podcast, Matt Mueller, Editor of fellow MBI publication Screen International, talks to the Director of Film4, Daniel Battsek, to discuss this year’s awards season and what it takes to win an Oscar. Also featured are Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley from independent producer Number 9 Films. themediapodcast.com/media-business-podcast-1-the-oscars-business/
Talking About Organizations
Talking About Organizations is a conversational podcast that will appeal to management theorists, those in business schools and anyone interested in understanding how organisations work. Each episode focuses on one specific topic, which could be discussions of classical works in management and organisation studies, interviews with authors and peers, or perspectives on management through the lens of history and culture. The podcasters are academics working all over the world. www.talkingaboutorganizations.com
Untold stories
Interested in cryptocurrencies? The early days of the movement that still believes it will change the world are charted in this new podcast from Blockworks Group, in which digital movers and shakers tell their ‘untold stories’. The host is investor and entrepreneur Charlie Shrem, Founder of Bitinstant, and guests will include Arianna Simpson, Founder and MD of Autonomous Partners, Jered Kenna, a former US Marine who bought Bitcoin at 20 cents, and Marshall Long, one of the world’s first Bitcoin miners. blockworksgroup.io/untold-stories-podcast