Welcome to the latest edition of our irregular and irreverent newsletter. In this edition, you’ll find a sneak preview of my new book, 10 must-read blogs from my RSS reader, the year’s 3 most popular Pink Blog posts, and 5 cool productivity tools.
Here we go . . .
EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW OF MY NEXT BOOK
August is the cruelest month.
For the next 30 days, I’ll be locked in my office, typing like a madman, muttering obscenities under my breath, and racing to finish my new book.
This one — it’s called TO SELL IS HUMAN — is a book about sales. But it’s unlike any book on sales you’ve ever read (or ignored) before.
And I wanted to give you, loyal subscribers, a preview before offering anyone else a glimpse of its contents.
This link will take you to a short (4-minute), home-brewed video of me sitting at my desk offering an overview of the book. Again, it’s only for you guys, so you’ll need the password, which is: newbook
Over the next few months, in advance of the book’s January publication, I’ll be offering a bunch of other exclusives for newsletter subscribers — so stay tuned and feel free to tell your favorite salesman or woman to sign up.
Meantime, a few hundred of you have pre-ordered the book already. Thanks! If you’d like to do that, too, you can pre-order from Amazon, BN.com, or IndieBound.
10 BLOGS ON MY RSS READER
As blogs become an ever more crucial source of news, insights, and ideas, people often ask me which ones I regularly read. Truth is, I’ve got a massive collection of blogs on my RSS reader (NetNewsWire) that I try to scan every other day or so. But I also have a list on my RSS reader of 10 “must-read” blogs. That list can change from month to month. But here, in alphabetical order, is what’s on it now:
ArtsJournal — A great round-up of issues and idea in the art world.
BPS Research Digest — The British Psychological Society on the latest research on brains and behavior.
Farnam Street — “Mastering the best of what other people have figured out.”
Harvard Business Review — A nonstop stream of news and commentary on work, management, and innovation.’
Kevin Kelly’s Lifestream — Inside the mind of a big thinker.
Nationals Journal — Yes, this one’s about baseball. Sorry.
Real Time Economics — Occasionally scary, but always essential, reading from the Wall Street Journal.
Springwise — A compilation of cool startups and new business ventures.
The Atlantic Wire — The best comprehensive news, analysis, and commentary site around. ‘
Wired Science — Science news for people without Ph.D.’s.
THE YEAR’S 3 MOST POPULAR BLOG POSTS (SO FAR)
Speaking of blogs, it’s always interesting to see what readers respond to on the Pink Blog. Sometimes, a post that I think will get everyone’s attention creates barely a ripple. Other times, something that I fear isn’t all that scintillating ends up rocking the house.
Curious about what topics readers found most intriguing so far this year, I asked the elves here at Pink, Inc, world headquarters to examine the data. They’ve determined that the 3 most popular posts — so far — in 2012 are:
#3. This might be the best 11 minutes you’ll spend today. (April 3)
#2. Eight brief points about “merit pay” for teachers (February 16)
#1. How to predict a student’s SAT score: Look at the parents’ tax return (February 21)
5 MORE COOL TOOLS
We run a super-lean operation here at Pink, Inc — just two employees, me and Mrs.DanPink.com. But we also work with a small cast of far-flung collaborators on a bunch of projects. And one of the most enduring of those partners is Tim Grahl, who — among other things — has helped build the website, run the backend of this newsletter, and figure out how to broadcast a radio show from my garage.
Last month, I asked Tim if he’d run across any cool tools that readers might like. He responded with an excellent list, complete with commentary. Here are Tim’s picks:
Type2Phone – (Mac Only) “Great little $3 app that turns your Mac into a Bluetooth keyboard for your iPhone/iPad which means, while you’re at your desk, you can text people easily from your full-size keyboard. I bought it several months ago thinking I wouldn’t use it much and now I use it constantly and have gotten several friends hooked on it as well.”\
Alarm Clock Xtreme – (Android Only) “It’s not even close; this is the best alarm clock I have ever used. I have never overslept when using this alarm clock. You can set it to make you do hard math problems to hit the snooze so I never do the drunken, sleepy snooze repeat because by the time I can actually turn the damn thing off, I’m wide awake and of sound mind. In fact, six months ago I switched from my Kindle Fire to an iPad and now I keep the Fire by my bed just so I can use this app.”
Spotify (All Platforms) – “Since signing up for Spotify I haven’t used my iTunes library at all. Now I can access all of my music across all devices. The selection is incredible and for the price of one album a month, I have access to all of my music all the time.”
1Password (All Platforms) – “A must for anyone that needs to keep track of a lot of passwords. You’re able to keep all your passwords for all apps, websites, etc in one secure place and then access them from any device. You can also store credit cards, address information, etc so you can easily checkout at online stores. I’ve been using it for a couple years now and can’t imagine my working life without it. It also has plugins for all major browsers so you can easily login to any website with a click of your mouse.”
Mathemagics – (Mac and iOS Only) “Teaches you dozens of mental math tricks to help make you a lot faster at solving math problems. It also has quizzes to take and keeps track of your results.
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As always, thanks for reading our humble newsletter. Here’s hoping the remainder of your summer (or your winter, if you’re in the southern hemisphere) is happy and productive.
Cheers,
Daniel Pink