In the spirit of Tom Peters, I am posting a weekly roundup of some great ideas rather than a well thought through blog post this week.  I am now feeling sad to see Ireland lose to France 1-0 in the World Cup Qualifier.  We need a good performance in Paris next week.

The genius of screwups.  A great blog post from Daniel Coyle on the need for leaders to create an environment in which “falling forward” risks must be rewarded if exceptional performance is desired.  Jack Welch, John Chambers, Jeffrey Katzenberg are all quoted with pithy stuff about the need to encourage people to try new things.  In the words of Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks “If you don’t make failure acceptable, you can’t expect [movies that are] original and unique.”  This follows a line of thinking that I have been discussing with my friend Bill Treasurer, author of Courage goes to Work.  (I am working with Bill on a future Advanced Courageous Leadership seminar, any thoughts on the program are most welcome).

Beyond Excellence – S.W.P. “Seriously Weird People”.  Tom Peters suggests reaching out to some Seriously Weird People when you have a new idea or start a new business.  Keep reaching until you find a couple of people who are so far out that they more or less speak gibberish – it may be gibberish, and probably is gibberish – but perhaps, once or twice in a lifetime, it will be someone and some approach that  amounts to a blueprint for doing the work of 10,000 people with 10 people.

The value perception of books will tend to zero.  Google has its Digital Library project and is scanning through the entire human catalogue of written material to make it available digitally.  Amazon has launched the Kindle 2, a device that truly starts to make reading eBooks a pleasure – and almost better than the real thing.  Given these trends, authors and publishers will need to come to terms with a world in which the value perception of the digital content, just as in the world of digital music, tends towards zero.  It may take 10 years or 10 months, but authors will need to become like rock stars – it will be the concerts and public community events that are the future important revenue streams.  A book will just be like a nice business card.

The great news… this blog has made it into Six Minutes’ list of the top Public Speaking Blogs (at number 80, but we are only 3 months old so time, tenacity and a little bit of quality content will get us up there soon).