Creative Careers

In one of the most popular classes at Parsons School of Design, B. Jeffrey Madoff gave students a reality check: "Most of us have had the feeling of 'I could've done that,' whether at an art gallery, watching a performance, or finding a new product or even a new business idea. What's the difference between you and them? They actually did it. You didn't." With Creative Careers, you will learn how to do it, too: use your creativity; have a sustainable, profitable career; and do what you love.

From Seth Godin, one of the world's most influential business thinkers and bestselling author of This is Marketing, comes an essential guide to thinking strategically in a complex, ever-changing world. This is Strategy is a modern classic that offers perspectives you'll find yourself returning to again and again. Rather than providing step-by-step formulas, Godin offers something more valuable: a new way of seeing and thinking about the challenges you face.

Are you a student or current entertainment professional who wants to discover how others succeeded in the entertainment business? Creating a Career in Entertainment presents real-life examples of how to build a behind-the-scenes career.

In a world of unrelenting change and unprecedented challenges, we need organizations that are resilient and daring. Unfortunately, most organizations, overburdened by bureaucracy, are sluggish and timid. In Humanocracy, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini make a passionate, data-driven argument for excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better. Drawing on more than a decade of research and packed with practical examples, Humanocracy lays out a detailed blueprint for creating organizations that are as inspired and ingenious as the human beings inside them.

Whether you're starting a new business or you've been trading for a while, Creating a Business Plan for Dummies covers everything you need to know. Figure out whether your business idea is likely to work, how to identify your strategic advantage, and what you can do to gain an edge on the competition. Discover why a business plan doesn't have to be a 30-page document that takes days to write, but can be a simple process that you do in stages as you work through your business concept.

We were created by an infinitely creative God to reflect his love and character to the world. One way we do that is by continuing his creative work. In this energizing book, serial entrepreneur and best-selling author Jordan Raynor helps artists, entrepreneurs, writers, and other creatives re-imagine our work as service to God and others, addressing such penetrating questions as: Is my work as a creative really as God-honoring as that of a pastor or missionary? Will what I make today matter in eternity?

Your message has the ability to change someone's life. The impact that the right message can have on someone at the right time in their life is immeasurable. It could help to save marriages, repair families, change someone's health, grow a company, or more... But only if you know how to get it into the hands of the people whose lives you have been called to change. Expert Secrets will put your message into the hands of people who need it.

When Hugh MacLeod was a struggling young copywriter living in a YMCA, he started to doodle on the backs of business cards while sitting at a bar. Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog - gapingvoid.com - and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures. MacLeod has opinions on everything from marketing to the meaning of life, but one of his main subjects is creativity. How do new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world?

This is a book for everyone who writes or approves copy: copywriters, multichannel marketers, creative directors, freelance writers, marketing managers...even small business owners and information marketers. It reveals dozens of copywriting techniques that can help you write both print and online ads, emails, and websites that are clear, persuasive, and get more attention-and sell more products. Among the tips revealed:

This book is for every manager, leader, and entrepreneur who needs to rally a team, an organization, or themselves to think big and keep the flame of invention burning brightly while under suffocating pressure—which happens to be when you need creative problem-solving the most.

Bestselling author Robert J. Ringer has shattered the mold of tradition-bound ideas and designed a winning new philosophy to be used every day. Inside this get-tough-with-yourself guide, you'll find the simple but vital habits that can change your outlook and lead to big results--personally, professionally, and financially. Before you know it, you'll be turning negatives into positives--and turning your life around--without thinking twice!

The Listening Leader is a practical guide that will inspire school, district, and teacher leaders to make substantive change and increase equitable student outcomes. Rooted in the values of equity, relationships, and listening, this luminous book helps reimagine what is possible in education today. Drawing from more than 20 years of experience in public schools, Shane Safir incorporates hands-on strategies and powerful stories to show us how to leverage one of the most vital tools of leadership: listening.

Why do some people succeed at change while others fail? It's the way they think! Liminal thinking is a way to create change by understanding, shaping, and reframing beliefs. What beliefs are stopping you right now? You have a choice. You can create the world you want to live in or live in a world created by others. If you are ready to start making changes, listen to this book.

Starting a Successful Airbnb Business for Beginners is a comprehensive guide, offering valuable insights and actionable steps based on my personal trials and errors. If you’re looking for guidance, my book will show you on how to make a profitable property, by showing you how to provide your guests with great experiences that will give you five-star reviews and a fully booked calendar.

Do you yearn for more meaning, connection, and the ability to respond to life’s curveballs more creatively than reactively? If so, you’ve likely found that hard work, material success, and even years of expertise often aren’t enough. What stands in the gap between your busyness and a life filled with cherished moments? For years, Jeffrey Davis has researched, interviewed, and worked with luminaries across cultures and professions to answer that question. What he’s identified is a single universal experience that opens us to creative awakening across all walks of life: wonder.

The author of Wishcraft and I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was..., Barbara Sher became famous for her extraordinary ability to help people define and achieve their goals. What Sher discovered is that some individuals simply cannot, and should not, decide on a single path; they are genetically wired to pursue many areas. Sher calls them “Scanners”—people whose unique type of mind does not zero in on a single interest but rather scans the horizon, eager to explore everything they see.

Small business specialist Elaine Pofeldt offers her blueprint for getting a running start with your microbusiness—that is, a business with no more than four employees, including yourself. Following her previous book, The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business, Pofeldt shows listeners the steps toward their next entrepreneurial venture, including testing an idea’s market viability while limiting risk, finding cash without giving up control, protecting your personal time and avoiding burn out, and knowing when it is time to start micro-scaling.

Real Madrid is the most successful sports team on the planet. The soccer club has more trophies than any other sports team, including 11 UEFA Champions League trophies. However, the story behind the triumph goes beyond the players and coaches. Generally unnoticed, a management team consisting mostly of outsiders took the team from near bankruptcy to the most valuable sports organization in the world. How did Real Madrid achieve such extraordinary success? Columbia Business School adjunct professor Steven G. Mandis investigates.

Creating Passive Income with Digital Products by VentureNest Books is a comprehensive guide designed to help readers achieve financial independence through digital products. It addresses common challenges faced by aspiring entrepreneurs, such as feeling overwhelmed with options and lacking effective strategies for generating passive income online. The book provides a step-by-step roadmap, covering essential topics like identifying lucrative niches tailored to individual skills and interests, developing marketable digital products, and automating income generation.

How do today's most successful tech companies—Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla—design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? Perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently than most tech companies. In Inspired, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides listeners with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love—and that will work for your business.