Book Review: Poke the Box 

Donna Harris, Relationship Director, The Anderson Group                                                   Rating:

Last Christmas my husband bought me an eReader, which I love! This new little gadget allows me to have a variety of books at my fingertips, even when I’m traveling. This past summer sitting on the beach, I finished my latest Jodi Picoult novel and was ready for another book. Much to my dismay, the only unread books on my e-reader were business books. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my vacation on the beach.

I started reading one of Seth Godin’s latest endeavors, Poke the Box from his Domino Project and was quickly engaged in this easy-to-read business book. The message of this book is so profoundly simple it can be captured in one word. Go.

Poke the Box is about the spark that brings things to life. We need to be nudged away from conformity and toward ingenuity, toward answering unknown questions for ourselves. Even if we fail, as we all have in life, we learn what not to do by experience.
Compliance used to be the heart of every successful organization, every successful career. The reason? We all worked for the system, doing what we were told. Now, though, compliance is no longer a competitive advantage.

The more I read, the more I began to realize at the 22-year mark of my career, I had become somewhat compliant and maybe that wasn’t completely a good thing. I started to think about the last time I did something for the first time and how it felt. It was time for me to move forward and try something new. I returned from vacation and started investigating MBA programs and plan to enroll in one by the beginning of 2012.

There are no step-by-step how-to instructions in Poke the Box. Instead, you’ll find a series of layers, a different approach to your work. The book has encouraged me to take a leap I have been thinking about for the past 20 years.

This book is part of the Domino Project, founded by Seth Godin and powered by Amazon. The Domino Project is intended to be a new more viral way of spreading information so the book is only available as an ebook. Don’t have an eReader, have no fear, you can download the workbook at http://thedominoproject.com/_/PoketheBox_Workbook.pdf.

Rating:

A must-read! Thought leadership. Highly relevant.

Worth reading. Offers many helpful insights.

Good ideas. Put it on your reading list.

Similar to other books on the subject.

Disappointing. Would not recommend.