This is part of the PNI Q&A series where I share responses to common questions about the book. Got a question? Share it in a comment and I might answer it in an upcoming post!

The one that stands out for me simply because I travel a lot and live in a major hub is United Airlines. The amount of money they waste on “brand campaigns” is just staggering. Who in America hasn’t heard of United Airlines? No one. So why spend all this money to tell them who you are? They have so much potential to reinvent the way that they train their employees and that they use social media to allow people to have a more direct relationship with them. Sometimes I dream about getting them as a client because there are so many solutions that could make such a big impact on their brand. It’s uncommon to have a brand with that much untapped potential.

This is part of the PNI Q&A series where I share responses to common questions about the book. Got a question? Share it in a comment and I might answer it in an upcoming post!

The whole process of writing to publication for me was just under a year. I got my book deal in June of 2007 and published in May of 2008. It’s a pretty fast turnaround for a full length business book, but both myself and the publisher were keen to get the book out sooner rather than later so we worked hard to finish it and still have something we’d be proud of. One thing I was surprised at was that I thought I would be able to reuse more of my blog content for the book, and I really didn’t use much. Luckily the blogging kept my writing skills current and probably helped me to write much faster than I could otherwise have.

This is part of the PNI Q&A series where I share responses to common questions about the book.

I would sum up the difference between my book and others in two words: entertaining and useful. As I wrote the book, I focused on living up to these two themes. I wanted to write a book that was actually fun to read (I know, it’s an odd way to describe a marketing book, but stay with me). To do that, I have more than a hundred stories in the book, from how a small restaurant in DC with just 8 seats creates one of the most unique dining experiences in the world to the story of LiveVault made the intensely technical subject of data storage approachable, fun and viral. The useful part comes from the structure of the book which has two main parts. The first part is the theory of personality in business and has six chapters with lots of stories that you could probably finish in a few hours on a quick plane flight. Along with all the stories are links to guides, tools, checklists and other resources in the second part of the book. That part is all about action and helping you to put the theory of the book to work for your business. This isn’t meant to be just a big “theory” book, it’s all about applying the lessons to your business.