I am REALLY excited to share this book review with all of you!  First of all, a little disclaimer...I am a HUGE fan of Tom Fishburne and his BrandCamp cartoons.  In fact, I have many of his cartoons hanging on my office walls.  They elicit many smirks and chuckles from my fellow trench diggers, and looks of disdain from those higher up the organizational food chain.  Signs of great business-related art if you ask me!

Tom's great new book, This One Time, At Brand Camp, was the highlight of the most recent Post2Post virtual book tour organized by IdeaSandbox and the "other" Paul Williams.  Many top notch bloggers like Seth Godin and Chris Wilson weighed in on this great new book...so you know it has some decent buzz already.

During the kick-off of the virtual book tour, Tom offered to send a free book to anyone willing to blog a book review.  Needless to say...I jumped at the chance!  So...without further delay...

                                                   

I am not, nor ever have been, and probably will never be, in marketing.  Yet, the "stickiness" of Tom's cartoons have been with me ever since I saw them on the Idea Sandbox site.  It isn't the marketing view of the world that holds me.  The cartoons about innovation, ideation and creativity come close (duh!)...but don't quite lock it in.  It's the window into the ridiculous operations, thought processes, language and decision making that goes on in nearly every large organization in the United States.  It is a tolerable way to view the painful reality of the corporate world and those of us tethered to it. 

Followers of this blog know of my battles with the senior execs and other "big boys & girls" about climates of creativity, cultures of innovation, next practices instead of best practices, the evils of process run amok, etc.  Well, for those of you graphically/pictorally inclined, Tom's drawings bring those battles to life in cartoon format.  Distilled.  Clear.  Concise.  Painfully funny.

My favorite cartoon?  This one...

So many tools needed to cut...so few needed to grow....

Think about that when you are handed one more Six Sigma tool...

You need to laugh.  You need to enjoy the irony of the corporate world.  You need to fight against the monoliths.  You need this book.

So now...after reading it and laughing at all of the great cartoons and insights into what prompted the spark of inspiration surrounding each...I feel guilty about getting this book for free.  So here's what I am going to do.

I will send a free copy of the book (no...a different one...that I will buy from LuLu) to the first fellow blogger who comments this entry or e-mails me AND is willing to blog about the book after they receive it.  Whew...my conscience is clean(er).

For everyone else...do yourself a favor and buy this book!