In this hilarious and highly practical book, author and professional speaker Scott Berkun reveals the techniques behind what great communicators do, and shows how anyone can learn to use them well. For managers and teachers-and anyone else who talks and expects someone to listen-Confessions of a Public Speaker provides an insider’s perspective on how to effectively present ideas to anyone. It’s a unique, entertaining, and instructional romp through the embarrassments and triumphs Scott has experienced over fifteen years of speaking to crowds of all sizes.
With lively lessons and surprising confessions, you’ll get new insights into the art of persuasion-as well as teaching, learning, and performance-directly from a master of the trade. Highlights include: Berkun’s hard-won and simple philosophy, culled from years of lectures, teaching courses, and hours of appearances on NPR, MSNBC, and CNBC; practical advice, including how to work a tough room, the science of not boring people, how to survive the attack of the butterflies, and what to do when things go wrong; the inside scoop on who earns $30,000 for a one-hour lecture and why; and the worst-and funniest-disaster stories you’ve ever heard (plus countermoves you can use).

Microsoft project veteran Scott Berkun offers a collection of essays on field-tested philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. Each essay distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice, and the new edition now adds more value for leaders and managers of projects everywhere. Making Things Happen doesn’t cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy. Unlike other project management books, Berkun offers personal essays in a comfortable style and easy tone that emulate the relationship of a wise project manager who gives good, entertaining, and passionate advice to those who ask.
Making Things Happen offers in-depth exercises to help you apply lessons from the book to your job. It is inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, and definitely the one book that you and your team need to have within arm’s reach throughout the life of your project. Coming from the rare perspective of someone who fought difficult battles on Microsoft’s biggest projects and taught project design and management for MSTE, Microsoft’s internal best practices group, this is valuable advice indeed. It will serve you well with your current work, and on future projects to come.

In the new edition of this fascinating book, a book that has appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, Slashdot.org, Lifehacker.com and in the New York Times, bestselling author Scott Berkun pulls the best lessons from the history of innovation, including the recent software and web age, to reveal powerful and suprising truths about how ideas become successful innovations-truths people can easily apply to the challenges of today. Through his entertaining and insightful explanations of the inherent patterns in how Einstein’s discovered E=mc2 or Tim Berner Lee’s developed the idea of the world wide web, you will see how to develop existing knowledge into new innovations.
Each entertaining chapter centers on breaking apart a powerful myth, popular in the business world despite its lack of substance. Through Berkun’s extensive research into the truth about innovations in technology, business and science, you’ll learn lessons from the expensive failures and dramatic successes of innovations past, and understand how innovators achieved what they did-and what you need to do to be an innovator yourself.

Nearly 50 million websites, or 20% of the entire web, use WordPress to power their web presence. The force behind WordPress is a company called Automattic, Inc. With just 104 employees, they have a fraction of the resources of similarly influential companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Yet Automattic has quietly positioned itself as a powerhouse for the future of the web. How is this possible? What’s different about how they work and what can other companies learn from their methods? Scott Berkun decided to find out. From 2010 to 2012 he worked as a manager at WordPress.com, leading a team of programmers to make WordPress better. In THE YEAR WITHOUT PANTS, Berkun shares the lessons he learned, including insights on: How their decentralized workplace (104 employees in 70 different cities) is incredibly creative and productive How they successfully transcended the horrors of email, and use blogs, chat and Skype instead  What managers everywhere can learn and emulate from their culture of freedom and experimentation THE YEAR WITHOUT PANTS delves deep into what made WordPress’s phenomenal success possible. And Berkun shares what every organization can learn from his story of discovery in applying the world changing ideas for the future of work at the heart of Automattics success.