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This article was written by Laura Villacrusis-Weaver, a leadership consultant with The Refinery Leadership Partners, an international consulting company, in co-operation with Refinery co-principal Rosie Steeves (rosie@refineryleadership.com). For more ideas about leadership development, visit www.refineryleadership.com. This article was previously published in Business in Vancouver in July 2008. A leader I used to work with amazed me once when he showed me his personal leadership journal. His journaling wasn’t what amazed me--many leaders try this simple, yet powerful development activity--but that the journal itself was so thick and well-worn. He’d been writing in it at least once a week, he told me, for six years. Many leaders start journaling with the best of intentions. They get into it for a while, at least until “real work” gets in the way and their journal is relegated to a desk drawer, mostly blank and completely forgotten. But my old co-worker would neve...

The way people buy has gone through a massive revolution in recent years: thanks to blogs, review sites and chat rooms, we no longer have to rely on what a company says about its products and services — we can read what our fellow consumers think about what they’ve bought, and make our own decisions bearing those views in minds. The result? Empowered customers who know exactly what they want and who can now explore many ways to get it. Many companies, however, just won’t accept that things have changed and haven’t adjusted their marketing efforts to match. In Crowd Surfing , David Brain and Martin Thomas explain what marketers, advertisers and brand specialists need to do to communicate with today’s savvier consumers. They include case studies of successes and failures from the business world and beyond, and interview leaders such as Michael Dell and Sebastian Coe to help illustrate their points. About the book - Crowd Surfing Surviving and thriving in the age of consumer empowerme...