Coloring Outside the Lines
By Jeff Tobe
The Business Conference Press - 2001
ISBN: 0-9662689-2-X - Hardback
Nonfiction / How To

Reviewed by: Carolyn Howard-Johnson, MyShelf.Com
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However valuable how-to books may be, most of us haven't time for them. Most are hefty, and oh so dry.

Jeff Tobe has been thinking, creating, and "Coloring Outside the Lines." He supplies all we need to know--whatever business we may be in--within a slim, memorable volume.

The author polishes up a dull subject with images from the sports world and from children's games. He supplies an intriguing diagnosis of stale business practices he calls BPIP (Business Professionals Innovation Deficiency) with all its symptoms. These include Past-a-Plegia, Internal Myopia, and Psycho-Sclerosis, all of which make anthrax seem innocuous. You will want to learn about these because they are diseases anyone can contract.

The book itself colors outside the lines, a tribute to Tobe's own philosophies. The cover looks more like an Easter egg than a business book, the typeface is positively enchanting (and readable) and his advice is anecdotal, not built with dry-old, tired-old business-ese. His message is to achieve success by thinking differently; this book illustrates this very premise. To be successful means taking a risk--and it works.