Search: Busting Out

Advice for the suddenly self-employed, executive summaries for business best-sellers, and the art of managing meetings.

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Every month the InfoPosse -- Inc's team of crack corporate librarians -- reports in on what's good, bad, and ugly in the world of information.

BUSTING OUT: For decades workers have been abandoning the security of corporate settlements to rough it on the perilous -- but thrilling -- plains of self-employment. Lately, the pink-slipping of America has increased the ranks of pioneers, making books about the growing independence movement especially timely. Daniel Pink's Free Agent Nation: How America's New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live (Warner Books, 2001) received a lot of attention last year, and for good reason, says InfoPosse member Christine Klein. Pink, whose interests range from economics to psychology, insightfully addresses the "whos," "whys," and "wherefores" underlying the move to self-employment. Klein points readers who are more interested in the "hows" toward the admirably pragmatic A New Brand of Expertise: How Independent Consultants, Free Agents, and Interim Managers Are Transforming the World of Work, by Marion McGovern and Dennis Russell (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2001). That book -- more manual than manifesto -- covers the spectrum of unaffiliated workers' concerns: from intellectual-property protection, to insurance, to liability issues. "It's the definitive road map for anyone looking to strike out on their own," says Klein.

"When you're a free agent, you're not just your own boss. You're your own accountant. That's no fun, which is why since 1980 the number of people who've hired somebody else to prepare their returns has climbed 44 percent."

READER'S DIGEST: Remember back in college when you failed to read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and CliffsNotes saved your bacon? Do you ever wish those slender yellow pamphlets covered the oeuvre of James Champy as well as that of James Joyce? Soundview Executive Book Summaries aren't exactly CliffsNotes for business books, but they come close. An annual subscription fee of $129 ($99 for the electronic version) buys the straight dope on 35 fresh-from-the-publisher tomes, including detailed summaries and highlights of main ideas. "It's almost as good as reading the book itself," says InfoPosse member Lisa Zwickey. "And if the book's a dud, you've saved $25." (For information, call 888-358-1000 or visit www.summary.com.)

HAIL AND WELL MET: It is testament to man's proclivity toward disorganization and conflict that meeting management has become a much-studied discipline. That doesn't mean you have to study it much: reading one good book on the subject should suffice. InfoPosse member Genevieve Foskett recommends the unfussily titled Managing Meetings, by Tim Hindle (Dorling Kindersley, 1998). It hits all the bases: creating an agenda, for example, and managing logistics. But Hindle is also good on the more esoteric stuff, including tactical seating (position a supporter across from a naysayer so they will influence each other's opinions); and on cultural distinctions (in Russia it is common for people to argue loudly, storm out, and then return to continue the discussion). The author even provides a formula for calculating the cost of a meeting based on overhead and the participants' salaries. The book is part of a series, and if you're taken by its clean, engaging format, says Foskett, you might want to check out the other 11 volumes, which cover such subjects as interviewing and making presentations. They're cheaper by the dozen: Essential Manager's Manual aggregates all 12 books for the reasonable price of $29.95.

The InfoPosse members are Genevieve Foskett, corporate librarian at Highsmith Inc.; Lisa Guedea CarreÑo, library director at Goshen College; Christine Klein, director of knowledge and information management at LifeCare Inc.; Jean Mayhew, former director of information and learning at United Technologies Research Center; and Lisa A. Zwickey, senior research specialist at J.J. Keller & Associates.

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