Andy Unedited
Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
More than one friend of mine has been fired from a job. I’m not talking about being downsized, going out of business, being a victim of cutbacks, being laid off or, as our friends on the other side of the Pond say, being made redundant. I’m talking fired, dismissed, sacked, given a pink slip. Maybe I just hang out with the wrong people.
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Some years ago we promised an author that if he signed his book contract with us that we would advertise the book in several key magazines. So he signed the contract, completed the manuscript and sent it in. It was a strong piece, and we were happy to publish it. However, we also discovered that it did not come to us very well targeted for the particular audiences of the magazines in which we had promised to advertise the book. As we discussed the audience for his book and possible revisions with the author, he was not inclined to make any significant changes.
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True confession. Last week I threw away a book. I hesitated a moment before I did so. Could I sell it online? Should I try to give it away? Was it somehow immoral to throw away a book? It sure didn’t feel right. But I did it anyway. In fact, I threw away eight or ten.
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Almost twenty years ago, before it was fashionable, IVP’s first telecommuter, Dan Reid, set up shop two thousand miles from the home office. We thought it was an incredibly high-tech arrangement since we could communicate by mail, by phone, by fax and by CompuServe–a company that gave us the amazing capability of allowing two PCs (one in Seattle and one in Downers Grove) to exchange data and files via the phone lines. It was whacked-out futuristic in our minds. We actually managed in this primitive arrangement, if you can believe it, for a full five years before the internet connected us all in 1995.
Since then any number of IVP employees have entered the ranks of the telecommuting. But it takes more than technology to make telecommuting successful. Here’s some of the factors we’ve kept in mind that have helped it work for us.
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I still vividly remember the company picnics our family would go to when I was young. At the end of August a few hundred people related to the business my dad worked for would gather in a city park in Minneapolis for food and games. A huge cauldron (my childhood memory tells me it was like a 15-foot metal watering troff) had a fire built under it with dozens and dozens of ears of fresh Minnesota corn being boiled. Everyone would gather for Bingo, with each winner taking home a silver dollar. I prized the few I managed to win. The sights and smells of the whole event still linger with me.
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“Dad, what would you say is your calling in life?”
The question seemed to come out of the blue from my college-age daughter. As we stood in the kitchen, inwardly I was a bit taken aback. It was totally legitimate to ask, but it got so quickly to the core of things that I felt momentarily stunned. Did I have a calling? Had I thought about it much? What was I good at and motivated to do? What was my purpose for being on this planet?
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Last month I was at a conference in Toronto and spoke on the history of InterVarsity Press. One of the themes I highlighted was how IVP has been a conduit for British-style evangelicalism into North America over the last sixty years, a tradition that continues to this day. This is a brand of Christianity that is more comfortable interacting with culture than its American counterpart and is not afraid of the intellectual enterprise. We think the influence of the Brits on the American scene in this way has been very salutary.
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John Stott has had a relationship with InterVarsity Press for half a century. You can read more of my thoughts on Stott’s legacy in Behind the Books.
OK, is there anything I don’t like about First, Break All the Rules? Yes. The title.
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Is there anything in First, Break All the Rules about sales and marketing? You bet. Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman identify four levels of customer satisfaction (pp. 128ff.).
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