Mitch Joel - Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It.

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#forever

This book is dedicated to Ali, Julien, and Sophie the only part of my life that never requires a reboot or a desire to squiggle. I love you and cherish you through each and every day. Every moment and with every breath, you are my everything.

The next time you attend a conference, I want you to look to your left and then to your right.

In the next five years, odds are that one out of three of you wont be around. When I speak to audiences all over the world, this is the message of hope that I deliver. And yes, it is a message of hope. This is a time of great upheaval in business. You know it, and you see it every day. In fact, the argument could be made that this is the first timein the history of businesswhen consumers are fundamentally ahead of the brands that serve them. Consumers are more connected, more informed, creating and sharing more. Theyre smart and getting smarter.

The challenge is that most businesses dont know how to adapt, and most of the people who are working for these companies dont know how to change their old ways. Technology hasnt just transformed how we buy or sell our wares to consumers or how we connect socially. Technology has sent business through a rapid state of genetic mutation, and were still in the middle of this evolution. I call this moment in time the following: purgatory. Were not in hell but this certainly isnt heaven either.

Ctrl Alt Delete is intended to both clear the brush and act as your road map through this purgatory. The truth is that many are scared because they dont know what to do, while many others see this as one of the best opportunities they will have in their professional lifetimes. This isnt about simple semantics and shifting your mindset or doing a slight reorg of your company; its about understanding that during this state of purgatory many businesses will die and many jobs will disappear, but in the same breath many businesses will thrive, many new businesses will be created, and many new jobs will be invented.

The only question this book will truly answer is: Do you want to be employable in the next five years?

The neighbors downstairs have had enough. Theyre thinking about complaining to the cops about the constant noise. Who runs a business out of their apartment? Is that even legal? The constant hum of music, the muted bumps from the Embody office chair as it rolls across the floor, and the 3:32 a.m. sounds from the gourmet coffee machine.

Oh, and lets not forget about the heated debates that creep through the walls of the apartment and seep into the neighbors spacethe conversations that seem to increase in volume and frustration when the video Skype call fails. Why doesnt this guy just go to an office during the day like the rest of us?

Marco Arment is changing the face of business forever with his computer, smartphone, home office, and one new user after another.

What does the near future of business look like? If Arment has anything to do with it, it may well look like his Manhattan apartment. Arment had it all and tossed it all away for something else. He was the co-founder and chief technology officer at tumblrone of the hottest online social networking sites. Many digerati see the growing popularity of tumblr as the next big thing. Tumblr could be the next Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or who knows?

But Arment gave it all up. While working on tumblr, Arment constantly grappled with bookmarking applications and printed articles from the Web. Instead of finding a solution that worked for him as a better way to keep all of this information organized and readily available, Arment quit tumblr to build the product for himself. Anyone who uses a computer, smartphone, and tablet in combination or solo should probably be using Arments creation: Instapaper. With over one million registered users (a quarter of whom use it on a regular basis), Instapaper makes it incredibly easy to save articles that can be read and synchronized on any other computer, smartphone, or tablet. Its not a website. Instapaper is just a simple little application. It can run in your Web browsers toolbar, or you can download the app to your smartphone of choice.

The concept for Instapaperand its rapid ascentmakes it worth millions. At this point, its hard to tell what the true valuation would be, because Arment has fully self-funded the service and acts as the sole employee. The only real question is this: If a multimillion-dollar business can be developed and managed by one person with a laptop in an apartment, what happens to your business and your job as this rapid innovation and digitization continues to ripple through every industry?

There is a startling realization in Arments story: Theres a good chance that your current business (or job) may not even be around in the next five years. Wacky prediction? Marketing hype to sell a book? It isnt. Arments story isnt an anomaly. Did you ever think it was even possible to have a one-person company with well over one million customers and a multimillion-dollar valuation?

Welcome to purgatory (or heaven, if youre Marco Arment).

Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs once said, If you dont cannibalize yourself, someone else will. Thats what Arment did thats what you need to start thinking about as wellwhether its your job, your business, or your career.

Ctrl Alt Delete is written to provide the road map for your business and the triggers (or attitudinal habits) that you will need to work within (and through) this massive and constant transformation that is happening in our post-disruption world. The fallout is going to be very bleak for many businesses. With that comes massive opportunity for the companies and individuals who are brave enough to see this as an once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something amazing with their lives. Yes, this book will help you become amazing.

Ctrl Alt Delete will teach you how to identify these opportunities and how to seize them. It will show you how to transform your thinking for this very different business world, and it will act as your guide on the path through purgatory toward redemption and the Promised Land. This book will enable you to both see the trends and evaluate the new business opportunities that await you. Ctrl Alt Delete is about how you should be thinking and navigating your business through this time of purgatory. Remember how I asked at the beginning of this book to look to your left and then to your right. In the next five years, theres a strong likelihood that at least one of your major competitors wont make it through this transformation. It might even be you. Please, dont let it be you.

Ctrl Alt Delete is broken into two sections. The first half (Reboot: Business) is about how were going to embrace this dramatic reset of business. In this section, well look at five major movements that are converging and how they will require businesses and the people who serve them to adapt like never before. In the second part of the book (Reboot: You), were going to get personal and talk about you. The fact is that not only will we need to understand these five major movements, but well also have to reboot who we are and how we work. I have uncovered seven triggers that will help you (and the people you work with) transition from being a jobber (someone working nine-to-five, clock-watching, and waiting on your pension plan) to someone who is doing the work that you were meant to accomplish. Thats the real big idea here: The future of business isnt about whats written in a contract, its about what we do with every waking moment to make it count. These triggers apply to entrepreneurs or being an entrepreneur within an existing organization. Youre going to have to figure out what you want to be, because the future of business will be predicated on these new types of workers.