Ferrazzi vs. MacKay
I've just finished reading Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone and Harvey MacKay's Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty - two remarkably similar books. The Mackay book came first (in the late nineties, sorry I don't have it with me) and the Ferrazzi was published later, in 2005. I read the Ferrazzi first and, as a result, didn't actually finish the MacKay. Both books said the exact same thing, giving the same advice on building and sustaining a network. Mostly good advice, some a little questionable. But I figure I can put into practice the stuff I like and ignore the stuff that makes me feel uncomfortable. It'll still get me further than where I am now. The major difference between the books was the authors' perspectives. Mr. MacKay is of an older generation, a right-wing Republican who believes that networking is the way to help oneself. Yet, his tone is friendly, almost grandfatherly, and his anecdotal stories are refreshing and encouraging. Mr. Ferrazzi, in contrast, is a young, left-wing, democrat who praises networking as a way to help others. But his writing is full of name-drops and has an air of condescension, as if he's saying, "hey look what I did - I made millions of dollars and wrote a book and met famous people." So while I actually got clearer, more precise information about the how-to of networking from the Ferrazzi book, I prefered Mr. MacKay's candor. (And this coming from a young, left-wing democrat, no less!)