Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Blinkist

For years, I've been a loyal reader of the latest and greatest business books.  Heath Brothers, Gladwell, Pink, Ariely, Buckingham, and others. I have taken away so many great ideas.  Most of the ones I have read have definitely been worth the time and expense. But what if you could get an even greater bang for the buck? What if you could get just the best bits and cut down on your reading time by an insane margin? Enter Blinkist.

Earlier this year I saw one of the founders of Blinkist speak at a conference.  I had not heard of Blinkist previously, and was intrigued.  It took me a couple months to get back around and try it out, and when I finally did I was impressed.

In a nutshell, here's what Blinkist does: they have smart people read popular business books and summarize them for you, so you get the good stuff (basically bullet points that they call "blinks") in a very short amount of time.  It's great for those of us who want to keep up but don't have a ton of time for reading. You get the gist in a quick, easy to read format.

But... As we learned from Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, a good story goes a long way to helping you remember the lessons from most of these books.  That's what is missing if you do a quick read of a Blinkist digest.  The ones I've read so far - no stories to help you remember the concepts... :(

Intrigued? Check it out and let me know what you think.