18 August 2008

Book: Johnny Bunko (The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need)

Daniel Pink could have written a classic business book about choosing a career, but he took a risk, tried something new and wrote a manga!

The ad for The Adventures Of Johnny Bunko (The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need) says that it's "Americas first business book as manga". It contains very nice and expressive art in the style of Japanese comics as well as fun dialogues. But it's also full of valuable advice presented in a very engaging way.

In Daniel Pink's own words:
Today the question at the center of work is: WTF?!
The book explores this question resulting in the "six lessons of a satisfying, successful career". You probably heard them before in one form or another. But believe me, never like this. Or has any career counselor ever said to you that
when it comes to work, you're as clueless as a cucumber.
I really liked how Pink introduces Johnny Bunko as a hardworking but disillusioned and somewhat clueless knowledge worker and then walks him (and the reader) through the six lessons.

I also enjoyed seeing the name of Martin Seligman (Learned Helplessness) and the face of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow) in a manga.

But the absolutely coolest was of course the red stapler! Okay, it's in black & white, but it was so obvious, it had to be a red stapler.

The only bad thing about the book is that it's too short. But I always say that after reading a great manga.
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