Fast Company Now (a great blog if you haven't seen it yet) has a post from Charles Decker called It's About Passion. The post explains their new "Book of the Month" feature and its discussion forum. The question they're getting most often is "what makes a great book?"
"If there is one overriding quality that applies to all the books that have caught my eye so far, it would have to be passion. Do the authors have it for their topics? Are they able to inspire it in the reader? Have they been successful at getting their employees or coworkers to apply it on the job? Those are the questions I always ask of the books being considered."
There are two types of books that keep my attention. Those that are informational and relevant (Execution, 5 Patterns), and those that are inspiring (and often, also, informational and relevant). Those are the books that make me want to dive into my job with more passion. To try new things. To take on big challenges and see them through. Books from Seth Godin and Tom Peters and Bill Jensen.
As a matter of fact, it's the type of writing that appeals to me in almost any kind of communication. Email. Newsletters. Presentations. Blogs. If I can sense your passion, I can connect to you emotionally.
What can I do to answer the questions from Decker about my own writing?
"What are you passionate about? How much of a factor is it in your own work? Are you able to integrate it into your homelife as well? What could your employer do to encourage people to be more passionate about their jobs? Or is having passion actually a liability in this climate of corporate corruption and abject greed?"
Comments