In My TBR Stack:

The AI Marketing Canvas: A Five-Stage Road Map to Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
by Raj Venkatesan and Jim Lecinski
Stanford Business Books
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

This book offers a direct, actionable plan CMOs can use to map out initiatives that are properly sequenced and designed for success—regardless of where their marketing organization is in the process.

The authors pose the following critical questions to marketers: (1) How should modern marketers be thinking about artificial intelligence and machine learning? and (2) How should marketers be developing a strategy and plan to implement AI into their marketing toolkit?

The opening chapters provide marketing leaders with an overview of what exactly AI is and how is it different than traditional computer science approaches. Venkatesan and Lecinski, then, propose a best-practice, five-stage framework for implementing what they term the "AI Marketing Canvas." Their approach is based on research and interviews they conducted with leading marketers, and offers many tangible examples of what brands are doing at each stage of the AI Marketing Canvas. By way of guidance, Venkatesan and Lecinski provide examples of brands—including Google, Lyft, Ancestry.com, and Coca-Cola—that have successfully woven AI into their marketing strategies. The book concludes with a discussion of important implications for marketing leaders—for your team and culture.

On My Radar:

Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon
by Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko
Redwood Press
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

In January 2021, thousands descended on the U.S. Capitol to aid President Donald Trump in combating a shadowy cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. Two women were among those who died that day. They, like millions of Americans, believed that a mysterious insider known as "Q" is exposing a vast deep-state conspiracy. The QAnon conspiracy theory has ensnared many women, who identify as members of "pastel QAnon," answering the call to "save the children."



With Pastels and Pedophiles, Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko explain why the rise of QAnon should not surprise us: believers have been manipulated to follow the baseless conspiracy. The authors track QAnon's unexpected leap from the darkest corners of the Internet to the filtered glow of yogi-mama Instagram, a frenzy fed by the COVID-19 pandemic that supercharged conspiracy theories and spurred a fresh wave of Q-inspired violence.



Pastels and Pedophiles connects the dots for readers, showing how a conspiracy theory with its roots in centuries-old anti-Semitic hate has adapted to encompass local grievances and has metastasized around the globe—appealing to a wide range of alienated people who feel that something is not quite right in the world around them. While QAnon claims to hate Hollywood, the book demonstrates how much of Q's mythology is ripped from movie and television plot lines.



Finally, Pastels and Pedophiles lays out what can be done about QAnon's corrosive effect on society, to bring Q followers out of the rabbit hole and back into the light.

In My TBR Stack:

Can Business Save the Earth: Innovating Our Way to Sustainability
by Michael Lenox and Aaron Chatterji
Stanford Business Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Increasingly, business leaders are tasked with developing new products, services, and business models that minimize environmental impact while driving economic growth. It's a tall order—and a call that is only getting louder.

In Can Business Save the Earth?, Michael Lenox and Aaron Chatterji explain just how the private sector can help. Many believe that markets will inevitably demand sustainable practices and force them to emerge. But Lenox and Chatterji see it differently. Based on more than a decade of research and work with companies, they argue that a bright green future is only possible with dramatic innovation across multiple sectors at the same time.

To achieve this, a broader ecosystem of players—including inventors, executives, customers, investors, activists, and governments—all must play a role. The book outlines how and the extent to which each group can serve as a driver of green growth. Then, Lenox and Chatterji identify where economic incentives currently exist, or could exist with institutional change, and ultimately address the larger question of how far well-coordinated efforts can take us in addressing the current environmental crisis.