Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book was provided by my employer as an HR exercise. Being one who rarely feels motivated to leave reviews, I have two main thoughts about this book: Thought #1: "What a Brilliant Idea!" ----------------------------------- As an entrepreneur, I can readily appreciate that this is the first book I've ever come across where the author ensures that: a. You provide them with your email address, name, demographic info (such as age, gender, zip code, birthplace, etc) b. Each and every reader must purchase the book new at an inflated price, because each book contains a unique code that can only be used once for their online test. In other words, you can't share the book with others as the book itself has no value. So don't plan on being able to get this from the library, lending to your family/friends, etc. c. You really should think of the book cost as payment for an online personality test -- the kind that you normally wouldn't bother doing even if it were free. Thought #2: "What a Total Waste of Money." ------------------------------------------ a. Firstly, I found the structure of the quiz itself to be fairly annoying. For instance, each question in the quiz asks you to rate two self-descriptions. However, many of these questions are not dichotomies. For instance, one question may be: "Which characteristic to you most strongly identify with: (a) Motivating People, or (b) Encouraging People?" Sorry, I've forgotten the exact questions now...) b. Secondly, the actual results of the test are useless. After taking the online personality test, you are presented with a list of 5 "Strengths", each accompanied with a checklist of about 10 fairly obvious action items. For instance, my top strength according to this book is "Strategic". The book's top Idea for Action in my case is "Take the time to fully reflect or muse about a goal that you want to achieve...remember that musing time is essential to strategic thinking." Wow, such insight! c. Before you bother buying the book, I fully recommend that you flip through it in a book store to see the kind of advice that you may get for a particular strength that you feel applies to you. If you find the simplistic suggestions to be as obvious as I have, then there is absolutlely no reason to buy the book. After all, there's no point in paying for the personality quiz (and giving the publisher all of your contact and demographic information) if the resulting suggestions have limited value. The central concept of the book is: "Focus on utilizing your strengths, and don't get caught up on your weaknesses." There, now that you read that line, you have no further need to purchase this book. You know what you are good at -- now look for ways to implement those strengths to help you to advance your goals and achieve your personal definition of success. However, from a purely business standpoint, I must say: Kudos to the author and publishing house for trailblazing this new approach of closely linking interactive web content with the physical book. This is guaranteed to be a huge moneymaker for them, and will likely motivate other publishers to figure out how to require the use of one-time use activation codes in their own publications! Unfortunately, this doesn't bode well for shared knowledge and the free-exchange of ideas and resources with friends/family and libraries, but what an innovative business idea!