Kevin Maney points out that, unlike books with their varied and descriptive covers, e-Reader devices conceal the identity of what you’re reading: …the Kindle lets readers down with respect to one subtle but powerful element of the traditional book’s appeal: its role as an identity marker. Pulling out a particular book on an airline flight [...]

Whitney Hess: Inspiration is necessary in order for aspiration to grow. But only until we’re filled with aspiration, self-initiated and self-defined, do our careers, and lives, really begin to transform, allowing us to transform those around us in turn.

Kevin C. Tofel explains how simple branding transcends category names used by industry insiders, and captures a place in the public consciousness: Such simple branding and product awareness goes a long way toward helping Apple sell products. Look at the iPad, 3 million units of which the company has sold in just 80 days. Instead [...]

Ken Auletta: Tim O’Reilly, the founder and C.E.O. of O’Reilly Media, which publishes about two hundred e-books per year, thinks that the old publishers’ model is fundamentally flawed. “They think their customer is the bookstore,” he says. “Publishers never built the infrastructure to respond to customers.” Without bookstores, it would take years for publishers to [...]

Classical composer Annie Gosfield’s advice to young composers: Make sure you’re always doing some work that is yours and yours alone — not composed for the approval of teachers or colleagues. There’s a chasm between writing in school and writing in the real world. Regardless of what you’re doing in school, you should always write [...]