100 Tricks to Appear Smart In Meetings Format Kindle

As western civilization melts into oblivion, someone needs to record the proceedings and report on it. That person is Sarah Cooper, who has written a wonderfully perceptive, dangerously prescriptive and ultimately shameful book on meetings. It has been honed on her website TheCooperReview, and in her appearances, and it shows. The book is tight, direct, on target and all too true. It keeps its pace, never gets tiresome, and delivers knockout punches continuously.

Cooper also illustrates really well, with a cartoon on almost every page. My favorite is the What To Do With Your Face section, where she shows the impact and importance of numerous facial expressions employed at meetings (See below). Her economy of line alone is worth the price of admission. Hirschfeld would not disapprove.

Cooper belabors the obvious to great effect (“Like most women, I’m not a man”), and her sarcasm could get anyone fired. It all makes for a delightful, effortless read that should replace the dreary One Minute Manager on every desk.

David Wineberg

To paraphrase Mike Myers's character Dieter, this book looks at me while I am naked and calls its friends.

Is it really satire, or is it a thoughtful analysis of what's wrong with corporate America? Both! Have I done some of these things? I'm afraid so. Have any of these things advanced my career? Emphatically, no. Why do I tolerate it when others use these tricks in meetings I'm in? Because I just don't care anymore.

I suggest you buy a copy for every member of your team, ask them to memorize it, and call out numbers whenever someone uses one of the tricks. Eventually people simply announce the trick number instead of going through the pain of actually executing a trick.

Sort of like this famous parable: (see below as the review system doesn't allow links)

Maybe, just maybe, if we follow Sarah's lead, we can make corporate America great again.

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A man is sent to prison for the first time. At night, the lights in the cell block are turned off, and his cellmate goes over to the bars and yells, "Number twelve!" The whole cell block breaks out laughing. A few minutes later, somebody else in the cell block yells, "Number four!" Again, the whole cell bloock breaks out laughing.

The new guy asks his cellmate what's going on. "Well," says the older prisoner, "we've all been in this here prison for so long, we all know the same jokes. So we just yell out the number instead of saying the whole joke."

So the new guy walks up to the bars and yells, "Number six!" There was dead silence in the cell block. He asks the older prisoner, "What's wrong? Why didn't I get any laughs?"

"Well," said the older man, "sometimes it's not the joke, but how you tell it."

Hi I’m Douglas Burdett, host of The Marketing Book Podcast and I’d like to tell you about the book "100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings: How to Get By Without Even Trying by Sarah Cooper."

If you’re like me, you’ve always hated having to sit through long, pointless, idiotic meetings at work. But now, I love those kinds of meetings. In fact, sometimes if I walk by a conference room full of co-workers who look like they’re enduring a soul-crushing, mind-numbing meeting that I haven’t been invited to, I’ll walk in and join the meeting. Thanks to Sarah Cooper’s book, 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings, I can’t get enough of those meetings.

Here’s why. In 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings, the author, a former employee of companies like Yahoo and Google, shows you how to appear smart in less than half the time it takes to actually learn something. For instance, trick #1 is drawing a Venn diagram. It doesn’t matter if your Venn diagram is wildly inaccurate; in fact, the more inaccurate, the better. Before you can even put the marker down your colleagues will begin fighting about what the labels should be and how big the circles should be. At this point you can slink back to your chair and get to real work – playing Candy Crush.

Or trick #2: translate percentage metrics into fractions. So, if someone says something like, “About 25% of all users click on this button,” jump in with, “So about one in four,” and then make a note of it. Your math skills will be the envy of everyone in the room.

Or trick #3 – encourage everyone to “take a step back.” If you’ve been sitting in a meeting where everyone else is talking and you haven’t said anything because you haven’t been paying attention, that’s a good time to go, “Guys, guy, guys, can we take a step back here?” All eyes will be on you – and your colleagues will be impressed at your ability to silence the fray. Bonus tip, follow that up with a quick, “What problem are we really trying to solve here?

Presto, you just bought yourself another hour of looking smart. In the past, I would actually prepare for meetings. Boy was I dumb. Now I just follow the “best practices” in 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings, and not only have I been promoted, I got a raise, too! It’s that easy! You know how we all make a fuss about celebrating a friend’s new job. I’m referring to how we go on our friends LinkedIn profile and hit the “congrats” button. Sure that’s a lot of effort that your friends really appreciate, but I’d like to suggest something that’s even better.

Just go on Amazon and send them a copy of 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings. They’ll appreciate the fact that you’re sharing something with them that will make them really successful in their new job. And they won’t forget that. Plus, the book even includes this cool poster!

And to listen to an interview with Sarah Cooper about 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings, visit MarketingBookPodcast.com

I read this book in a day, yet I shall never shut up about it until my dying breath. It's so F&*#ING funny, and the most brilliant send-up of modern "disruptive" corporate culture published to date.

You don't understand, but I'll try to explain. I have cried, multiple times, reading the same damn page. I literally laugh so hard and long that tears run down my face. This is extremely problematic, because I read it the first time at my desk at work. Cooper's writing cuts me to the quick - she's captured my experience working in software and opened my eyes to the extended f&*#ery of the rest of the corporate world.

Here's the intensely subversive aspect of her book that blows my mind - I now intentionally use some of these tips in meetings, and swear to god I seem smarter. That makes up for the snorting bursts of laughter that I experience now that I see bosses and coworkers unintentionally acting out her finest work.

Anyone who's ever worked in a corporate job will immediately love this book. Sarah's humor is biting and reads like it's straight out of HBO's Silicon Valley. Her twitter feed is also a must-follow @sarahcpr. One of my favorite little snippets is the idea of using the "royal we," like, "We really need to take a look at that issue" when you're not really involved at all. You can take credit for all the good stuff while simultaneously spreading the blame, perfect! I know for a fact I'll appear smarter in all of my upcoming meetings.