A perfect insight into all the nonsense that goes on in the business world, and how much management speak there actually is. It's a quirky, The Office-esque, creovative™ style of humour.

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Product Description

Hi! Let me introduce myself. I'm Martin Lukes, Special Projects Director at a-b global (UK). In your hands is a highly unique book, which pushes the envelope literature-wise. As you will see, it is a 120 per cent honest account of a year of my life - a phenomenal year of personal progress, corporate scandal and marital drama. It not only chronicles my promotion to one of the foremost executive positions globally, but is also a profound journey of personal learning, aided and abetted by my coach, Pandora. I am often asked why I want to share my deeply private philosophies with such a wide audience. I always say it is because I am passionate about learning. I have grown from my own mistakes, both in the professional space and the personal one, and I believe that there are many key takeaways for you here too. Who Moved My BlackBerry (TM)? is a creovative(TM) work - to use a phrase of mine that has now entered the business lingo. I anticipate it will be the must-read of 2005. All my very bestest Martin.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13520 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

About the Author
Lucy Kellaway is the FT's management columnist. She lives in London and is married with four children.

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Customer Reviews

Laugh AND Cry
It has been said that business leaders are distorting language for propaganda more than at anyone since the Soviets. For years, Lucy Kellaway has been writing about management gobbledygook and fads with insight, wit, and precision. Martin Lukes is almost more effective, in that it comes in the form of hugely entertaining, hilarious fiction.

Martin Lukes presents a year's worth of emails written by the personification of the high flying, management theory victim. Helped by career and lifestyle coach Pandora, Martin applies all imaginable lingo and management techniques to both his job and family. The trouble is that all of it is divorced from reality, and doesn't help with the problems bursting forth on all fronts.

Half the fun is guessing - or knowing - what trouble each email is going to bring to the self-obsessed and self-important Martin. He gets up to more than his share of hanky panky, and all his messes come together dramatically for maximum humour.

Martin Lukes is certainly a perfect book to take on summer holiday.

An amusing look at corporate ambition
I once read a book (Beyond Beef by Jeremy Rifkin) that claimed the level of bovine excreta was becoming a danger to the planet’s environment. Lucy Kellaway is a journalist who has long been concerned about this problem in the corporate environment.

Her creation, Martin Lukes, is well known to readers of the Financial Times. He’s an arrogant, selfish, self-obsessed, insecure and ambitious marketing director in the London office of a fictitious Fortune 500 company. By publishing a collection of his emails each week, she allows us to follow his rollercoaster career and personal life, and his adoption of every corporate and marketing fad that comes along.

Martin Lukes compensates for his limited intelligence and talent with unbounded ambition. His relentless clawing up the corporate pole and poor judgement often lead to disaster, but somehow he survives and moves forward.

We all know at least one Martin Lukes. That is why the column has proved to be both compelling and amusing. Lucy Kellaway, through Martin, also introduces us to a collection of recognisable corporate and domestic characters, and fires round after round into the mumbo-jumbo that passes for strategy and public relations in some companies. I mainly cringed, often smiled and sometimes laughed out loud while reading her book.

“Who Moved My Blackberry” is a reworking of Martin Luke’s weekly emails into a 13 month December to December book which, like a diary, tells the story of his life over a year. For those who read the weekly column in the FT, it could be a little too much. Whereas one column is an amusing weekly read in an otherwise dry newspaper, nearly 400 pages in book form is probably a bit much. The story has changed enough to make it slightly annoying to those familiar with the column, but not enough to warrant re-reading.

For those who have not read the weekly column, this will be an amusing adventure. The emails are short and are written in conversational English, so the book is easy to read in small or large doses. The characters are come across clearly and are uncomfortably familiar.

The reader must bear in mind that “Who Moved My Blackberry” is written from a British perspective. There are a number of amusing and very unattractive US managerial stereotypes – and none that are worthy of admiration. Having said that, the author is just as harsh on the British side and I can’t recall one character who leaves a favourable impression. Thanks to the Lord that Lucy (apparently) hasn’t come across many Australians.

The cover to the UK edition is an inspired work of art that sums up perfectly Martin Lukes’ work environment. If there is an award for Dust Jacket of the Year, this should be a nominee. For some reason, known only to the publishers, the US edition appears to have a different cover.

There is a bit of Martin Lukes in all of us. Sometimes I’m writing something that has a familiar feel to it but I can’t quite place it. The it comes to me: I’m writing like Martin Lukes! So I check myself and start again. And say thank you to Lucy Kellaway for doing her bit to reduce the level of BS in the world.

A quick, easy, amusing read
It's possible that I'd have scored this one higher, had I not read the out sleeve first, which informs the prospective reader that it's an hilarious satire. A claim like that on a front cover leaves one expecting too much. The book is amusing and entertaining, it will bring a smile to your face and the middle email on page 347 may well make you laugh out loud!

I did find it genuinely amusing, it just wasn't the great masterpiece that its cover hinted at. It's certainly worth a read. I read it in one sitting.

It's a quick, easy read in which the reader learns about Martin Lukes and his life via the emails he send from his office and Blackberry.

You'll recognise the type and find yourself smiling, as you read his emails and his responses and reactions to emails from more successful, more capable colleagues, his clearly more capable wife, his neglected sons and PA and so on. Martin is the type of businessman who uses phrases like "horizon scanning", "tool-kit" and "blue-sky planning". He even creates his own word and trade-marks it in an attempt to impress the big boss.

This is the sort of book I read and enjoy once and pass on to a friend, recommending they do the same. An enjoyable read but not something of sufficient depth that you'd want to return to it again.