Arne in Norway was the very first person to order a copy of my new book – Doing Business with IBM Connections (2013) – so it is fitting that he was also the first to write a blog post about receiving it.

He then quickly followed that up with a second post about the competitor who tried to stop it from being published. In a comment to his blog post I wrote this:

“Thanks for reviewing my book, and I appreciate what you wrote. I do love your line – “freedom of speech is not for sale” (absolutely not)! Someone asked why I hadn’t taken the money. My wife replied before I could – “because he didn’t want to lose his soul.”

My great hope re the paragraph above is that while we acknowledge it is there, we don’t let it become the focal point of the book. Let’s get out there and help customers using IBM’s products to improve the way they work, do really cool / forward-thinking stuff, and make that the 99.9999% reaction to reading the strategies in the book for contributing towards all of that. I will kick myself forever if the paragraph above becomes the focal point, rather than what’s on the other 399.8 pages.“

Please let it be.