Martin Lukes: Who Moved My BlackBerry?: Amazon.co.uk: Lucy Kellaway: Books

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Review

A brilliant satire of modern corporate life ... the Alan Partridge of the corporate world (Daily Telegraph )

Enormously funny, touching ... should become an instant classic (Financial Times )

Acutely and hilariously observed. The very best satire (Evening Standard )

Sends up the laughable business practices that have taken hold of our offices (Metro )

Hilarious (Sunday Times ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description

Hi! Let me introduce myself. I'm Martin Lukes, Special Projects Director at a-b global (UK). Basically, I'm touching base with a highly unique book. As you'll see, it covers the most extraordinary year of personal progress, corporate scandal, and marital drama. This is not only a tale of my own promotion to one of the foremost executives in the country, but also a profound journey of personal learning, aided and abetted by my life coach, Pandora. I am often asked why I should want to share my deeply private philosophies and life secrets with such a wide audience. I always say it is because I am passionate about learning. I learn and grow from my own mistakes, both in the professional space and the personal one. Who Moved My Blackberry is a creovative (tm) work - to use one of my phrases that has now entered the business lingo - and the must-read of 2005. All my very bestest Martin Lukes

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Inside This Book (Learn More)
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First Sentence
I'm jotting down a few key facts re myself, so that we'll be able to hit the ground running when we have our first CoachworX session on Wednesday. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

42 Reviews

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

Average Customer Review

3.9 out of 5 stars (42 customer reviews)

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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh AND Cry, 2 Aug 2005

By A Customer

This review is from: Martin Lukes: Who Moved My BlackBerry? (Hardcover)

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.

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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cre-ovative(tm)!!!!, 20 Aug 2006

By

KatieSmiles "Katie" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Martin Lukes: Who Moved My BlackBerry? (Hardcover)

Much as I felt that I'd aligned my personal values with those of my life brand, if you will, this book offered me a paradigm shift that helped me brainstorm a mindmap for an innovative, integrity-based reappraisal. Definitely 22.5 per cent better than the bestest book I've read before.

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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An amusing look at corporate ambition, 22 Jan 2006

By

Simon Withers (Perth, Western Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Martin Lukes: Who Moved My BlackBerry? (Hardcover)

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.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars All my very bestest
I really enjoyed this book - light reading, very entertaining. I have read both E and E squared by Matt Beaumont; and yes, this is in a very similar format and very similar vein,... Read more

Published 7 months ago by Keen Reader