Coloring Outside the Lines
The Business Conference Press, Monroeville, PA. 2001
By Jeff Tobe with Drawings by Jordan Tobe
ISBN: 0-9662689-2-X - Hardback
$19.95
Nonfiction
Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"

No matter if how-to books are valuable. Most of us haven't time for them. Many are ugly, hefty, and absolutely bone-dry.

Jeff Tobe undertook a business book in which he "Colored Outside the Lines." He supplies all we need to know about creative marketing within a slim, attractive, memorable volume.

The author polishes up a dull subject with images from the sports world and from children's games. He supplies an intriguing diagnosis of stale business practices he calls BPIP (Business Professionals Innovation Deficiency) with all its symptoms. These include Past-a-Plegia, Internal Myopia, and Psycho-Sclerosis, all of which make anthrax seem innocuous.

The book itself colors outside the lines, a tribute to Tobe's own philosophy. The cover is colored more like an Easter basket than a business book, the typeface is positively enchanting (and readable) and his advice is anecdotal, not built with dry-old, tired-old businessese.

Tobe's message is to achieve success by thinking differently; this book illustrates this very premise. He takes a risk in order to set an example for any business--traditional, creative or entrepreneurial.