Building Dynamic Business Communities

Alan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it. His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He has served on the boards of directors of the Trinity Repertory Company, a Tony-Award-winning New England regional theater, chaired the Newport International Film Festival, and been president of the board of directors of Festival Ballet Providence. His speaking typically includes 20 keynotes a year at major conferences, and he has been a visiting faculty member at Case Western Reserve University, Boston College, Tufts, St. John’s, the University of Illinois, the Institute of Management Studies, and the University of Georgia Graduate School of Business. He has held an appointment as an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Rhode Island where he taught courses on advanced management and consulting skills to MBA and PhD candidates. He once held the record for selling out the highest-priced workshop (on entrepreneurialism) in the then-21-year history of New York City’s Learning Annex. His Ph.D. is in psychology. He has served on the Board of Governors of Harvard University’s Center for Mental Health and the Media. He is an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame® and the concurrent recipient of the National Speakers Association Council of Peers Award of Excellence, representing the top 1% of professional speakers worldwide. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants, one of only two people in history holding both those designations. His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 31st year and sixth edition. His newest is Sentient Strategy (Routledge, 2023). His books have been on the curricula at Villanova, Temple University, and the Wharton School of Business, and have been translated into 15 languages. His career has taken him to 60 countries and 49 states. (He is afraid to go to North Dakota.) Success Magazine cited him in an editorial devoted to his work as “a worldwide expert in executive education.” The New York Post called him “one of the most highly regarded independent consultants in America.” He is the winner of the prestigious Axiem Award for Excellence in Audio Presentation. He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Press Institute, the first-ever for a non-journalist, and one of only seven awarded in the 65-year history of the association. He holds an annual Thought Leadership Conference which draws world-famous experts as speakers. He has coached former candidates for Miss Rhode Island/Miss America in interviewing skills. He once appeared on the popular American TV game show Jeopardy, where he lost badly in the first round to a dancing waiter from Iowa. Alan is married to the lovely Maria for 54 years, and they have two children and three granddaughters. They reside in East Greenwich, RI with their dogs, Coco and Royce, a white German Shepherd.

Part 1: Community Origins and Strengths 1. The Nature of the Modern Socio-Business Community 2. The Reality of Committees and the Fallacy of Teams 3. The Inordinate Power of Connectivity Part Two: Creating A Community 4. The Seven Essential Steps of Community Building 5. The Keys to A Successful Launch 6. The Three Key Steps of Community Sustainability Part Three: Specialized Applications and the Future 7. Specialized Communities 8. The Future of Community Building Epilogue: The Game Plan