In a previous blog (Do CFOs Listen to Podcasts?), I mentioned that I polled my CFO Advisors on their content habits. Here is one more tidbit from this survey.
While CFOs may not be the world’s most voracious book readers (see Jack Sweeney’s LinkedIn Pulse post: Imagine Being a CFO Who Doesn’t Read Books: Welcome to the Bean Counters Club), when I asked my CFO Advisors what book format they prefer to read, 1/3 of them said they prefer to read an e-book, while the 2/3 majority prefers a real paper book.
Here are some comments from my CFOs about their book reading preference:
- I don’t read many books.
- Gradually making shift to e-book. Reading my first now & getting comfortable!
- Use my iPad for many magazines, but like to highlight books and prefer feel of holding book.
- Are you trying to make me feel old? It worked.
- I like to highlight, etc.
When I began my journey writing Guide to CFO Success two years ago, I had never read an e-book. As I was about to become an author and my book would be made available as an e-book, I felt it was important to understand what an e-book was all about, so I bought an Amazon Kindle. Today, reading an e-book on my tablet or phone is my preferred method of reading, but I enjoy the senses that come from reading and handling a real book.
As the holiday season approaches, consider an e-book as a gift for your favorite CFO. You can tell them that Samuel says they should try it out and join their forward looking peers that are making their way through the digital age.
(I won’t tell them that a main reason you bought them an e-book was because they are very easy to purchase as a last minute gift.)
Happy Thanksgiving,
Samuel
One solution is the Kindle – Most books are easy to convert from Text to language. With a little experience, I found that I could easily understand the computer voice reading the books at twice the speed of a normal language.
The other feature of Kindle and other book readers is the ability to change the font size – when I am tired or the light is poor.
Those two features sold me on e-books.
Elizabeth Pearce, CFA
CFO, Growth Industries
Interesting … as a CFO, I read over 100 books a year. Half of those are from Audible, the other half are books. I’m guessing the majority (non-audio) are purchased for my Kindle, a small handful are the hard copy.
After being stuck at Denver’s airport and lugging around about 5 books I was reading, I made the decision to go digital all the way (that was in 2010, thereabouts).
Mark