Just finished a great book: Rome, Inc: The Rise and Fall of the First Multinational Corporation by Stanley Bing.

Fortune columnist Bing condenses the 1,200-year history of Rome into a slim, wildly entertaining satire written for modern executives. The book renders the history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire in corporate-speak. Starting out in 753 BC as a “Mom and Pop operation” through the era of the Bureaucratic Republic; the company peaks from 18 BC to 180 AD as a Caesar-centric organization.

For anyone who works, like Bing, in a large corporation, there’s an eerie familiarity in deeds of ancient Roman tribunes (middle managers) patrician senators (the executive committee or board members) and megalomaniac consuls (CEO’s).

Rome is the corporate center (always being lavishly remodeled in marble); outposts in Africa or Gaul are field offices; conquests are unfriendly acquisitions.

The core attribute of the truly great Romans — Caius Marius, Julius Caesar, Marc Anthony, Augustus — was an egomaniac sense of destiny, an utter belief in themselves.

Bing makes it absolutely apparent that there are corporate titans around today not all that different from those who ruled two thousand years ago. Denis Kozlowski’s famous birthday party with an ice statue spraying vodka from its penis; the tragedy of Kenneth Lay; Al Dunlap; Dick Grasso’s grasping excess — all the outsized compensation packages and overweening pride before a fall that was there in 20 BC is still around in 2000 AD:

In a sane society, such people are dealt with rationally, as sick individuals whose egos need amelioration, either upward or downward in size. In a crazy culture, these pathological titans are promoted, invested with power and respect. Eventually, they destroy themselves, both individually and as a group, giving way to new forms of executives.

Bing’s analysis of the forces that drove the ancient Romans is distant mirror in which to see our own careers. Working for large companies might demand we tolerate bread and circuses, but it’s better than life as a Visigoth or Hun.

If you’d like a quick read this summer, check out Rome, Inc.

The foiled plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights between the US and UK has led to some understandable restrictions on cabin luggage. Seems we’ll need to adjust long-term to traveling without carry-on items – including books and magazines, let alone laptops or iPods. We’re still removing our shoes five years after the Shoe Bomber’s escapades.

While not wishing to trivialize the seriousness of the threat to International travel, there is a potential bright side to flying this offers.

Not since the 15th Century and Caxton’s invention of the printing press have the educated public had to undertake long journeys without so much as a book to distract, educate and entertain.

This is an incredible opportunity to enjoy the storytellers art.

In olden days people would gather together and pass the long winter nights around the fire, safe from the icy wind and rain, and listen to epics such as The Odyssey and Beowulf being told and re-told by bards and storytellers. Fairy tales, legends, parables — pre-literate tribes enjoyed a well-told tale.

Of course, in the modern world, no tribe or group of people has the time to sit for four, five or more hours free to distraction, able to give their undivided attention to a masterful storyteller weave the magic of the spoken word. Until now.

What better amenity for the more creative of the long-haul carriers departing Heathrow or JFK to offer than an on-board bard?

The bard would occupy a business-class seat (natch) and offer the tribe of frequent fliers in the immediate vicinity the first-hand experience of seeing and hearing an epic recited. Other passengers could listen via headset. With microphone in hand the bard would wander the aisles in the rear of the plane involving the hoi-polloi in the unfolding tale.

This is an incredible untapped market opportunity for those of us who make our living with the spoken word to expand our captive audiences.

Modern epics created to entertain at 36,000 feet would be recited. Memorized tales of adventures in travel; corporate life; loves won and lost; victories and defeats. It’s all in Homer and those fellows. We just need updated versions to entertain and educate passengers traveling high above the wine-dark seas.

…might be an appropriate subtitle for the hilarious movie Little Miss Sunshine which I caught in Berkeley last night.

It’s a touching and wacky portrayal of a dysfunctional family, complete with surly adolescent son who has taken a vow of silence, a heroin-snorting Grandpa and a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman style Mom.

However, it’s the Dad that anyone looking to make their fortune as a motivational speaker should observe closely. Here’s a guy who is trying in all the wrong ways to make it as a professional speaker. He has masses of misplaced self-confidence, almost no platform speaking skills, and an unfortunate choice of publicity agent to book his engagements and push a book contract. There’s more than a touch of pathos in his inability to grasp that he’s in the wrong line of work – especially as the family lives on the bread-line and is forced to drive from New Mexico to Los Angeles in a yellow VW Bus that is as mechanically unsound as the “motivational” techniques he applies to his family life.

The film is a wonderful satire of the weirder aspects of contemporary American life – from pre-pubescent beauty pageants to the way the health care system deals with death. Not to mention one of the more unusual motorcycle policemen you’ll ever see conduct a traffic stop.

If you’ve any interest in the professional speaking business, and enjoy mad-cap humor, this is a movie to go see.

It’s a characteristic of CEO’s who are also founders of companies to speak more frankly than appointed heirs. Scott McNealy, founder of Sun Microsystems and CEO for over 20 years, was an iconoclast who spoke fearlessly of things as he saw them.

Last Saturday’s interview with Infosys founder and CEO Nandan Nilekani in the Financial Times (subscription required) is an example of CEO who is a company founder speaking candidly on a global scale.

Nilekani is famous for inspiring Thomas Friedman to write The World is Flat.

His views on the changing world economic landscape and the outsourcing of jobs from the west to India and China are uncompromisingly rooted in history:

Two hundred years back, India and China were 50 per cent of global GDP, but both, for different reasons, opted out of the race. In China, they turned inwards and in India we had the empire. The next century is an opportunity to redeem some of that: the flat world has created a unique confluence of circumstances which will have a huge impact on all our lives.

He challenges the inherent right of Westerners to a high standard of living:

I don’t think that a high standard of living is an entitlement. I don’t think the world can live with everyone driving an SUV. Somethings got to give. It’s just become more competitive. If Indians and Chinese can work 80- 100 hours a week and they are part of a global, fungible labor market, it’s going to have an impact on living standards in the west.”

While acknowledging infrastructure problems in Bangalore (a dysfunctional city) and the narrow base of Indian IT, Nilekani believes “the tide has turned” with the west.

It’s encouraging to hear such plain spoken CEO.

Which American or European executives would dare to disagree?

And what would they say that wouldn’t disturb the fragile relationship with their own employees (skittish about losing jobs to Banagalore and South China) and their overseas partners who man the call centers and manufacture most of what they sell? Hardly “You’re right. We’re busy driving down standards of living among our employees and doing our bit to hasten the decline of the West.”

Great to see that someone with Bert Decker’s experience posting on the new NSA Bloggers group that is forming. There’s a couple of dozen kindred spirits currently signed on to the Yahoo Group nsa_bloggers@yahoogroups.com.

If you’d like to participate in the conversation you can join here. You don’t have to be a formal NSA Member.

Bert’s post lists some of my favorite blogs, including Garr Reynolds, Seth Godin and Sam Decker. I read them all via RSS subscription on Bloglines. I had no idea Sam is the Son of Bert. Sam-I-Am has 133 subscribers in Bloglines, Dad has..a few less. Both have way more subscribers than I do — but who’s counting (OK, OK, I am – admit it!).

Bert’s post is right on: the best blogs add value and speak with a unique voice and interesting perspectives from within a given silo of expertise out to the world wide web.

Personalized, specialized and experienced blogs giving great “You” messages to a responsive web universe. That’s what I think all this will funnel down to in the coming months and years.

Many of the subject matter experts in the National Speakers Association speak with Voices of Value. Imagine the synergy if everyone took the messages delivered from the podium or front of the seminar room and shared their knowledge on blogs that linked, cross-referenced and tracked-back one to another. That would be powerful.

The good news is that the Handouts from the sessions at the NSA Convention are now available online.

In addition, you can download audio files of all the sessions and video of the main tent meetings.

These are valuable resources for anyone looking for tips and tricks on executive presentation techniques, public speaking and more.