Kevin Duncan, author of Marketing Greatest Hits: A Masterclass in Modern Marketing Ideas talks to The Drum about writing his new book and some of the industry trends he discovered while doing so.

Your book says that you've gone through 40 marketing books in order to compile this book - how did you choose which titles to select?

Actually I have read over a hundred. There are two Greatest Hits books – Business Greatest Hits and Marketing Greatest Hits – and each has forty in, so that’s eighty in total over both. There are three main reasons that they might be included. The first is if a book is new and notorious, in which case I want to know what’s in it. The second is if a client asks, because it’s my job to keep them informed. And the third is if a book starts a debate or leaves something hanging, in which case I want to know the other side of the story, or more angles on the topic.

What were the key concepts or trends that you found were highlighted most often by the books?

There are lots. Business and marketing strategy, branding, consumer behaviour, creativity, personal organization, company organization, and leadership are all hardy perennials. Right now people are very interested in the online world, and behavioural economics. It’s also great fun to look back at the classics and see if they still hold water. As for concepts and trends, there are forty in each book, so there are too many to mention, but if you want to choose an area I’d be happy to respond – summarizing it’s what it’s all about.

Which marketing book would you say was the most authoritative of the ones that you selected?

It depends in which specific area, and it’s also important that I don’t take sides. But the ones that have caused the most attention in the last few years are Blink and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and The Long Tail and Free by Chris Anderson.

How did you select and compile the information within your own book?

I keep notes as I read each book, then summarise them on a page or so when I have finished. When I have fifty or so, I group them by approximate subject matter, and look for themes. There are six short chapters per book, which allows me to weave six or seven relevant titles into a narrative for each theme.  Each book also has a one-minute, and a one-sentence summary.

Which Buzzwords would you say cropped up the most? Were any new to you?

Well, a fair proportion of the books suffer from jargon and daft words like leverage, prioritise and denormalise. For lots of examples of this do look at www.expertadviceonline.com where I collect them for my Little Books of Business Bullshit. I think where buzzwords and phrases are legitimate is where the author uses them to encapsulate a new concept, such as Chris Anderson’s Freeconomics, or Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point.

What would you say people will learn from reading your own title?

They can become well-informed extremely fast. I have read over half a million words and anyone can get the benefit of all that work rapidly.

Time-pressed people can get the gist of an important book or concept in a sentence or a minute, and apply it immediately to their business. They can also go to my blog for all the latest thinking. I am also preparing iphone apps so people can do the same in meetings. Not bad for a tenner!

A chapter of the book can be read on the MiNetwork site, while Duncan continues to share more of his views on marketing in his blog.