Less well known (except among book publishers and authors), Seattleites read more books per capita than people in almost any other city in the US. So it’s not surprising that established or aspiring authors visit Seattle to pitch their latest books. We enthusiastically support an ecosystem of independent booksellers, as well as one of the most active public library systems in the nation.

Last night Daniel Pink, prolific author, came to town to promote his latest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. I loved his prior book, A Whole New Mind, so I persuaded 3 friends to join me for Pink’s presentation. Little did I know that the experience would be more about promotion and less about substance.

Our reputation for rain, lattes, and liberal attitudes was clearly top-of-mind for Daniel Pink. He quickly shed his formal navy suit jacket when he realized he was the only guy in the auditorium wearing a suit. (It reminded me that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a guy in a suit and tie in Seattle.)

Sadly, Pink committed the classic sin of underestimating his audience by talking down to those well-read, if casually dressed Seattleites. He put more emphasis on entertainment value than content in the substance of his remarks — clearly his goal was to persuade us to buy his new book rather than educate us. So Pink’s attempted low-brow humor — frequent apologies for using big words like “fiduciary responsibility” or “cognitive work” — kind of missed the mark. I don’t know — maybe that goes over well in the Heartland, but not here.

During the drive home one of my friends, a retired restaurateur, complained that his 60-minute speech felt more like “an outline” than a solid presentation. Hmm, I said. So this morning I compared his 18-minute presentation in London at TED to his hour-long pitch in Seattle last night. And she was absolutely right: he delivered more substance in 18 minutes to those Londoners than he did to his book loving audience in Seattle.

During the Q&A session it became clear that the Seattle audience was full of educators, entrepreneurs, local government officials, business managers, execs, retirees, and out-of-work talent looking for jobs. So we probably understood his vocabulary and allusions.

Another social sin was Microsoft-bashing (a hometown sport, but not one people welcome when outsiders do it). I sat next to a friend who is a director-level exec at Microsoft, and she had just blogged favorably about Drive. Her wince when Pink knocked “Microsofties” was pained. [Disclosure: as a former Apple employee who has never worked at Microsoft, I enjoy the bashing but recognize that it can be provocative to a Seattle audience.]

So, my advice to presenters and book promoters: know your audience.

Each of these big thinkers has offered up pearls of wisdom from their life’s experience or their professional adventures — and some of their notions will resonate for days after in your mind. It’s easy to consume: one big idea per page.

For example, consider this gem from Daniel Pink under the heading “Autonomy.”

Pink writes that “management isn’t natural” if you want people to engage their hearts, minds and creative passions at work. Management is great for ensuring compliance, but not for eliciting break-through ideas or world-changing products. I love Pink’s quote in What Matters Now:

If we want engagement, and the mediocrity-busting results it produces, we have to make sure people have autonomy over the four most important aspects of their work:

• Task — what they do
• Time — when they do it
• Technique — how they do it
• Team — whom they do it with

After a decade of truly spectacular underachievement, what we need now is less management and more freedom — fewer individual automatons and more autonomous individuals.

Daniel Pink’s musings on the sources of motivation help me to understand why I find life as an independent consultant vastly more rewarding than climbing the corporate ladder inside a traditional enterprise.

Pink’s insights also explain why my husbands and friends (all trapped within management-dominated enterprises) complain so often, and so bitterly, about their jobs. No doubt their frustration is caused by lack of control over 1 or more of the 4 items cited by Pink. I can offer advice on how to improve their situations, but if they’re tightly controlled by managers or constrained by their understanding of  “the system” — the way things work here — they can see no light at the end of their personal tunnels as long as they continue to work for those enterprises. And that’s a crying shame, because these are brilliant, talented, caring and experienced people at the height of their careers.

Unlike them I chose to exit the corporate job environment 15 years ago. As an independent consultant, I can control or influence all 4 of those aspects of my work, so what I do professionally is meaningful and intrinsically motivating; offers opportunities for out-of-the-box thinking and resourceful problem solving; and allows me to make lasting contributions to my clients in ways they find distinctive and memorable. Thanks to Daniel Pink, now I understand why.

And thanks to Seth Godin for sharing these contributions from such brilliant thinkers. What a gift to all would-be change agents for 2010!