See show notes: Chris explains the unusual origin of his name, Labonté, which means “the goodness”. I asked him how he got that name, which I have never heard in my over 30 years of living in France.  He told me the story which started back in the late 17th century and says it is a lot to live up to.
In one of his early jobs, Chris was very much a gig mindsetter, bringing new ideas to his boss, who, to his credit, listened and implemented them.
Chris believes in the importance of creating a culture that nurture individuals with a gig mindset. He feels they potentially bring high value to an organization because they will bring innovation and new ideas that go beyond what the “normal employee” brings. He even expresses a mathematical ratio as an example.
I asked Chris how the publishing industry has and is evolving. He told me there has long been the feeling that the industry “is about to die” with a “bit of a sky is falling” mindset. He goes on to talk about the fact that books are still selling at a high rate, but underlines the current difficulties for independent booksellers because of Amazon and the superstores or big box stores. Amazon is 50% of the entire market in the United States and he says that’s too much power for any single vendor.
There’s also a fear the book market will diminish with the advent of ebooks, but Chris feels the ebook has become a sort of replacement for paperbacks, cheaper than hardbacks.
Audio books are also on the rise. However, he strongly believes that there are  a lot of people who want to sit back with a print book in hand.