At least this is how I know him. It's a great book, very clear and full of helpful advice. Plus I just love its title. I think every profession needs such books: "How to be a musician without losing your soul", "How to be a businessman without losing your soul"...I find design lectures where designers talk purely about their works quite dull, since we could easily see their works on their website/books. They also all say the same thing along the lines of "being a designer's hard, it doesn't make money, but it's fun to do what you like". What I liked about Adrian's lecture was that he touched on what kind of changes this industry is undergoing and what is different/possible now.
Anyway, some points from the lecture:
1) Communication
Story of a guy from Google, who has online meetings with colleagues around the world all the time. He noticed that after meeting face to face, the whole relationship changes completely. Even super digital companies like Google believe in the power of meeting in person, and makes attempt to actually fly and meet people.
i.e. when applying for jobs, never just send pdf off. Go and see them in person. You may not get the job, but the discussion you have will be completely different when met face to face.
Design is a people business. i.e. communicational skill is important.
2) Change of Role
Designers now need to have much more sense of entrepreneurship.
Jobs today won't last long. Designers probably will be changing jobs every few years.
Nowadays it's possible to start independent business (in Adrian's case to start a publisher) to be in control of your creation.
You can just use blog/twitter and people all over the world knows about your work. Instead of paying tons of money to magazine to get an ad on.
Designers are more interested in social issues. Moving on from 'making pretty layouts'.
Apparently there is a radio show every Thursdays where Adrian interviews graphic designers. It's called "Graphic Design on the Radio" and you can listen to the archives here.
http://www.shaughnessyworks.com/