Power Why Some People Have It And Others Don't by Jeffrey Pfeffer

Power Why Some People Have It And Others Don't by Jeffrey Pfeffer




Jeffrey Pfeffer is a professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business of Stanford University. He is writing about building power or authority inside organizations. His focus is more than politics. It is also about how to succeed at the top levels of companies or organizations.



There is focus on personal success in this book. He describes the process as much more than working hard. In fact, he shows how performance can hinder a persons career. I like his description of how personal networks are the second most important skill after technical ability. People move ahead becausue of who they know.



Parts of this book made me uncomfortable. There are descriptions of how to stand out without angering people.. This is a different approach than what I am used to.



The chapters on How To Make Something Out of Nothing and Overcome Oppositions and Setbacks made me think hard about my own career. He advises people to not look for where it is most prestigious, but look where they will succeed. The writing is quite thoughtful. It is aimed at making relationships with other people work.



I also like his description of the price of power; long hours, hard work, and loss of family and personal time. But, the author correctly points out in these days, you have to often fight just to stay in the middle.



This book describes pattersn and tools to mproave your chances of success in organizations. It is very much a career management book. Jeffrey Pfeffer uses examples from very successful people like Zia Yusuf  CEO of Streetline Inc, the California politician Willie Brown, and the venture capitalist and entrepreneur Heidi Roizen. This book is worth reading if you want to understand power inside organizations.

The Other Side of Innovation Solving The Execution Challenge by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble.

The Other Side of Innovation Solving The Execution Challenge by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble.

The Other Side of Innovation is about innovation inside enterprises. It does not cover innovation inside startups. This is a business management book. The authors argue that there are usually two ways to innovate; build special innovation teams or improve on existing products.

Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble argue that for major changes it is important to create special groups of people outside of every day operations. This is because innovating requires different skills and mindset than day to day operations. They make the case that innovation is about learning, experimenting, and taking risks. These are not day to day activities in most corporations.

I found their argument convincing. Where they said innovation occurs inside a corporation is in its "performance engine". It is there that small continuous changes in process and execution can be introduced over time. This has to have more than just ideas and excution, it also has to be accepted by managers or it will not work.

The examples the authors use are from large corportations; Nucor, Fisher-Price, John Deere, Thomson West and other large corporations. The writing is easy to follow; it is in plain english. The book is written for the practitioner. It even includes a set of assessment tools at the end of the book.

There is a Scholarly Foundation section at the end of the book. Like all the content in this book, they justify their choices. They not only give bibliographic citations, they also give reasons why the material was cited. This makes the writing more believable.

This book is a quality business title. It is published by Harvard Business Review Press. Both Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble are faculty at The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. There is a companion website at http://www.theothersideofinnovation.com I plan to read their other book, Ten Rules For Strategic Innovators. It is supposed to be more focused on startups.

Writing That Works How To Communicate Effectively in Business, 3rd Edition by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson

Writing That Works How To Communicate Effectively in Business, 3rd Edition by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson





Writing That Works is an updated book on business writing that includes sections on email, presentation decks (bullet pointed lists often in powerpoint), and a reminder that computers are only as good as what you put into them.



The writers describe when it is appropriate to use paper memos and letters to add a personal touch or appear official. They also talk about how to give presentations to sell your product or idea in person.

The book covers written documents, presentations, and the internet. The chapters are short, clear, and present clear business objectives; getting a job with a resume, getting money for your ideas, saving time by managing email properly, and selling yourself in writing.



Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson open the book with a statement that the point of business writing is to get things done, not just to be clear.



There is a reminder to edit your work, be understandable, and write for a specific objective. Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson do this with ease. They make excellent use of bullet pointed lists, indented italicized text, and bold headings which catch your attention.



Kenneth Roman retired from being CEO of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide and Joel Raphaelson retired from being Creative Executive Director of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide. This makes them very qualified to write about business. This book is well worth reading.

Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson

Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson

Jason Fried and David Hansson are the founders of 37 Signals which is a software development company.  They have produced a number of different products including Ruby on Rails.   They are contributors to the blog Signal Vs. Noise.  37 Signals was not founded on venture capital.

The approach which is described in this book is contrary to many current business practices.  The authors are describing a bootstrapping and self motivated style of business practice.  They write against fast growth, venture capital, and forecasting.  For them financial projections are just guesses.

This does not mean that they are backward.  The authors describe how it is possible with a laptop and very little money to start your own company.  They describe how their company hires and works with people remotely on many software projects.  They tell you that to start a company you do not need an office or fancy quaters.  Your house or a garage will do.

I like the ideas in this book.  It fits well with my own personal style.  I agree that working all night, having lots of meetings, and creating giant lists do not lead to being more productive.  I also like the philosophy of doing it yourself as much as possible, and breaking large projects into small pieces.

The layout of this book is very well done.  Each section has a large black and white drawing with a saying next to it to begin the chapter.  Some of the sayings are; "good enough is fine", "long lists don't get done," and "say no by default."

The writing is plain language.  There are very few business terms in the book.  Jason Fried and David Hansson ask a lot of questions in the text.  They also use short bulleted lists.  Most of the paragraphs are fairly short.  This makes for very fast easy to absorb reading.  It is more of a book on a philosophy of business than a book of practice or case studies.

The book does not have an index.  There are not a lot of other companies cited. If you read this book, you might stop talking, roll up your sleeves, and start working.

Daily Thoughts 9/17/2010 (Zero History, Books, Business)

Zane Grey, western author and writer of the book, Riders of the Purple Sage.

Daily Thoughts 9/17/2010

This is an interesting list of business books.  All of them are very popular.  The Financial Times Business Books of the Year.  http://www.ft.com/indepth/business-book-award-2010




Today has been very interesting.  The list of business resources has been added to the upcoming Business Expo 2010 for our city.  I also did a small display of business management and leadership books in the lobby.  I picked out a few books by Peter Drucker as well as some  business strategy books like Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne and Built to Last by Charles Collins.   I am still talking with SCORE about doing business counseling.




I did some spot checking the shelving in the storage areas.  Things are getting a little better.  We also got a request for Louis L'amour who writes westerns.  People are starting to get more interested in the western genre again.  Some of the older authors like Zane Grey and Max Brand are being asked for again.  Larry McMurtry and Joe Lansdale are also very popular right now.   I think some of the steampunk authors have also sparked an interest in the old west as well.  Cherie Priest has at least part of her steampunk novels set in the old west.    The Victorian setting of steampunk easily ties in with the frontier period in American history.

I also looked through the latest gifts and added some thriller paperbacks from Dan Brown, Brad Meltzer, and James Patterson.  We always get donations of romance and thriller paperbacks.

I checked out three movies, Where The Wild Things Are, City of Ember, and Coraline.  These are all based on books.  Where The Wild Things Are was one of my favorite books as a child.  I would give it a tie with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss.  I am very much looking forward to seeing it as a live action film.  I also like Neil Gaiman and his writing.  Coraline was an excellent graphic novel.




On the train home, I finished reading Zero History by William Gibson.  I felt like I was missing something when I was reading the book.  It is part of a trilogy starting with Pattern Recognition.  I did not realize this until I looked up the book as a Wikipedia article.  I had read Spook Country which also features Milgrim.  Spook Country is the second book in the trilogy.  I feel like I have to go back to read Pattern Recognition to understand the book a little better.  I put Pattern Recognition on hold.  I am not quite sure when I will read it.  I currently have ten books which I have plans to read.

If you are on Linked In, there is an excellent ebook group with thousands of members.  They are planning a physical meetup on September 24, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1515307&type=member&item=29195727&qid=d76be11f-da3b-4940-9a9b-66c849ce5ac6

Daily Thoughts 9/15/2010 (Ordering, Business, Books)

Szymon Buchbinder, The Astronomer , Date Unknown, Oil On Panel 

Daily Thoughts 9/15/2010

I won a book from one of the exhibitors at the Brooklyn Book Festival, For Beginner Books
http://www.forbeginnersbooks.com/catalog.html  The book which I chose was Barack Obama for Beginners by Bob Neer.  It will be added to the libraries collection.




Today has been fairly busy.  We had an ordering meeting for the library this afternoon.  I put all of my orders in.  I also had the graphic novels club this afternoon which went well.  We are getting a steady small group of people who are attending.  We are having an author talk this evening as well. 




I also finished putting together the business resources list for the library.  There will be other resource lists that we will create as well.   We also did a bookmark of books on starting a business recently. There is going to be a business expo on the 22nd and 23rd of September sponsored by the city.  There is also a Business Resource list which we added to the Community Links on our website. We are having the Women's Enterprise Development Center do a presentation on starting a business tonight.  http://www.wedc-westchester.org/  This is the third year that the Women's Enterprise Development Center  has been coming to our library.   Hopefully, this will strengthern our contacts with local businesses and businesses organizations.




Two books came in for me to look at, Clementine by Cherie Priest and the social media marketing book by Dan Zarella.




I have started reading Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson.  I think it will take a while for me to think over what they are writing.

Smart Start-Ups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Benefit by Creating Online Communities by David Silver

Smart Start-Ups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Benefit by Creating Online Communities by David Silver.

David Silver is a venture capitalist and an author of over 30 books on business. This book varies between being a strategy guide to start an online community and a stream of ideas for starting a variety of online businesses. The book describes online communities as being both on the internet and on mobile phones.

I found the sections on how to start an internet company quiet interesting. He was focusing on social networks like myspace.com and twitter. Social networks are described as being successful because of the ability to generate mobs of people and focus on user generated content. David Silver describes them as requiring very little capital to create.

He argues for a different strategy in creating communities. His view is that it is important to be part of the crowd, not appear to have a lot of money, ask for tips, try to encourage people to provide content for you, and create services which people will pay for.

Part of the strategy he is describing is appearing to be in opposition to large media companies. For example if you are selling ebooks, you might tell people why you don't like paper books, or if you are selling music downloads, suggest why compact discs are obsolete. Being persuasive and generating controversy, even lawsuits will generate even more interest in your sites as well as money.

Where the book did not do well with me was the constant stream of ideas which he proposed. It is easy to generate ideas but it is much harder to show how to execute on them. David Silver talked about everything from online legal arbitration societies to social sites on how to reinvent the American car. This was distracting. The sections on strategy and implementation were much better than the suggestions for new businesses.

I liked his ideas on how to create an online business strategy. It very much describes how to think like a social networking business person. The book was written in 2007 and seems to have been right on target for 2010. If you can get past the constant stream of suggestions for new businesses this book is worth reading.

Undress For Success The Naked Truth About Making Money At Home by Kate Lister and Tom Harnish

Undress For Succes The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home by Kate Lister and Tom Harnish

The central focus of this book is telecommuting. It does not promise the reader that telecommuting will be easy or pay a lot of money. The authors describe the practice of homeshoring where people are hired from home to do customer service work at low pay. The book is honest. The descriptions of lower pay for comparable jobs in an office compared to working at home are covered. Tutors earn $12-15 hour, customer service workers earn $10-12 an hour, and online help technicians $18-20 an hour from home. Low pay for the advantage of working from a home office. Working from home doing research also does not pay as well as in an office.



The book lists a lot of real companies that offer work at home jobs; Tutor.com, Alpine Access, Team Double Click, Smart Thinking, writing for About.com, and other jobs. The jobs that are most lucrative are computer programming and web design jobs. There is also discussion of telemedicine. They also give real job boards for work at home jobs as well as freelance job sites. Rat Race Rebellion and Dreamjobs
Inc are two websites that they suggest for telecommuting job hunting.



The descriptions of teleworking are of being more productive, having more flexible hours, getting paid less and getting less recognition. Telecommuters have to be very technically savvy, they are using the internet to to do their jobs.   Even the customer service jobs require knowledge of how to use computers, hands free headsets and have some ability to type. The better paying jobs require more complex equipment including digital cameras, cell phones, different software packages, and cable internet. This equipment is mostly bought out of the teleworkers salary.  Having a home office with a computer  is often a prerequisite to applying.



The authors preach the environmental benefit of working from home; you don't have to spend money on the commute, are comfortably at home, and you don't pollute as much. They also describe how it costs the company less to hire people from home because they are not paying for real estate or equipment for a person in an office. 

This is an excellent, honest overview of telecommuting jobs. It is comprehensive in scope and covers all kinds of resources associated with telecommuting.  There are many benefits and disadvantages of working from home.

The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani

the zen of social media marketing An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue by Shama Hyder Kabani.

This is very much a motivational book combined with a social media book. It is designed to convince you to go out and join social sites. The first part very much feels like a motivational speech.

After the initial pep talk, when the writing starts to describe social media sites, it becomes quite practical. The book focuses on three main sites, Twitter, Linked In, and Facebook. The writing convinced me to update my Facebook profile as well as my Linked In profile. It has clear steps on what to do and what to avoid without any pie in the sky promises.

It does not just cover pure social media sites. It also reminds you that if you are in social media you should take the time to learn how to include digital photography and digital video. Podcasting and pictures are very important to build an online social presence. The pep talk was convincing enough for me to consider getting a digital camera as a first step.

Shama Hyder Kabani includes a lot of screen captures of pages from Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In to show you what she is doing with the social sites. The descriptions are extremely easy to follow. They also lead to a very clean, professional look.

Because this book is very much a business book, she also discusses policies for using social media inside companies as well as gives a number of two page case studies of how people successfully improved their business with social media.

The motivation to convince me to update my site was useful. The description of how to use the tools was at a beginners level. This would be useful for someone starting out in social media. I recommend this as an introduction to using social media for business. The author clearly has a fairly large online presence.

Shama Hyder Kabani is using her book to sell her social media business. The motivational style with a strong sense of sweetness might not be for everyone. I found it interesting and very convincing. http://zenofsocialmedia.com/

Drive The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

Drive The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

Drive is about intrinisic motivation or self motivation. The drives which lead us to excel; autonomy, purpose, and mastery. It is about how these drives are becoming more prevalent in the modern workplace. White collar work is going through the same route as blue collar work. It is being outsourced, homesourced, and automated. The creative aspects of white collar work are what survives. Daniel H. Pink is trying to counter current management theory which is often inadequate to deal with modern workplaces. He argues this is one of the reasons there has been so much economic uphieval.

He argues for an end to a focus on a rote work environment with strong fixed hours, routine work, and incentive plans. He also attacks carrot and stick management styles. In his view, there should be solid wages, more autonomy for workers, greater learning opportunities, and a focus on more than just profits.

Some of the changes in work which he describes are the ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) created by Best Buy where scheduling becomes very flexible and Google's focus on giving its engineers 20% of their time to work on projects of their own design.

He also introduces us to psychological theories of motivation that are focused on what goes on inside people. He describes how optimal experiences and performance at work are not necessarily tied to incentives, but have a lot to do with the environment in the workplace. Two people he focuses on are Edward L. Deci and Mihaly Csikszentmihaly.

Sometimes, I think Daniel H. Pink draws too much from mainstream management theorists to make his point. Peter F. Drucker, Gary Hamel, and Jim Collins are all very standard business leaders. It seems like he is often making points using people who have a different management style than the one he is proposing.

I liked his list of recommended reading. I plan on reading Infinite Games A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James P. Carse. I have already read Talent Is Overrated What Really Separates World Class Performers From Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin.

This book would be good for people whose work is autonomous; artists, writers, programmers, and other creatives. I saw the book mentioned on Tobias Buckell's blog who is a science fiction writer. It also might be helpful for people who have to manage in an increasingly creative work environment.

Making Ideas Happen Overcoming The Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky

Making Ideas Happen Overcoming The Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky Founder and CEO of Behance

Scott Belsky is a very much a new media type of writer. He is the CEO of Behance which is a social networking platform for creative professionals. I took a look at the site and it is a shared image database of advertisements, designs, and illustrations. It is quite interesting to look at http://www.behance.com/Products/Creative_Network The site has a new media, trendy feeling to it which is quite catchy.

This book is about executing on ideas. It is focused on creative ideas from writers, artists, musicians, and others, but much of what is being said here can be applied to ideas in general. This book is not about how to create new ideas. It is about how to pick ideas which can be put into practice. It is very much a business management book.

What Scott Belsky is describing is a system to take action; you systematically create checklists of what actions you are going to take, sort and keep what you need to know to do it, and put ideas that you plan to do in the future in storage. It is not about taking lots of notes, or organizing things into files. This is not a traditional organizational schema.

The examples which Scott Belsky uses are of idea factories, people and companies that are both incredibly creative and productive. People like John Grisham, Steve Jobs, Chris Anderson, and James Patterson. Companies like IDEO, Walker Digital, Apple, Gizmodo, and Palm computing. The book is very new media oriented, specifically aimed at people who produce content both online and in print. If you read the magazines Fast Company or Inc., you would probably like this book.

This book does not say a whole lot about quality, but it does say a tremendous amount about productivity and how to get to "done." If you are a creative person who is interested in how to become more productive, this book could be quite useful.

Purple Cow Transforming Your Business By Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

Purple Cow Transforming Your Business By Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

Seth Godin is a motivational speaker about business. His focus is on marketing goods and services. He does not just talk about marketing; he also has created a social network, Squidoo http://www.squidoo.com as well as a very popular blog http://www.sethgodin.com . His focus is on being exceptional and different. He is the most popular marketing blogger on the internet.

In his words, a "purple cow" is a remarkable thing to see. Of course, it is also a Mother Goose nursery rhyme which many people remember as well from their childhood, "I never saw a purple cow, I hope, I never see one, but I'd rather see than be one."

Mr. Godin combines an ethic of showmanship with a very straightforward style. The message is easy to follow in this book; produce a remarkable unique product, find the early adopters who will sell your product by word of mouth, and try and create a strategy that others have a hard time following.

He urges people to take risks, because people are no longer paying attention to the tried and true methods of advertising. Television and radio do not catch peoples attention as easily. Most everyones basic wants and needs have been met. You must create a unique message with strong knowledge of what you are selling. His statements are quite compelling. They sound like common sense.

Seth Godin's examples are of newer companies; Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Jet Blue, Ben and Jerry's, Apple Computer, Google, and Yahoo. His pitch seems to come right out of new media.

He consistently combines design with marketing. If you look at the cover of the book, Purple Cow, it is bright purple with white splotches and a picture of a cow on the front of the book. The book itself is well laid out with black and white pictures and very simple charts. There is a list of very prominent companies in the back of the book which would appeal to most business people.

This book is entertaining, focused, well designed, full of snappy writing, and not boring.

Why Now Is The Time To Crush It Cash In On Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

Why Now Is The Time To Crush It Cash In On Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk is known for his passionate presentations on Wine Library TV which is available through both Youtube and Viddler. He does very entertaining presentations on different wines over the internet. He is describing how to use social media to sell a passion.

The goal of this book is to show the reader how build a personal brand for business over the internet. He does not promise overnight sucess. His personal success is based on long hard work and passionate interest in what he is doing. He claims that unless someone is very interested in what they do, they will have a hard time building a business on the internet.

The process which he describes is very inexpensive; it requires you to have a flip cam, internet access, buy a website, and join a variety of social networking groups. The two he focuses most on are twitter and facebook. He also recommends putting up videos on viddler and youtube as well as starting a blog. He does not promise millions; instead he says there are many niches that can build a respectable living doing what you enjoy in the $40,000 to $75,000 range.

What he is describing is not for everyone. It requires a lot of sweat equity and drive. Many people will simply not be able to do this. There is also a need to master several new technologies, spend a lot of time interacting on social media, and have someone help you with web design. Another factor is that Gary Vaynerchuk is quite charismatic and full of energy.

This book was a quick read. It took me about three hours to read it. The language is clear and direct. The instructions are very plain. It is an excellent introduction to a strategy of producing social media based on personal drive and sweat equity. If you have the drive, this is an excellent book.

Daily Thoughts 8/31/2009

This picture was taken by David M. Alexander in the early 1980s on Jack Vance's boat in San Francisco Bay. Alexander has hereby released his copyright to the picture and has placed it in the public domain to be used for any purpose and by anyone who wants to use it, as long as he is credited as being the photographer. Hayford Peirce 20:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Daily Thoughts 8/31/2009

This morning I was at the mechanics for my car inspection which passed. I sat in the waiting room and finished reading The Management Myth and The Practice of Management. I even had a chance to write the rough drafts on my thoughts on these two books. The waiting room had coffee, but no donuts. I guess they are trying to save money.

The Management Myth Why The Experts Keep Getting It Wrong by Matthew Stewart.

Matthew Stewart has a Ph.D. in philosophy. This is both the story of how he became a business consultant and a critique of the practice of business management. Mr. Stewart uses his background to attack the foundations of management theory initially focusing on Frederick W. Taylor and Elton Mayo, both who are considered to be cornerstones of the concept of "scientific management." He does not critique Edward Deming or Peter Drucker, however.

The book can be funny, pointed, and acerbic. He has quite a bit of bile for consulting. He makes some very irreverent claims; the moment a consultant says the word strategy you start paying money and the real purpose of consulting is to do the things which a company cannot do by itself but knows needs to be done. There are points where the book became hard to read because there was so much angst.

We learn about hunting whales or clients flush with cash. Simple principles like the Pareto or the 80/20 Principle allow consultants to create self evident truths they can charge for. The world of consulting that Matthew Stewart describes is one of excessive pay, venality, and a focus on short term business gains above all else.

The book attacks many of the accepted ideas in business. He points out most business gurus rely on past data from successful companies to make their points, there is a utopian streak in the idea that workers will accept lower pay and higher performance, and points out numbers often don't predict the future.

If you can take a lot of angst, black humor, and a story of greed and lawyers you may like this book. Matthew Stewart ultimately successfully sued his employer for not paying him to be let go from his consulting practice. If you also want a very pointed attack on the underlying assumption that business management is reasonable and an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) is useful read this book. It pricks and deflates many assumptions.

The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker claims to be the father of modern management practice. When reading his books, his ideas come across as being authoritative and sensible. They also seem more philosophical to me than anything else. A lot of his thoughts are focused on ethics. They also seem to have become the standard practice in many modern corporations. I am not sure this is completely a good thing. If you read books on Japanese lean manufacturing and Edward Deming's quality circles, they are very different than what Mr. Drucker is saying.

You can quote what Peter Drucker is saying very easily, he is a wonderful communicator. Some quotes are "In hiring a worker one always hires the whole man," and "Whatever the manager does he does through making decisions." These quotes have a nice feeling to them.

Peter Drucker focuses on iconic American companies that were very successful in his time, General Motors, Ford, IBM, and Sears. Now, General Motors and Sears are not doing so well, but they were excellent at that time in history. The book shows how things change. As ideas are adopted they are built on further.

We learn about the place for the professional in the scheme of management as well as the worker and manager. We learn a lot of truisms like managers must manage. There is little that can be directly refuted. There is also a slightly utopian streak. People should work at peak performance and money is not the best motivator for employees. These are common beliefs held by many managers.

If you want to understand many of the ideas behind management practice read Peter Drucker. You may not agree with it, but it seems to set a standard for business practice across industries.

I spent quite a bit of time reading both of these books. They are often quite insightful. A lot of it is just learning the language which is being spoken. I think sometimes when you read this material, it helps clarify what people are saying. There is a professional language attached to business administration and public administration degrees which often uses coded meanings which are not always apparent to people who are line workers or professionals.

I spent some time this evening reading a bit of Graceling by Kristin Cashore. I also have the novel, Fire by Kristin Cashore on hold. Both of these are young adult fantasy novels.

Daily Thoughts 8/11/2009 ( Keeping Customers )

Front door of Brooklyn Public Library at sunset June 3 2008. From Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 8/11/2009

Today has been another quiet steady day. I started weeding the 800s which is the literature section and made sure the older books were removed from the new arrivals section. I took some time to read some more of Keeping Customers.

I am considering buying all of Charlaine Harris's mass market horror paperbacks. They are on both the Locus Magazine bestseller list and the Publishers Weekly bestseller list.

I spent some time looking through our purchase alerts for items with a lot of hold requests. I picked out some large print items that have multiple holds and a few fiction titles.

I read some more of Keeping Customers on the train. I find this book fascinating because of the way language is used. There is a language that is almost nonsensical which surrounds business management and consulting. Staple yourself to the customer, go to the war room, and look at the workflow charts to help determine the way to achieve TQC (Total Quality Control). It has this rhythm to it which at the same time shows command as well as shows wild confusion. I can understand how this kind of language encourages excess and highly risky decisions. At the same time it is both the language of highly successful companies like General Electric and at the other extreme Enron.

For me, some of it is like reading Alice In Wonderland. A lot of the business management books make absolutely no sense, especially from the perspective from someone in the nonprofit sector working to help other people. There is an incredible drive to profit. At the same time it has this really motivating, energizing quality about being goal driven. There are some books on nonprofit management, but not that many. For example, Peter Drucker has a few books like Managing The Nonprofit Organization on nonprofits, but is mostly focused on corporations. So what happens is people who work in nonprofits often generalize reading from the for profit sector to the nonprofit and government sector.

How do you generalize ideas from books like Keeping Customers into a nonprofit or government setting. You can take some ideas, but most things are simply not applicable. It is useful insofar as helping people find material to read who are in a business setting. How do I even judge or rate the ideas in this book? I am not sure I can or should. I could review it, but there are parts of it that I don't understand. It is very interesting reading. Some of the parts that are most interesting are the parts that are least applicable. I find it intellectually stimulating.

The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie came in for me to read. I think this is the book I will read next. Our library is a Carnegie building. He donated the money to build many libraries throughout the United States. He also was a steel magnate. I am hoping it will give me some insights into why he gave money to have so many libraries built.

In Search of Excellence Lessons From America's Best Run Companies by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman

In Search of Excellence Lessons From America's Best Run Companies by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman

When this book came out in 1982 it was a bestselling business book. The copyright on the book I read was 2004. This book has stood the test of time. I found out about it when I was reading How The Mighty Fall by Jim Collins. Jim Collins wrote the bestselling business book, Good To Great.

There seem to be a lot of worthwhile ideas in this book. It is not just a collection of 43 top companies, and eight business success principles backed by a ton of statistics. This book is full of entertaining examples and implementable ideas.

The writers counter the idea of rigid organization charts, pure numbers, and closed door management styles. The book reminds to be close to the customer and pay attention. The authors make the claim that it is more important to pay close attention to what people are doing than to go to extremes of reward or punishment.

The management examples in this book come from real companies. Hewlett Packard uses MBWA (Management by Wandering Around). Proctor and Gamble use the principle of limiting most memos and reports to a single page. Both of these are things I see every day where I work.

There are some striking almost counterintuitive ideas in this book. The authors claim that focusing on pure numbers leads to cost cutting but not necessarily improvements in sales. The cost of customer service and sales preparation are often hard to quantify.

This was an entertaining book on how to improve business performance. The authors claim the main source of business improvement is human factors; customer service, action orientation, values, entrepreneurship, productivity, and openness. The book was very easy to follow. There was an extensive bibliography and index. Reading it was informative. It made me think.

How The Mighty Fall And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins

How The Mighty Fall And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins

This book is about why very successful companies fail. It is not about complacency. It is about a process of self-inflicted mistakes; pursuing growth at all costs, taking on too much risk, excessive pride, making promises that are not doable, and finally succumbing to the inevitable. Jim Collins describes the death of Merrill Lynch, Merck, Motorola, Addressograph, and the decline and rebirth of IBM, Nucor, and Nordstrom's.

The books reminds us that returning to the core strengths of a company and putting the right people in place are more important than hiring outside managers and making grand plans. There are several charts comparing the right and wrong thing to do in a turnaround. The charts were to the point and easy to read.

The main text of this book was 157 pages. It could have been cut down to a 100 pages. The appendixes, notes, and index covered as much information as the main text. The ideas in this book were very clear. I think this book serves as a timely reminder that American companies need to get back to basics.

Talent Is Overrated What Really Separates World Class Performers From Everyone Else by Geoff Colvin

Talent Is Overrated What Really Separates World Class Performers From Everyone Else by Geoff Colvin

This book is an argument for "deliberate practice" over long time periods to create superior performance. It separates regular practice from "deliberate practice" by describing it as practice under expert guidance with specific goals for improvement. Some of the types of deliberate practice described are Tiger Wood's golf practice, Jerry Rice's football practice, practicing to become a concert musician or a master chess player.

The book describes how "deliberate practice" can be applied in more mundane situations. For example if you wanted to improve your writing skills, you might read The Elements of Style, analyze the stories of O. Henry, and study print design in a focused manner. What is described is not easy to do, and requires quite a bit of concentration. I can see how it could be done with something like blogging or poetry.

There are three focuses in practice which are talked about; improving knowledge, improving memory of the subject being studied, and percieving more. The book states that it takes ten years to master most subjects. This is why it is so important to start at a very young age in so many fields like ballet and music. I don't see why it is not perfectly applicable to gardening or any other interest.

This book is an argument against the concept of nature versus nurture. It says that focus and concentration on a specific skill under expert guidance for many hours a day are what make superior performance. I rather like the idea and can see some of the point. However, I am not completely ready to count talent out. It is a very intellectual book. It makes you think.

Marketing Without Advertising Easy Ways To Build A Business Your Customers Will Love & Recommend by Michael Phillips & Salli Rasberry, 6th Edition

Marketing Without Advertising Easy Ways To Build A Business Your Customers Will Love & Recommend by Michael Phillips & Salli Rasberry, 6th Edition

This book is how to attract and keep customers without buying advertising. It claims it is better to do your own marketing and create an atmosphere where customers will come back and use your business repeatedly. Advertising is often deceptive and can lead to bad publicity.

The book suggests that you should buy listings in places like the phone book and get your name listed in as many places as possible instead of spending money on advertisements. In addition to buying listings, you should create your own customer lists and market directly to them.

There is a focus on creating customer recommendations and testimonials. Some ways they suggest to do this are to keep a clean site, make your business conform to industry standards, and build a theme which customers can identify with. It is important to be consistent and treat people fairly.

There are tips on how to create an honest, open business which people can trust. This includes descriptions on how to identify the business you are in and make clear statements about your purpose.

A central idea is that more hand holding equals more customers and better information leads to more sales. Several examples of information which can help a business like how to create an informational video, make business labels, and make easy to read signs that explain what you do are given.

The book also covers technology. It reminds you that it is important to have an email account, join listservs, have a newsletter, build a website, and offer marginal additions like bookmarks and fliers to keep people informed.

The book taught me something new there are three types of marketing. Peer to peer marketing is where you market your business to colleagues. Direct marketing is where you market your business directly to customers, and parallel marketing is where you invite similar institutions to work with you.

This books shows how to build a business without using deception and without investing in advertisements. The pattern which is explained here is based on honesty, integrity, personal recommendations, and useful information. The publishers of this book, Nolo very much fit this mold.

There are a number of different ideas like creating a calendar of events, making brochures, and creating displays which are discussed in this book. If you want to get ideas on how to build a business based on building your own client base without outside advertising this book will be very useful. I think I learned a few things from reading it.

Got Game How The Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade

Got Game How The Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade

This book identifies the strengths which computer gamers have to help business. Through surveys they identify the attitudes which gamers have which will help them succeed in business; an urge to win, a willingness to fail then move on, the ability to try again, the urge to be on top, and immersion in a computerized environment.

The authors tend to mention, but gloss over some of the less desirable traits which many gamers exhibit, a tendency to not read manuals, be a little sloppy, be very egocentric, and demand high compensation. There is very little which talks about how to solve these problems. The surveys given to gamers also seem to be very simplistic at times.

Instead of focusing on problems, the book looks to aim at bringing out leadership traits. It points out the strategy involved in many computer games as well as the focus on team work and exploration in some of the larger virtual worlds.

I found quite a bit in common with what many of the surveys which they did asked. I could identified many of my own personal characteristics in this book. I think Got Game would be particularly useful for business people to read who work in computer or high technology industries. It is aimed at managing gamers.

Some people will have a hard time with this book. Many people do not see any value in playing computer games. They find them counterproductive. There is quite a bit on the value of playing games.