This Is A Great Book – Read It!

I bought The Elephant and The Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us watching Author Robyn Meredith on a Charlie Rose interview last summer. It was a great interview and the next day I went to the bookstore 2 days later to buy it – and all the copies in the local surrounding bookstore were literally sold out (I asked the store manager check around for me).

Well researched, organized and written, Ms. Meredith has taken a complex topic and added just a little-more-than-sufficient detail into the historical context, that provides a great foundation for understanding contemporary realities. Her review of China strongly correlated with what I knew, and her review of India was enlightening.

I think it's a great introductory / intermediate text on the subject of outsourcing in general, and with respect to these two nations in particular. For more on Outsourcing and the role that India has created for itself in this industry, I still strongly recommend Bangalore Tiger by Steve Hamm. These are good companion texts - enjoy!

Good Inspiration With Just Enough To Get You To MOVE!

At just under 300 pages, The Four-Hour Workweek is a surprisingly easy and engaging read. Tim quickly covers a number of topics. And yes, while there does seem to be some slight proselytizing to get people to take action, he makes it seem rather easy. That, coupled with him listing high-level action plans in the book & on his website, can get you motivated to take action today on architecting a different life for yourself – if that's what you want.

People will rationalize whatever behavior they want or need to. And while this book won't bring the death of any multi-national companies any time soon, it does provide structure for a lifestyle that many, many people (quite literally) day-dream about.

It's time to stop dreaming & get moving, if you're not already – get the book and apply it!

Found This Book Helpful To Create Functional System To Keep My Life Organized

First off, what I didn't like about Getting Things Done by David Allen:

• too long; I felt he had about 30% too much content in there. Chapters 4 – 10 are “the meat”, with Chapters 11 -1 3 providing the next level of useful detail.

• the first 3 chapters could either be significantly trimmed or eliminated

• the margin quotes interspersed throughout the book were interesting to read, but I found them distracting and not really adding a lot to comprehension of the content (I like reading quotes from people, and gather that Robert Allen does as well...)

That said...

I strongly recommend this book for people who really want to get “their lives” under control. I've implemented his recommendations and have benefited from DRASTIC productivity increases – and less stress and more relaxed time with my family.

While reading it I found myself taking issue with some of his suggestions, and dropped my objection when I implemented his recommendations (my justification was that what I had been doing so far wasn't getting me the intended results, so...try something different).

I'm glad I did. My wife has noticed a difference and I feel a lot less stress (and this review is starting to sound like a fabulous new diet pill commercial! :P )

Anyway, I strongly recommend this and if you are trying to have a process or system to more effectively what you want to have in your life. It's cheap to implement and the benefits are immediate.

RIch Dad, Poor Dad: Good, Overview of Foundational Ideas – But Don't Look For Specifics Here...

I thought Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That The Poor And Middle Class Do Not by Robert Kiyosaki was an easy, entertaining read, written in a first-person narrative style. If you are trying to find ways to change your financial lifestyle, or trying to find some inspiration and different perspectives on how someone else “made it” then this book is a worthwhile read.

At less than 200 pages and anywhere from $2 - $12 USD, it's a fairly inexpensive book to peruse. I don't think he “dumbed down” anything; rather, he took a subject that many find confusing and intimidating, and radically simplified it. That has a lot to do with how successful this (I think his whole “Rich Dad” series) has been.

Don't expect to find many / any specific “how to's” in this book; rather, read it to inspire you to action to find out about more ways to leverage your financial growth. I think this is a good introductory text for anybody, but especially if you feel the least bit intimidated about financial growth and investing.

I recommend this book for beginners.

Easy, Entertaining, Informative Read - Check It Out!

One of my favorite books of the last 12 months is Bangalore Tiger by Steve Hamm. I bought it when it first came out and couldn't put it down. Well written, it describes Indian Outsourcing firm Wipro (specifically) and gives a detailed review of what's behind Outsourcing / Globalization (in general). I definitely recommend reading it. I'd consider it required reading for anyone providing Outsourcing services to customers, and am disappointed when I see that it's lessons aren't applied.

One of the best takeaways I enjoyed is how Wipro pragmatically applied disciplined approaches to production and quality, and saw great results. Were there failures & setbacks in their approach? I'm sure - but they learned from them and re-adjusted their approach. The examples they highlighted really aligned with what I have seen first-hand from Wipro consultants CMM, Six Sigma and Lean Sigma provide a good framework and set of tools (much like ITIL does), but it takes some skill to understand when and how to apply what tools for what effect.

There are other great points conveyed throughout various chapters in the book - "Growth: Keep a Thousand Fires Burning", "Adopt Ultrastrict Ethics to Build a Sterling Brand", "Reward Employees with Recognition and Respect", "Measure Everything Constantly", "Plan Three Years Ahead to Prepare for Rapid Growth", "Adopt the Best Ideas, Then Make Them Your Own Way", "Be Obsessive About Customers"...and there are others...

It's not so much that there were a lot of new or novel insights in the book - and that's the point! Much of what I read I have read before elsewhere - and so has Wipro. Wipro has tried, applied and "refried" these ideas to affect a positive force for consistent growth at their company, growing from $500 Million USD in 2000, to realizing a market capitalization of more than $20 Billion USD 6 years later - surpassing EDS' market capitalization of $13 Billion at that time (now at $10.91 Billion USD, as of this writing).

"We have a feeling that the platform we're on, offshoring, with price arbitrage, is a burning platform. It's only good for a few more years," says Chief Strategy Officer Sudip Nandy. "We need to do things differently to compete against international competition." (p. 69)

Well said, and a point that is easily lost on American Nationalists worried about "offshoring of work" - which (I believe) is itself a myopic, misanthropic term that prejudices the speaker into an inaccurate way of thinking about how the nature of work is changing.

Liar's Poker - don't waste your money...

...you can waste your time and save your money by checking this out of your local library.

If you want to get an "inside view" of the inner workings of Wall Street during the excessive gyrations of the '80s, then read Den of Theives - that book is well written and well worth the money!

What turned me off about this book was the structure and the writing style. The first half of the book was essentially the author relating fortuitous circumstances that were the product of Serendipity. He was simply in the right place at the right time, had virutally no idea how he got there, felt out of place the whole time (even when he was raking in the Big Bucks in NY and London), and so now he thought he'd wwrite a book about it. I also got the sense that he was trying to assuage some guilt from his association at Salomon Brothers. He was there, he made a lot of money, good for him - get over it!

I was also pretty disappointed because the subject matter has A LOT more potential. I might have actually enjoyed it - had I not read Den of Theives 7 years earlier, and already had some idea of how things took place. But, if you can get it for $5 or less (including shipping), and you have little to no knowledge of what an investment banker's life is like (and you haven't also seen the movie Wall Street (which covers the same highlights in this book)), then it's probably worth it.

I did like the wrap up he did towards the end of the book, relating where he had heard everyone from the firm ended up...although that seemed a little rushed...

Doom's Seed

“The Two Johns” (Carmack and Romero) had been described as the Lennon and MCCartney of video games, and I think that's a great moniker, especially after reading this book. Written in an engaging, easy-to-follow style, the read is taken inside the environment and motivation for many decisions and inspirations for why they did what they did. I found that thoroughly fascinating!

What was really cool, though, was remembering MY views and experiences, as I read the book – hooking up with other Doom players on the University LAN – and not really knowing what it was, playing by myself on the PC for the first time (10 hours straight) and then going to sleep and having completely lucid dreams as I re-ran the levels in full, vivid, dynamic color, being a user in the shareware movement / business model, etc.

Each accomplished in their own right, I don't think they really appreciated each other's talents and abilities until after they split up. It would be interesting to see what they can create with each other, now that they are older, financially successful and are driven (possibly?) by different things.

At about 300 pages, it's a very entertaining read for anyone interested or involved with the games industry; others may find the interpersonal dynamics of a young startup insightful and enlightening.

Opening The Xbox

“The revolution will come in fits and starts. It probably won't come from giving hardcore gamers more of what they already like. Doing a fighting game with better graphics isn't really a new invention. Yet much of the industry is currently afflicted with the illusion that it is. About 60 percent of the successful games now are either sequels or extensions of brands that exist in another medium. There is a real risk of what the IDSA'a Doug Lowenstein calls “creative ennui.”...The gaming industry has produced cultural icons before, from Pac Man to Pong, and it will do so again. As every gamer believes, the ideal game isn't here yet. It's just around the corner.” (p. 346 – 347).

I just got done reading Opening The Xbox. I found it to be a very readable book, with a very comfortable writing style. The descriptions of the what the project team went through, however, seemed very reminiscent of many other professional projects I have been involved with in my career, and not necessarily unique to Microsoft or the tech. industry. What was enjoyable and enlightening, however, was the detail which Mr. Takahashi provided. Liberally spiced with information that was outside of the inner mechanics at Microsoft (like the challenges with Nvidia, Flextronics' manufacturing capacity, the marketing and sales performance of competing platforms, etc.), provided the perfect backdrop to the whole story.

In the end, I found it to be an easy and enjoyable read. It provides great insight into Microsoft's launch of the Xbox, and an interesting perspective on the video games industry as a whole. I also appreciated the “personal face” Mr. Takhashi gave the story by providing interesting tidbits of the personalities and their lives, throughout the story. That technique not only made it very readable, but it also helped me relate to the story in a much more fulfilling way.

However, it's this blog's opening paragraph (which I quoted from the end of the book) that I think is really at the heart of the issue I think the video game industry faces, and this book didn't really address:

• self-confidence - quit believing and acting like you have to get “people” to take you “seriously”. Screw 'em! You're already a multi-billion dollar industry, so who really cares?

• The Big Set-up - the notion of “the killer game” is a set-up for failure, and “it” being “right around the corner” is even worse! You need to have people really get off on the “technology”, and others who are as passionate about the “business”, and have them work together. The video games themselves (whether it's a console or a piece of technology or some game art or whatever) is the real common ground to unite the project. Entertainment, art, interactivity, immersion – how this is defined is changing, and will continue to change over time.

Take me for example. I don't consider myself a “true gamer” necessarily, because I don't spend more than 20 hours a week playing video games, like some people I know; it's more like 10 – 15 hours per week (but who's really counting? :) ).

But do you know what I would spend 20 or more hours a week on? Creating new business ideas! I LOVE IT! I absolutely LOVE THAT! I love being able to take different ideas and putting them together in new ways. The by-product of that is interesting, and I and others have benefited in a number of different ways – non-profits I work with, to my current employer, and (I'm sure) to employers and customers whom I have yet to meet. So, while guys like Jonathan “Seamus” Blackley and Kevin Bachus got the lions share of the spotlight in the book (and rightly so), I related more to guys like Ted Hase, Rick Thompson, Ed Fries and Robbie Bach (the “business” / management folks). That is just fun for me!

Even at Sun Microsystems (where I've worked for a LONG time – it'll be 7 years this December...wow, that really IS a long time...), the things that have always drawn my interest and sparked my creativity the most have been new businesses and new business models, like our foray into Utility Computing and Managed Services. Project Darkstar is my latest muse (here is the “historic mugshot” that I found on my camera, from a few months ago; okay, shameless plug time – check out more details on this ground-breaking technology here and here).

The difference, though, between what I read in this book and what I see at companies like Sun and others, can be tied to two things:

• money – Microsoft had plenty and was willing to commit significant amounts of capital for long periods of time – not because they wanted to build a video game console, but rather because it was an integral part of a larger strategy. Microsoft wants to be the gateway to home mechanics (entertainment, finances, etc.), and they see the Xbox as a great way to enter and begin building on that vision

• strategic commitment – building on the above bullet, while near-term unit sales of consoles and titles are important, it's not the only thing. Sony, for example, has a potentially much broader and more strategic reach with it's movie and music entertainment business lines, which seem to continue throwing off cash regardless of poor economic conditions in any single market or geography it finds itself in.

If you want to move mountains and change the landscape, you can do it a spoonful at a time (which takes a while by yourself, but you gain speed the more people who pickup spoons) or with explosives (which is the equivalent to what Microsoft did). The latter is quicker, but it will still take a lot of time for people to join together in that new landscape and figure out what to do with it.

At E3 this year, I was over-whelmed by the presentation and volume of titles, and under-whelmed by the dearth of unique content. For the most part, it's all the same. In the four years since this book was published, not much has changed to hit that grand vision of new cultural icons and “games as art”. I don't see “Destroy All Humans” being reviewed by the New York Times' art critics. This is even a year in which we are seeing new console releases by Sony and Nintendo (although Sony just announced that they will again delay their launch – as seems to be typical with console launch announcements), but where are the new Space Invaders and Tetris (which were hits on multiple platforms)?

Still waiting for Aunt Bea's Quilting Smackdown! That would be a great one to see – have The Rock and Aunt Bea duking it out! Maybe someday...in the meantime, we'll just have to make do with more of the same.

The Worldly Philosphers

I read this many years ago, during my MBA program. It was required reading, and it didn't seem to be directly related to the Economics I was learning at the time. And it's not an Economics book, per se. It's a book that will enable you to think about Economics. It's the context that it delivers to the reader that makes it valuable.

I particularly liked the chapters discussing John Maynard Keynes and his arbitrage experiences, Schumpeter's views on the "fitfull starts and stops" of Capitalism, as well as the discussions of Malthus' and Marx's views.

It reminded me of similar essays discussing the evolution of many central ideas in Physics, and the people behind them, and how they came into being. The Worldy Philosophers provides a nice backdrop upon which one can more easiily view the evolution of Economic thought over the centuries. It is a well-written tome and I found it to be an easy read. I recommend the book, and when you can pick up a used copy in good conditon for less than $10.00 USD on Amazon, I think it's hard to go wrong.