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Myself and Other More Important Matters . Charles Handy. 2008. ISBN 9780814401736. Charles Handy is considered the English Peter Drucker. He founded the London Business School, the first business school in the UK. He has had an extensive and varied career in the private and public sector as well as in some time in the spiritual vs secular life. His words to MBA candidates and graduates ring very true believing as he does that DO is much more important than IQ. A very easy reading and flowing book, Handy is a good writer, which one could trace back to his being a Classicist. I would suggest this as a thought provoking book when you have the time and inclination to ponder your life. On life after death, ” Well I did not give much thought to the world before I came into it, so why should I bother about it when I am gone? .” Good gift book from Father to Son.

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. A memoir of Africa. Peter Godwin. 2007 ISBN9780316158947. The author was born in Rhodesia ( Zimbabwe). His parents had emigrated there from Europe after WW II and created a wonderful life, as did many other Caucasians. At one stage Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa and an example country. Then came Robert Mugabe and his thugs. This is a reflection on 20 yrs of Mugabe after four years of civil war. It is a tale of wonderful country and chilling facts. I could not put the book down.

Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy. Daniel Altman. 2007. ISBN 978-0-374-13532-4. This is the penultimate insiders view of the world economy as Altman ( a serious business journalist with a PhD.), lets you peek inside the worlds of a dozen decision maker/influencers/ordinary people in many countries, in the same 24 hr period. Fascinating and much more insightful than The World is Flat. I can never read the world business news the same way again. It caused me to renew my online The Economist subscription. I appreciated the inside views on currency exchanges, credit and inflation. The story of Haier in China - delightful vignettes. I had forgotten how much Japan lacked competition until pointed out by Altman. The background on why the US will continue to force its dollar lower is worth the book price. The story about the plight of Chinese peasants really pulls at your gut. A must read, it is topical, thought provoking and appropriate for our market planning.

The Gold is in the Rest of the World

• Be International from Day 1
• Unifying platform from the get go
• Cultural and demographic data is Holy Grail

Be international from day one. Ask yourself the following:

• Why would Fox buy a small German Facebook lookalike for $90M?
• Why is Mixxi valued at $1B?
• What drives Orkut to No 1 in Brazil and No 2 in India? (same traffic stats as MySpace)

There is an international land grab going on by media companies for international social media sites. They see the “land” i.e. registered members, as almost free today but worth a phenomenal amount in the future. This drives valuations which only appear to be sky high but we all know the value of the international market from previous lives.  The US market already has over 850 sites for dating alone!

Build a unifying platform from day 1 using front and back end modules.

You must allow for smart ads, e.g. location, gender, language, interest based advertising today. Every “site” or “skin” feeds all data to one intelligent data base. This is a business flaw for all the media giants who buy disparate sites. At what cost will it take to unify all their data after a buy? Can they even do it after the fact? We think not in a  re-usable form. Build it right at the start. Build to beat competition in all locales, not to buy regionally. Build in data migration tools “just in case”. Thus our data grows hourly from 28 sites in 17 languages as does its value.
Data is the Holy Grail and it drives everything

• The increasing valuation of Google, why they bought YouTube and considered it a bargain
• Purchases of sites for large sums by FOX, CBS other media giants
• Aggregation by Google and Yahoo of ad companies like Doubleclick

So how much does Coke pay today to know the interests and buying habits of a 30 yr old Caucasian male in Northern German, how many there are like him, the languages they speak,  and what they like or dislike today? Do they have it in real time? Even daily? Monthly? Tailored ads based on location, and recent interests can now be served up on GPS aware mobile phones, laptops, Blackberrys.  What would a major vendor pay to know this, to do this? “Sanitized ” data about you exists now. eg your Air Miles or Costco card profile tracks all your purchases for internal use, repackaging and resale. So what else makes Airmiles worth so valuable as a company?

Next: Company purpose is the community purpose

Revolutionary Wealth. How it will be created and how it will change our lives. Alvin and Heidi Toffler. 2006. ISBN0375401741. Well for a generation that cut its teeth on Future Shock and The Third Wave there are few surprises in Tofflers’ approach to the issues. They re-emphasize the impact of Wave Three (the Third Knowledge revolution) with more reference to the growth of Prosumser ( open source, You Tube, home schooling, NGOs) arising as much from the failure of second wave institutions (”industrial society” creations like manufacturing factories, schools and their attached stakeholders). The analysis if Europe and the EU is quite different. They believe that the EU is using too centralized a control and growth strategy that makes Europe less competitive and further into the Second (industrial ) Wave each passing year as the Third (knowledge) Wave continues to roll out. He points out the real fears that we should be aware of with China as it follows a dual wave strategy. India and the other Asian countries receive quite a review as well. Their analysis of the deep fundamentals of Time, space and knowledge is worthwhile as the impacts can be seen further along multiple directions. Simple to follow and readable as they use shorter chapters, but as a 447pp tome, this is good for long flights and/or your summer reading selection. They end up optimistic despite the pitfalls but a bit short on suggestions as to what are the business opportunities coming forward. Read more and see him

Bangalore Tiger. Steve Hamm.2007. ISBN 0071474781. How Indian Upstart
Wipro Is Rewriting the Rules of Global Competition. Wipro differs from
the other Indian outsourcing companies in many ways. Volumes, profits,
creation of IP, use of CMM, Six Sigma, Lean manufacturing in all its
efforts, and the ability to partner with world class Orgs (like GE, TI )
to learn as much as they can.
No politics internally, scrupulous ethics, lack of NIH’sm and an incredible work ethic all mean if you are running a service business you better read this book. If you are looking at creating a worldwide competitive advantage, read this book, and if you want to find out about the applications of modern management practise read this book. Or if you just want to be scared out of your complacent Canadian low productivity shorts, read this book.
I found it a reasonable easy read. The author is a journalist from BusinessWeek so he should be a writer. At times it seems like he is the chief Wipro cheerleader, and I would have preferred some more analysis of Infosys and TCS. Apparently the author was asked into Wipro by the owner/CEO
India’s second wealthiest person , who seems to act and live like Warren
Buffett. I could not help but think that the author made the company
look too good IMHO. Worth a read tho. Listen to apodcast at http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1377/steve-hamm-on-bangalore-tiger-and-wipro

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.

The J Curve. Ian Bremmer. ISBN 139780743274715. 2006. A concise and
thoughtful analysis of nations, their stability and what is a head of
them if they move toward a more “open” (Ie US/Canadian/EU) style of
government. He uses examples and shows historically why or why not they
can or cannot progress toward a more “open and stable” style of govt.
Fascinating and it gives you some real alternatives to the popular
press. Many of the free worlds “responses” to these states are shown to
be doomed to failure while holding up exemplars of what does and will
work. Examples used ( boy are they relevant) Far left (closed) North
Korea, Cuba, (Saddams) Iraq. Sliding Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia In
the depths South Africa, Yugoslavia, Right (opening) is Turkey,
Israel, India, and then China’s dilemma. The North Korea example is
held up as an example how the far left closed states want to remain
separate from the Western influences and our hope is regime change from
within, i.e. do everything in our power to assist Western influences to
penetrate the country over time. He posits that we must deny N Korea any
chance to sell nuclear technology as it has nothing else to sell, while
pushing for any chance to increase western influence inside the country.
Do not make it easier for closed societies to remain closed. Reads like
a novel, good writing.

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.

China Shakes the World. James Kynge. The Rise of A Hungry Nation. 2006.
ISBN 0297852450. The author is a journalist (Economist, BBC, PBS) who
has lived in China since 1985. He traveled all over the country and is
fluent in Mandarin. For this book he also looked at the impact of China
on Italian, German, English and US businesses though visits and
interviews. It is a great read that flows like a novel. The Chinese
juggernaut is driven by the need to create 24 million jobs a year.
Manufacture at all costs ( and loses of which there are legion) is the
creed. Consider that 700 million Chinese live on under $2 per day yet
the EU subsidizes every cow in Europe $2 per day. Lots of nuggets and
criticisms of China are in this book. Due to Mao’s hatred of “nature”
the countries resources have been wasted or destroyed to great measure,
thus the overwhelming need for China to lock up offshore resources. Thus
every time the US ” isolates’ a country for “bad ” behavior, China sees
this as an opportunity to get resources. Thus Iran, the Sudan, Zimbabwe
etc will always have a “friend” in China. US businesses criticism abound
and are based on truths it appears. The Renminbi is fixed at a very low
rate, the govt bans independent unions for migrant workers, the domestic
prices for power, water, and oil are fixed below cost of production,
capital flow is heavily restricted to support Chinese “banks”, many
industries have restrictions on foreign investment, pollution is
exported to neighbors as the govt fails to enforce its own rules, and
illegal felling of overseas rainforests by China-based syndicates.
Worth the read, especially the detailing of all the small to medium
businesses being devastated in the US. It appears that the
multinationals are the ones making the big profits from China. The China
advantage appears to carry some heavy weights with it that may catch up
to all of us.

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.

The 86% Solution. Vijay Mahajan & Kamini Banga. 2006. ISBN 0131489070.
How to succeed in the biggest market opportunity of the 21st century.
Carrying on with the thesis started by The Fortune at the Bottom of the
Pyramid, this book clearly articulates the incredible opportunities
waiting for us in the developing world. Drawing from real life
experiences and interviews with local and global players, this is a very
good read. Lots of insight into the local adjustments that successful
companies are doing to build very fast growing businesses everywhere but
the developed world. This is an absolute must read if you want to grow
your business more than 10% per year. It is also fascinating to read
about the innovative products coming back to our markets that are
upsetting the NA apple cart! This is just chock a block with
fascinating (to me) “did you know” items.

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.