What’s an old fart like me doing at an ACDC concert?.  Having a blast . Hey Angus Young is 54  and Brian Johnson is 62, so I fit right in!.

check it out Hells Bells .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ISnOt2WV

Twitters during the show:

I have never seen so many racks of lights , spots, and it looks like a bunch of fireworks cannons right on the side of the stage. Oh there is a long runway running beside our section out into the floor.  It has cannons and speakers as well.
The warm up act is loud!!!!!!!! (They were measured at 102Db)
Crazy people. !!!!!!!

Really loud!!!!Awesome start. Tremendous experience. 3rd song. Only one fight so far. Not much. No blood.  All the favorites , Crowd loves em.

120 mins of non stop ACDC. Real cannons, locomotives, dirigibles, fireworks, all inside BC place. The finale For Those About to Rock! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myhm8DHFSNA

Angus Young  is an incredible musician. He has so much energy . I thought he was going to die of a heart attack. Brian Johnson rocks non stop .  Just a tremendous show. Real entertainment , so many special effects. Next time,  bring a movie camera. But be prepared to stand for the whole show. You will not need your seat.

But what is it about rock concerts that makes girls show their boobs to the camera? Really big screens!

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Selected summer readings. You may not know it, but I am usually reading a few fiction books each week as well as the torrent of non fiction books that come my way.  Some fiction  that you may enjoy follow:

The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett. ISBN 0451166892. Step into medieval Europe and live a life full of knights, serfs, clergy, kings and all kinds of strife.  A good thick book which worked well for a 12 hr flight. Reminds of Jack Whyte

A Man in Full. Tom Wolfe. ISBN 0553840258. Its been a while since i feel under Wolfe’s spell. He seems to be today’s Faulker when he talks about the US South. This one’s eset in Atlanta.  Another thick one , full of life’s foibles.

2012. Whitely Strieber.  So the Mayan calendar foretells the end of the world in 2012. Three parallel worlds, ancient civilizations. Shades of Steven King with lots of horror rising from the pages. Good for when its too hot to sleep nites anyway.

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Welcome Home. Travels in small town Canada. Stuart McLean.1994.ISBN0140231854.  This should be required reading in every grade seven class in Canada.  McLean has that ability to tease out the common humanity in all his stories. Never far from a tongue in cheek comment- he slides the truth right under your eyes.  He looks at  Maple Creek Sask, Dresden Ont, St-Jean-de-Matha Que, Sackville  NB, Foxwarren Man, Nakusp BC, Ferryland Nfld.   If you can find this book, read it and think about a part of Canada that we have lost,but not forgotten.

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who’s got your back. The secret to finding the 3 people who will change your life. Keith Ferrazzi. 2009. ISBN 9780385521338.  Keith wrote the very enjoyable. Never Eat Alone. Now he comes up with an even better book that is relevant to us all who try to be authentic in every way.

I knew he was on top of things when he quoted an exchange at one of his Greenlight Group meetings.

” I really do not think my sales group is up to snuff. ”

“Yes?  So what is your marketing group  saying?  ”

“What does that have to do with it?  I am having trouble with my sales. ”

“Well, it usually comes back to what marketing is saying.”

Had to love the guy right off the bat!

He has four mindsets that you need in order to proceed:

• generosity
• vulnerability
• candor
• accountability.

The tenets he lays out for high performance relationships and companies have somethings in common with The Rockefeller Habits, but this book goes much further.   You need:

• a vision  cw an exit strategy
• commitment
• comprehension
• chemistry & curiosity
• diversity

On top of the wonderful stuff in the book  there is a host of supporting info on his website and blog:

• http://www.keithferrazzi.com/WGYB/resources2.php
• http://www.keithferrazzi.com/blog/
• http://www.ferrazzigreenlight.com/

I especially liked his chapter on what this means for team based sales.  It is extremely relevant in todays’ selling environment. Read it on the website

http://www.keithferrazzi.com/WGYB/docs/Never_Sell_Alone_Extended_Chapter.pdf

Buy this one and read it a few times. Get one for your children  Well written and clear, I found it hard to put down.

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How the Mighty Fall. And why some companies never give in Jim Collins. 2009.ISBN 9780977326419. The Good to Great author has done it again  He explains that this was a much harder task than finding the commonalities for Good to Great.  He has done a good job.  He shows there are five stages of decline,

1. Hubris born of success.
2. Undisciplined pursuit of more
3. Denial of risk and peril
4. Grasping for salvation
5. Capitulation to  irrelevance or death

He illustrates how  the basics of Good to Great still apply and indicates that many of the fallen (A&P , Zenith, Circuit City, Merck….) were unable to do what the ones who came back ( Nordstrom, Xerox) , which was were they fell away from their basic strategy that helped them to grow in the first place.  From our practise we see that companies who fail to work a scenario strategy al a Schwartz (what is the best, worst that can happen  and what indicators will show you the trends)  are the ones who often make the wrong bets.  Check l out last months Wired magazine article on scenarios. It really works. This prevents the search for the silver bullet.

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To celebrate the paperback release of “The World in Six Songs”, New York Times best-selling author and research scientist Daniel Levitin will be doing a live, interactive web chat on Ustream.

The chat will be taking place on Friday, August 7th starting at 5pm PST. Fans will have the chance to interact with Dr. Levitin through Ustream’s chat and Twitter Social Stream. The event will be taking place here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/daniel-levitin

Dr. Levitin’s previous work includes New York TImes bestseller and Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist “This Is Your Brain On Music.”