The Social Employee. Success lessons from IBM, AT&T, Dell and Cisco on building a social culture. Cheryl & Mark Burgess. 2014. ISBN 9780071816410.  Very thorough job on what the four firms have done in this space. A very useful book when you are a large firm looking to benchmark your initiatives.  The early chapters give any company good ideas about how to engage your employees and the benefits of spreading the social work around. I appreciated their guidelines to help put bounds around what can be done.   Good easy to read style.

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Shortly,  my wife and I  are heading off to a sailing week on the Aegean ( West coast of Turkey) and a week on the island of Rhodes.  For a sneak peak at our “yacht” holiday check out http://www.bluecruise.org/ and Rhodes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes.

Looking forward to the food, people , sun and whatever they throw at us.  Not looking forward to the l.o.n..g. airflight! So if my posts are drawn out, it’s all good.

But first we have to see  on Friday our oldest son Michael married to Lisa – What a party that will be.

• Turkey Aegean Coast – stay in Selcuk or Kusadasi?
• Idyllic Islands
• Turkish minister says Ankara has no immediate plans for Aegean exploration
• Top 7 Greek Islands a First-Time Visitor Should Consider

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The Fracking Truth. America’s energy revolution:the inside, untold story. Chris Faulkner. 2014. ISBN 9780985070373.  The author started in software and moved from control systems for oil & gas into starting an energy company that benefited form the advances in fracking technology.   There are two sides to any story and he is taking the engineers role of presenting all the facts for you to make your own decisions.  It is a very thorough and I for one appreciated the insights into the whole story.

Fracking is an 100% made in America oil and gas well completion technology that is on track to serve up Americas energy needs safely,  for the foreseeable future at a reasonable price. This will finally free the US from being tied to Saudi Arabia and the volatile Middle East  Increasing proven resources of gas in the US make it a distinct possibility of exporting gas to Europe, which will mitigate most  threats from Russia against the EU.   Also you will learn the background of the misleading comments and outright lies put forth by the Fox documentary called Gasland – which has fueled a complete misconception in the public media.  These falsehoods have taken root as an often told story to become accepted by most with no questioning.  Fracking works in North America because of the geography, infrastructure, skills and competence that is  rarely  found in  other places.

The author shows that the oil & gas industry does a woeful job of telling its side of the  story. In Canada we see that mishandling first hand with the Northern Gateway project, the Keystone pipeline and the oil sands. Like the ways that the politically astute environmental groups destroyed the West Coast timber industry for many years,  similar  groups are determined to do the same to resource extraction.

You will earn about the economics and environmental impacts of hydro, solar, coal, wood and wind energy projects. From the analysis it becomes apparent that the oil & gas sector will remain dominant for many many years, world wide.

Great cross country read in a concise, clear easy to read style.

• Survey: public distrusts gas industry and anti-fracking film, Gasland
• ‘Frack Master’ Chris Faulkner takes on Greenpeace
• ‘Frack Master’ says UK shale gas market threatened by scaremongering
• After oil, natural gas may be next on North American rails
• Shale’s Threat to Middle East Has Big Consequences, Says “Frack Master”
• Breitling CEO visits all the fracking hot spots around the globe
• What is fracking?

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Total Recall. Arnold Schwarzenegger & Peter Petre.2012. ISBN 9781451662436. I have  admired Arnold for how he trained and drove himself to be the holder of more titles than anyone in bodybuilding by having a strong goal directed life.  This story talks on his whole life – how the goal to go to America came early , the journey to be a leading man in moves and then governor of California, the work involved, his family, marriage/divorce and his plans for the future.  The press too often gives a shallow view of public figures, this book gives you the depth needed to what is obviously a very driven, hard worker.  I am giving this book to all my sons as an example of what anyone can do in their life.  I liked the pace and writing style- it flowed well and seemed an extremely balanced view, all things considered.  It all comes down to reps or mileage.  Just  do it.

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