Pocket Mentor. The entrepreneurs’s guide to building a lasting business from scratch. Mark Nureddine 2018.  ISBN 9781943386307.  A very pragmatic, straight forward approach to mentoring that would work with many entrepreneurs.  The case studies and examples are real world. His language is concise and easy to understand.  His products were tangible and hands on so the examples her may need to be finessed for technology plays.  I appreciate the author’s can do attitude to pretty well everything. His advice to entrepreneurs is plain enough that no one would misunderstand how hard it will be to start and run a successful business. Quite a useful summary of pricing here as well.

The Next Factory of the World. How Chinese Investment is Reshaping Africa. Irene Yuan Sun. 2017.  ISBN 9781633692817.  A thoughtful analysis of the similarities of Africa and China in how Africa could replicate China’s jump from an agrarian to a manufacturing country in a very short order.  The author makes some very good , logical points as to how this could be achieved. IN many ways Africa is exactly like China was just one generation ago.  The same Chinese businessmen who made this jump in China are now doing the same in Africa.  And Africa does have the poverty level farmers who would see a low wage industrial job as a step up. Plus by working for these Chinese businesses the Africans can learn how to do run a factory and eventually have factories of their own. The Chinese have recent experience with corruption at home so they know how to deal with African corruption.  I was interested to read that the bulk of investment is from private Chinese firms, not the famous Chinese zombie state enterprises.   From a Western perspective we may be losing sight of how simple this could be as we are too far along the technology path. A delightful and useful read.

Related articles

• Struggling telecom China Unicom gets $12 billion investment from tech companies

Black Box Thinking. The surprising truth about success and why some people never learn from their mistakes. . Matthew Syed. .  2015.  ISBN 9781473613775.  A very insightful book.  Ever wonder why airflight really learns from mistakes, while healthcare continues to make deathly mistakes every year ( despite tremendous leaps forward in medicine). You will be inspired and then dismayed by Syed’s book.  If you are any way involved in innovation, total quality, best practices and group productivity, this is a  book you need to read.  Funding/controlling bodies for institutions such as healthcare, governance, the legal system need to also read this book and act on it.  A compelling well written book.  Good for a four hour plane ride ,there and  back

Related articles

• Should we all be looking for marginal gains?
• “Be bold, be patient and be kind”: Rich Farmbrough

The Lean CEO. Leading the Way to World-Class Excellence. Jacob Stoller.   2015. ISBN 9780071833073.  This is the missing  book that puts together the plethora of lean successes across industries , public sector and geographies.  You will learn not only where Lean came from ( Deming and much more) , but how successful it has been in some many sectors and why it has not been more widely adopted in N America.  For tech companies after the Lean Startup you must  become the lean grownup to survive and grow. This book will help point the way.  Clearly written with  lots of examples makes this an engrossing book. Well worth anyone’s time to sit down and read it.

Related articles

• A Short Manifesto On Leading, Fast And Slow
• What A New Supreme Court Means for Unions, Education Funding, and the Future of California

Value Proposition Design. How to create products and services customers want.  Osterwalder, Pigneur, Bernarda & Smith. 2014. ISBN 9781118968055. A textbook, workbook and piece of graphic art all in one.   In our practise we help companies discover their value proposition and it is quite a bit of hard work for them.  This is a thorough look at the process with a terrific front end explanation as to why this is so important.   the book is a significant contribution to the field.  It should be required reading for all technology companies ( and more) . Clearly written , but you will need a lot of thinking time as you work through this process.

Related articles

• What’s in it for me? The Value Proposition Explained
• What Is a Value Proposition and Why Do You Need One? (Part 1)
• Uber & Airbnb: the challenges in two-sided markets

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?

Related articles

Invent It. Sell It, Bank It! Lori Greiner. 2014. ISBN 9780804176439.   If you have a million dollar invention idea that you want to make a reality then this is a book for you.  One of the Sharks on Shark Tank, the author gives you the straight goods on making stuff and  selling it.  She has created over 400 products and generated %500 m in revenue to boot. (And its mostly on QVS.  Easy to read with lots of secrets laid out for you to take in.  Especially important if you are going to make things ( like you would in a MakerSpace).  I liked the book and found that it adds to good value to this space.