Some time ago, Paul Klaptocz wrote this (restricted) review of a book “Four Steps to Epiphany”, written by Steve Blank.
Out of interest, I watched through this hour-long lecture by the author, given at Stanford - in which he summarises a range of guest lectures over the year.
(Read out loud in your deepest voice)
In a world where robots control information
In a world gone mad
One man stands alone
From the creators of global-roam
The true story of a disgruntled programmer
And his quest for data
Coming this summer to a url near you…
read more »
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Here’s an interesting video (runs for an hour) promoting a new book “Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe Even the World” by Warren Berger (and Bruce Mau).
Seems like an interesting book, so have thrown it in our shopping cart, and will review it sometime in 2010.
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I’ve recently posted about what some are calling the rise of the “Age of Analytics”, and also posted several times on innovation (such as this note about 5 “discovery skills”).
Not sure how I stumbled upon this article in Business Week – it’s titled “The Design of Business” and is written by Roger Martin (of Rotman School of Management) to coincide with the launch of his new book (which we have duly added to our Amazon cart and will review in due course). read more »
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Ironically, I read this book back in September up in the Whitsundays (yes, home to the lucky bugger who’s got the best job in the world – at least for 6 months).
You see - in the book, Richard regales the reader of his prized Necker Island (in the Caribbean) and of the value it has represented to him and the group. Might be a few more years, yet, before we can splurge on our own island!
This book was a quick easy read.
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The Book |
What we thought |
 “Screw it, Let’s do it”by Richard Branson |
 .Upbeat,entertaining stories, with some good lessons |
| Full Disclosure – yes, that’s a tracked link to Amazon shown above.We buy quite a large number of books on a wide range of topics, all relevant to our business in some way. If you did happen to purchase the book from Amazon, they’d throw a few shekels our way, which would help us to buy (and hence publish reviews of) even more books. Hence, Karma would return the benefits to you… |
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As you would probably expect (the title’s a bit of a give-away) the book is all about such “simple” concepts as:
1) Don’t plan to the nth degree – just get started and learn as you go (for me, this resonated with what I have been learning about Agile Software Development)
2) Have fun along the way.
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Following Stephen’s review of the presentation made by Phillip Di Bella, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had also bought us a copy of Phil’s new book “Roasted Passion”.
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The book was a quick read (over and done with in 4 hours flying time to and from Melbourne this week).
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The Book |
What we thought |
 “Roasted Passion” by Robert Norton |
. . Not a classic, but gets a gong as it has a few good points, and is a quick read |
| Full Disclosure – oops, Amazon does not seem to stock this one (yet?) so the link here is to the AIM’s Management Bookshop. |
For the second time this week (following from Scott Ginsberg’s session), Adam and I were entertained, and intellectually stimulated, by a seminar focused on helping business do better.
This event was titled “Leading and Enabling Innovation through ICT” and was presented by Zernike Australia in conjunction with Australian Institute of Commercialisation (AIC), Brisbane Technology Park, and QUT.
The event was part of the “Innovation Series”.
After having the session kicked off by Rowan Gilmore (CEO of the AIC), we were then treated to some great ideas from three top speakers:
No, we’re not dead. We’re doing decidedly better (even) than an “ex-parrot” nailed to the perch.
In fact, just last week the guys in the office put together a document listing a large number of things we have going for us, or are doing right. Here’s my short summary of what they said:
(A) Business Vision
There was universal agreement that the underlying vision for the business was sound (after all, most employees, and even a few ex-employees, have invested in the company in Round 3 or Round 2).
It was also reiterated that our chosen business model was also one of our advantages.
We are also not afraid to pause for introspection, such as discussed here.
For us, the answer is not as easy as it might first seem….
(a) Note that my question was NOT “what does Google know about Innovation?” – for surely they would know enough for several book’s worth of material.
(b) I am more focused on us (a small-sized software company based in Milton, Brisbane) and wondering what WE can learn – provided we are not too dumb, distracted or egotistical to really hear the messages that were presented to us.
I’m writing this post 2 weeks after the Warren Centre’s “2009 Innovation Lecture”, featuring Lars Rasmussen of Google.
There were three of us who attended – myself, and two of our developers. Paul has already posted his comments about what he gained from the lecture.
Given my focus is more on “Working ON, not IN, the business”
However, I was not totally disappointed – as the lecture was accompanied by some well-written notes (big copyright notice, so can’t scan here) and the synopsis also provided by the Warren Centre online.