“My hamper is broken….”

Two weeks into the first term of my freshman year in college, my roommate announced, “My hamper is broken….” He could tell by the look on my face that I had no idea what he was talking about. “I mean that clothes hamper there in the corner. Back home, I’d throw my dirty clothes into it and in a few days, they would be washed, ironed, and in my dresser. It doesn’t work now. The stuff is still there.”

I recalled that experience recently as I thought about the on-going, at times acrimonious arguments about Wall Street bailouts, job creation, credit card debt, and healthcare reform. Have we become a society that expects “someone else” to do for us what we should be doing for ourselves? Is this the Age of Entitlements? Are we now asking, “What can my country do for me?”

I wonder….

How many teenagers would have a cell phone if they had to purchase it with money they earned?

How many school, college, and university teachers would have a job if tenure were eliminated and their job security depended on how much their students learned?

What if executive compensation were based on the quantity and quality of work produced by those for whom they are directly responsible?

What if savings accounts earned interest at what are now credit card rates…and vice versa?

The fact remains, our society should not be viewed as a “hamper” into which we can toss whatever problem needs to be solved.

From Gutenberg to Radio to Television to the Kindle — the world really does keep on changing!

David Halberstam tells the story of the board meeting when William Paley tells the rest of the board that it is time for CBS to begin phasing out its focus on radio and put all of its effort into the new medium television.  It’s been a few years since I read the story in the book The Powers that Be, but as I remember, Mr. Paley pulled this power play when there were only a few thousand television sets in the entire country.  And, in case you missed it, Mr. Paley was correct – radio did fade, and television won the day.  Mr. Paley knew that the battle was already over, and he chose to be on the right side of that battle at exactly the right moment.  (By the way, CBS was dominant in the ratings in radio first, then television, because of the incredible vision and timing and leadership of Mr. Paley).

Which brings us to the current battle.  My colleague Karl Krayer is convinced that the Kindle is just a flash in the pan, a fad, something that has no chance of winning the battle over the traditional/physical book.  (read his post here).

He may still be right – but I don’t think so.

Barnes & Noble sold out of The Nook this holiday season.  Rumors are swirling that Apple will soon have its fabled tablet, which will at some point have a competitive e-reader built in.  And now, Seth Godin proclaims the battle is already over – and the Kindle has won.  (I assume that he means the e-reader has won.  We will wait to see if the Kindle itself is the long-term winner).  Here are Godin’s words from a recent post:

If you want to know if a ship is going to sink, watch what the richest passengers do.
iTunes and file sharing killed Tower Records. The key symptom: the best customers switched. Of course people who were buying 200 records a year would switch. They had the most incentive. The alternatives were cheaper and faster mostly for the heavy users.
Amazon and the Kindle have killed the bookstore. Why? Because people who buy 100 or 300 books a year are gone forever. The typical American buys just one book a year for pleasure. Those people are meaningless to a bookstore. It’s the heavy users that matter, and now officially, as 2009 ends, they have abandoned the bookstore. It’s over.

“It’s over,” says Godin.  Nothing is worse that winning yesterday’s competitive battles when the battle field has shifted.

And, on a personal note, this is a classic case of “it doesn’t matter what I want — the future is upon us!”  I prefer real books, with pages, and weight…  But what I want and like may not matter much at all.

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(For a far more serious version of this contest, we really don’t know where Al Qaeda is mustering its forces and planning its next actions.  Afghanistan; Pakistan; Yemen, somewhere else?  We really do have to get this one right!)

Best Business Books in 2009: One Man’s Opinion

Brain Food

Amazon’s editors selected the following as the ten best business and finance books in 2009:

1. The Myth of the Rational Market, Justin Fox

2. Fool’s Gold, Gillian Tett

3. Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew B. Crawford

4. How Did That Happen?, Tom Smith

5. Rapt, Winifred Gallagher

6. In Fed We Trust, David Wessel

7. Trust Agents, Chris Brogan

8. Animal Spirits, George A. Akerlof

9. SuperCorp, Rosabeth Moss Kanter

10. Ignore Everybody, Hugh MacLeod

My own “Top Ten” for 2009 are listed in alpha order (per title) and include only Trust Agents and SuperCorp. Here are the other eight:

American Entrepreneur, Larry Schweikart and Lynne Pierson Doti

Note: Ironically, this is both the first book listed and my personal choice as the best business book published in 2009.

The Design of Business, Roger Martin

Freedom, Inc., Brian M. Carney and Isaac Getz

How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer

Maestro, Roger Nierenberg

The Power of Collective Wisdom, Alan Briskin, Sheryl, John Ott, and Tom Callanan

Management Rewired, Charles S. Jacobs

Strategy for Sustainability, Adam Werbach

Note: I think Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check was the best business book published in 2008 and so voted as a member of selection committees for both Fortune and BusinessWeek magazines. My “Top Ten” that year also included Geoff Colvin’s Talent Is Overrated.

My personal “Bests” — from business books I presented in 2009

In 2009, I presented twelve book synopses at the First Friday Book Synopsis (as I do every year).  At the bottom of this post, I list the books by month. (Remember, my colleague Karl Krayer presented a different book each month).

Here are a few “bests” — my selections —  re. the books from the year:

• Best theme for the year:
• It takes passion, deliberate practice, and 10,000 hours of effort, to get really, really world-class good at something.  The three books with the details and the motivation are:
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.
• Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin.
• The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
by Ken Robinson.

• Most enjoyable/engaging books to read
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.
• The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson.
• Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition by Guy Kawasaki.
• Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity by Michael Lewis (Editor).  (The chapter by Dave Barry on buying a house is absolutely laugh-out-loud funny!)
• SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.  It is worth reading just for the parable of the horse manure.

• Most practical business read…
• Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition by Guy Kawasaki.  This one is worth keeping and re-reading for its practical advice.

Were there any books that I could have just skipped?  I think I gained value from all twelve, although I do think the Suzy Welch book, 10 10 10, though worth reading, could have been nearly as effective as an essay.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers

• The best book I presented this year…
And now – if you made me choose only one, and that was the only one I could read for the year – the year’s “best” – I think I go with Outliers.  But I would be unhappy at having to choose only one.

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Here are Randy’s presentations from the First Friday Book Synopsis in 2009.

January, 2009:
Outliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell. Little, Brown and Company (November 18, 2008).

February, 2009
Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
by Guy Kawasaki
Portfolio Hardcover (October 30, 2008).

March, 2009:
Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else
by Geoff Colvin (Author)
Portfolio Hardcover; 1 edition (October 16, 2008)

April, 2009:
Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity
by Michael Lewis (Editor). W.W. Norton & Co. (November 17, 2008).

May, 2009:
The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
by Ph.D., Ken Robinson.  Viking Adult.  (January 8, 2009)

June, 2009:
10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea by Suzy Welch. Scribner (April 14, 2009).

July, 2009:
The Genius Machine: The Eleven Steps That Turn Raw Ideas into Brilliance by Gerald Sindell. by Gerald Sindell.  New World Library (2009).

August, 2009:
The Future Arrived Yesterday: The Rise of the Protean Corporation and What It Means for You by Michael Malone. Crown Business (2009).  

September, 2009:
Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay.  Harper­Business/HarperCollins.  (2009).

October, 2009:
Free: The Future of a Radical Price
by Chris Anderson.  Hyperion.  2009.

November, 2009:
What Americans Really Want…Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears
by Frank I. Luntz.  Hyperion (September 15, 2009).

December, 2009:
SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
by Steven D. Levitt (Author), Stephen J. Dubner (Author)
William Morrow. (2009).

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Many of these presentations, with audio + hadnout, are available for purchase at our companion web site, 15minutebusinessbooks.com.