Dec-09: Best of blog posts

Seth Godin as usual produced some gems:

• Seth asked whether there is a difference between Hiring and Recruiting. Had never asked this question though I was using these two interchangeably. Now I'll not.
• Who are you trying to please? What are you trying to change? ... all these and more thought provoking questions.
• How to be a great client? Did you ever ask this question? Check out the post as to why you need to.
  

After a long time, there were some very interesting posts by Guy Kawasaki. Here we go:

• Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick, explains how to stand out (video) in a crowd. He uses the examples of Voodoo Donut and ZipCar. The gist is that if you’re in a crowded market, you need to do something that no one else does or compete on one dimension and do it ferociously. Watch the video to learn more.
• Oprah Winfrey has changed the world; one episode, book club review, magazine issue, after show, news report, speech, movie role, and television special at a time. Sources of Insight compiled a great list of lessons learned from Oprah Winfrey as well as some of her most famous quotes.
• According to the LinkedIn site, its users are rich, young, educated, and powerful. If you’re looking for a medium to reach such people, check out this comparison to publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and BusinessWeek.
  
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  Rosabeth Moss Kanter explains how innovation can involve short bursts and baby steps to success. Most people believe only “breakthroughs” count. Really, innovation is a process, not a big event.
  
  
  
  

Reading List for Jan-10

I have decided to focus this year's reading on 2 themes - Innovation and Finance and Economics. This is part of my continued self-learning aka PMBA.

The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation
In this book, Procter & Gamble's chairman and CEO, A. G. Lafley, together with management Guru Ram Charan, defines, describes, draws examples of, and delineates how innovation became a part of not only the behemoth consumer-packaged-goods company but also part of Lego and Nokia (among others). A number of commandments accompanied the company’s innovation-centric strategy: the consumer is boss, inside and outside cocreation is encouraged, the innovation process is tangible (and must be followed), and risks can be managed. Most important is his emphasis on human interaction as the key; even better, the last section focuses exclusively on developing a culture of innovation, from promoting the rules of brainstorming to the desired attributes for employees and leaders: courageous, connected and collaborative, curious, open. There can't be perhaps a better book to start understanding Innovation than this book.

Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life
Donald J. Trump is an icon. He is the developer of some of the most prestigious addresses worldwide, including Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. I'm not a huge fan of him, but somewhat gets drawn to him. In this book, he provides advice on how be successful in life and business, which is straight to the point. Currently seeing it mostly as a bed side read.

Year end retreat

I had planned for two weeks of vacation from 19-Dec to 3-Jan. Had planned a bunch of things. Things however went astray as my 85-year old grandma (who stays with us), fell down and had to be operated for a fracture on her thigh bone. It was quite tough (and still is) for both her and us due to her age. Luckily her general health is quite good, which helped. She is back home recovering. I was on hospital duty for all but last 4-5 days. Tending to her, hospital stay and everything else was a very humbling experience. Most of my reading for Dec-09 was done in the hospital nevertheless.

I managed a 3day stay in my village from Jan 1-3. I have half-yearly ritual around Jun and Dec of going over the goals that I had set for myself for the past half year, reflect and then set goals for the next year/half-year. It was also time to set some bigger goals keeping 2015 in mind (completed a fairly successful vision-2010 stuff). One of my mentor challenged me to go beyond setting goals and start thinking about the legacy I want to leave as I'm now over 40yrs. Spent enough time thinking about it. In the ideal world, vision 2015 should be derived from "life purpose", which in turn should result in goals for 2010. Its fairly tough thinking 15-20yrs ahead, but I did had a start.

I also read an extremely interesting and thought provoking book "Building the Bridge as you walk on it", which was more than relevant for the stuff I was doing. I plan to blog about the core ideas of this book going forward.

Wish you a great 2010.

Thank you very much,


RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com