Learning From General Business Books (2nd installment)

In the last article about learning and practicing new skills, I wrote about Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers book. He tells a story about how people in remote locations, away from the (accepted) mainstream centers, become accomplished experts and seem to suddenly show up as if discovered by a reality pop music show. Gladwell's is one of the many general business, social science and psychology books describing idea or trend. Many similar books from Seth Godin, Jim Collins, Michael Lewis and others, also tell stories useful to navigate today's changes in media use (especially the internet.) How do we turn a story of the financial failure in the US to something we can use? (see Michael Lewis's The Big Short) We can even go one step further and ask how do turn it into a new skill? If Gladwell explains the phenomena of expertise away from centers of knowledge, can we turn this idea into something we can use? That part is even harder, some general business ideas do not seem relevant to most businesses. Yet, they are and they can make or break a company, your career and maybe even your everyday work satisfaction. Look at these trend and idea books as today's version of the 1970's self-help books.

Learning & Practicing: Before The Gold

The popular trend and technique books, and popular publications (even blogs) seem to focus on big picture topics. Can you really learn a skill and practice it from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers? You not only can, but in some cases you must. Maybe a few of us who think that all financial learning is done in New York or London, and technology work in Sunnyvale or Palo Alto can get to these global centers to learn a new skill (or profession). Yet most of us still need to learn and practice new skills in other places. Then demonstrate them to others to get a job, or simply do them to sell our services. We may even learn enough to build a product (not just a web site) and sell that. That to some would be the ultimate of learning and practicing. This brings up a point: how do you learn new skills from non-self-help books? This is not a new problem. A classic example is how Warren Buffett learned from "The Intelligent Investor" - which was not really written to teach professional investors like Buffett. Well, it can be done and actually this could be the key to success in many new skills and professions today.

Do Internet Skills Matter? After The Gold Rush

How crucial are skills to the internet professional? WOW, hold on! What are we talking about? Is there such a thing and an internet professional ? ? ? This question kind of sneaks up on people. Since the internet profession has evolved and grown so quickly, it seems like experience or "showing up for work" at a successful company is enough to qualify as a professional. That's the nature of fast growing professions. Even in the software industry, where professional skills pioneer like Steve McConnell have been preaching for over a decade, professional qualification, certification and skill assessment is not an industry standard practice. Yet, for the customers, especially the ones starting out with new internet projects (without experience) the qualification and skill level of their employees is crucial. In general, the world of software development and content management, are mysterious and vague. This state of affair has not changed in a long time. As far back as 1974 Brooks' The Mythical Man-Monthdescribed in details the follies IBM in his biggest project to date, the IBM System/360, and how difficult estimation, development, testing and maintenance of large software projects. Much has changed since the early days of software development, yet we are still in an era where it is difficult to manage and therefore describe to outsiders the work of technologists in software. This is even more true today with different aspects of content and application use on the internet.

Is WEB2.0 Dead?

Tim O'Reilly's WEB 2.0 meme map

Tim O'Reilly, the technical book publisher (see O'Reilly), introduced the term WEB2.0 (Web two point oh). O'Reilly, a sensitive trend observer, was a veteran technology writer and publisher. With his wide range of contacts and constant contact, O'Reilly was told time and time again about the shift in how the internet (at the time web, short for World Wide Web, WWW) was being used. The technical people were becoming less crucial and the users were starting to take over. What he saw as a pattern was the sites with "user contributed content". The kind of content not created by the site designers, but by the people using the site.

Are 7 Thousand Clicks Enough To Sell?

Marketers for over a century developed creative techniques to lure sales  from potential buyers. LL Bean catalog is a great example of sophisticated sales techniques. 

The blog is slowly taking shape. I started out with the introduction of 7 Thousand Clicks. Then I added a few book posts just to get going and grease the skids. The new blogger design seems like a simplification and upgrade to the one from two years ago. That's good news for me. Now for the subject at hand. If you were given 7 Thousand clicks, would you be able to sell product? tell a story? or influence someone to "vote" or "contribute" to your cause? The question came up recently with an old client. He was frustrated with insufficient sales from his blog I wrote. He was also frustrated that the early burst in activity a few months ago, which fizzled out recently. Today's blogs, social media sites, traditional sites and newsletters are expected to replace advertising. If not bringing in ready buyers with money in their hands, at least starting the buying process (funnel). Yet a buying process, even for a simple IT service needs more then just interesting blog articles and a list of features.

Adapt: Harford's Prescription For Organizational Change

The last post described Seth Godin's prescription for individual's success during change (in organizations.) Tim Harford in Adapt:deals with changes of the organization itself. He gives dozens of examples, one describes how US troops in Iraq adapted to the situation time and time again. If you are somewhat familiar with military operations, you can appreciate the story. If you are not, maybe Harford (with a few deaths) can put the fear of life in you. Maybe that's not enough for some corporate and government managers. If you have not been in an organization that faces a life or death situation, this is a good introduction. If you see this kind of situation in your company, than this is a good way to start thinking and acting before it's too late. Harford gives dozens of examples covering many different scenarios. This is almost an example book of fail first then succeed.

Seth Godin: Linchpin, Individuals Count Today

When we talk about all the big changes in today's marketing, communication and even work habits, there is a tendency to focus on applications, companies and leaders (especially CEOS like Steve Jobs.) Yet we all know real people working every day to create something from nothing. These people keep the big ideas from staying just ideas. Seth Godin wrote a sort of manual explaining what he sees as the key to development in today's world from an individual's perspective. Godin is a new age pied piper, leading the charge into the digital publishing age. His background is reporting, most notably at Wire magazine and San Francisco newspapers. While reporting on the changes in publishing with the digital age he has published a series of books chronicling the changes.

Strike While The Iron Is Hot: Do It NOW

Internet time seems to move faster than real physical time. This may sound extreme to most people who do not manage a fast moving project. Even if you are a contributor (writer, illustrator, videographer) or editor, you feel this time squeeze once in a while. Many people in other professions will tell you the same. Physicians have less time to actually examine and treat patients, insurance brokers have less time to evaluate risk and offer solutions, even teachers have to contend with massive amount of new material... so what makes internet time so much faster? It's the global scale connectivity which brings: competition, innovation (change), partnering, opportunity and other time pressure activities. For the first time, humans communicate (argue, agree, render opinion, expand) with zero time delay anywhere in the world. This gives people anywhere the ability to quickly use and abuse your creative material. If you are going to drive a point and influence people, you will support or rebut bloggers and commentators, you will keep a watch on what people say about your writing and keep discussions going. This is a new game, it is just digitized and communicated globally.

Google Blog: Don't Stay Old

Would it come to a surprise that Google has no traditional web site? The Google blog as it turns out, is THE user targeted site for the company. In my last article about Jakob Nielsen, the usability expert, the situation was about "pre-blogging era" newsletter format. In the case of Google, it's a case of "perfect blogging era" timing. Gooogle acquired Blogger and adopted the blog format as a user communication format. In the Google case, the blog format was the obvious choice. While internet use and innovation driven change seem to speed forward faster and faster, some things stay the same. In both cases of Nielsen and Google, the format they chose has stayed the same while users have moved to other formats and different uses.