I've read better...

Growing a Business

Growing a Business by Paul Hawken

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I decided to start my own business, I have bought a couple of books on starting a small business. I did not expect that reading books will solve all my problems, but I have figured that they will answer some questions, and give some ideas.

Growing a business was so far my favourite.

Plain language, no jargon, no buzzwords, simple examples.
The fact that it was first published in 1987 should not scare you away. The ideas and concepts are so basic and so eternal that time will hardly change them.

First of all, the title. Growing a business. Not building, creating, but growing. It makes it clear that a business needs constant care from the moment you plant the seed, even when - or if - it grows into a mighty tree.

Then come the chapters, filled with common sense, anti-hype titles and contents. Be careful,you may succeed. Too much money is worse than too little. Size is no longer and advantage. If it’s a good idea, it’s too late. Plan to fail.

The book looks at different and important aspects of business: the business idea, ownership, how to get funding, business plans, and more.

A full, complete book, one that you can read more than one time.
And all in plain, everyday English.

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The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable

The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable by The Group of 33

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

33 successful people, 33 short writings.

All good advices on what to do or what not to do - how to be remarkable, how not to disappear, why you should never stop improving.

As usual, the book itself won’t explain why the ideas would work for you. But the people who wrote them are pretty successful people, and that would validate their points. Unless your definition of success differs, in that case, you can disregard the advices.

And if you want a short summary of the book, here it is:
Work hard, be brave, be creative, be nice, don’t imitate, and don’t give up.
Just dressed up in more words.

And one more thing, before I forget.
The 33 people sometimes contradict each other. They give opposing advices.
Is that bad?
No, not really. You just have to think, and create your own solution, decide what is best for you.
Sorry, you can’t just get everything without any work. Not even with books.

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Ignore Everybody

Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The title of the book could be: “What did my doodles on the back of business cards career taught me?”

Let me quote Chapter 40:

None of this is rocket science.
If I had to condense this entire book into a line or two, it would read something like, “Work hard. Keep at it. Live simply and quietly. Remain humble. Stay positive. Create your own luck. Be nice. Be polite.”

And yes, this 159 pages long book - liberally sprinkled with cartoons from Hugh MacLeod - will not deliver some never heard of idea. Almost everyone who became at least moderately successful told me about the same things. Life is tough,competition is tough, success is more hard work and keeping at it than talent, and so on.

In one sense this book is nothing more than life lessons wrapped in the life story of Hugh MacLeod, aimed at creative people. “Put the hours in.”, “You are responsible for your own experience.”, “Keep your day job.”, “Dying young is overrated.”, “Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.”, and such advices.

If you don’t like to read about “common sense” advices with some personal experience background, don’t buy this book. If you like to read from successful people, that common sense ideas actually make sense, then go for it.
I personally liked the book a lot. It has delivered on the promise, plus it had a bunch of cartoons.

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Permission Marketing

Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Being an old book, a lot of information is a bit outdated. AOL, AltaVista are gone, Yahoo! was replaced by Google, and we had a dot-com burst since then.
Banners and pop-ups are still with us.

However the basic concept is still valid. I’ve read many reviews where people complain about Godin not writing anything “new”, that the whole permission marketing idea is thousands years old - as he himself points out a few times in the book, it was the norm until about a 100 years ago -, and this is all intuitive, nothing new there.

But if it is intuitive and so well known, why don’t people use it?

The concept is well explained - some would say, repetitive, but those who complain about it forget that he wrote a lot about frequency in his book -, there are 22 short case studies showing different aspects of the concept of permission marketing - including a fledgling amazon.com, just trying to be a successful online bookstore in the shadow of Barnes & Noble.

Yes, it contains a lot of self-evident ideas (short term profit kills off long term profit), but looking around I think self-evident ideas have to be pointed out, because people always forget them, and yes, it can be a bit repetitive at times - how many times did you solve very similar equations in calculus class until you learned how to do it? -, but this is not a novel. It is book that intends to get a message through.

Anyway, I say read it. It won’t hurt. :)

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Collapse of Distinction

Collapse of Distinction: Stand out and move up while your competition fails by Scott McKain

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

• Do you have to compete on price?
• Do you need “added value”?
• Do you have to make business with everyone?
• Do you have to be just like everyone?
• Is imitating your competitors a must?

According to Scott McKain, the answer is no.

Clarity, Creativity, Communication and Customer-Experience Focus are the four cornerstones you can build your business upon. Defining clearly who you are and who you are not, who your customers are and who are not helps you to be different.

• Does it mean you have to send away prospective clients? Yes.
• Does it mean your market share becomes limited? Yes.
• Is that a bad thing? Ask Apple.

Seriously, you should read the book.

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The Chronicles of Amber

The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny

My rating:5 of 5 stars
Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber is one of the best and most creative fantasy books I have read. The plot is interesting - always seems just straightforward, but always there is a twist which just puts everything that has had happened into a different light. And then, as the whole story is told by an aeons old, machiavellian character to his own son, who is yet a stranger, who has been raised by the enemy, we can’t be sure that it has happened as it is told.

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The World Is Flat: The Globalized World in the Twenty-first Century

The World Is Flat: The Globalized World in the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I say a must read book. Do I agree with the conclusions and theories 100%. No, I think some of the conclusions are wrong, still it makes you think and even if you think Thomas L. Friedman got it wrong he still achieved his goal.
And his view on how the “flat” world makes it possible to people everywhere to get better chances and lives are spot on I think.

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Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don’t

Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don’t by Ram Charan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A book I have to read again. When I know more about the business.
It holds some interesting ideas, and the know hows are sensible, but I can’t really use them right now. On the other hand, I know what to keep in mind until I need them.

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Armchair Economist

Armchair Economist: Economics And Everyday Experience by Steven E. Landsburg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Armchair Economist is - in my opinion - a must read for everyone who is evenslightly interested in how economists see the world, what reasons can be for the outrageous price at movies and other important questions.
Some people claim that the author has a rather condescending,even blood-boiling style, and well, sometimes you can say he has.

But all in all it shows you how the economical thought process handles problems, and some interesting facts.

A warning - the book is simply economics, and when looking at a problem makes no moral distinction, the needs, costs, etc. of a Mother Theresa and a convicted serial killer are equally important.
If you can’t look beyond this, then you are going to get mad at the book sometimes.


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Witness in our time

Witness in Our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers by Ken Light

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It is an amazing book. 22 photographers and editors/curators in it, from the 1930s to current times - why they chose documentary photography, what they saw, what they did.
I highly recommend it to everyone.

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