I will update this post with my purchased and read books.
Purchased:
1. Hyperion
2. Linchpin
3. Flashman #11
4. The Essential Peter Drucker
5. Searching for Excellence
6. Scientific Genius: A Psychology of Science
7. Flow
8. Darwin's Century
9. We All Went to Paris
10. The Scientist as Rebel
11. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
12. L.A. Confidential
13. The First Tycoon
14. The Purpose of History
15. Introduction to Communication Theory
16. Early Retirement Extreme
17. The Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time *13)
Read:
1. Hyperion
2. The Fall of Hyperion
3. Linchpin (23Feb)
4. Complexity and Management (9Mar)
5. Thermopylae (21Mar)
6. Madame Bovary (29Mar)
7. Notes on the Synthesis of Form (3Apr)
8. The American (24Apr)
9. Flow (29Apr)
10. Rise of the Creative Class (9May)
11. Anatomy of a Trend (15May)
12. The Black Dahlia (20May)
13. Scientific Genius: A Psychology of Science (24May)
14. Geeks and Geezers (6Jun)
15. The Scientist as Rebel (8Jun)
16. We All Went to Paris (14Jun)
17. Creativity in Science (22Jun)
18. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (7Jul)
19. Digital Barbarism (18Aug)
20. Nicholas Nickleby (my Dickens book for 2010) (28Aug)
21. The Black Swan (1Oct)
22. Sticky Wisdom (2Nov)
23. How to Become CEO (1Dec)
24. Towers of Midnight (4Dec)
25. A Game of Thrones (23Dec)
Showing posts with label 3. Buy no more than 8 books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3. Buy no more than 8 books. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Fashion = Pharma
I was reading a few pages from my fifth book purchase of the year (Searching for Excellence) earlier tonight. The few pages that I read started a chain of thinking that ended up at the unexpected title of this post. The introduction of SoE details how the authors started thinking about the organizational issues facing large companies back in the late '70's. A few of their observations reminded me of some of the stuff that I deal with on a semi-regular basis in my own employment for a large multi-national corporation. The intro started talking about how these good companies focused on the employees rather than putting all of their energy into complex organizations.
My first thought was that people matter more than a fancy structure. (A useful corrollary, making yourself a good employee will guarantee you employment. I think Godin gets to that in his new book so I'll save that thought for later.) That thought got me thinking to my own company's current reoraganization effort. I was optimistic when they first announced the reorg because I thought a new structure might lead to a new approach to how we do our work, but it looks like it's just going to be more of the same with a new org chart posted on some page on our impossible to navigate intranet. Why can't they just find a way to let people do the job that needs to be done with as little bureaucratic meddling as possible?
Isn't that what the fashion industry does? These designers go out and do their thing, bring it to the rest of the industry, and it is either bought or ignored. Fashion designers and chemists are more alike than either group probably realizes. Both make things using simpler starting materials, both need to understand a few basic principles to design their products, and both need training to make their visions a reality. Both groups need to be innovative in how they think about their product and they need to find new ways solve old problems. Chemistry is a very creative endeavor. Yes, you are bound by the laws of physics, but finding ways to circumvent those obstacles is part of the challenge.
I like fashion's need to always be the next big thing. That big thing may be trendy and brief, but when I was looking for jobs after college, every other ad was for a combinatorial chemist. When is the last time one of those was hired? The need to find the next big thing, to need the next big thing to survive and remain relevant, unites fashion and pharma (and chemistry more generally). Who knows, maybe the pharma industry will evolve to something more fashion like, with small pharma companies (the designers) looking to sell their wares (new drugs) to the big department stores (Big Pharma). We are on that path now. I think that's where things will eventually end up.
My first thought was that people matter more than a fancy structure. (A useful corrollary, making yourself a good employee will guarantee you employment. I think Godin gets to that in his new book so I'll save that thought for later.) That thought got me thinking to my own company's current reoraganization effort. I was optimistic when they first announced the reorg because I thought a new structure might lead to a new approach to how we do our work, but it looks like it's just going to be more of the same with a new org chart posted on some page on our impossible to navigate intranet. Why can't they just find a way to let people do the job that needs to be done with as little bureaucratic meddling as possible?
Isn't that what the fashion industry does? These designers go out and do their thing, bring it to the rest of the industry, and it is either bought or ignored. Fashion designers and chemists are more alike than either group probably realizes. Both make things using simpler starting materials, both need to understand a few basic principles to design their products, and both need training to make their visions a reality. Both groups need to be innovative in how they think about their product and they need to find new ways solve old problems. Chemistry is a very creative endeavor. Yes, you are bound by the laws of physics, but finding ways to circumvent those obstacles is part of the challenge.
I like fashion's need to always be the next big thing. That big thing may be trendy and brief, but when I was looking for jobs after college, every other ad was for a combinatorial chemist. When is the last time one of those was hired? The need to find the next big thing, to need the next big thing to survive and remain relevant, unites fashion and pharma (and chemistry more generally). Who knows, maybe the pharma industry will evolve to something more fashion like, with small pharma companies (the designers) looking to sell their wares (new drugs) to the big department stores (Big Pharma). We are on that path now. I think that's where things will eventually end up.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Four books bought by Vday
Rather than dropping the cash for Seth Godin's new book at Barnes and Noble, I decided to order it from Amazon for something like 60% off the cover price. To make the savings meaningful, I had to get $25 of stuff to get free shipping. I was about to just give up the few extra dollars to buy the book at a store rather than paying for more books (and eat away at my quota of book buying for the year), but I found one of the Flashman books on clearance. I just can't pass that up. I'm going to buy the book, I might as well get it cheap. So now I'm at something like $16. I need one more book. What to get? I looked at some of the popular business books of the moment. Drive, Switch, The War of Art, they all look interesting, but I get the feeling that the description of the book tells me pretty much all that I need to know about each one without reading the whole thing. I went to the personal MBA reading list to find something interesting. I ended up getting a collection of Peter Drucker's writing. I like what I've read by him in the past.
So that one order, plus my purchase of Hyperion back in January, brings me up to 4 titles purchased this year. I went several months without buying a book a couple of years ago when I decided that I was going to read 10 books that I already owned before I bought anything new. I guess I'll have to do that again. It wouldn't be so bad if I was finishing more books. I read Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion (which I bought at a library book sale years ago), but I haven't really made much progress on anything since finishing The Fall. Time to get moving before I fall too far behind the pace I need to keep to reach 16 (it won't take me long to make it through Godin's book).
So that one order, plus my purchase of Hyperion back in January, brings me up to 4 titles purchased this year. I went several months without buying a book a couple of years ago when I decided that I was going to read 10 books that I already owned before I bought anything new. I guess I'll have to do that again. It wouldn't be so bad if I was finishing more books. I read Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion (which I bought at a library book sale years ago), but I haven't really made much progress on anything since finishing The Fall. Time to get moving before I fall too far behind the pace I need to keep to reach 16 (it won't take me long to make it through Godin's book).
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