iWoz - Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith

This book is about a true engineer. Written by someone who enjoyed what he did, what he picked up on the way or left behind. Remarkable details on a person who defined the next generation of computing. What comes out most interesting in this book is the simplicity of the man with strong sense of humour and the passion to something new. Habitually inclined to break the rules in a constructive manner.

Did Woz leave Apple in disgust? Woz has another story to tell. He still is an employee of Apple. Paid the absolute minimum pay for a permanent worker and has no other reason than to start Cloud 9. A truely remarkable personality which comes out clearly from his book.

About the pranks well they look as Woz seems to be as a person but some need a 200+ IQ to get them ;-)

iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business - Jeffrey S. Young, William L. Simon (2005)

A book on professional Steve Jobs. His personal life has been talked about but with minimal emphasis. More over this book is about technologies that Steve Jobs has put his hands on. How these technologies redefined the world. A book that emphasizes how the technology adoption and success is very different from the utility paradigm.

Overall an interesting book. Good to understand the importance of technology what sticks to make to next level and what does not. The coercive leadership style of Steve Jobs apparent from the book. After all Steve Jobs has been a turn around man for most of the industry he put his hands on.

Must read is all I can comment on the book.

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell (2000)

It is definitely a book on concepts that are new, unique and brings out how epidemics spread in society. However, the first one or two chapters clearly puts the context pretty clearly. After that it becomes a bit of a drag. The same things being told again and again. The book does not create any new enthusiasm in the later chapter. In initial chapters Malcolm Gladwell introduces the concepts with interesting examples already. In the end he again tries to elaborate with cases which do not seem to be adding any additional value.

Although the book is an all time great, I will still rate the overall style not something that can hold your attention for too long.

Gopabandhu Das - by Shreeram Chandra Das (1976)

One of the very early freedom fighters yet quite unknown to the India at large. The man who brought congress to Orissa and started the nationalistic movement for one India in Orissa. The book is written as a consideration to how great a leader Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das was. I think important that such text be published which can influence the people of India on the contribution of Orissa to the Indian freedom movement and how some people in remote corners of the country have carried out selfless service to a mankind. A land known more for its natural calamities, deaths of hunger than its strong cultural heritage and art owes forever to this man for its existence.

A must read book for anybody to know a bit about some selfless souls of our times.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and it's all small stuff - Richard Carlson (1997)

I will refrain from writing a review on this book as this book is small stuff as well :-). Well the point is not that. Very nice book and will suggest if anyone is interested in knowing about life it has good potential of introducing life skills. Surprisingly, the moral is very similar to the Karma yogi philosophy "Karmanyebaadhikaraste Ma phalessu Kadacha na" and nothing more. Once, one learns to be a karma yogi the book is just too obvious.

But in any case, I will add my own view points on the subject. I think over a period of time as we become more and more competitive in the society we have tried to evaluate everything. Things we like or may not like. We want to evaluate it against a set of metric and dissect everything to small stuff which we can extract. That person is like that. This person is nice. I think we have started comparing every feeling we encounter to the best feelings we ever encountered in life. In fact, no one is away from this neither the author nor the summary writer. We have to learn one life skill to accept things as they are. Accepting does not mean killing to fire to change. But, not to complain about it. One more point I feel is important is not to be non-competitive. I guess the less we know the more we try to compete.

If you have read chanakya niti sometime in your life you might have heard "Namrati Phalanti Briksha, Namrate Gunina Janaah" - You will find a fruit bearing tree bowing down, wise men are egoless as well. However, we do not see that in real life with the wise men we know of. One reason could be, in society we have created the system we have a competitive means of identifying the wise. Eliminating the competition is important. Bringing in competition with self will probably eliminate some of that. Am I a more learned man than I was yesterday? Am I a better person than I was yesterday? are probably some questions we should ask.

Finally on the book: Must read. But will be hard to digest if you still are battling with the small things. I could not accept all the points in the book. I feel they are because I am not yet out of those illogical needs in my life and not that the book is wrong.

HBR on The Mind of the Leader (2005)

Good and nice book to read. However, it will not give a quick tip to become a great leader. Ultimately you will realize you are a leader if you have followers. There is no 2 minutes leadership skills available to train. Why should one read this book? To open your horizon is all this book can offer. Like most HBR articles and collections this is doing no more. There are all kinds of leaders in the world. Morality and leadership again are not related. In the political circles we know there are corrupt leadership at various levels. Yet, there are highly moral leadership as well. Couple of articles like the one on Manager and Leader can arouse your mind. This clearly distingguishes those differences. From most part there are some salient points that are clearly coming out if you analyze each of these text deeper.

• Every Leader has a viewpoint or focus
• Every Leader has followers
• Every Leader has an ability to influence

Beyond this I guess any discussion on leadership is dissection of facts, which will definitely open your mind and may make you immune to surroundings and styles of leadership. I guess that is what for most we learn from life anyway.

Overall good read if you just look at it from a perspective of gaining additional viewpoints. Not recommended if you look at it as a self help and leadership guide.

Lateral Marketing - Philip Kotler and Fernando Trias de Bes (2003)

A very simple yet very effective framework to bring in innovation in any marketing set up. The basic concepts is fairly simple choose one of the 4Ps and apply one or more of the following transformations:

1. Substitute it
   
2. Invert it
   
3. Combine it
   
4. exaggerate it
   
5. Eliminate it
   
6. Reorder it

A gap will be apparent due to these transformations. The idea is to create an offering which is relevant to the gap created. The difference between lateral and vertical marketing is, while lateral marketing emphasizes on creating gaps and filling it with new offerings, vertical marketing creates a segment where a gap may not be apparent and a segmentation can create a new range of offerings. An excellent example given is of a heavy consumer vs a normal consumer. The gap does not exist yet through vertical marketing concepts you will typically create an offering (bigger container) for a heavy consumer purely for targeting. Overall, as per the authors lateral markets create new markets while vertical markets create better segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) thus grow markets. Both kinds of practices have their own advantages and one cannot be replaced for the other.

Unlike brainstorming where ideation is a team effort, lateral marketing concepts can be used by individuals and more over lateral marketing is far more focused as it's conceptually based on changing part of an existing paradigm. The book also suggests methodologies for storing unused ideas for later reference.

A must read for any marketing executive.