Last month before boarding my long return flight from Seattle to Chennai, I checked out Borders store for some reading material to keep me occupied. I picked this book  - Think Big and Kick Ass by Donald Trump. I have heard about the US TV Reality Show - Apprentice but I didn't know anything about Trump. So I had no expectations and didn't buy the book for Donald Trump's name. I wanted an interesting lite reading book and found this to fit the bill. I finished a portion of it in the flight, but managed to complete the entire book in my vacation last week in Kodaikanal.

I don't like Copy-Pasting from other sources into my blog, but this time I am making an exception. The below snippet from a comment in Amazon for the book captured exactly what I wanted to write, so even if I had written myself it would appear to be a copy - "...Trump is an egotistical, self-serving man, no doubt. But let's be totally objective, as I was that day: good advice is good advice. And, most writers do not have the courage to dispense such advice in such raw terms as Trump does. This book holds nothing back. Trump lays it all out on the table with blatant opinions, ideas and thoughts about those who've crossed him, helped him, etc. He tells you how you need to be (not just what you need to do - read that again!) to be successful. However - and this is the most important point of my review - there's truth to so much of what he says. It's helpful. You'll look at yourself differently. You'll gain insight, and you'll learn things about yourself that you did not previously know. You might even be vaulted to a new level based on what you read; I don't know - that depends on you, the reader, and your potential application of what Trump discusses. I'm not a huge fan of Trump, the man, but I cannot argue with his success. Forget those who claim he was born into money; that may be true, but he continues to make headlines with regularity..."

I have been enjoying "Archie" comics for over two decades now. I was introduced to them during my high school days by my cousin "Anand" who is now working in USA. Those days (and even now in Indian Rupees) they used to be very expensive and not available in Chennai. So the option was to rent them from book lending libraries and my favourite was Raviraj Lending Library in Usman Road (Opposite to first GRT Thanga Maligai). Those days the membership was like Rs.25 or Rs.50 and even if you take half-a-dozen books for reading you paid only few rupees (which itself was got after a big fight with my mother). Nowadays whenever I take my nephews to "Eloor" lending library in North Boag Road I still take few of them and I still enjoy reading Archie comics once in a while.

And whenever I travel to USA and shopping in Safeway I end up buying the latest issue. At $3 per issue they are expensive but then cheaper than a Starbucks coffee, right?. Last week when I was there I bought Feb '08 issue of Pals 'n' Gals double digest. What pleasantly surprised me was seeing the main theme to be "Raj" an Indian Student whose parents where Dr. Ravi Patel and his wife Mrs.Mona Patel. The character "Raj" is shown as a tech whiz taking a school film for fun.

ஓவியர் மதி அவர்களின் “அடடே” புத்தக வெளியிடு நேற்று மிக பிராமாண்டமாக “Music Academy"யில் நடைப்பெற்றது. இந்தப் புத்தகத்தை வெளியிடுபவரான எனது நண்பர் திரு.பத்ரி சேஷாத்ரி அவர்களின் அழைப்பில் விழாவிற்கு சென்றிருந்தேன். இப்படி ஒரு பெரிய விழாவைத் திட்டமிடுவது, இவ்வளவு எண்ணிக்கையில் இத்தனை சிறந்த முக்கியஸ்தர்களை சம்மதிக்க செய்து அழைப்பது, கடைசியாக அரங்கம் நிறையக் கூட்டத்தை வரவழைப்பது என்பது மிக மிக கடினம். எங்களது புத்தக (லிப்கோ) நிறுவனத்தில் எனது தந்தையின் இது போன்ற உழைப்பை நேரில் பார்த்தால் எனக்கு இந்த சிரமம் நன்றாகத் தெரியும். இவ்வளவு பாடுப்பட்டு  மிக சிறப்பாக செய்ததற்கு எனது நண்பர் திரு.பத்ரி சேஷாத்ரி நிச்சயம் சந்தோஷப் படலாம்.

Though I purchased the book "The HP Way" long time back, I just managed to finish reading it few weeks back. The book is written by HP (Hewlett Packard) co-founder & Silicon Valley legend David Packard. This small book of 200 pages is a must read for anyone in High Tech Industry. David talks about their early days around starting HP, how it got named and their initial challenges. One of the common business management myths the book dispels is that you need a clear laid out Vision and Business Plan to run a successful business.

Though the book talks in detail about early decades in HP, it has little information on modern day HP as we know it mainly because David handed over the reins to John Young as CEO in 1978 itself.

I recently finished reading "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. The book reads like a novel of a story of a Spanish Boy who follows his dreams (or listens to his heart) and finds his love and treasure by venturing into the unknown in the middle east deserts. Nice self-motivating book which is fun to read and as well encouraging. Must read.

I finally finished reading the book "It happened in India", the reason I am saying finally is because that I have been reading this book for nearly 2 months but managed to complete the last 30 pages only today. The book is kind of an auto-biography of Mr.Kishore Biyani on the story of Pantaloons, Biz Bazaar & Central retail stores.Let me say at the beginning, I am a little biased in favour of Indian success stories - apart from being an Indian, the reason is because I feel there is a dearth of good books on Indian business stories.

The first thing that you notice when you pick the book is a close resemblance of the title It happened in India with Made in America (Sam Walton's classic book). When you start reading you will continue to see the unmistakable resemblance in the presentation format as well. The chapters are presented in a fashion of first person voice intertwined with quotes from various stake holders (business partners, employees & friends of the author). While reading the first few chapters this resemblance put me off a little as I thought Kishore Biyani had nothing original to say. Only after I finished nearly half of the book I realized how mistaken I was, the chapters starting to get interesting and the experiences outlined are very much India specific and original. Definitely Kishore Biyani and his team have to be congratulated on their exciting journey in the world of Indian retail and for brining many of the now common innovations. I was happy to read in pages 116-199, Kishore Biyani quoting Chennai's own Saravana Stores as the inspiration behind their Big Bazaar venture. He writes on how his team camped in Chennai visiting Saravan Stores every day for weeks in understanding their merchandise mix and pricing. The book tapers off towards the end where the author starts talking about his personal philosophies & beliefs on business.

Overall, a good book to read at an attractive price of Rs.99 (~USD 2.5)

I just finished reading Men of Steel by Vir Sanghvi. Vir Sanghvi should be appreciated whole-heartedly for two things - first for writing a very needed book that compiles the stories of India's most successful business leaders and second for writing it in a lively, enjoyable format. The book is a result of compilation of Vir Sanghvi's articles that appeared on Hindustan Times Mumbai HT Leadership series and so each of them are not more than 2000 words.

The book covers well known people like Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani, Azim Premji, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Sunil Bharti Mittal & Vijay Mallaya. Apart from that about people I knew very little before - Bikki Oberoi, Uday Kotak, Rajeev Chandrasekha, Subhash Chandra & Nusli Wadia. It was revealing. Every aspiring Entrepreneur in India should read this book once.

One spelling mistake that caught my eyes - Airtel's Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal was spelled wrongly with his middle name as "Bharati". See the screenshots below - the left is from the book (wrongly given in that fashion throughout the chapter) and on the right is from their website.

Last month I attended a SPIN Chennai program on Balanced Scored by Mr.Sudipto Marjit. Offline when I was speaking with Mr.Marjit he noticed the book I was reading (while waiting for the talk to start) - Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business by Mr.Ram Charan. Immediately he recommended that I also read Ram Charan's What the CEO wants you to know?. I did exactly that this week and here is the review.

The first thing that strikes about the book (USD 20, INR 428) is its attractive title and the second is its thin size (about 140 pages). Before I say anything about the book I must say that this is a must read for anyone in any Business and it doesn't matter whether you are working, managing or leading a business. Having said that the book can be a let down if you had focused too much on its lofty title. The book should have been titled "What everyone in business should know" or better "Quick start manual for businesses" . Let me give you a brief review of the book's coverage:

• If you were wondering for a better term for saying "Business is in her blood" or "His gutfeel on business" Ram Charan has coined a beautiful phrase "Business Acumen" and he introduces the term and what it means very well.
• Introduction and simple english explanation to business speak like P/E Ratio, Return on Assets, Sales Turnovers.
• He introduces an simple formulae of R = M x V, where R is return on assets, M is After-Tax Margin and V is Velocity or Inventor turn. I found the way he talked about Velocity as a very useful idea.
• Need to have Right People in Right Job, the importance of Coaching
• Ram Charan introduces one more term "Social Operating Mechanism" which basically is how to motivate people at all levels and have them connected seamlessly as a team all the time

Overall a must read for every business person. Thanks Mr.Marjit for recommending this book.

கி.மு. கி.பி., இது மதன்  அவர்கள் எழுதி குமுதத்தில் வெளியான ஜாலியான சரித்திரத் தொடர்.  எனது நண்பர் பத்ரி ஸேஷாத்ரி அவர்களின் கிழக்கு பதிப்பகம் இதைப் புத்தகமாக வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.  நான் இந்தப் புத்தகத்தைக் காசுப் போட்டு வாங்கவில்லை, போன வருடம் கேஸவன் கம்புயூட்டர் நிறுவன விழாவில் ஓசியாகக் கிடைத்தது . அதனால் தான் என்னவோ இதைப் படிக்க இவ்வளவு நாட்கள் ஆயிற்று.    

சரித்திரத்தைக்கூடச் சுவையாகக் கொடுத்துள்ளார் மதன். அதற்கு அவரை நாம் பாராட்ட வேண்டும்.   ஆனால் தலைப்பை கி.மு. கி.பி. என்று வைத்துவிட்டு கிமுவில் நடந்ததை மட்டுமே எழுதியுள்ளார் மதன்.  அடுத்த பாகம் வருமோ என்னவோ யார் கண்டார்?

நியாண்டர்தால் மற்றும் ஹோமோஸேபியன் என்று மனிதன் தோன்றியக் கதையில் ஆரம்பித்து, பாபிலோனியா, எகிப்து, கிரேக்க நாகரிகங்களை விலாவாரியாகச் சொல்லி இந்தியாவின் மௌரியர்களின் வீழ்ச்சுயில் புத்தகத்தை முடித்துள்ளார் மதன்.

I just finished listening to this Audio book. The book is by former CEO of IBM Louis Gerstner - the outsider who was responsible for IBM's spectacular turnaround in 1990's.

The first time when I read the paper edition of this book was soon after its release in 2002. Those were early years in Vishwak, when I wanted to be more of hands-on in technology and I was reluctant to take up management responsibilities that were being thrown my way everyday as CEO of a company. This book along with Jack Welch's (Jack: Straight from the Gut) definitely stirred up my interest in management, growing and winning. When I graduated as an engineer just like every other fresh engineer I thought all managers are like Dilbert's Pointy Haired boss. This book and several others I read during the time, certainly demystified and clarified to me that management is also a science that can be learned by reading & practice.

If you are a manager of a division or a CEO this book is a must read and I am sure it will inspire and motivate its readers, just like it did for me.

During my christmas vacation now, I just finished reading the book "Five Point Someone" by Chetan Bhagat. Few months back I read the author's (Bhagat) second book "One night@the call centre" and was interested to read his first book "Five Point Someone".

The book is a story on life in IIT campus and what not to do at IIT. Though the story is somewhat usual, the author has a fantastic way of narrating it in first person. Certainly a good read to pass time.

Last week just before my Sri Lanka short visit, I finished this audio book. It was "Tough Choices" by Carly Fiorina who spent nearly twenty years at AT & T and Lucent Technologies before working as CEO for HP from 2000 to 2005. The book is a must read (or listen) for people starting their career in a large organization and especially Women Executive's will find themselves relating well to Carly's experiences. The initial chapters are definitely inspirational for fighting against the odds in modern businesses.

If you have read Who says Elephants can't Dance Audio book by Louis Gerstner Jr., the former IBM CEO on how he transformed IBM, you will expect similar material here on what happened in HP. In which case, you will be disappointed. Though there are elaborate coverages on her interview process for the CEO post and her firing from HP board, there is little coverage on her job as CEO. I was surprised to hear her bold statements about few executives who she comes across in her career, some of them quoted by her with actual names I am sure are still around in the industry. She raises strong criticisms about Michael Capellas (Ex-CEO of Compaq) and David Woodley Packard (son of HP co-founder David Packard) in the book.

The title Tough Choices indicates the tough one's Carly had to make in her personal/career life as an individual. I liked her repeatedly used quote in the book about "my soul is still with me".

On being selected as Fortune magazine Top Woman CEO she had the following to say: “After striving my entire career to be judged by my results and my decisions, the coverage of my gender, my appearance and perceptions of my personality would outweigh anything else”

I just finished reading Richard Branson's book "Screw It, Let's Do It", for the ignorant Richard Branson is the Founder and Chairman of Virgin group of companies. The first thing that strikes when you pick the book is the title, especially the first part that is unconventional and bold. Just to see how people are feeling about the first part, I tried saying to few people that I read Branson's book  "Let's Do It" and I didn't say the first part; immediately all of them corrected me saying isn't it "Screw It, Let's Do It". So I guess Branson has proved even by the name that he is a master of branding and publicity.

We all know Branson to be a flamboyant publicity freak. The book tries to portray a related side of him that his daring, scientific and caring. His earlier book "Losing my Virginity" was his biography so this book is about the lessons he learned from life and business. The book starts with how his mother braved the odds against Women in workforce in 1950s Britain, then moves on to his business moves from a magazine "Student" he started as a drop-out, then on the launching and selling Virgin Music, Virgin Airlines and BA's tactics to kill it and finally on his new space travel venture Virgin Galactic. In between he talks about his daring balloon trips, going to prison for customs violation, buying an island in Virgin island, his affair with his principal's daughter and finally ends the book by his call to save the environment.

I will not classify the book as a  business or a management title, but certainly I will encourage it for Self-Help light reading.

Landmark bookstores in Chennai is running a super sale of selective books with discounts up to 60% till October 2nd 2007. I was there shopping yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to see few good books worth buying offered in the sale. (Disclaimer: I don't work for Landmark or getting paid to post this)

Here are the books I bought (with the original price in brackets):

1. The Seven-Day Weeknd by Ricardo Semler at Rs.199 (987)
2. Bad boy Ballmer by Fredric Alan Maxwell at Rs.299 (1159)
3. Men of Steel by Vir Sanghvi at Rs.199 (295)
4. The HP Way by David Packard at Rs.199 (643)
5. Dilbert: Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies by Scott Adams at Rs.99 (509)
6. Dilbert: Thriving on vague objectives by Scott Adams at Rs.199 (471)
7. Dilbert: Random acts of management by Scott Adams at Rs.249 (471)
8. Dilbert: Dilbert and the way of the weasel Audio book by Scott Adams at Rs.225 (944)
9. Free Prize Inside /Purple Cow Audio book by Seth Godin at Rs.250 (1589)
10. Tough Choices Audio book by Carly Fiorina at Rs.350 (1503)
11. Who says Elephants can't Dance Audio book by Louis Gerstner Jr. at Rs.399 (1288)

In the next few months as I finish reading (or listening) to them, I will post my reviews here. Stay tuned!

Update 2/Oct/2007: Not being satisfied with the above, I went again today and bought the following titles.

1. Blue Streak by Barbara S.Peterson at Rs.225 (1073)
2. The Dragon and The Elephant by David Smith at Rs.250
3. Buddha by Deepak Chopra at Rs.395
4. The Romance of Tata Steel at Rs.495
5. Profitable Growth by Ram Charan at Rs.249 (946)
6. The new imperialists by Mark Leibovich at Rs.149 (1075)
7. Managing a time of great change by Peter F.Drucker at Rs.299 (1073)
8. Blog! by David Kline at Rs.299 (1073)
9. The story of My Experiments with Truth by M.K.Gandhi - Audio book read by Shekhar Kapur and Nandita Das at Rs.200 (250)

Yesterday I finished reading the book "The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson who is a popular writer of travel books which are very hilarious. In this latest title, Bryson writes about his childhood days in IOWA, USA. Don't be fooled or put off, this is certainly not his biography - obviously who will pay money to read about a writer. Like other books of Bryson, he doesn't attempt to make the events and stories told factual and accurate. Instead he takes a jovial approach and makes fun of him and the 1950's America in his classic style. The sections on US obsession in the 50s over Nuclear Bombs are very hilarious. 

In page 208, Bryson writes "Two deep drafts of a freshly run-off mimeograph worksheet and I would be the education system’s willing slave for up to seven hours". I didn't know what was mimeograph so I searched in wikipedia for it. To my surprise the wikipedia article on mimeograph quotes the same line from the Bryson's book . By the way, Mimeograph is nothing but what we call Stencil in India.

Footnote: One thing I don't seem to get is why the titles from US or UK most of the time have a different cover design in India (where I buy the books) than the one you see at stores in US or in Amazon. Are these publishers customizing the colours and designs to cultural / national preferences?. Even this title has a different cover design shown in Amazon (see right) than in the book I own (see left)

I have been reading this book on and off for last few weeks, finally finishing the last 100 pages yesterday night.

The book was "The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson (Editor Wired Magazine). The book talks in detail how the Long Tail of endless choices is reshaping the world economics by creating unlimited demand.  It talks about how the Digital World like Amazon, eBay, Rhapsody, iTunes and others are changing the fundamentals on Music and online industry - they have Zero cost of holding inventory which allows them to carry unlimited choices. So customers now have a choice to get music hitherto they could not have found in a mainstream store. It adds how consumers are now becoming Tastemakers and Buyers snatching the power of selection from Magazine Editors and Walmart Buyers.

The book closes with talking about 3 types of hits:

1) Type 1: Authentic Top Down hits: These are like your World Cup and Olympics

2) Type 2: Synthetic Top Down hits: These are lame products that are marketed and hence created to be hits

3) Type 3: Bottom-Up Hits: These rise on word of mouth and community support

Out of this, Type 1 will continue to do well. Type 3 will do even better, but it is Type 2 that will suffer.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the book and will recommend it for anyone connected with Online Industry and with Retail/Consumers. I just wish Chris Anderson using 50% less of 230 pages he currently used to talk the same concept repeatedly at many places in the book.

In a recent visit to Landmark, I purchased an audio book titled "Built to Last". At the time of purchase I didn't realize it was the Audio version of the famous book by James C. Collins & Jerry I. Porras. Anyway after listening to 6 hours plus of the audio I think it is one of the best purchases I ever made. The Audio book turned out to be a more convenient format than the paper book, because I could listen to it in portions every day while I drove my car. A best use of the traffic jams that are now becoming common in Chennai.

This book is a classic and reviewed many times on the Internet over the last decade, so I will keep mine very brief. The book is a result of six years of research on what makes great companies great. It does this by identifying 18 "visionary" companies and compares them systematically with "successful-but-second-rank" companies over nearly 5 decades or more of data. I wonder with the power of Internet and access to more data, what the authors could have done more (I am yet to read their sequel Good to Great). The book shatters the core myth that visionary companies must start with a great product and be lead by charismatic leaders. The book talks on these main concepts:

• Preserve the core, stimulate the progress
• Other than your core purpose to exist, everything else can change - have to change
• Follow Darwin Survival Theory, try multiple things and quickly kill the non-prospective one's
• Have BHA (Big Harry Audacious) Goals one after the other to keep the motivation and juices in people flowing

This is a must read textbook for anyone running a company or managing a sizeable team in an organization.

 My title summarizes the experience of reading this book. I picked this book a few weeks back, I started reading it immediately during my travels and I finished it yesterday night. What a book, the style and language is so well written and direct, that you feel Mr.Sam Walton (Founder Wal-Mart) is actually speaking to you. 

If the numbers that Wal-Mart have achieved ($53 Billion Annual Sales) when Mr.Sam Walton wrote the book was impressive and unbelievable; it is even more staggering now ($310 Billion Annual Sales, 1.6 Million Associates).

There are some ideas of Mr.Walton that needs a little fine tuning for the 21st Century, but the basic ideas he outlines are still very much relevant. His experience on how he built Wal-mart is a fascinating read. This is an excellent book that must be read by every entrepreneur - especially those who are thinking of starting a business. It should be (if it isn't already) made a textbook for all business education streams. My sincere thanks to Late Mr.Sam Walton for fighting his disease in his last days and managing to write this book. I am afraid to think the amount of wisdom that woud have been lost if he succumbed to death (which happened in 1992) earlier and never completed this book

I was reminded yesterday while reading Economic Times paper, of a book "Far from the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy. The book was in my 12th Standard syllabus and our English Teacher "ShantiShri" was very fond of the book that she made us read it umpty number of times. The most likely question on the book was to be on "Chance Happening" - on how few of the unplanned events resulted on big turning points in the characters lifes.

(Scanned copy from my XII school book)

Anyways, the reason for me to be reminded on "Chance Happening" and hence the book, was a piece on the paper's ViewPoint section. The piece was an extract from a lecture given in New York University-Stern by Infosys Founder Mr.N.R.Narayana Murthy. The lecture was titled "Learning from experience: Some lessons I have learned from my life and career" where Mr.Murthy talks about "Chance Events" that changed his life and hence Infosys. What I enjoyed most was his first paragraph where he talks about the impact role models or a one-off speech can have on an individual. I could relate to that in an indirect fashion.

"The first event occurred when I was a graduate student in Control Theory at IIT, Kanpur in India. At breakfast on a bright Sunday morning in 1968, I had a chance encounter with a famous computer scientist on sabbatical from a well-known US university. He was discussing exciting new developments in the field of computer science with a large group of students and how such developments would alter our future. He was articulate, passionate and quite convincing. I was hooked. I went straight from breakfast to the library, read four or five papers he had suggested, and left the library determined to study computer science."

LIFCO's (our family publishing firm) guide to Far from the Madding Crowd (Published:1957)

Few years back when I read a book about Tatas I realized that we know little about Indian Achievers, I got interested in reading more such books.

Recently I bought from Landmark a book titled Vikram Sarabhai "A Life" by Amrita Shah. Before reading it, I knew little about Dr.Vikram Sarabhai other than he was a popular scientist and father of Indian Space Program that too by reading about him in Dr.A.B.J.Abdul Kalams' Wings of Fire book. As the book says I too had vague remembrance of him and confused his achievements with Dr.Homi Bhabha - the father of Indian Nuclear program. Please don't ask what happened to reading about these people in my School days, I honestly remember nothing of that   

The first thing that struck me while I started the book, the short life the man has lived (1919-71) and within that 50 years of life the amazing number of things he has achieved. He has founded numerous organizations - ISRO, IIM-Ahmedabad, ATIRA (Textile Research), PRL apart from running successfully his family business Sarabhai Chemicals and other business houses. He was also a successful scientist with many papers and a PhD on Cosmic Rays.

What a life this man has lived, which every Indian has to be proud of!

A must read book for people interested - but this book is not a complete biography, skips on his college days and the author Amrita Shah has put together pieces from her own research, what she heard from others and joining the dots on what could have been Dr.Sarabhai's thinking at various points.