I read a review of this book in Business Week and purchased the book some months back. Over last two weeks I finished this book - Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good  by Sarah Lacy. The title made the book appear to be an interesting read on how the web 2.0 businesses have fared compared to the ones that came up and died quickly in the dotcom burst.

On reading the book, it turned out to be a coverage of the story of Jay Adelson (Revision3), Kevin Rose (Digg), Max Levchin (Paypal and Slide) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and passing coverage of Marc Andressen (Netscape), Ben & Mena Trott (Six Apart), Chad Hurley & Steve Chen (YouTube) and of Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn). At the end of the book, I felt I have learned little about the business of these companies than I know before reading the book. The book is more about which restaurant in the valley is frequented by these people and their VCs, their likes and dislikes and so on. Though the author has tried to show the individual/human side of these people, it somehow iconizes them more than ever. If you are living in the Bay Area and want to have topics to discuss (and names to throw in between) in the Tech party circuits this book is a must-read, for rest of us I will rate it average..

The Author (Sarah Lacy) is a reporter on startups and venture capital in Silicon Valley and writes a biweekly column for BusinessWeek and co-hosts Tech Ticker on Yahoo! Finance.

பொதுவாக எனக்கு கதைப் புத்தகங்கள் நாவல்கள் படிக்கும் பழக்கமில்லை. அவ்வப்போழுது ஆனந்த விகடன், குமுதம் போன்றப் பத்திரிகைகளில் தொடர்களாக வந்தால் படித்ததுண்டு. மறைந்த எழுத்தாளர் சுஜாதாவை நான் சில முறை அவரின் ஆரம்பக்கால தமிழ் இணையத்தள முயற்சிகளுக்காக சந்தித்திருந்தாலும், அவரின் நூல்களைப் தொடர்களாக தான் படித்துள்ளேன். அப்படி தான் அவரின் 'என் இனிய இயந்திரா' ஆனந்தவிகடன் பத்திரிகையில் தொடர்கதையாக வெளிவந்தபோது அவ்வப்போது படித்ததாக நினைவு. அதன் தொடர்ச்சியான 'மீண்டும் ஜீனோ'வைப் இதுவரைப் படித்ததில்லை.

சமீபத்தில் நண்பர் ஒருவர் புண்ணியத்தால் “மீண்டும் ஜீனோ”வை மின் புத்தகமாகப் படிக்கும் வாய்ப்புக் கிடைத்தது. அமெரிக்காவின் சான் ஃபிரான்சிஸ்கோவில் விமானத்தில் ஏறியச் சிறிது நேரத்தில் படிக்க அரம்பித்து ஹாங்க்-காங்க் சென்றடையும் நீண்டப் பயணம் முடிவதற்குள் நேரம் போவதே தெரியாமால் படித்து முடித்தேன்.  அவ்வளவு சுவாரஸ்யம். விஞ்ஞான சமுக-அறிவியல் அடிப்படையில் நடக்க முடியாத கதை, ஆனாலும் அருமையான கற்பனை, வளமான எளிமையான எழுத்து நடை.

Few weeks back while at my US trip I read this book "Notes from a Big Country" by Bill Bryson. Like his other books, Bryson's humour is unmistakable in this book as well. Like others have said in the Amazon's book comments you will find yourself laughing loud in many places.

  

The book is a collection of a weekly column in Mail on Sundays Night and Day magazine in UK. So this book has been written more for an international audience who will find things different in USA from their country. Having visited USA many times I can say I was baffled too at many of similar scenes observed by Bryson. So in many places of the book I could relate to his experience and enjoy the scene. Commenting on common American living habits, you might be mistaken like some Americans (who have commented in Amazon) that Byrson is making "fun" of Americans at large.  This being my fourth book written by Bryson, I can say that he has nothing against America, this is his style -  It is the same when he writes about UK, Europe or even Shakespeare, so nothing different here. More than the scenes described, what I really liked is Bryson's extraction of Humour from all the weird situations like the once I have mentioned below:

• Picture ID to be shown in US Airports (Bryson calls this as Permissible Visual Cognitive Imaging)
• Junk Food Heaven - "We don't usually clean our fridge - we just box it up every four or five years and send it off to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta with a note to help themselves to anything that looks scientifically promising"
• The countless forms used by American Immigration - "You can spend days repeatedly dialling a phone number that is forever engaged, only to be told when you finally do get through that you must call another number, which the person tells you once in a mumble and you don't quite catch before you are cut off"
• Commercials - "The new Dodge Backfire. Rated number one against the Chrysler Inert for Handling. Rated number one against the Plymouth Repellant for mileage"
• Cupholder Revolution - "But our computers don't come with cupholders"
• Why no one walks - "Not long after we moved here we had the people next door round for dinner and - I swear this is true - they drove"
• The great indoors and the obsession for living always in a climate controlled environment - "Skywalks - enclosed pedestrian flyovers"
• Abundance of choice in American super markets - "Thirty five varieties of Crest Toothpaste"
• Spinning the truth - how the "special offer" advertisements exasperates the truth

If you have visited USA and felt things are different from your country then this book is a must read for you.

Truly one of India's 20th and 21st Century industrial success story is of Tata Steel. The first time I read about them was in the earlier book of R.M.Lala "Creation of Wealth", which was more of an overview of entire Tata Group. In his new book "The Romance of Tata Steel" Lala has focused only on Tata Steel. The author traces a hundred years and more of exciting history of Tata Steel—from men searching for iron ore and coking coal in jungle areas, traversing in bullock carts before the site was found, to the company’s modern status as a world-class company.

Though the writing style makes it appear like a Textbook, you can still enjoy it. You learn that though the initial crew of the plant in Jamshedpur was of a medley of nationalities, it worked well to a great extend  - the Crew of Steel works and superintendent were Germans, the English worked in the Ring Rolling Mills, Clerical Staffs were chiefly Bengalis and Parsis, a certain number of Austrians, Italians and Swiss worked in other departments, and the Chinese worked as carpenters and in pattern shop.  One of the interesting quotes in the book is made by R.D.Tata on 4th June 1925:

"We are like men building a wall against the sea. It would be the height of folly on our part to give away any part of the cement that is required to make the wall secure. That is why we and you have to use this money ... to build this great industry"

For any entrepreneur like me, it is inspiring to read the innovative HR practices that Tata Steel has pioneered over the years. After finishing the book we are left with true admiration for the vision of Jamshedji Tata in setting up Tata Steel and Jamshedpur city.

I have never been into reading poetry, poems or other forms of heavy literature. I have only read Shakespeare's works in few chapters in English textbooks and seeing the plays in few movies. So why did I pick this book, which is a biography of Shakespeare - simply because of "Bill Bryson" name in the title. I have enjoyed so much his previous books "The Thunderbolt Kid" and  "Neither here Nor there", that the minute I saw his name I bought the book. Anyways after buying it, I decided to read it. And in the course of reading I learned a great deal about Elizabethan times and of course about Shakespeare. Of course, Bryson with his signature humour has handled the subject very easy to read and enjoy.

Little is known about Shakespeares life, and in this biography Bryson makes no attempt to expand on the known details. Starting by presenting the paucity of facts, he goes on to sketch the life of the worlds greatest playwright, from Stratford to London and back again. He also discusses the theories suggesting that Shakespeares works were written by someone else, dismissing them as ludicrous. We learn a great deal from the book:

• That Shakespeare names is written with different spellings throughout his life and after. Oxford English Dictionary endorses the spelling Shakspere.
• He created the most number of un-prefixes words including unmask, unhand, unlock, untie, unveil and more
• He created numerous new words in English including excellent, extract, frugal, critical, antipathy, hereditary, assassination, lonely, leapfrog, well-read, indistinguishable and others. Imagine an English language without these words!
• In his works, Shakespeare is known to have used over 29,066 words
• If we take Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as our guide, then Shakespeare produced roughly one-tenth of all the most quotable utterances written or spoken in English. These included Vanish into thin air, budge an inch, bag and baggage, cold comfort, flesh and blood, foul play, tower of strength, foregone conclusion and many others.
• English was rising in his times as it is telling, that William Shakespeare's birth is recorded in Latin but that he dies in English as "William Shakespeare, Gentleman"

The New Imperialists (How Five Restless Kids Grew up to virtually rule your world) by Mark Leibovich is a book I read recently. Though the book that talks about 5 technology leaders and visionaries is little old (it was written in 2001/2002 and a lot happens in technology industry in 5 years) I still purchased the book as I got it for a steal in Landmark sale last year (Rs.149 against the original price of Rs.1025, a saving of nearly $22). 

Leibovich a technology reporter for the Washington Post sets out to explain why he selected this particular 5 people whom he calls "The New Imperialists". The list of 5 are AOL's Steve Case, Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, Cisco's John Chambers, Oracle's Larry Ellison and of course Microsoft's Bill Gates. Leibovich tries to show throughout the book that these men's ruthless drive must stem from childhood and the reason he calls them imperialists are because they are near equivalent of modern-day emperors. Leibovich's narrative style which makes the reading very lively and you can't keep the book down without completing it. If you thought you know a lot about these 5 people, Leibovich tries his best to show a side of them public haven't seen before. At the same time the book is not imtruding their privacy and most of it seem to be written with the individuals (or their PR) permission. 

He talks about Ellison's Larryland near hills of Woodside designed by a Japanese Zen Monk; about how Jeff Bezos wrote the business plan for Amazon on a car trip with his girlfriend to Seattle and about Jeff's thing; How John Chambers battled dyslexia and for a time believed he was stupid; The equation and friendship between Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and how the loss of his best friend Kent Evans 30 years affected Bill Gates; How Steve Case saw with clarity what was happening with the connected world.

Two weeks back on my way back to Chennai in Mumbai Airport I picked up this book - Cold Steel "Lakshmi Mittal and the Multi-Billion-Dollar Battle for a Global Empire" by Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey. The book is about the story of the world’s biggest and most hard-fought industry takeover of recent years. It is the story of Lakshmi Mittal taking over (or merging) with European steel giant Arcelor to form ArcelorMittal.  What I liked about the book was that it is told in a thriller fashion on what happened each day of this six month battle. Each day is being narrated by the authors in a scene by scene fashion including dialogs spoken. Once you start reading the book you can't keep it down.

I always admired Mr.Mittal for his humble beginnings to become the "King of Steel" and for his vision which he followed to grow his company at unprecedented rates. His growth story is something that is made of numerous acquisitions of assets around the world which have all been successfully integrated. My admiration keeps growing as I read more - all his ventures have been outside his home country (India) in all far off places of the world and he still proudly sports an Indian Passport.  This book goes into detail of all the things (Politics and Racism) that happened behind closed doors to prevent him from taking over Arcelor. As the book says it - Mr.Mittal certainly is someone who is "Stoic" - a term meaning someone who just puts up with whatever is thrown at them. It is a very apt term to summarize what Mr.Mittal had to put up with during this battle - right from Racist like comments to protective behaviour of several European governments and finally the unprecedented stone-walling by Arcelor board for every step of Mr.Mittal.

The takeaway for me as a Corporate head from the book was how the entire team at Mittal Steel worked together as a single team to triumph over the fragmented Arcelor team. Consider the fact that Mittal Steel team was not composed of one organization but it nearly a dozen entities from Investment bankers, lawyers, PR Agencies, to Mr.Aditya Mittal and Mr.Lakshmi Mittal himself. The whole battle is pure project management brilliance of how all of them were kept in sync, said the same story, were in the same page all the time. Add to that the fact they used modern communication tools (Email and Blackberries) for effective collaboration increased my interest on reading the book fully.

I highly recommend this book for any one wanting to survive in today's globalized corporate world.

The other day in a dinner conversation the topic was on how India has a nation has grown in spite of everything - Corruption, Inefficient bureaucracy and all the differences. That's when this book came up "In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce". I bought the book immediately and I finished reading it during my travel now.

The book is an excellent work done by Mr.Edward Luce, who is a journalist with Financial Times. During his various assignments he had worked in London, New Delhi and now in Washington. Mr.Luce  is best suited to do this book because of his long stay in India, his wife being an Indian and finally he being a Britisher (lot of things in India are still colonial hangovers). Without these background he couldn't have done such a wonderful job.

Mr.Luce finely balances a westerner viewpoint and Indian insight in a lucid manner - you don't see contradictions anywhere. Many things about India is puzzling to understand even for Indians, and many times you have to go back to long gone history to truly understand. For doing this Mr.Luce start with detail of larger than life figure of 3 modern day Indians - Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and BR Ambedkar. People who know India know that North India is very different from South India and so on., so Mr.Luce seems to have done extensive travel to report both sides.

I was happy to read about the good things he talks about the work of my state (Tamilnadu) government. I learned many things from the book about India that I didn't know before or haven't seen it that way. One observation I really liked is Mr.Luce's case on how several welfare programs in India like anti-poor program, literacy programs, free power, labour laws which are all created with good intentions are not effective because of the very bureaucracy that is created to run it.  Mr.Luce talks with ease of both India's strength and weakness.

If you are an Indian or someone interested about India, this is a must read book. Thank you Mr.Luce.

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.

I recently read Bill Bryson's book "Neither here Nor there" - travels in Europe. A very hilarious book. Bill has made little effort to make it a travel guide, so you will learn little about Europe. Bill's style was very lively, once I picked the book, I couldn't keep it down without finishing it.

This probably is the first book that I finished with in days of buying it.

I bought the book "One Night @ the call center" by Chetan Bhagat during my visit to the Annual Chennai Book Fair 2007. Bhagat is a graduate from IIT Delhi and author of Five Point Someone. Though I haven't read his earlier book - I got interested by the story line which as the name suggests is about working in a call center and a phone call from God.

With in days of the book fair, I had two long flights [Chennai to London, London to Seattle]. I finished most of the book in the two flights and the balance pages over the first day in Redmond, WA. Completing a book is probably the only good thing for me of doing these long flights. If in town, I would have never finished a book so quickly.

Anyways, coming back about the book. This is a light reading book and I liked the way the author has made no attempt to make it a literary work. Bhagat has tried and captured largely the pulse of India's call centers - though he has dramatized by a bit of artifically added romance and sex. The phone call from God, was more an anti-climax for me, I wish Bhagat could have continued the tempo by handling this bit a little better.

A enjoyable read and definitely worth for Rs.95 (Two Dollars) !

If you have watched Ray Romano in his popular Everybody loves Raymond, you will know how funny he can be. His comedy is most of the time clean, everyday family happenings. I love this serial that I have the entire DVD collection with me.

In this book titled "Everything and a Kite" Ray narrates with his usual humour about Wifes, Kids and more. When reading the book as a Married man with a Kid, there were many sentences that I could relate to my life and at the same time laugh on them. A good read over a long flight.

This week I was mildly infected by Conjunctivitis (Madras Eye) and was quarantined by my family in my sister's house. This gave me two days to do some peaceful reading apart from the occassional office phone calls. I picked up this book iWoz from my bookshelf - long abonded and read it. The book is about the co-founder of Apple "Steve Wozniak" who is an engineer who designed the original Apple-I and Apple-II computers.

Disclaimer: Though I have used a Mac Mini and love its Hardware Design, I grow up in a PC environment, that makes me a hardcore Wintel fan. So before this book I had little idea about the story behind Apple and its investors other than reading occassionally about Steve Jobs.

Wikipedia carries here a brief on what this book talks about and a positive review of this book is at a blog by Guy Kawasaki (Apple Engineer), so I will skip the basics.  

The simplest way for me to describe this book is a bell curve . A bell curve just like the one in the image on left shows, peaks in middle and tapers at both ends, that's exactly how the book was for me. The initial chapters were boring, where Steve is talking in detail about his childhood and his father (as hard as I try I am unable to remember details other than the school and few friends of mine in LKG to Sixth Standard, but Steve remembers everything).

Then the interesting part about his designs, Apple-I and then Apple-II. Apple-II is covered in few pages, then few chapters on non-apple passions and then when you are expecting more on Apple the book ends abruptly - not even a brief mention of his next 20 years of his life (Post US Fashions till date). As an engineer myself and who has been through the second half of PC revolution, I felt Steve is incorrect to miss completely the IBM PC and DOS Story - it is as if he and Apple-I/II existed in a world without any competition.

If you are an Apple fan, please buy a copy of this book for your own collection. If not please read it only if someone lends a copy, don't waste your own money.  

I had bought this book sometime back, but didn't proceed more than few pages at that time. This week I took it again from my bookshelf, I became interested on the topics discussed by the Authors (Economists) - Steven D.Levitt and Stephen J.Dubner. With reading for few days - few hours every night I finished the book.

The book has a good followup resources including website, a blog and a wikipedia entry - so I will skip the introductions and details about the book. Instead I will just list here on what I liked/learned from this book:

• US Crime rate falling and connection with Abortion made legal two decades back (I think I have read this somewhere earlier as well)
• It is a fact that Real Estate Agents do sell for more there own properties
• Cheating happens even in a disciplined elite group like Sumo Wrestlers
• Drug dealers (other than the big bosses) don't earn great monies
• Sudhir Venkatesh (An Indian born American Citizen) had the courage to spend considerable time with Drug groups in Chicago in order to understand their behaviours.
• 50% of a child's chance of success is determined before its birth (Genetics, Family Income, Parents Education, etc.)
• The name of a child does make a difference in the chance of success, but that's more a side-effect and changing a name doesn't have a proven effect for reversing fortunes.

Though the title may make the book sound serious read, in reality it is not. It is a light reading book that can be enjoyed over a long journey.

It is rare for me to finish a book that I started till the end. Though I love to buy books (as I grow up among books - my father runs LIFCO Books) and a bookstore is a place I can spend hours, I am hardly into big fat books like novels and fictions. I am puzzled on how kids can finish the 500+ pages Harry Potter Books. I buy a book, take a snapshot, read the first few chapters in one sitting. Then the book goes into my personal library - hardly taken out again (with few exceptions). That's why you see my posts under "Books" Category in this blog less populated - I keep waiting to finish a book before posting, but finishing never happens.

This post is about an exception. Early last year I bought the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. Immediately in that trip I finished the first chapter, then in few trips though I took the book I could never read more than few pages. Last two weeks due to trips to New Delhi (3 Hour Flights for each leg and then all the Airport waiting time) I re-started this book and finished it easily.

The book is about how our SubConsious mind processes informations differently than our Concious/Scientifc mind; it covers how at times this can be used for effective decision making. This book proves the statement that you might be using many times "I have a gut feeling that this works only like this".

I will certainly recommend this book for anyone interested.

I have been a reader of Reader’s Digest for several years. They claim their success to “selection of nothing but the best articles from around the world, condensing it, recondensing it without missing any of the fine part” – which time and time I found to be 100% true.

In this month’s issue I read about “Dare to Dream” by Michael J.Weiss where the author unravels the mystery/superstitions of dreams and explains the benefits of dreams and the use for recalling your dreams. I found it very interesting to know that Dreams can be used for your improvement and they can find answers to your difficult situations.

Highly recommended article to read; of course read it not in your dreams but when you are awake.

Many people in the IT Industry and beyond respect Nicholas Negroponte (chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Laboratory) for his deep clarity on the power of "Bits" and "Digital" Technology. But for me, from the day I read his classic "Being Digital", I have been curious on what this genius is up to now.

Couple of years back, he announced his dream of a "One Laptop per child"; To make it true was the idea of a sub $100 laptop. Everyone in the industry (including me) doubted whether this was ever possible - with Intel brushing it away even now. But alas, last month in the Tuniasia World Summit he unveiled it and also selected Quanta (Taiwan based World's Largest Laptop Manufacturer) as the OEM. 

The plan is to distribute several million of these laptops to underprivileged childrens in China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand. The laptops will be Linux based, full-color LCD Display, 500MHz CPU, 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory, built-in wireless to find near by laptops ad-hoc. It will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. What I found as the most interesting feature was an innovative power - a manual wind-up (shown in yellow above). This is very important because the places it is being planned to be used are most backward areas where there is no power source and the laptop might even be the only light source during the night.

Using the laptops it is hoped that the children who before this couldn't even afford paper textbooks - will now have access to all materials that they need to complete their education. All this with little or no further costs being spent by the local governments, after the first US$100 (for the laptop itself). A noble cause, hope it works and eradicates illeteracy in the world.

நான் எழுத நினைத்து, சோம்பேறிதனத்தால் மிக தாமதமான வலைப்பூ இது. இந்தாண்டு ஜனவரி மாதத்தில் வழக்கம் போல் சென்னை புத்தகக்காட்சி நடந்தது. 27 ஆண்டுகளைக் கடந்து, இது 28ஆவது ஆண்டு. சில வருடங்களாய் இங்குவரும் மக்களின் எண்ணிக்கை அதிகரித்துக்கொண்டிருப்பது புத்தகத்துறைக்கு நல்ல ஒரு விஷயம்.  

புத்தகம் வாங்குவது (படிக்கிறேனா இல்லையா என்பது வேறு விஷயம்) எனக்கு மிக பிடித்த விஷயம். அதே போல இந்தாண்டும் நிறைய வாங்கினேன். அதில் நான் ரசித்த புத்தகம், சரியாகச் சொல்வதென்றால் ஒலிப்புத்தகம் - குடியரசு தலைவர் ஆ.ப.ஜெ.அப்துல் கலாமின் "அக்னிச்சிறகுகள்" ஒலிப்புத்தகம்.

ஆ.ப.ஜெ.அப்துல் கலாமின் வாழ்க்கைச்சரித்திரத்தை மிக அழகாகக் குறுக்கி, தனது கம்பீரமான குரலில் அற்புதமாக படைத்துள்ளார் கவிஞர் வைரமுத்து. கலாமின் முழுப் புத்தகத்தை படித்திருந்தாலும் நான் இந்தளவு ரசித்திருப்பேனா என்பது சந்தேகம். பல வாரங்கள் என் காரில் இந்த ஒலித்தட்டைக் கேட்டுக்கொண்டே இருந்தேன்.        

ஒலிப்புத்தகத்தில் பல நல்ல விஷயங்களிருப்பினும் என்னை மிக பாதித்த வரிகள்

"சரிவுகளின் அழகைப் பருகியவாறே மலையுச்சியை நோக்கி நடப்பதில் தான் ஒரு இனிமை இருக்கிறது. 
சரிவுகளில் ஜீவிதம் இருக்கிறது. சிகரத்தில் அல்ல.
சரிவுகளில்தான் எல்லாமும் வளர்கின்றன. அனுபவம் கிட்டுகிறது. நிபுணத்துவம் சாதிக்கப்படுகிறது.
சரிவுகளைத் தீர்மானிக்கிறது என்ற அளவில் சிகரத்தின் முக்கியத்துவம் நின்று போய்விடுகிறது." 

டாக்டர் அப்துல் கலாம் போன்றொரு வெற்றி மனிதரின் சரித்திரம் கேட்கும் ஒவ்வொருவரையும் சாதனைச் செய்ய மட்டுமன்றி தினம் வரும் சோதனைகளையும் கடக்க ஊக்கப்படுத்தும் என்பதில் ஐயமில்லை. 

Microsoft India conducts periodically a day of intensive technology onsite seminars for India’s Software biggies. MSDN calls these engagements with SI (System Integrators, as they are known in the Industry) as “MSDN Day”. I have known for years “Jonah Stephen” who is currently the MSDN Enterprise SI Manager in India. In the last few months for Jonah, I have presented in many MSDN Days in Chennai on “ASP.NET 2.0 & Visual Studio 2005”. This included MSDN Day for CTS, Satyam & TCS in Chennai.

After the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) program, I was given a very thoughtful gift that I have received for a presentation. It was a book titled “The Creation of Wealth” – The Tatas from the 19th to the 21st Century, by R.M.Lala. As with many books that many of us have, this too lied along with many of the other books in my bookshelf. This was until I took it along with me in my recent trip to USA. I was very apprehensive whether I will read even few chapters of this book in my flights. But the book was so interesting, I finished the entire book before I landed in Los Angeles. Thanks to TCS Chennai for presenting me with this book.

The book is an enjoyable light-reading material of how the Tatas build their empire. Though the book is a chronology of Tata's history, Lala has brilliantly camouflaged it in an interesting novel format.  Only after reading it, I realized how ignorant I am about Industries and Business Houses in India. We seem to be more informed about American companies like – Walmart, Microsoft, GM, GE, etc. May be this is because of excellent reading materials available about them. I am sure management books on how Indian Industry has performed Post Liberalization – Their Right & Wrong moves, will make interesting reading. I hope some writer is reading this blog!.

But for many of us, we should take a leaf from this incident and start giving Books as gifts to our friends and business acquaintance. Coming from a Publishing House myself, what else you expect from me to end this with?