Bill’s Blog

I’m as happy as a clam right now.  Several people gave me books for Christmas and I’ve been reading like mad.

My daughter bought me John Grisham’s “Playing for Pizza“.  It was a wonderful, light read.  I enjoyed the tale and even found a life lesson in it.

My brother and his wife bought me two books.  I read one of them “The Little Book of Venom“, a collection of historical insults compiled by Jennifer Higgie.

My wife bought me a subscription to audible.com.  So far I’ve listened to “It’s Your Ship” by D. Michael Abrashoff and “My FBI” by Louis Freeh.  I didn’t think I’d enjoy My FBI much, butit has turned out to be an excellent book.

Now I have to get back to reading more books

After slogging through Wikinomics, I decided to treat myself to some lighter reading.  I started with “Lafcadio: The Lion who Shot Back” by Shel Silverstein.  It was a birthday present from my parents.  They probably knew the time would come when I’d seek it’s light hearted nature after a laborious journey through another opus.  In any event, it was a perfect fit.  It made me laugh.

Tonight I looked at my bookshelves and pondered which book to pick up next.  Rather than “Blue Ocean Strategy” I found myself picking up “The World in a Phrase” by James Geary.  It’s a brief history of the aphorism.  In case you aren’t familiar with aphorisms, I’ll give you the quick definition.

• They are brief
• They are definitive
• They are personal
• They have a twist
• They are philosophical

Some examples of aphorisms are:

• Knowledge may have its purposes,  but guessing is always more fun than knowing
• There are certain mistakes we enjoy so much we are always willing to repeat them
• The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth
• Love decreases when it ceases to increase
• One can only become a philosopher, not be one.  As soon as one thinks one is a philosopher, one stops becoming one.

I first heard about aphorisms on an NPR podcast several months back.  For some reason the idea stuck with me.  I ordered the book that was being discussed on the podcast and the rest is history.  I’ve just finished the first chapter, but hope to read several more before bed tonight.

If you’re familiar with the aphorism, or if the quick definition was enough, leave one here for me.

I just finished Wikinomics. It took forever to get through this book. I found it full of interesting ideas and insights. For some reason it felt like wading through molasses every time I turned a page.

There were several things I really liked about the book. Here they are.

• The Geek Squad. This is an amazing story. The business was started about ten years ago. They’ve adopted a James Bond style and approach to the business of technical support. They come to your house and fix your PC, router, etc. The guy who founded it, Robert Stephens, still runs it. The Geek Squad was acquired by Best Buy a couple of years back. It went from 60 agents to 12,000 agents! The cool thing is that it’s going $1 Billion in revenue and something like $300 Million in profit each year. That sounds like an outfit I’d like to work for.
• Jonathan Swartz’s idea that everyone at Sun should blog. He says “We’re going to be driving unparalleled transparency into everything we do, precisely because it’s the most efficient mechanism to accelerate change throughout Sun. Transparency enables everything to go faster, invites accountability, and drives dialogue between Sun and the communities we serve.” (page 262) More companies should take heed and start thinking this way.
• Vint Cerf’s three golden rules of the Internet – nobody owns it, everybody uses it, and anybody can add services to it. (page 273) This is one of the best arguments I’ve heard in the Net Neutrality debate so far.

One of my favorite blogs, Lifehacker, just posted about a new service that rents books Netflix style.  It’s called bookswim.  Their basic plan is $20 / month for three books.  It’s comparable with the Audible Premium membership which lets you download 2 audio books each month for just over $20.  Might be worth checking out.

I really enjoy reading.  I read a variety of subjects – history, business, politics, religion, science fiction, and even a few how-to books.  I’ve also become a fan of audio books lately.  Every once in a while I download something from the public library or buy a book on tape or cd.

I don’t usually enjoy scary books.

One day while Karen and I are browsing our local mega-bookstore, I get this brilliant idea.  How about we read an audio book together.  We could listen to it on a trip!  She reluctantly agrees.  We have very different tastes in reading, so I find an author I recognize – John Saul. Ah, great.  We’re all set now.

I bought “The Unloved” by John Saul.  Anyone laughing yet?

After I got home and read the description, I decided it wasn’t something we could listen to with Emily around.  I ended up listening to it by myself.  It turns out this book was a murder mystery of sorts.  There was actually very little mystery to it.  It was pretty bad.  I suppose if you like that sort of thing it wasn’t a bad book, but as I’ve said, I usually don’t.

Please don’t send me any John Saul books for Christmas

Having finished the book, I now feel more qualified to comment on it.  Summary: Yes, he makes some good points.  At the same time he completely missed the point.

What really got my attention were the stories about the individuals who had their lives effected by their online behaviors.  These were excellent points.  There was the student who got hooked on online gambling and eventually robbed a bank.  There was the thirteen year old girl who talked about watching porn.  These stories and others clearly made the point that the Internet can be a scary place.

Change always makes people uneasy.  It solves some problems while creating others.  Think of the problems created by cars, freeways, school integration, and any other type of change.  They are certainly real.  The key is how we deal with them.

One of the points he made really struck a chord with me.  Keen argues that the voice of a professional should outway the voice of an amateur.  Always.  He talked about how professionals are more qualified and experiences.  It reminded me of the argument against translating the Bible into English.    People weren’t thought intelligent enough to be able to comprehend what was written there.  They needed religion to be explained to them by a professional.  I also thought of the textbook depictions of Native Americans and their inaccuracies.  There’s something to the idea of hearing all voices and creating a platform where the best ideas win, not the ones from the most educated or experienced.

The last chapter of the book is called “Solutions”.  The solutions offered there were weak.   Thank goodness for the chapter though.  I was glad Keen was actually thinking of how to react to the reality that is the Internet.

I’ve just read Chapter 1 of Andrew Keen’s “The Cult of the Amateur“.  He has some interesting points.  I’ll refrain from too many observations until I’ve read the rest of the book.  One thing that leaped out at me was that for all of his railing against bloggers as amateurs and how they’re redefining truth and destroying what’s truly good in the world, Andrew Keen has his own blog.

I’ve been listening to the latest episode of twit today.  They’re talking about how flimsy journalism (e.g. engadget report of delay in iphone – their example) is ruining journalism.  Interestingly enough, Krishna just sent me a link to this book by Andrew Keen called “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture”.  I ordered it.

Without reading the book, it’s impossible to comment on what Mr. Keen is saying.  But I think there’s something to the statement itself.  Our culture is changing.  There’s a generation of people who will never buy a CD.  All of their music will be downloaded, likely without them paying for it.  Youtube has ignited a fervor in people.  From grandpa to tweens, people are sharing their lives on the internet.  Then again, we’ve seen change before.

If you were born after 1980, you’ve probably never listened to a record.  Was it bad that we dumped our vinyl for plastic discs?

The world is changing.  Like it or not, the world our kids live in is very different from the one we grew up in.  The world their kids live in will be different still.  Change is inevitable.

So is today’s internet killing our culture?  Probably.  Will the culture that replaces it be better than the one we have today?  Let’s hope so.

Either way I bought the book.  The Mr. Keen got me to think and to open my wallet.  One of those two feats is amazing.

I started blogging in August 2006, while on vacation.  A couple months earlier I ahd acquired a new job where I was responsible for Intel’s software website.  My mission was to turn the site into an interactive community of software developers.  Blogs, of course, were one piece of that puzzle.  So I thought I may as well eat some of my own dog food and try my hand at blogging.

During the first week of blogging, I mentioned that I had read “Naked Conversations”.  One of the authors, Shel Isreal, put a comment on my blog almost immediately.  His comment was that I had left his name out of my post.  It was quickly corrected.

Though I read quite a bit, I haven’t talked a lot about what I’m reading here.  I thought it might bore you.  I like lists, but not everyone else does.  Well yesterday I mentioned the names of a couple of books I am reading in a post.  One of the books is “Blogging for Business” by Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos.  It’s has some good information for those of you blogging for your company.  Anyway, just a few minutes ago Ted made a comment in my blog.

That’s what I love about the Internet and blogging.  People can set up RSS feeds of custom searches.  Anytime anyone mentions the name of a person, company, book, whatever, you’ll know about it.  And because of the democratic nature of the web, no one things twice about commenting on someone else’s blog.  This rocks!

I read The Innocent Man by John Grisham this weekend.  It caught me a bit by surprise.  I didn’t know it was a non-fiction book until I was about 100 pages into it.  I kept waiting for him to setup the twist.  It never happened.  I was dissappointed at first, but I kept reading.  I had to.  I couldn’t put it down. 

So I finished the book.  Wow.  The plot wasn’t nearly as good as his other books.  What was compelling was the story.  Ron Williamson.  I am in awe of how much reseach must have been done to be able to supply that level of detail about the characters.  This is an easy read and a very interesting story.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.