This page is complete self indulgence. It is simply a growing list of the books I have read or am reading. It is entirely for my benefit as I work through the pile of books on my shelf that I have been given or bought and seems always to be getting bigger and not smaller. Feel free to recommend books you like.

Future of Management

Jun08: I actually started this book late May but what’s a few days between friends? I am a fan of Gary Hamel, the author, having already read “Competing for the Future” which he co-authored with C. K. Prahalad back in 1994. Future of Management argues very effectively that the management models we use today were designed for a different time and that innovation now needs to come from management techniques rather than process and product improvements. He uses loads of examples as to why this is the case and overall the idea is compelling. I am only two chapters in so will blog more when I have finished.

Family Village Tribe: The story of Flight Centre Ltd

May08: I was given this book by a colleague who wanted me to read it because of the way Flight Centre used small teams to create growth in its business and what this might mean for our business and the way we structure it. The story of Flight Centre is told by an ex-employee who has had total access to all the information required to make this a great story and a really good read.

From the early days of buying, refurbishing and then driving double decker buses all over the world to the massive global expansion to become a multi-billion dollar business. The first few chapters are gripping and I should finish it next week. Good news as I received two more books for my birthday plus a book voucher.

Well, finished the book now and is as good at the end as the beginning. I highly recommend this for anyone entrepreneurial and it reminds me of Ricardo Semmler’s book about his work “Maverick”. Some really good ideas around organisational structure and reward mechanisms. Lots to think about!

A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian

Apr08: Like many people I normally have a couple of books on the go and tend to have some sort of fiction at home and a more cerebral text for my commute. However, when I finished YES! I decided to have a change and read something lighter on the train. I chose from the pile, A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian. A couple of my colleagues have read the book with mixed reviews (”what was the point” and “nothing happened”) but I actually quite enjoyed it. You can read The TImes review here.

It is a fairly rapid read - I got through it in a week - and in places is very funny. Not laugh out loud funny, more of a chuckle and mainly around the eccentric behaviour of the central characters Father - Nikolai Alexeevich. A great deal of the book is flashbacks to the period preceding and immediately after second world war and gives a fairly graphic account of what life was like for displaced Ukranians. Nikolai’s own story is filled with difficulty, from growing up as a clever boy in a time when brawn was valued over brains, to deserting the army. The two daughters, barely on speaking terms since the death of their mother, come together to try and stop their crazy father giving everything he has to a money grabbing 30 something Ukrainian wanting to marry him for a passport. her breasts, apparently, are magnificent.

YES!

Apr08: Having finished Out of our minds at last (hard work toward the end, although the final chapter picks up the pace again) I decided to read a book recommended to me by Richard Sedley. Richard is Head of Customer Engagement at and agency called CScape, and someone I’d love to come and work with me - if this were the Premiership that would be called tapping up. Richard has a ranged of interests and I know pursuasion is one of them and YES! is the non-specialists introduction to the science of pursuasion.

The book contains fifty facts delivered in fifty short chapters with a summary at the end. It is an easy read and I finished it in a week or so as it is essentially a collection of stories. It contains brilliant snipets such as ‘you are more likely to be a dentist if you are called Dennis’, and a lot of advice on sentence structure and word order to illicit the response you are looking for. Toward the back of the book it covered some specific pursuasion research to do with websites. here the team looked at a website for seeling Sofa’s and researched with two products. one was inexpensive and not very cmfortable, the other very comfortable but also expensive. The low cost Sofa sold more on a website where the background was copper pennies on a green background and the comfy one more when white clouds on a blue background were present.

At the back of the book you are invited to subscribe to their newsletter and there is a website Influenceatwork.co.uk. I have subscribed and will update this page when I have received a couple of newsletters.

The Dreaming Void

Mar08: At home I am reading The Dreaming Void - Peter F. Hamilton (http://www.peterfhamilton.co.uk/) having previously read the Nights Dawn Trilogy and the duology of Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained.

I love Peter Hamilton’s books for two reasons. Firstly I get trapped by books and once I start to read them have to finish them - even if they are not very good. This has dire consequences for me and drives me toward finding an author whose works I like, and also who writes big books, preferably in sets (I have read all seven of the Gunslinger books by Steven King for example).

The second reason I like them is that the universes Peter creates are centered in reality. I am a big fan of Baroness Greenfield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Greenfield) who wrote a terrific book called Tomorrows people which describes how people will live, work and play in the future. Many of the near future developments she is talking about come to life in Peter Hamilton’s books and give a sense of reality that is sometimes missing. The Dreaming Void lives up to the same high standards as the previous books I have read and I can’t wait until part two is released.

It took me ages to finish, as this is my bedside cabinet read but I finally managed to yesterday. It is very much part one and the story is just beginning. Like most of Hamilton’s books there are lots of rich characters and you have to wait and see how their lives will become connected. The next book is out in October so I have to start something else in the meantime and can’t make up my mind.

Out of our minds: Learning to be creative

Mar08: I am halfway through Ken Robinson’s (Sir Ken) excellent book that I acquired after seeing him at a talk organised by the London Business Forum (LBF) (http://www.londonbusinessforum.com/). LBF organise a number of events during the year and in my view provide a reasonably inexpensive way to see some pretty highly influential people. Ken was excellent and if you want to get a flavour of him in action take a look at his session on Ted Talks: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66

The book goes in to greater detail on the same themes. Why is it essential to promote creativity, why the current education system is designed for a different age and is no longer relevant and what should be done about it. The book is packed with stories and facts which for me make things more memorable but the area that resonates most with me was his explanation of the impact of the 11 plus - the UK selection exam for grammer schools. As someone who failed the 11 plus I have lived with a chip on my shoulder for years that my relative intelligence compared to my peers was somehow below standard. The book has helped me realise why I feel like I do although it is fair to say ‘I am not cured’!

Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins

Mar08: I have just finished reading this having been given it for Christmas by my colleague Marty Carroll. This is a great book and is not just about Tom’s extensive business career.

You can get a snapshot about his life in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Perkins) but it doesn’t do justice to the man. He’s in his 70’s but must really be about 170 to have achieved all he has. From his Board Room experience at HP, to setting up the first major tech VC in the silicon valley to marrying Dannielle Steel and to creating the Maltese Falcon - the worlds largest privately owned sailing yacht. he has done it all.

Wikinomics

Mar08: I am going to go out on a bit of a limb here because I know this book has received rave reviews and have become a bit of a cult classic among wannabe new world economists. I enjoyed the first few chapters and actually it was a bit of a page turner as I raced through ideas about open source software. But having read Freakonomics, and The Undercover Economist (both excellent by the way) I was hugely disappointed at the level of repetition in this book.

I have developed a real issue with not finishing books once I start them and find it almost impossible to put them down. In the last ten years I have put one book down after I began it and that was (ironically) from an Amazon recommendation - “people who like Pandora’s Star also like Woken Furies by Richard Morgan”. Not me, this book broke my will to finish it and that was back in 2005. (I know this because of the genius that is Amazon order history). Wikinomics did thew same. I carried that damn book in my back for 6 months, picking off a page at a time after the initial few chapters and eventually gave up.