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Archive for the 'Readings' Category

How to get Rich

Published on 14 October, 2005 in Entrepreneur and Readings. 0 Comments


Trump: How to Get Rich
by Donald J. Trump

Just finished this book passed to me by a very enthuasistic friend who swiftly brought the book after watching The Apprentice and finding it really exciting.

The book is simple, easy and nice to read. Whether one glean much out of the book will depends on the individual. My friend thought she learned a lot.

To me the book is average. There is nothing in it that successful people had not already told. Read Robert Kiyosaki and he will tell the same thing.

Many people like to know how the rich and famous live their lives. Mr. Trump gave a very good account of his week which is sure to capture attention.

One thing I like about the book is how Trump introduces people. I surely would be flattered if my boss, a famous people like him, mention me. And this is what he did.

This, if nothing else, is one learning point from the book. To have and keep good people, this is not something everyone can do, and Donald Trump did well, at least from reading the book.

Find more Donald Trump books, more Get Rich books.

Technical Analysis Explained

Published on 26 September, 2005 in Investing and Readings. 0 Comments

Technical Analysis Explained
by Martin J. Pring

Started reading this book brought from Hong Kong. (Am surprised to find that books are relatively cheap in HK.)

Over the past few years I had been picking up technical analysis (TA) here and there and had thought of schooling myself more formally.

Happened that while browsing a bookstore in Lan Kwai Fong, I ran into this book which does have most TA topics covered. The price looks alright too.

From my initial flipping of the book today, the book content look dense. It might take a while to digest the content among the many things I’m doing.

Looking forward to pick up ideas and skill from this book and post some analysis soon.

99 Purple Cows ideas

Published on 3 September, 2005 in Entrepreneur and Readings. 0 Comments

99 Cows by Seth Godin

Had been reading a few of Seth Godin books and articles on the internet. Very unconventional and thought provocative.

Why a duck for a book with a Cow title?
That’s how unconventional and "remarkable" in Godin words.

It’s a short ebook to quickly browse through. The book is a collection of ideas. Each idea page are also linked to the website. Some are "light-blub" type ideas, others are "already-thought-of-that" type ideas.

Over all the ideas presentated in 99 Cows are well worth the time to browse through and digest. Download

Bootstrapper’s Bible

Published on 28 August, 2005 in Entrepreneur, Readings and Startup. 0 Comments


The Bootstrapper’s Bible by Seth Godin

A quick, easy and inspiring read for anyone wishing to start a business without any money.

That’s said, I guess one still need to have sufficient to last those drought period where there is no income. Especially if you believe in the long haul.

Don’t give up. Surviving is succeeding. This is the main thrust of the book and it goes on to discuss ways of surviving. Indeed as many entrepreneurs (bootstrappers) had came to learn that many failures are giving up close to success.

An excellent book to check against your business ideas or model. Download from Amazon.

Leading Quietly (part III)

Published on 2 August, 2005 in Readings. 0 Comments

Continuing with Leading Quietly …

Nudge, Test, and Escalate Gradually

"By testing, probing, and experimenting, quiet leaders gradually get a sense of the flow of events, hazards to be avoided, and opportunities they can expoit."

Talk small steps at a time because you may not know what is lurking at the corner. Especially for a foreigner, new in China. Do not assume to know too much and that things should work the way it should.

Nudge, test and escalate gradually also allow opportunity for "face" to be given to other party. An extremely important consideration. Test with indirect questions. Do not jump right into conclusion, leaving no room for alternatives. Escluate gradually and prepare steps (�阶) for others to step away, saving face.

Craft a Compromise

"…crafting a compromise is often a valuable opportunity to learn and exercise practice wisdom."

Compromise is a negotiation skill. Oftentimes the only way forward is a compromise. Through experience and deliberate explosure to opportunity to craft a compromise, one can learn to be better at it.

"… avoid either-or thinking… most problems, however stark and simple they may seem at first, usually have several levels of complexity. "

In the China environment, deals frequently involve more than the direct parties. Indirect parties - family, friends, agencies, sliently clamored to have a stake in the deal. Crafting a compromise is important to keep the deal alive.

Three Quiet Virtues

"… looking at quiet leadership from the perspective of character rather than tactics - in other words, looking beyond what quiet leaders do and seeing who they are."

Restrain. Nothing is more important than restrain in China. It keep one from getting into trouble. Injustices may cried out to us but to go head-on with the inmovable object of corruption is folly. Restrain is not turning a blind eye but to wait for the opportune moment.

Modesty. Asian are known for modesty, a good thing. However there is time to be modest and there is time to take a claim. Beware, the people that proclaim the virtue of modesty is likely the same who shamelessly profit from your modesty.

Tenacity is important in a culture of that demean deep-rooted values and worship shallow quick-fixes. In China, be amazed at the excuses people conjure for their vile actions and the shameless justification of their cause. Stay on course.

In closing…

Many of the guidelines sounded like what people does all the time, unawared!

The author however does a great job of identifying them, condensing the essence and adding interesting anecdote to illustrate the guidelines.

Reading the book does not make one a quiet leader immediately. However by understanding the choices we are making, we can quietly become better leader in a day-to-day way.

Which person relationship is challenging everywhere, it is especially in another country, for my case China. The scenario are applicable in China as it is in US or anywhere else in the world.

Guide to Conducting a Job Interview

Published on 24 July, 2005 in Readings. 0 Comments

Ten Minute Guide to Conducting a Job Interview
by William W. Larson

Had been interviewing candidates without much success lately, so grabbed a few books about interviewing to get a more in-depth feel of the subject.

Despite the claim, more than 10 minutes is required to read this book but it can scanned through pretty quickly.

Overall I find most of the content not very helpful to my context. The book is targeted at the American interviewers so many of the suggestions are not relevant to China or even Singapore or for that matter anywhere outside US.

There are plenty of legal cautions and Amazon.com reviews praised the legal section. Just by reading them alone, one can imagine the "Legal Minefield" American interviewers had to tread through.

The author recommended his Structured Behavioral Interviewing and claim and tried to sells its strength.

My only take away is the anecdote about the woman interviewee whose father passed away. It paints a very vivid picture of how one should be careful about judging body language.

If for nothing, the book serves as a good background understanding of what different employer of different culture, nationality are preoccupied with when interviewing.

What would be an ideal interview book for me?

It should

  • cover interviewing in China or at the very least cover cultural differences and how to handle them;
  • include what small company should do, most book assume a big corporate setting;
  • describe from both interviewer and interviewee perspectives

Let me know if you came across such book.

Thoughts on “The Emerging Economic Paradigm of Open Source”

Published on 19 July, 2005 in Business Models, Open Source and Readings. 0 Comments

Source: http://perens.com/Articles/Economic.html

Open Source developers have, perhaps without
conscious intent, created a new and surprisingly successful
economic paradigm for the production of software. Examining that
paradigm can answer a number of important questions.

Bruce Perens is of course the noted spokeperson for Open Source. Looks like he is now researching Open Source in George Washington University. What a great job to have!

Here I am quoting some key points from the article that caught my attention, adding my thoughts on them.

It’s not immediately obvious how Open Source[1] works
economically. … Fortunately, if you look more deeply into the economic function of
software in general, it’s easy to establish that Open Source is both
sustainable and of tremendous benefit to the overall economy.

Exactly what I like to learn. So far I have not seen any scholarly analysis (I’m sure there are but I have not seen them) on the economic viability of open source.

In Raymond’s model, work is rewarded with an intangible
return rather than a monetary one. … return is still not as direct as
in proprietary software development.

Indeed, this had been a stumbling block in open source business model. Are we hinting at the service model?

Around 30% of the
software that is written is sold as software[2]

Interesting data. The real question though is what percentage od revenue the 30% accounts. Also even if 70% of the software are made to order, it does not translate into a case for open source. Either many companies are competing for that 70% of the software market, making each slice of the pie unrewarding. Or that 70% are dominated by big players like IBM, EDS, Accenture.

A new economic
phenomenon is operating, and to explain it we’ll have to look
more deeply into the economics of software production.

The secondary economic effect caused by
all of the people and businesses who use an enabling technology
is greater than the primary economic effect of the dollars paid
for that technology.

On the individual level, we can understand this as the fact that investment in software is repaid, many times over, by the return made by the business.

Today, we
need software to do
business! Indeed, we need it so badly that even though most
businesses don’t sell software, any business of 50 people or
greater is likely to employ a programmer, web designer, or a
script-programming systems administrator[5]

Another interesting data. This is certainly true of some companies I know. What diffenentiates these smaller companies though is being able to grasp the concept and being able to actuate it.

Certainly this is the case in China where leveraging IT is an issue. It is also where I see entrepreneurs (like myself) have a chance. Open source can be an ally as we shall see.

Obviously, it would be a mistake to Open Source
your business differentiators, because then your competitor’s
business might use them to become as desirable to the customer as
your own business.

This is key!

Open source and close source is not an either-or decision as many make it to be. There is an equilibrium point. Right now what we are seeing is an increase in importance in open source and a decline in close source. It will take a while before the equilibrium point is reached.

Perhaps 90% of the software in any business is
non-differentiating. Much of it is referred to as infrastructure, the base upon which
differentiating technology is built.

The open source activists can read it as meaning 90% of software can eventually be opensource!

Now the real question for business is if they need a software not available open source now what do they do? They could wait for someone to develop it, or they could buy a close source product. The smart company however should develop and open source it. Sounds counter intuitive? The economic paradigms for software development might provide some clues.

  • Retail.
  • In-House and Contract.
  • Efforts At Collaboration Without Open Source
    Licensing.
  • Open Source.

The paradigms are different in

  • How they distribute the cost of development.
  • How they distribute the risk of failure.
  • Their efficiency in funding software development rather
    than overheads of the process.
  • The degree to which others can be excluded from using the
    software.

The next few sections of the article goes on the discuss the different paradigms.

Note that the argument are in the software user perspective. So if I am starting a software company based on open source, I still need to figure out a model and how to make money from it.

Open Source is generally
not a good mechanism for
developing differentiating software.

What can I gather from this statement?

Open source is a strategy for company that software is the enabler. So a company that generate profits from elsewhere can fund an open source development.

So for an open source software company an idea is to find such company to fund a project. For now this company may need to be an evangelising company, marketing the benefits of open source and getting funding companies onboard.

How is this different from selling close source development? Indeed there is no need to incur the overhead of educating open source.

So the article looked at, among source of fund, Companies With a Single Open Source Program As Their Main Product which can be divided into several
categories:

  • Mixed Open Source and proprietary licensing model.
  • A core Open Source program with proprietary software
    accessories.
  • Pure Open Source plus services model.

The rest of the article are very much evangelical arguments for open source that can be employed for telling people (including customers) about open source.

Fruit for thoughts for company wishing to adopt an open source strategy directly or indirectly.

I am thinking hard…

Leading Quietly (part II)

Published on 16 July, 2005 in Readings. 0 Comments

… continuing with Leading Quietly.

Invest Wisely

Certainly starting investing wisely and accumulate political capital. Not as in politics but relationship, guanxi the chinese calls it. In time of need invest wisely.

"Political capital consists mostly of perceptions in the mind of other people."

The Chinese are instinctive investor of political capital. While we may need a book like Leading Quietly to remind us what to do, the Chinese does it all the time without even thinking about it.

Drill Down

"… people working in organizations
of all kinds often face problems enmeshed in technological,
legal, and bureaucratic complexities.

Needless to say, bureaucratic and legal complexities abound in China.

"… moral commitment and high principles
are no substitute for immersion in the complexities of a particular
situation."

Hold on to moral and principles because they are our anchors. A person without anchor will just be swept around. At the same time, be ready to deal with the complexities, drill down, work hard, listen, ask questions, find out and learn.

Bend the Rules

The most appropriate advice. The Chinese does it all the time, they even have a term for it - 擦边ç�ƒ (a glancing ball). Not only play the ball directly, but ball that glances off the side.

Take the rules very seriously, while at the same time look hard for room to maneuver.

"life seldom presents challenges and problems in the form of stark, either-or choices"

To be continued with part III …

Leading Quietly

Published on 8 July, 2005 in Readings. 0 Comments

Leading Quietly
by Joseph L. Badaracco Jr

Harvard Business School Press had always been one of my favourite publisher. Academics that write well have a certain appeal. Perhaps it is the academic wannabe inside me.

The title and accompanying synopsis attracted me. Leading quietly sounds like what people like myself can realistically aspire to be and achieve.

Too often we are bombarded with the notion that leaders are out in frontline, leading the assualt, giving the pet-talk. We are told and retold stories of how one man save the day. Faces that appears on newspaper, magazine, book covers. We looked and wondered whether mere mortals like us will ever hope to attain that.

As a small business owners, we do not run a thousand person corporate, yet we still lead people. The impact of our decisions and actions may not be big bang, still it affects people.

The book has good stories, well narrated, illustrating the points. As with other books that I read nowaday, I attempt to relate back to the China environment where I’m in.

Since each chapter of the book is a guideline that quiet leader often follows, let’s examine them in my China context.

Don’t Kid Yourself

This is absolutely true for China. Do not assume that you understand the intricate web of relationships, hierarchies, underlying meanings, subtle gestures, hidden intentions etc. etc. Tread carefully, discover, learn, refine.

"Realism isn’t pessimsim or cynicism. It is making ample room for the many ways in which people and events can surprise, dismay and astonish."

Trust Mixed Motives

Motives are certainly mixed. Do not put even the slightest hope on altruism. Altruism has no place in the chinese work/business environment. Understand that in the mad rush to get ahead, people ultimately watch for themselves first. Certainly the current state which China is in isn’t condusive for people to think beyond self.

"Would-be leaders need to draw strength from a multitude of motives - high and low, conscious and unconscious, altruistic and self-regarding."

Buy a Little Time

Because of the complex relationship, things does take time to settle. However be wary delay tactics. Expect the chinese to be playing delaying tactics all the time. Set deadlines and find multiple sources, do not pin the hope on just one party.

Learn how to buy time to check things carefully. Do not jump at deals that sounded too good to be true.

All are common place advice, though in China they are just happened to be more common.

"because everyday situation are often more complicated than they first seem, it is important to slow down the merry-go-round and examine these situations with patience and care."

To be continued with part II …

Managing Software Requirements: A Use Case Approach

Published on 20 April, 2005 in Readings. 0 Comments


Managing Software Requirements: A Use Case Approach, 2nd Ed
by Dean Leffingwell, Don Widrig

Just beginning to read this book after coming across good reviews about it.