Kevin Krautle Blog

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky, (Read Via Kindle for...

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:24:00 -0400

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky, (Read Via Kindle for iPad)

This book started out a little slow but picked up dramatically. I do have to say that Shirky defiantly made me look at the modern organizing lens is a different perspective. He makes good points on how the net has changed everyone forever, and raises the valid point that it was responsible for linux more than anything else due the the large community on the net. Before this book I have grown wary of the concept of online organizing and an effective tool for large problems. Now not so much.

Yes, Shirky does come off as a little bit of a geek, but he does have some valid points. This book reminds me of the Audible program METAtropolis, Specifically Tobias Buckell’s piece within it, read by Scott Brink (most of the other short stories were not for me, however I loved Buckell’s piece. Its worth the credit just for that 2 hours). We are working are way into a modern way of organizing, and have started to see it happen. But we are just at the beginning.

7/10 (for being a tad slow at the start)

Power Friending by Amber Mac (Read via Physical Book)This book...

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:53:54 -0400

Power Friending by Amber Mac (Read via Physical Book)

This book is about everything social media. I actually would consider it a modern introductory bible of how to build an online presence. I do admit this book is mainly geared toward businesses, but still can’t be ignored for personal use. That is the thing. Amber goes into everything from websites, to twitter. On top of that, a good potion of the book is quick case studies of some of the more famous blunders, and some success stories as well.

This books does go hand in had with Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Crush it. Both are equally as good for different reasons. You really should read Gary’s book just for the level of passion he has, and what impact that has. Then read Amber’s book and use it as a blueprint to start defining your online identity.

The only note I have is I believe that this social media world is just in its infancy. As a thinker, I am still not sold on company brand as a real person that people what to directly interact with. The key is how to you obtain personal communication from a brand? I don’t like it when a company randomly tweets me something without knowing who it’s coming from. I guess there are two types of communication. One of a mass, generic one. Where we interact in broad strokes. To continue the twitter example, it would be a generic Comcast account. Then you have a more intimate direct layer of communication were you have you technicians sending out messages directly to solve problems. On this second tier of messaging who owns these accounts? Because as a Employee, I would want to keep my following but then as company, I consider that company property. Then again how valuable is the following, they they are only following you to get support.

I guess this goes back to the classic ‘Client list’. Especially when a valuable person leaves the company as takes his clients with him. There in lies the dilemma of a suggestion Amber made. Putting all of your Social media contacts in your footer. It’s a built in conflict of interest. I can put in my linked in, twitter, and facebook. Why not my personal email address then? I have business then I have personal. This is the same thing with a Cell Phone. Who owns the cellphone number? It’s the question of ownership… Would a company allow me to put my personal Twitter ID in my Company twitter description field if I wanted to? I really don’t know how its going to balance out, but I do see it slowly changing. A person I follow with great interest is Julia Roy. She now is a senior manager at Coach and seem to be really rocking that balance well.

10/10

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain (Read via Kindle for iPad) This...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:35:00 -0400

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain (Read via Kindle for iPad)

This book is really a continuation Bourdain’s journey after writing his Kitchen Confidential book. It tracks from him getting his book deal to almost today working on the travel channel. In the mean time, he bounced around the world a few times, got hired by the food network, then to leave for the travel channel, then that network got purchased by the food network. He seems he can’t get away.

The most interesting piece of the book I found (aside from ending up on a beach in some random island with some yuppie) was when he ended up on set of some food show with a bunch of food celebrities. I really appreciated how candid Bourdain talked about the scene. How these people were comparing notes on which product sponsors were better than others, and strategies and advice to go after others. All in the mean time Bourdain just stood there perplexed out of his mind, sort of feeling the odd character out.

The only minus of the book was was the brief few times he really food porned out. I do get where he was coming from, and those experiences were very well written. It was just not my cup of tea. I did enjoy the update of where everyone is at the end of the book as well.

8/10

How to Cheat at Everything by Simon Lovell (Read via Kindle for...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:20:20 -0400

How to Cheat at Everything by Simon Lovell (Read via Kindle for iPad)

This was a great book for the coffee table. Its a classic book of cheats. Lovell spends his entire time going through a gamut of bar games, card games, chance games and all sorts of other things that people randomly place bets on. Then loose their money. I am not that kind of gambler type, that would usually take a person up for these kind of antics. Then again, perhaps for entertainment. I always appreciate a showman who can tell a story of tricks throughout the night, all amounting up to a greater con.

It’s perhaps is why one of my favorite movies is Revolver. The character Jake Green says it best: ‘One thing I’ve learned in the last seven years: in every game and con there’s always an opponent, and there’s always a victim. The trick is to know when you’re the latter, so you can become the former’

Ordered it for the coffee table,

7/10

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh (Read Via Kindle For...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:26:00 -0400

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh (Read Via Kindle For iPad)

Similar to the Salesforce slight propaganda type book, Hsieh takes us thought an abbreviation of his business live starting from childhood. He describes how Zappos first started and how he eventually bet the farm on the business.

What really got me was his view on customer service. That he realized that it is a core competency of his business and you have to value it dramatically. I did not realize that he actually wants to buy out his employees with a 2k bribe after training to make sure they want to work there. Which is a great idea. The only thing that might be a problem is when you don’t pay your employees enough, then it gets interesting. Thats another thing that I have been noodling with… The value of workers compared to their output and how do you approach that. hmmm… more thinking to come.

8/10

The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun (Read via Kindle for...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:19:00 -0400

The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun (Read via Kindle for iPad)

This book really resets the common perspective of how innovation happens. Most people think its a magic idea, that’s then executed. In reality it is exhausting amounts of iteration that usually very much a group effort over a vast amount of time. The book itself is a very light read (It is long, but is not one of those books that dives deep into crazy abstract concepts), but worth the time. I really don’t have that much more to say about it.

7/10

Why New Systems Fail by Phil Simon (Read via Physical Book)This...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:13:11 -0400

Why New Systems Fail by Phil Simon (Read via Physical Book)

This is a great IT Book. It focuses on large enterprise projects and goes into why they epically fail. Simon give great case examples from his direct personal experience how the projects did not live up to their potential.

What I learned most about this book, is really knowing what you have, what you want, what you are buying, and who is deploying it. For example… If you are moving to a new billing system for example. You have to spend the time cleaning up the old one first and prepping it for transition before moving. The numbers in this book are sobering, more than half fail, most don’t live up to potential.

Even more, I would recommend AT&T pick up a copy of this book. It took me 12 hours to order a new iPhone today.

A must read for anyone in IT, especially above the line people (Wiki).

8/10

Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:04:43 -0400

Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider by John Hofmeister, Narrated by John Hofmeister (Read via Audible.com)

I got this book on an audible advanced book sale, not expecting too much. I was pleasantly surprised. Granted he does a lot of finger pointing in the book. But I do appreciate the candidness and his genuine perspective on energy policy.

I liked that he actually looked at the big picture of energy in the USA and in the world. He really explained the issue which I have not seen yet from any decent news source (That I follow anyway). The two main points he makes is that 1) current renewables are not efficient enough for a large scale once the energy cost of manufacturing is considered, and 2) there is a need for yet another oversight committee on energy.

For the first point, I would have to agree. When solar reaches a good enough efficiently and in a form factor that can made into a shingles for roofs, then everyone should replace their roofs with solar generation. If there was a law saying you have to do that, there would be dramatic impacts on the amount of energy being generated. But for that to work, you also have to modernize the energy grid, and plan on millions of homes generating for the grid, powering larger cities throughout the day. Also the United States has to dramatically invest in nuclear reactors. They have to pick an element or variant of one, standardize it and deploy it. Its not hard. If France can do it. So can the United States.

As for point number 2 in creating a new body in government… I am kind of torn. The concept is great. I do like the way he presents his idea, I would be all for the group. However, the current US government is just too broken right now and could not handle another group. Which would result in it end up doing nothing. That raises another issue entirely about the heath of current United States government. But that needs more thought on my part before a valid opinion can be made.

A solid 8/10

The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook by Ben...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:57:00 -0400

The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich, Narrated by Mike Chamerlain (Read via Audible.com)

I only got this book because Leo Laporte was constantly raving about it for many months as a must read. I have to say, I was very delighted. Mezrich dives deep into the founding of Facebook, back to the Harvard days. He tells about the Harvard crew brothers and the Connect U site that was in some respects, sabotaged by Zuckerberg because he dragged his feat for months while he worked on his own competing concepts.

What was the most fascinating is how this book presents Zuckerberg. It really is a rather damming abstract picture. From the way he handled the Connect U stuff to pushing out Eduardo Saverin was very fascinating. While Mezich thinks he was a little bit more a self centered act. I would happened to disagree. From the book, my opinion would be that Zuckerberg acted a bit too privately, remember he was not the most social person in the world. Instead of learning to more follow the community pulse, he more architected his own Matrix of a social graph. This in lies the problem. It just like how Aristotle could not comprehend the crowd nature of setting monetary values on things. It is not not for one person to decide, but the community as a whole to figure it out. Which creates balance.

8/10 a must read for anyone interested the history of the big web 2.0 company.

Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education By Michael Pollan,...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:50:10 -0400

Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education By Michael Pollan, Narrated by Michael Pollan (Read via Audible.com)

I expected that his book would contain some background on gardening… I did not expect 9 hours of complete obsession over the subject including diving deep intellectual thought over the very nature of nature of planting, zen design, seeds etc.. This book made me realize that there is definitely a book for everyone about every subject.

Don’t get me wrong I loved Omnivores Dilemma, and In Defense of Food. But this book is on a whole another level about gardening ethics and principals. It did contain a lot of good history of modern suburban agriculture and core principals that were established with the founding of the States. Its just that this book was very long. Too long. It felt like that someone could have chopped this down to 2/3’rd its size, without loosing and information. It was defiantly at 2x speed for most the book.

6/10

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:46:39 -0400

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain, Narrated by Anthony Bourdain. (Read via Audible.com)

In the same tone as Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica, this book is about working in the restaurant industry but on the kitchen side of the equation. I love that Bourdain was completely fired up as he wrote this book. You can just feel the grit in his voice of all the events he has lived through. The stories he has are just unbelievable.

What really made the book is his frankness of telling it how it is. He is right the restaurant business is a dirty business, and cooking is not a glamorous job. In fact it’s 6-7 days a week, 15 hour days. I also loved his complete bashing of the food network. Most of all I loved his stories about the NYC places he worked. I found the Rainbow Room stuff just classic. The Big Foot stories were even better. I get the impression the Big Foot is one of the most influential people in NYC on how restaurants are run because he’s so exacting. I give people like that credit especially that they are so on top of their business, to the point that they know what’s going on down to the cent.

More than anything else… This book is very humbling. Bourdain for all the partying that he did, is a straight shooter. He fully admits he did not make the best choices in the world in life, however he is glad that he has been very lucky. His google talk is a killer to watch as well.

9/10

Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry’s Road from...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:41:30 -0400

Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry’s Road from Glory to Disaster by Paul Ingrassia, Narrated by Patrick Lawlor (Read via Audible.com)

What a sobering view of the giant industry. This book give a good account of making automobiles throughout history in the USA. It mainly focuses on the big three. What I found that was total flabbergasted me, was the amount of time that all three management teams had to change their fate before their collapse in 07-08. They found cash cows with SUV’s, but did spend any decent abomut time to innovate the rest of their product line. I think of the EV program in the early 90’s that GM did. All the development that went nowhere.

On top of that was the whole UAW thing. Just how Enron took business too far, the UAW took unions way to far. To the point where they were paying people to do nothing everyday. Admittedly I have a severely limited perspective on the entire operations of that group, but from a casual outsider, both management and the union were at fault. They both worked themselves into such absurd long winded terms, I would not be surprised if there was a clause for smoking on the assembly line. Oh wait, there was. For a very long time.

A great piece about the auto industry.

8/10

Behind the Cloud… By Marc Benioff & Carlye Adler,...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:32:49 -0400

Behind the Cloud… By Marc Benioff & Carlye Adler, Narraged by Ax Norman (Read via Audible.com)

This is the book about the people behind Salesforce, mainly Marc Benioff’s journey combined with his over a hundred specific points he makes. What I liked was you got to peak inside how this company came up from nothing. The balance of New Concept, Technology, and great marketing is what made the company.

The two tidbits I remember the most was the brilliant little move of spinning the protestors that were outside of a Salesforce conference. He managed to convince a bunch of attendees that those people were paid by him. Also I loved the part about when the site first started having massive uptime issues. Benioff talked about how saying nothing is actually many times worse then being out in the open about major things. (I guess BP still has to learn that lesson)

I am not saying you can’t have secrets. Only that once a major problem directly affects a large number of people dramatically, its better to be honest and open then try to pull a fast one.

The book reads well, however it did feel a tad like propaganda to believe everything too blindly. But since Benioff has such great character, I can’t fault the book too much.

For that
8/10

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, Narrated by...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:23:49 -0400

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, Narrated by Malcolm Gladwell (Read via Audible.com)

It was an impulse buy, and ironically saw it on the bookshelf of a friends house months after I read it.

The basic synopsis of the book is that Gladwell gives another perspective on very successfully people. He raises a few points that in addition to mental capacity that, there are valid external factors that dramatically influenced many famous people. He gives good examples of Bill Gates having surreal access to a computer terminal in high school before most colleges had them. Canadian ice hockey players age cutoff in youth hockey leagues and how that has influenced what time of the year talent comes from.

He also gives good thought to the ‘10,000 Hour Rule.’ The Beatles were a case example. I didn’t know the band’s history at all. Especially how they were able to play gigs more than a thousand times in just a mere few years. And that more than anything, made the group.

This read definitely is one to have on the shelf. Gladwell actually does a good job reading his own book. I can see why he is one of the most popular speakers on the speaking circuit.

8/10

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine By Michael Lewis,...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:19:40 -0400

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine By Michael Lewis, Narrated by Jesse Boggs (Read via Audible.com)

I have to say this book was great read. I picked up the book after caching a piece on 60 minutes about the book.

Lewis gives another perspective of the financial industry during its large meltdown caused by the moronic mortgage crisis (Among other things). It was about the people who saw what was coming and bet against the market. They literally cashed in on the ticking bomb of what the market was. Both Greg Lippmann and Michael Burry’s stories were great. How both of them go into the market and figured out a way to buy insurance on these packaged securities. The epic fail at AIG was even better. I couldn’t believe that Joe Cassano managed to burn through 99 billion dollars at AIG over the stuff he was insuring.

I do have to say that Lewis exactly writes the kind of story based non-fiction books that I like. I found it very easy to understand why this big crash happened, and was even more riveted when some of these characters were figuring out what really was going on before everyone else.

This book reminded me that the market is not some machine, but just bunch of people that some are leaders, others are followers both trying to dominate any way they can.

9/10

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, Narrated by John Farrell (Read...

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:04:00 -0400

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, Narrated by John Farrell (Read via Audible.com)

After reflecting on this book for a few weeks, I am unsure of how I view this book.

Farrell presents the idea of Myelin, and how it antidotally relates to mini mecca’s of talent all over the world at different times throughout history. This book feel like Ken Robinson’s book ‘The Element’ in many ways. Just replace the term element with myelin, and things line up very closely in many ways (but far from exact). That is however why I am on the fence on this book. This book did not present a solid scientific background to the claims that he made in relation to these nerve walls. At least Robinson didn’t try to explain his finding scientifically, but as a interesting point that cannot be ruled out when studying the connections to science from the complex social roll of the dice that happens.

With that, this book does have something to say about skills, and how people learn. That I did find really fascinating and a great read. Especially as he explains the patterns that he has observed and how we can take that information and apply it to real life.

Unfortunately due to the amount sudo-science in this book is the reason why I cannot give this book more that a 6/10 because half of the dam time, he is blabbing on without solid footing for his argument. However I would still recommend the person interested in this subject to read purely due to the case studies of the people he has investigated and his findings (minus the science). He could be right, but I need proof before I will rubber stamp this book.

The Kid Stays in the Picture By Robert Evans, Narrated by Robert...

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:03:41 -0400

The Kid Stays in the Picture By Robert Evans, Narrated by Robert Evans (Read via Audible.com)

I picked up this book after an off hand remark by Alex Lindsay on MBW and boy I was not disappointed. This book is definatly one you have to listen to, because boy its good. Robert Evans does a great job narrating his own book. You can just absorb the stories, and his passion for his work. Throughout the book, I could just picture myself being at the meetings, reworking the godfather so it doesn’t suck.

Now this is the kind of hollywood book you just can’t make up. I know we fret about this industry way to much. But unlike most pieces of crap auto-biographies, this one really reads well. You really get a picture of what was going on at paramount studios at the time he ran it.

10/10

Rework by Jason Fried & David Hansson (Read via Physical...

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:00:41 -0400

Rework by Jason Fried & David Hansson (Read via Physical Book)

I picked up this book as it just came out and I just loved the layout of the book. All of the chapters a series of 2-3 pages at most with pictures illustrating the point that they were trying to make. I loved that there was no business jargon BS in it, where an author spends 600 pages just trying to make one point. These guys, make a number of points based on their own experience. Don’t get me wrong it did have that Tim Ferriss 4 hour workweek feel to it, but I did not find that detracting.

I was more just relieved that this book did not blab on about something useless or worse, some VC’s point of view.

A great quick read, and keep with the physical/pdf version of the book. Believe me I love audible, but the illustrations are just great.

10/10

Marco.org: More ideas than time: Last week's news

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 23:00:13 -0400

Marco.org: More ideas than time: Last week's news:

Most news outlets, including TV news shows and networks, newspapers, news websites, and blogs are targeted at news junkies: they never want to miss a story, and they want to be the first to report it to you.

If you look back on these stories even one week later, the majority of them seem…

This is exactly why I watch Frontline on PBS - its the best!.

Tog on Interface by Bruce Tognazzini (Read via Physical...

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:19:55 -0400

Tog on Interface by Bruce Tognazzini (Read via Physical Book)

This book is an extended publication of the early mac developer mailing lists around the mac os 5-6 timeframe. It is just great to read all of the testing and discovering what worked and what didn’t with the creation of the modern user interface.

A few pages just opened my eyes to the way people think. They wanted to ask a user if the screen they were looking at was a color display. You think that would be a straight forward question but it wasn’t. They actually had to go through 5 different iterations of that question to get it right. Just wording a sentence makes all the difference.

Overall what made this book over the top for me was the point of view TOG takes for designing interfaces. Even though this book is 15 years old, most all of the same design principals procedures, to rephrase, how you work to end up with a what we call a intuitive/simple design still matters.

What a fascinating gem, especially so early on in the development of computers. I just love when you just read the excitement and drive these people had over these little periods of time where tons of innovation happened.

9/10