Net Profit How To Succeed In Digital Business by David Soskin

Net Profit How To Succeed In Digital Business by David Soskin

Net Profit is about building profitable internet enterprises.  It takes the view that web businesses are businesses like any other.  The writing feels very different than writing coming out of Silicon Valley in California, or Silicon Alley in New York.  It does not evangelize technology.  David Soskin takes a different approach to business on the web which comes from his working in Britain in a company that he bought, Cheapflights,  and then grew into an international business.

This is not about the wonders of open source, or how to reach lots of people through social media.  It is about how to protect your intellectual property and stay focused on becoming a profitable business.  He is not writing about how to make a lot of money very fast.

The books takes a nuts and bolts approach to business focusing on customers, choosing the right products, hiring for appropriate skills, raising cash, marketing, and bringing a company into the international market. He follows the conservative ideal of using your own cash and then plowing money back into a company you have started. It is only the last chapter which is speculative which is on the future of the internet.  The book starts with a chapter on the history of the internet and how it works.

This is a book that takes every day business practices and shows how they apply in a web environment.  It is for business people who are a little bit circumspect of the internet, but want to understand how it works and how to do business on the internet.

Daily Thoughts 10/29/2010 (Business Books, The Story of Stuff)

Interior with poppies and reading woman (Lizzy Hohlenberg), 1905, Oil On Canvas, by Anna Ancher, Skagens Museum

Daily Thoughts 10/29/2010

This morning, I started reading The Story of Stuff How Our Obsession With Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health by Annie Leonard.  It is very much an environmentalist and anti-consumerist book.  It follows the path of our stuff from when it is made to when we use it to when we throw it away to when it ends in the dump.

This morning we talked about possibly merchandising (creating a separate collection) for the small business books.  I am looking at the Gaylord catalog which is a label catalog for business labels.  We also talked a bit about business dvds.

I did a little bit of weeding in the oversize books and a bit of shelf reading in the 800s.

In the New York Times book review, one book caught my attention; The Gun, The AK-47 and the Evolution of War by C.J. Chivers. 

On the way home, I read some more of The Story of Stuff.  The author is using a lot of liberal causes in her writing.  It feels very politically correct which can be annoying at times.  However, the sympathy there seems to be right.  I am not sure that I agree with everything she is saying.  I am reading this book because it is printed on recycled paper.  Ecolibris is doing a campaign to get people to read books printed on recycled paper.

Web Bits

All Hallow's Read http://www.allhallowsread.com/

If you get a chance take a look at the New York Librarians Meetup blog, it is well worth going to their events.  http://nylibrariansmeetup.blogspot.com/

Daily Thoughts 9/14/2010 (Business Books)

Public domain clipart.

Daily Thoughts 9/14/2010

While I was looking at the concept of coworking I found an interesting office called Paragraph.  Paragraph is a coworking space for writers in New York. http://paragraphny.com/space/ Coworking seems to be a new trend.

I am looking at the purchase alerts. This is a list of what people have requested to be sent to our library. One book which caught my attention was Four Fish The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg.  It stands out because most books with environmental themes are not requested a lot.  Also Sherrilyn Kenyon who writes dark romantic fantasy has a lot of different books being reserved; Dream Chaser, Dream Warrior,  The Dream Hunter, and Dark Side of the Moon.

Today has been interesting.  We put together a list of the different resources available for business available at our library.  This includes databases, websites, books, and other resources.  We have a strong Job Information Center collection.  We also have been buying quite a few books on business on the internet and social networking.

Smart Start-Ups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Benefit by Creating Online Communities by David Silver

Smart Start-Ups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Benefit by Creating Online Communities by David Silver.

David Silver is a venture capitalist and an author of over 30 books on business. This book varies between being a strategy guide to start an online community and a stream of ideas for starting a variety of online businesses. The book describes online communities as being both on the internet and on mobile phones.

I found the sections on how to start an internet company quiet interesting. He was focusing on social networks like myspace.com and twitter. Social networks are described as being successful because of the ability to generate mobs of people and focus on user generated content. David Silver describes them as requiring very little capital to create.

He argues for a different strategy in creating communities. His view is that it is important to be part of the crowd, not appear to have a lot of money, ask for tips, try to encourage people to provide content for you, and create services which people will pay for.

Part of the strategy he is describing is appearing to be in opposition to large media companies. For example if you are selling ebooks, you might tell people why you don't like paper books, or if you are selling music downloads, suggest why compact discs are obsolete. Being persuasive and generating controversy, even lawsuits will generate even more interest in your sites as well as money.

Where the book did not do well with me was the constant stream of ideas which he proposed. It is easy to generate ideas but it is much harder to show how to execute on them. David Silver talked about everything from online legal arbitration societies to social sites on how to reinvent the American car. This was distracting. The sections on strategy and implementation were much better than the suggestions for new businesses.

I liked his ideas on how to create an online business strategy. It very much describes how to think like a social networking business person. The book was written in 2007 and seems to have been right on target for 2010. If you can get past the constant stream of suggestions for new businesses this book is worth reading.

Linchpin Are You Indispensable by Seth Godin

Linchpin Are You Indispensable by Seth Godin

I read this book because Ron Hogan at the Book Bloggers Convention on May 28, 2010 used The Seven Abilities of the Linchpin as part of his part of his presentation on professionalism and ethics for blogging. It intrigued me enough to want to pick up the book.

Seth Godin is strongly tied with new media. He has a blog and runs a social network called Squidoo. I recently reviewed another of his books, Purple Cow. He is very familiar with the changing environment of work. He also has a background in book packaging and has produced over 200 books. This makes him very familiar with the world of publishing and associates him with the book trade. This makes some of what he says relevant to libraries.

In one section in the book, he tells us that the publishing world has not caught up with new technology and could face some very serious problems. He is absolutely correct. We are seeing that with newspapers, publishing, and libraries.

Seth Godin is describing a process of becoming less dispensable in the fast changing world of new technology. It requires an ability to accept change, get over fear, and get to done repeatedly. He is describing everyone as being a potential artist. This is a very apt description. People are being required to do more creative work; post to social networking, work on websites, design marketing materials, blog, and other activities associated with new media. This requires a constant, consistent delivery of content in a timely manner. "Getting to done" becomes a necessity in many jobs.

He describes a world without a map. Again, this is perfectly appropriate. I don't think it is because of lack of planning. It has more to do with constantly changing technology, economic uncertainty, and changing workplace values.

The "linchpin" in Seth's book is the person who can deal with change and technology. He is not necessarily a line worker, nor is he a manager. He is the person who has to do the new creative work introduced into many jobs. Seth Godin claims that change has accelerated to the point where the person who just comes in to do their job or to manage people will become commoditized and left behind. The person who can create value will be the person who survives in an increasingly polarized work environment.

There is a sense in this book that the "linchpins" may be sacrificing their lives for their work. Work becomes accelerated to the point where it ceases being human. Sometimes people don't realize that a purpose of technology is to make peoples lives easier. Loving your work is fine, if it does not become all consuming. There should be a bit on burnout in this book. It certainly could create it if people follow this agenda.

The other side of the sacrifice is a new kind of producer of content that is incredibly visible, Seth Godin is among them. Some of them are Cory Doctorow, Ron Hogan, and Chris Brogan. These people have built a personal brand so strong that they do not need to look for work. There is no resume, nor business card. A blog becomes a personal resume and social networks turn into professional contacts. People drive themselves to become rising stars with social capital.

Everything becomes self oriented in the "linchpin" world. You go to the library to learn, use webinars, take open courseware from MIT Open University. There is no employer driving you to take classes or go to seminars. Some people will not like this. It is very hard to tear yourself away from the idea that your employer will provide you with further training. This is happening less and less....

This book is for the driven. It could be a recipe for burnout. If you want to learn a method to stand out, overcome your fear of doing new things, produce consistently, and take a lot of risks this book is for you. This book might not work too well in a traditional corporate setting. It pushes boundaries and challenges many ideas in management thinking.

The layout of this book is very readable, there is a lot of white space on the pages, the headers break up the text well, and it flows easily from page to page. The diagrams are incredibly simple, a middle schooler could understand them. The bibliography at the back of the book is a very nice reading list. I am considering reading The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida from the bibliography. There was no index and no notes to the content.

the New How Creating Business Solutions through Collaborative Strategy

the New How Creating Business Solutions through Collaborative Strategy by Nilofer Merchant.

This is very different than most business books I have ever read. Nilofer Merchant focuses on a collaborative style of management which is designed to involve the whole organization. The focus is not on creating strategy, but how you systematically implement strategy across an organization. In this book, the author describes how every level of an organization becomes involved in strategy. It also describes how to make everyone in an organization understand a companies strategy.

The book is published by O'Relly publishing. The book has a new media feel to it. If you go to the recommended reading list in the back, many of the books and recommendations are from new media. For example, she recommends the book, Everything is Miscellaneous The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger.

Sometimes it is hard to follow what she is saying. Some of the ideas seem far fetched. I think this is partially because many of the ideas she is drawing from are fairly new. Think of collaboration in terms of large projects like Wikipedia which is run in a collaborative manner or Cisco Systems which relies heavily on team work. There is a nice reminder that with knowledge work, the problem is not having enough ideas, it is implementing the ideas that are already available.

People are viewed as co-creators in this book and the management is not supposed to have all the answers. It is more focused on facilitating change. The author calls her methodology, QuEST; Question, Envision, Select, and Take. Question what you are supposed to be doing, envision the best way to do things, select the results which will work best, and take action.

This is a very different way to run a companies decisionmaking. It describes ways to attack basic assumptions, seek out real answers, and work in teams to select the best strategies.

I did not understand a lot of it, but because there were so many new ideas, I think that I will have gained some new insights on how to work with other people. A lot of this book is about managing and coordinating with people without having to control them. It is also about eliminating the "air sandwich" between management and line workers. It is a very much roll up your sleeves and work with other people style.

The book is very qualitative in orientation, so that there are not a whole lot of numbers and statistics. There are some simple diagrams. The author includes notes, index, and a list of recommended books to read. Many of the recommended books are about collaboration in business and leading teams. Nilofer Merchant is the CEO of Rubicon Consulting.

Viral Loop From Facebook to Twitter How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves by Adam Penenberg

Viral Loop From Facebook to Twitter How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves by Adam Penenberg

This book is about the network effect. The idea is that for every person that is added to a communication platform like email, telephones, and the internet, the number of potential connections increases exponentially. In its earliest form, it was used by Tupperware to sell products, or people creating chain letters. The book basically says that the network effect is good. I disagree with the idea that popularity is necessarily good. It may be good for business, but not so good for society.

Because I am not a huge fan of advertising, I did not find some of the effects he was describing to be beneficial. It is just as easy to spread spam, unwanted popups, and products that have questionable effects at best, like pornography, online games, and fast food with viral marketing and networks. The tools are neutral; the content is not.

The best part of this book was the technical part. I liked the descriptions of how Facebook, Paypal, and Ning were created to scale based on people inviting others into a network. I also liked his description of how viral networks were challenging newspapers, and now film with their popular methodologies.

Whether or not this is beneficial remains to be seen. I see both positives and negatives with the new technologies. This book very much evangelizes for the point of view that new media is the best thing that is happening today. Things are changing very fast. Lots of people are losing their jobs without training to move with the changes. The digital divide between the technically capable and the not so capable is increasing, not decreasing

The descriptions of the growth of Ebay, Netscape, and tupperware are fascinating. Also the description on how to create a movie using a $10,000 digital videocamera was interesting. If you like web video or pictures, the story of the creation of Youtube and Flickr is written into this book.

The book is divided into three sections; Viral Business, Viral Marketing, and Viral Networks. If you want to learn how a social media company scales quickly, this book will help you tremendously.

This is an excellent overview of the process of building a viral business with a gushing, evangelizing web 2.0 viewpoint. There is a list of the companies which Adam Penenberg covers at the back of the book as well as notes and an index.