The Shifting Goalpost

There are more business books published every year than the number of cricket matches that India plays each season. And you will have to sift through a number of resources to create your reading list so that you don’t end up wasting your valuable time and energy going through a book you rather have not read. But this review is about a book which was written 16 years ago. Take it from me that if you are going to read one book this month, make it ‘The Pursuit of WOW!’ by Tom Peters.

This book falls under the ‘unputdownable’ category. It was a chance break while attending a training when I loitered in the library at work and picked up this book. And I was as excited as winning a lottery. Such are the gems of wisdom this book has to offer.

Generally, the business books that I have come across are either in the form of Management textbooks (some hoping to become a part of the MBA curriculum or at least to appear on the suggested reading list) or the parable variety (which have become very popular since ‘Who moved my Cheese’ – check your Sunday newspapers’ Top 10 Non-Fiction Bestsellers List). Of course, parables have been popular due to the easy reading and this book takes it further. The author has risked the format of non-format. He has used free-form content for the topics that he covers. It is a pleasant surprise how the blog form can be applied to a printed book and still be readable in continuity and bookmark-able. You will understand this if you have ever tried to read various personal blog entries published at various dates in one go. But it brings the good part of the blog form too – i.e. pick any section and start reading from there.

As the title of the book suggests this is about achieving excellence in what an individual or organisation does. The book is liberally strewn with examples of strategies going right as well as wrong. It unabashedly judges, advises and suggests how individuals and organisations ought to work to survive, grow and make an impact. The author does not mince words to show his disapproval about the bureaucracy that is a standard feature of large organisations, successful or not. The book tells the reader about how the right or wrong selection of tools and processes can make a positive or negative impact to the employees, customers and other stakeholders of an organisation. It also talks about the design aspect of various entities – the insights are applicable to everything from deliveries to restrooms. Yes, you read it right – restrooms. It talks in detail and in same breath about how a very small company is achieving customer delight in a job considered to be the most routine one (plumbing) and how Hatim Tyabji brought changes at Verifone and grew it 12 times in 9 years. There are three transcripts about a group of Executives discussing business challenges, diversity and entrepreneurship. These provide a lot of food for thought in the areas mentioned above and succeeds in increasing awareness as well as kindles a fire in the reader such that he will want to do something about it now.

As mentioned earlier, the book was written in 1994, so there are areas which could either seem to be dated or considered as the author’s foresight e.g. the usage of rolodex or email.

For some, the casual form of the book could be a deterrent – especially for those who chew on the textbook material day in and day out, it could also seem superficial. The book will also not give the reader strategy templates, toolsets or specific guidelines about achieving a specific goal.
The most important intention of the book is to provoke, as Tom Peters calls himself a provocateur, and it does a good job at that.

Lie is a graphic novel in the form of miniature paintings with an intent to provide a satire on politics, religion, film, cricket and family and how they contribute to the corruption, greed, caste prejudice, materialism, communalism and gender inequalities. The two lists in the preceding sentence are from the narration at the back of the book. Well, if one had to cover all of these in a 180-page book, it cannot do justice to all the points. And indeed that is the case.

As opposed to the original intent, the book is more focused on political characters and ignores many of the other areas. And obviously then, it deals more with corruption and greed.

Somehow, I felt a case of missed opportunity here. The author may have had some unavoidable format constraint (180 pages) and hence tried to tell as much as possible within this constraint. But in doing so he has definitely compromised on the complete message that he had in his mind. A free hand on the length could have led to a magical tome of a graphic novel (maybe similar to Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’). In the current form, it leaves you wanting more. Somehow I don’t think that (to leave you wanting more) was an intention, but I maybe wrong.

The author has selected two political characters Bhola Mishra and Rekha who are much more than loosely based on Lalu Prasad and Indira Gandhi. Not sure why their supporters have not targeted this book to demand a ban. Of course, not a single supporter has read it or even read it in the future. You have got the idea so it becomes very predictable as well from here.

I am interested in knowing how well this book does as it could provide an indication of whether the comic book generation (I just made that up) which has grown up now will lap up mature content in graphic form (wow, the last phrase will bring up anything but mature ideas in a dirty mind - I am sure you are not one of those).

Last few points - the drawings are an interesting style (cannot work mainstream except for shock treatment like South Park but it will take at least 100-200 years more for that to be acceptable in India). The style works very well for the content. And once you start reading Lie, it is very difficult to put it down till you reach the end. We want more.

I am taking liberty to post one page from the book. Enjoy.

I was looking for a book that looks at the life of top executives in corporate and wanted to avoid business biographies. Luckily, I came across the “The Secrets of CEOs: 150 Global Chief Executives Lift The Lid On Business, Life And Leadership by Steve Tappin and Andrew Cave” which claims to have interviewed 150 CEOs and present the result of their research. Impressively, it has a foreword by Sir Richard Branson.

The book is divided in three parts - the first explains the current problems or challenges faced by CEOs (not exhaustive and a Chapter dedicated to each problem), the second categorises CEOs in five groups (a Chapter dedicated to each category) and provides a profile of one CEO falling in each of these group. This is the inspirational part and can help you in understanding what category you fall in as a leader. The third is supposed to be a compilation of CEOs’ secrets and guidance. But is actually a lot of management/leadership gyaan peppered with CEOs’ quotes.

I think one of the best part would have been “The Fellowship” section in Chapter 12, but that is very brief and just touches on an idea and this is an area where the CEOs’ might not have actually shared their secrets. Chapter 13 “Preparing to Lead” and Chapter 14 “Heeding the CEO Health Warning” provides career guidance and counselling - now the question is do aspiring CEOs really require this or not - I mean actual worthy candidates will find their way anyway.

One profile has definitely made a lasting impression - Terry Leahy - Tesco CEO since 1997 - who started as casual worker at the age of 23 becoming a director at the age of 30 and CEO at the age of 40.

Ben Verwaayen - BT CEO from 2001 to 2008 was the other inspiring personality in the book. And one of the striking quotes from Verwaayen was - “The biggest disease at companies is that it is more important to please your boss than to please yourself. It is very hard to get rid of because it is in people’s DNA. People want to please their boss so if he wants nonsense, they will serve it hot or cold or however he wants it.”

Overall, a book which does not require your 100% attention but can be added to the reading list for slightly more than a quick glance through.

As a comics fan - maybe not as much as those who attend the Comic-Con, I was very interested in the two unconventional super-hero movies, Hancock and Unbreakable. Both the movies are very different but both portray super-heroes facing problems similar to ordinary human beings. The very conventional Peter Parker/Spider-man faces human problems but he faces those as Peter Parker not as Spider-man. Hancock faces a drinking problem. And David Dunn (Unbreakable) doesn’t even know that he has extraordinary powers (the whole movie is based on how he is made aware of that). Both have relationship issues.
Shyamalan’s every movie is compared with The Sixth Sense and then criticised how it fails to reach that level. I think that is very unfair. But compared to Signs and The Village, Unbreakable might be (or have been as I am watching it after 9 years of its release ) more likeable to The Sixth Sense fans. It has a very similar beginning and tries to have a similar shocking ending. But if you are a comics fan and a Shyamalan fan, Unbreakable is a fantastic treat.

I had thought about writing this for quite some time. Ab Tak Chhappan is one of the best movies to understand and implement effective Team Management - I am not joking. Having read this, if you go and watch this movie, it will be impossible not to get the point I am making. Your opinion may differ on whether it is the best lesson or not (I sure do consider it one), but you surely will agree 100% with me that it indeed is a management lesson.

I have seen this umpteen times now. Latest run on last Friday with a dear friend who completely agreed with me - he confessed that he had seen the movie but never thought about the management angle but now feels that every shot gives an insight.

Leopard is doing great on my eMac since I loaded it a month back. But I have decided to make it zippier (it has only 512MB RAM). The first step was to use the nifty utility, Onyx and reduce eye candy. There are many options/settings that cannot be changed through Leopard’s ‘System Preferences’ and require a few commands from the Terminal. Onyx saves the hard work and provides a way to change these settings.

Of course, Onyx is not just for reducing eye candy. It is a maintenance utility which provides the following functions:
- verification of S.M.A.R.T. status, strucutre of volume
- syntax of preferences files (.plist)
- system file permissions (and repair, if required)
- manually run maintenance scripts (important, since many times we keep the machine in sleep mode and these scripts are skipped)
- rebuild spotight and mail index
- cleaning of cache and log files
- secure delete of trash files

There are other applications which provide similar functionality and I have read good reviews about them - Tinkertool (free) and Cocktail ($14.95). But as of now, Onyx does the job.

Being a fan of horror movies, I snapped the Omen pentology boxset while it was going very cheap at HMV. And it was not a bad decision. I was sure of the original movie to be a five star movie, expected at least one of the following three to be good, and definitely wanted to see the 2006 version as it was the remake. No major surprises but the latest one is a fine example of how remakes should be. It is almost frame to frame remake with subtle improvisations at the right places and no undue use of technology as many remakes have.

Can somebody please gift one boxset to RGV (does anybody remember his Aag?)

1. Canon HV20: I had already decided for a HD camcorder as I didn’t want to be stuck with a SD (Standard Definition) camcorder while HD (High Definition) takes over the delivery mechanism (TV - HD and players - Blu-ray).

After much deliberation on the recording format (Tape or HDD - Hard Disk Drive), I decided on Tape as it still offers better quality than the compression formats on HDD, especially if you go for HD. This is because HD requires substantial storage space and hence rigourous compression if it has to be stored on HDD or Flash Drives (some camcorders have started offering that). This leads to convoluted workflow while editing and publishing. Also, contrary to my assumption, tape is considered to be a good archival medium.

And my research says that Canon HV20 is currently the best consumer camcorder to record HD on Mini DV tape, especially with its fantastic CINE setting.

Soon, I will post the results on Vimeo. Not Youtube. Vimeo lets you upload better resolution videos including HD.

2. Canon Powershot G9: This was a result of another painful and long decision making process. By paying 10% extra than what one pays for the G9, it is easy to acquire a DSLR (Digital SLR), but I decided against DSLR as I am still not dedicated enough to photography to warrant a DSLR.

On the other hand, I wanted complete manual control to be available for those genius moments and G9 fits the bill (my other camera Fujifilm Finepix E550 offered manual control but it has started showing its age). G9 is a compact with a retro rangefinder look rather than the sleek compacts/point and shoots that have flooded the market.

But the learning curve is not for the faint-hearted and currently I am a bit worried when I will be able to master it.

3. Wacom Bamboo One: Finally, a cheap pen tablet compatible with Mac and from a company dominating the product space and rightly so. What a difference a pen tablet makes in Photo editing!? It is unbelievable - a 3-5 minute lasso selection task using mouse or trackpad in an image editing software can be done in 10 secods flat.

You know how when you get too close to the edge of a rooftop, you can feel your mortality?
Or when you’re driving and you wonder, just for a split second, what would happen if the oncoming lights swerved into your lane?

If you are interested in comics, I would suggest you go and read the webcomic, Outside The Box by Brendan Cahill. The story, artwork and dialogues are thoroughly enjoyable.

Now that I have seen both the movies, I can confirm that the Salman Khan - Govinda starer Partner is an absolute frame-to-frame copy of the Will Smith movie Hitch. Yes, there are differences - all those plots which I thought were the only negatives of Partner (e.g. Lara Dutta - single mother, Salman Khan’s cousin and her kids) and the one which was positive (Rajpal Yadav as Chhota Don). And the Partner makers did leave out a few scenes. I am trying to make a point here - ‘accused of copying’ making is a joke - it is very much copied without even an attempt to cover it up.

And your heart beat goes up after hearing this dialogue while watching the movie ‘Saw’ or rather the movie trilogy of ‘Saw’, ‘Saw II’, and ‘Saw 3′. Dr. Hannibal Lecter (’Silence of the Lambs’) will seem to be a very friendly person once you are through watching these movies. As goes with many of the sequels, the original always seems to be the best one and sadly, it is true even for this one. But that does not mean that the other two are not enjoyable. It just says that the original is just fantastic.

But ‘Saw’ is not for the faint-hearted. In fact, ‘Saw II’ and ‘Saw 3′ are brimming with too much blood and gore (more than necessary). The main character in the film is ‘Jigsaw’ who presents us with puzzles that result in either death or death (that is not a typo). And the suspense throughout the films makes these horror movies thoroughly enjoyable.

If you are a horror, suspense, or thriller movie fan; the ‘Saw’ trilogy is simply unmissable. And watching the movie one after the other in immediate succession in complete darkness is the best way to enjoy it.

Game over.