2009/08/12
The super crunchers book is entertaining and an enlightening read. Have not read it completely yet but whatever I have read, I like the material thus far. I like it because it shows how evidence-based management, data/numbers driven approach these days is possible, pertinent and very applicable in a wide variety of disciplines.
If you are running a business or are a key knowledge-worker for any organization, pickup the book for inspiration that will lead to perspiration and hopefully some positive results.
http://www.starfishandspider.com/ is an interesting book on how [Decentralization] might work. I like it. My wife likes it too. That combination is rare and might indicate that this book has more merit than first glance.
2009/08/17
. Heralds a new era of how we use phone and voicemail. Try it... its FREE.
Had another great lunch with MaryPoppendieck and TomPoppendieck. Since Mary and Tom do not particularly like Indian Food, we decided to meet at Santorini. The food was decent but customer service could be better. However, it didn't matter since the stories Mary and Tom have to share are far more interesting than any food anyway.
So, they are almost done with their third book : Leading Lean Software Development. The great news is that the "rough cuts" should be released on Safari book service in less than 2 weeks! Since I am a fan of the book service at the moment, I should be able to have instant online access. I am really looking forward to reading this third book, since the table of contents of the book looks great. The book seems to address key, practical issues when trying to apply Lean. I hope that the advice in this book will help in filling the [KnowingDoingGap].
We discussed CurryUp in the context of improvement and the economy. Tom, inquired about my realtime/real-life MBA - which is CurryUp! Its a great experience allowing me a channel to learn about and gain a tremendous insight into Human psychology.
Tom will be the proud owner of Toyota Prius 2010 - according to him, the first car to parallel park itself - no kidding!
We then discussed what I was upto these days - [VerizonBusiness], working for MichaelNygard. Mary and Tom will be attending Agile 2009 and JAOO. It is interesting that Mary and Mike - both residents of the Twin Cities meet with each other more often outside - at conferences.
They recommend the following book by John Shook:
They recommended looking up Anders Ericsson - "DeliberatePractice". Lets see what Google comes up with: deliberate practice@google. Ah! Here is the Ericsson paper <-- 
Mary recommended I look up [GamingTheory] - seems closely related to [BehavioralEconomics]. gaming theory@google
Reflecting about Lunch - I am very thankful to my dear friend SohamDesai for gifting me two books that I am looking forward to catching up on :
2009/08/19
[Biomimicry]. This video is amazing: http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_in_action.html
Tedesque way. http://asknature.org. Janine Benyus.