Nirvana

Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography is a good read, tracing his life in detail from research to business to politics. That he was a versatile, multi-faceted genius is obvious, you only need to look at his accomplishments at Philadelphia’s Ben Franklin Museum. He had a way with words like Thomas Hardy !

Listed below are the thirteen virtues that Ben strived to adhere to. He focused on only one virtue every week and tracked his progress in a little book marking a black spot for every offence. Each cycle was thirteen weeks long before he started all over again.

He had listed the first twelve virtues and added in ‘Humility’ at the suggestion of his friend who thought he was proud.

• TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

• SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; Avoid trifling conversation.

• ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

• RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

• FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

• INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

• SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

• JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

• MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

• CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

• TRANQUILITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

• CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

• HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

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Bangalore Book Festival - 2007 is being held at Palace Grounds (towards Mekhri Circle) between October 12th and 21st 2007. I was there on Saturday along with my parents in the evening - the setup is similar to last year and the entry tickets cost around Rs 40/- Unlike last year, I did not see a large crowd at the stalls and it appeared to me that the number of stalls were also fewer.

Nevertheless, you could find a few of the famous book houses like Blossoms, Sankars and Fountainhead at the festival. Blossoms @ Church Street has turned out to be a popular place to buy books because of their book return policy and also the variety of books they stock. I was looking for bargains at the book stalls and was quite letdown as the books seemed to be a repeat of last year’s fest.

Not that I was specifically looking for any book (apart from Michael Lewis, “BlindSide“) but did manage to find three @ throwaway prices - Tom Peters Seminar , Silicon Sky and Competing on Internet Time

I considered buying “Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki (I have given up on receiving the autographed book from Startups.in contest) but then decided to borrow it from my friend.

It was surprising to see stalls dedicated to leftist (communist) books on Che Guevera, Marxism, Lenin among others. Also prominent were stalls promoting religious books on Islam and Hinduism, philosophy. Oxford and few other publishers were present too displaying books on SW, technology, engineering textbooks etc.

Watch out for Surya Book Fair stall towards the end for interesting books - although you may have to rummage through the haphazard arrangements of books piled on top of each other

Worth a visit, I would say.

Books I have bought over the past couple of weeks include Jose Saramago’s Seeing, My years with General Motors by Alfred Sloan and Practice of Management by Peter Drucker.

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Recently read “What should I do with my life?” by Po Bronson - a riveting read. Po follows real ordinary folks and how they handle crisis in their lives and try to add meaning to their lives. Written in a clear and concise manner with his brilliant insights, Po cautions that this is not a “quick fix” book but we can learn from the characters written about. How hard is it to find answers to the simple questions in life ! Highly recommended !! Michael Lewis and Po are two non-fiction authors I have discovered in the past year and I am glad I did. For more on Po Bronson, you can click here.

Webcredible is a site I stumbled upon this week - informative articles on how to make your site more effective and more user friendly.

Fantasy Football drafts are done and I have a good team this year. Need to watch how well they fare this year. With cricket series going on, the NFL games are not going to be telecast - that’s a big bummer ! Tony Romo or Rex Grossman for QB, that’s the dilemma!

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Effectiveness must be learned as an executive is paid for being effective asserts Drucker, the management guru.  Effectiveness is the ability to get the right things done and is a habit, a complex of practices that have to be acquired. Outlined below are the steps that could make you more effective according to his book “The Effective Executive” ( A soft copy of this book is also available at Asiaing)

• Record where the time goes (Know thy time) and analyze the executive’s time (pruning of unnecessary activities) - this action alone will make a man more effective. He needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks for maximum effectiveness.  Identify the time wasters which follow from lack of system or foresight. A crisis that recurs a second time is a crisis that must not occur again. The recurrent crisis is simply a symptom of slovenliness and laziness.

• Focus outwards on your contribution to the organization with concern for results rather than efforts and stress on responsibility.  Think through who uses your output and what the user needs to know. Focus on contribution supplies four basic requirements of effective human relations : communications, teamwork, self-development and development of others.
  • What is the most important contribution I can make to the performance of this organization?
  • What self-development do I need? What knowledge and skills do I need to make the contribution and what standards do I have to set myself?

• Making strengths productive - integrate individual purpose and organization needs appropriately.  One has a pretty good idea whether one works better in the morning or at night. One knows whether one works best by making a great many drafts or one meticulous session.
  • What are the things that I seem to be able to do with relative ease ? To be effective he builds on what he can do and does it the way hr has found out works best. One feeds the opportunities and starves the problems.

• First things first and one thing at a time.  Identify priorities by
  • Picking future as against the past
  • Focus on opportunity rather than on problem
  • Choose your own direction
  • Aim High, aim for something that will make a difference.

• Effective decision concerns with rational action. Effective decisions do not flow from consensus of facts but from clash and conflict of divergent opinions.

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Seth Godin’s latest manifesto on changethis - Pushing past the Dip. Something to ponder.

Also, check out Tom Peters 60 TIBS and 100 ways to help you succeed/make money. Infectious !

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The last week has been mixed to say the least.

We had a team outing at work for our new project kickoff, Paintball @ Bannerghatta road run by Yuyutsa. It was a great success, everyone had a good time.

Three teams devising strategy to outscheme the opponents yet running around with loaded guns like a bunch of ten year olds. I would highly recommend it to any team looking for new and adventurous things to do.

I have been down with viral fever this weekend, just bedridden and hoping this nasty cold will go away. So far, it’s been persistent

It’s been more than three months since I won the lucky draw at the “Art of the Start” contest organized by Startups.in. I am yet to receive the signed copy of Kawasaki’s book. Worse, mails querying the status has been met with a stoic silence. what gives ?

Just finished reading “The Effective Executive” by Peter Drucker, a masterpiece filled with anecdotes and comprehensive ideas of how to get the right things done. I am planning to follow up on his advice and see how effective I can be.

Thoughts of pursuing a MBA in people management @ the back of my mind, should I or shouldn’t I?

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Close on the heels of “The New New Thing” by Michael Lewis, I picked up a copy of Liar’s Poker by the same writer this month. The book delves into the history of Salomon Brothers during the heady 1980s and the writer’s personal account of his transition from a geek to a salesman to a “Big Swinging Dick” while at the firm.

Starting with his serendipitous recruitment into the firm, the author takes you through the training programme he had to undergo, the colorful management characters, the trading floor, his interaction with customers, ethics, bond/mortage trading during the early 1980s and the subsequent decline of the firm.

The book is hilarious in parts with the author’s acute observations as he struggles to be one of the Wall Street family - a great read, highly recommended ! 

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“Conditioned” is one of my favorite words when I think of humans in general. Let’s see how well you fare in the puzzle attached.

4-squares.pps

Read Michael Lewis “The New New Thing” last week, a biography of Jim Clark ( Founder of SGI, Netscape, Healtheon among others). Engrossing and highly recommended to anyone interested in the Silicon Valley during the 90s.

Two things stood out in the book:

• derisively referring to a company called Google getting 75 million dollars in funding from KPCB during late 90s

• Jim Clark’s accidental spotting of the “Juliet” (a boat) hastened Netscape’s IPO and resulted in the Internet revolution.

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Startups.in is giving away three hardcover autographed copies of Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of the Start” this month. To learn more, click on the link below.

The Art of the Start

Having read Guy’s “How to drive your competition crazy” recently, this is one opportunity that I did not want to miss!

PS - A brief synopsis of this book is also available on changethis

Enjoy!

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Selling books must be a thriving, profitable business in Bangalore - the vendors are sprouting up everywhere in recent times, on the pavements in the streets, small book fairs and the stores with buyback schemes.

One good outcome I assume is that number of book readers have gone up and are more sensible in selecting the good books from the pack. The bad side of the coin is the blatant violation of copyrights and cheap imitative paperbacks available at throwaway prices, less than couple of dollars. So far, there has been no crackdown on this piracy by the law authorities.

Be it Wodehouse novels, management classics (”Built to Last”), spiritual, motivational books (Kiyosaki) or the notorious “How Opal Mehta..”, you will find it here in the dozens. For an avid reader who is also wallet conscious, this is a paradise come true. Surely, one wouldn’t pay 100 bucks for a management book while it’s available for couple of bucks? Certainly, not I!

Bangalore Book Festival was held in Palace Grounds for couple of weeks and more than 50 reputed Indian publishers/bookstores had put up stalls with a diverse collection of books catering to all masses.

I picked up “The Nudist on the Late Shift” by Po Bronson, a compelling read so far - about Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs, salespeople, programmers and newcomers. It’s been fun reading the tales of the Valley. The author has vividly portrayed the characters and the events as they unroll creates a sense of awe at the accomplishments by the Valley’s residents.

Thomas Watson’s biography (IBM) was hard to pass up, Guy Kawasaki’s “How to drive your competition crazy”, “A Brave New World” by Huxley and “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding were others I bought.

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