Tag: Book Reviews

The Last Lecture: Book Review

November 10, 2011 Book Reviews 1 comment

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” – Randy Pausch (RIP 25 July 2008)

I first blogged about Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch back in 28 July 2008, 3 days after his death from pancreatic cancer. So moved was I by the video of his last lecture (do watch it if you haven’t done so), that I bought the book.  Of course, this was way before the recent death of the more famous Steve Jobs of Apple.


Book Review: What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

August 20, 2011 Book Reviews no comments

Malcolm Gladwell has an uncanny talent. Like a detective, he weaves compelling yarns, spinning together sources of information from psychologists, food testers, doctors, animal trainers, criminologists, and other experts to challenge common notions.

With journalistic brilliance honed by his years in the New Yorker, Gladwell proffered radical answers to challenge age-old notions in his latest bestselling volume What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures. A compilation of 19 essays on a wide range of topics – espionage, war, hair colour, kitchen appliances, homelessness and more – the volume blended pop psychology, sociology, management and current affairs in a highly readable prose.


Book Review: The Pirate’s Dilemma

August 4, 2011 Book Reviews 1 comment

Pirate DJ, music buff, and magazine publisher Matt Mason’s book The Pirate’s Dilemma – How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism is a fascinating tour-de-force of the world of youth culture, content piracy and the future of commerce.  Written from an insider’s perspective – Mason himself was once voted pirate of the year by Business Week – the book traces the development of various music genres over the decades and how they impacted societies. 

Defying the class action suits launched by record companies and copyright owners around the world, Mason declared that piracy isn’t a sin but instead, a necessary ingredient for innovation and invention. By allowing others to adapt and modify original content and spread it freely around, piracy helps to foster change in popular culture in all its forms – fashion, food, hairstyles, movies, games, software and even enterpreneurship.


How to be an Indispensable Linchpin

March 18, 2011 Book Reviews no comments

“You are not a faceless cog in the machinery of capitalism…” In fact, according to Seth Godin’s latest book Linchpin, you are an “artist who can give good gifts”. Best of all, you don’t need a canvas, a stage, nor a musical instrument to create art.

Beginning with such a delightful premise, Linchpin tackles the age-old issue of career motivation. What’s interesting is that Godin doesn’t just promote entrepreneurialism but rather, a form of intrapreneurialism – one where you as a worker in any circumstance or situation can “make magic”.


Can You Make Money from FREE?

September 2, 2010 Book Reviews 1 comment

Well, apparently Chris Anderson, author of New York Times bestseller The Long Tail and editor-in-chief of WIRED magazine, seems to think so. Moreover, you can still make a decent living out of it.

In his book, FREE: The Future of a Radical Price (which you download completely for FREE though I have the paid paper version), Anderson shared that charging people $0.00 for goods and services can only be possible primarily through cross-subsidies. These could take the following routes:


The Promise and Peril of Starbucks

May 31, 2010 Book Reviews 2 comments

Taylor Clark doesn’t like Starbucks. However, he does patronise its outlets. Apparently he is not alone, as there are many who publicly profess their distaste for Starbucks’ “almost burnt” brew while still swarming towards their outlet.

That in a nutshell is the premise behind the book “Starbucked” authored by Clark, a Portland-based journalist who appears to have more than a little caffeinated chip on his shoulder while appearing to be balanced in his authorship. Unlike the more glowing titles featuring the world’s most famous purveyor of coffee as experience, Clark squarely places both the pros and the cons of the cafe behemoth in his book.


Making Money from Minority Markets

November 2, 2009 Book Reviews 1 comment


Courtesy of Christopher Pattberg

Considered one of the most multi-cultural country in the world, the United States of America has one of the world’s most culturally and ethnically diverse population. Presently, it has some 305 million people out of whom 68% are non-Hispanic whites, 15% are Hispanics, 12% are blacks and 5% Asian American.

While white Americans currently dominate the American marketplace, some of the country’s most profitable segments actually hail from the other segments. Projections by the Census Bureau show that by 2050 when the US population grows to about 439 million, non-Hispanic Caucasians will only make up 46% of the country’s population. By then, the population of Hispanics (the fastest growing group) will swell to 30%, with blacks growing to 15% and Asian Americans swelling to 9%.