The Blog of Burgher Jon

Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity.
Part IV Chapter 18

While I don’t agree with everything that Ayn Rand says, I tend to believe she is on to something with objectivism.  The true democratic nature of it is something that appeals greatly to me.  I said as much when I reviewed “Virtue of Selfishness” in this space.  I would have said it again if I was in the habit of writing book reviews on the blog when I read Atlas Shrugged.  All that said, The Fountainhead has to be one of the best Fiction books ever written and certainly is better then Atlas Shrugged; from both a pleasure of reading and an understanding of objectivism perspective.

The reason it is more enjoyable from a pleasure of reading perspective is that it does not suffer from the same long, boring middle that Atlas Shrugs does.  As the world slowly creeps away from Daphne Taggert, my interest waned.  In Fountainhead some of the most interesting dialog and actions happened while the world crumbled around Howard Roark.

The reasons it makes objectivism more understandable are Peter Keating and Gail Wynand. Keating’s character (though intended to be the villain) is one that we can all relate to.  He lives his life in a way that we can sympathize with, probably even see in our own.  At the same time though, we can understand why Rand feels it’s terrible.  Wynand attempts to live by the objectivist ideals and fails miserably.  The way Roark encourages him to recover is a lesson to all of us who are incapable of living Roark’s unblemished life.  In Atlas Shrugged, Rand didn’t present such relate-able characters, instead providing only Elsworth Monkton Tooheys (the arch villain) and Howard Roarks (the unattainable hero).

For this reason, I highly recommend The Fountainhead.  Read it slowly if you must, even with other books in the middle.  It took me 4 months, and I read it while reading plenty of other texts, but do yourself a favor and read it, then evaluate your priorities.

This book is an absolute must read that will bore you to death.  Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 10 crystallize a concept, a way of life that many of us follow but few can articulate with Rand’s precision.  The other 15 chapters just ramble about how objectivism applies logically in to emergencies, politics, racism and making anyone who disagrees feel stupid.  Virtually all of these chapters are logical extensions of the core concept, and require little thought.  Of these chapters only 15 is very interesting, then only because it does actually contain a new concept (how best to tax people in an objectivist socio-political system).

The overwhelming thing to me is the crystal clear explanation and defense of a truly free state of being.  Not one where we take advantage of other people, but one where each person provides value and is compensated for that value.  A world where the best man for the job always gets it.  Where he’s paid what he’s worth and his employer still makes her money, because the value she provides is big enough to justify an employee.  If you’re not a fan of overwhelmingly large novels (Atlas Shrugged and The Fountain Head), but still feel drawn to this kind of a philosophy, than this book is for you (at least the chapters outlined above).

I was just perusing the books on social media at the local book store, when I noticed this book.  I was intrigued by the subtitle, “a style guide for the short form.”  My curiosity got the best of me.  How can you have style in only 140 characters?   What forms of English can be expressed in this little form?  What does someone with a grasp of English and a background at twitter think of hash tags?

Dom Sagolla ( @Dom ),  one of the founders of twitr (yes, back when it was still known as twitr) is just such a guy.  He not only lays out a structure or context for thinking of the style behind a tweet, he supplies great tips on how to navigate Twitter.  There are tips on who to follow, applications to use and types of messages to write.

Overall, this is a must read if you intend to market yourself or your company on Twitter and a pretty good book even if you only have a passing interest in Twitter.

I enjoyed Godin’s Meatball Sundae and highly recommend it, with a few disclaimers.  It is intended for marketers only, not just anyone who’s interested in social media.  It would also be helpful to have a little bit of a background in social media before you read it.

The subtitle to Seth Godin’s book is “Is Your Marketing Out of Sync?”  That’s really what the book is about, Godin points out that the world’s economy has favored meatball producers over the last 50 years.  In this case a meatball is a mass produced item that’s designed to be universally popular.  Ford, GE, IBM even Dell and others have become accomplished at producing these items at low cost.  While there’s nothing wrong with this in Godin’s eyes, the meatballs do not lend themselves well to the new social media and web 2.0 marketing environment (the sundae).  On their own whip cream, chocolate sauce and meatballs are all good things, but they’re not intended to be combined.  Godin suggests ways you can change your company (or start a new one) that’s more like ice cream and fits well under the sundae.

His exploration of the concept is interesting.  It reinforces one of the golden truths of technology, “you can’t just add a transformational technology to your portfolio.”  Meatball companies that hire a couple “social media consultants” and build a Facebook page are destined to fail, but their failure is similar to many adoption failures.  The same principle applies to people who tried to virtualize their servers on VMWare without changing how they delivered IT services failed.  The same principal applies to people who try to add a collaboration tool (e.g. wiki or even IM) without changing the way their business operates.  Does anyone know of a book that’s written about this concept?  One that details what makes up a “transformational” technology and a generic formula for how to identify and implement them?

I absolutely loved the book Outliers.  It explored what REALLY makes the most successful Americans successful.  In the process he uncovers some startling truths (or at least theories) about human nature.  Among the things that I found most interesting:

• Asians may be better at math because of the produce that their great grandfathers grew.
• Southerners exhibit the signs of being from a culture of honor.  Even if they are Suburban Southerners from Atlanta attending college in Michigan.
• Being good at math has more to do with your willingness to solve problems then your skill with numbers.
• There are a number of people who have been smarter then Einstein, but it takes a mix of different types of intelligence to be brilliant.
• Once you are above a certain intelligence level (IQ 150 or so) additional intelligence is no longer a predictor of success.
• The real difference between the rich kids and the poor kids is not what they learn IN school, but what they learn out of it.

I don’t think this book changes the world or solves world hunger but it does challenge the way you think about human nature.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is introspective about these kinds of topics.

A note on Gladwell more generally:
I was convinced to read Outliers by a friend of mine.  I was very reluctant because I thought both Tipping Point and Blink provided a very narrow view of complex problems.  When I mean by this is that Gladwell has a tendency to point out one possible solution to a problem and not allow for other possibilities.  This is clear when he discusses crime in NYC in Tipping Point.  He cites a couple of things that he thinks caused it, gives reasons why and then doesn’t discuss any alternative possibilities.  Being a bit academic, I like to name the other possibilities and reasons I do or do not think they are possible.  Unfortunately, Gladwell continues this trend in Outliers.  This time though, the scope of the analysis demands an arbitrary narrowing.  It would be too difficult to discuss all of the other theories about why Asians are better at math, Hockey players are born in the first half of the year and Bill Joy, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are all within a year or two of age.