The Blog of Burgher Jon

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl last night.  Instead, I decided to knock one of the books I’ve been meaning to read off my list.  As it turns out though, my reading was related to the Super Bowl after all.

The trophy that Drew Brees hoisted over his head last night (the Lombardi Trophy) is named for legendary Green Bay Packers’ coach Vince Lombardi.  Perhaps the most famous expression of Lombardi was “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”  Seth Godin’s book, The Dip, is all about how absurd that statement is.

Godin’s point is that the best people in the world quit all the time, but not every time.  They quit everything except the one thing that they conquer.  The same is true of great companies.  Did Starbucks quit their in store CD Burning stations?  They sure did.  Did they quit serving coffee that cost a little more to make then all the other coffee shops?  Nope.  Even when margins got low, they maintained that quality and now many people (yours truly included) trust a Starbucks, any Starbucks, to provide a great cup of coffee every time.

Godin also points out the advantage that individuals and companies get by sticking with the good ideas.  America loves a winner.  By sticking with high quality coffee through “the dip” (when margins dropped because people would not yet pay Starbucks a premium), Starbucks was able to earn customers’ trust.  Now Starbucks can reap the benefits of surviving that dip.  A cup of coffee at Starbucks is routinely twice as much as the neighborhood shop next door, but I go to Starbucks because I know what I’m getting.  Additionally, Starbucks is now implementing coffee cards, discount travel mugs, $.50 refills and other measures to ensure that any challengers will have an even more insurmountable “dip” then they had.

If you’re an individual or a firm that’s balancing the pursuit of perfection in a number of areas or simply “caught in a rut”, I highly recommend this book.

I have a recipe for writing self-help books:

1 Person Who has Come Across Success.
40 Pages of Common Sense
40 Pages of Ridiculous Ideas
40 Pages of Good Ideas
References to Website or Community
Real Life Examples of People Who’ve Done Ridiculous Things
Quotes from Famous Authors (optional)

Begin by preheating the oven to 450.

Stir together the ridiculous ideas and real life examples, whip until the ideas sound reasonable.  If necessary sprinkle in stories from  the person who has come across success.

Grease printing press and place two pages of common sense on top of a page of ridiculous ideas.  Repeat until you’ve used all your common sense.  Close with a mixture of good ideas and remaining ridiculous ideas.

Coat with a thin book jacket about the person who has come across success.  Add quotes from famous authors to taste, they should make the common sense taste sharper and dilute the sour hints from the ridiculous ideas.

Bake at 450 until gooey center is boring enough to sleep on.  Sprinkle with references to website or community to ensure the consumer will buy another book or watch a lecture.

After the Jump, how each ingredient maps to the 4 hour work week.

Read the rest of this entry »

The sequel to one of my favorite books was good, but not as good as the original.  If you haven’t read the first one (Freakonomics), go get it, now.  I’ll wait.

This one (Super Freakonomics) has a similar format.  It has only four chapters; “How is a Street Prostitute Like a Department Store Santa?”, “Why Should Suicide Bombers Buy Life Insurance?”, “Unbelievable Stories About Apathy and Altruism”, “The Fix is in – and It’s Cheap and Simple” and “What Do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo Have in Common”.  I also thoroughly enjoyed the conclusion, “Monkeys Are People Too”.

The first chapter provided fantastic conversation fodder for myself and a colleague.  The intricacies, pricing models and market segments that make up prostitution in Chicago are very interesting.  The third chapter provided an interesting view of altruism in the lab and outside it.  It was the last two chapters that made the book though.  A very interesting discussion on whether geo-engineering is a more economical fix to global warming then cutting emissions.  A further discussion on whether the negative externalities involved would become even more negative if it was.  Finally, the conclusion asks just how quickly monkeys could learn to build an economy around prostitution.

All in all, if you like economics (even as a hobby) or sociology (even as a hobby) I recommend it.

To be successful you have to get over your panic. Not only must you develop confidence in your ability to handle problems, but your whole way of thinking about them has to change. You have to accept a never-ending flood of complications as a normal part of the business process, and you have to learn to enjoy that process. How? By getting caught up in the fun and excitement of finding solutions.

I usually like to use a picture of the book I’m reviewing for posts like this.  So at 5am this morning I sat down and typed “The Knack” into Google.   It gave me that video.  I found the video too good not to share.  It’s also related to the book.  The knack that Brodsky refers to isn’t engineering though, its the ability to start and lead companies.

I found the book to differ from other entrepreneurs’ books in one very refreshing way; the advice that Brodsky provides is practical.  Benioff’s Behind the Cloud, the last such book I read, has 111 tips for starting a business.  The first one from his book is, “Take some time off.  Let inspiration strike you like it did me, on a beach in Hawaii.”  You never find Marc Benioff talking about how to pull out pencil and paper and calculate gross margin.  You never even hear him say what an acceptable gross margin might be.  Brodsky’s first piece of wisdom, “If you’re going to make money you’re going to need gross margin.  If you can’t figure out how to make that realistic, don’t start your company.”  Benioff might be right and many of us may have richer, more rewarding and even more successful lives if we took some time away.  However, when I buy a book about how to be an entrepreneur, I prefer to end up with Brodsky’s battle stories and actionable lessons.

As an (almost) MBA, none of his advice was shocking.  If you’re an experienced business person it probably won’t shock you either.  However, how much can it hurt those of us with that background to hear those important lessons again?  Especially if we’re about to put our own hard earned money on the line?

If you’re thinking about starting your own business and don’t have an extensive business background, then this is a MUST read.  I haven’t read every book about starting a company, but I’ve read enough to know this one should be in your library.

This morning, I worked as an exit elf, telling people in a loud voice, `This way out of Santaland.’ A woman was standing at one of the cash registers paying for her pictures while her son lay beneath her, kicking and heaving, having a tantrum. The woman said, `Riley, if you don’t start behaving yourself, Santa’s not going to bring you any of those toys you asked for.’ The child said, `He is, too, going to bring me toys, liar. He already told me.’ The woman grabbed my arm and said, `You there, elf, tell Riley here that if he doesn’t start behaving immediately, then Santa’s going to change his mind and bring him coal for Christmas.’ I said that Santa changed his policy and no longer traffics in coal. Instead, if you’re bad, he comes to your house and steals things. I told Riley that if he didn’t behave himself, Santa was going to take away his TV and all his electrical appliances and leave him in the dark. The woman got a worried look on her face and said, `All right. That’s enough.’ I said, `He’s going to take your car and your furniture and all of your towels and blankets and leave you with nothing.’ The mother said, `No, that’s enough, really.’

The above quote is one of the more politically correct, less offensive parts of this masterpiece.  I rarely read fiction, but I have been working hard and decided it was time to pick up something a little more upbeat.  Heather, the editor of this blog, recommended Holidays on Ice and I’m glad she did.  The book provided just what I needed, a great deal of laughter.

Sedaris includes 6 essays in this volume.  The quote above is from my favorite, “SantaLand Diaries”.  It’s the story of a Christmas Elf at Macy’s from the interview process to Christmas eve.  The main character plays practical jokes on the patrons, comments on the various odd habits of parents, and wonders how this will help him in his life goal of writing for a soap opera.  That essay alone is worth the price of the book.  Another essay that had me cackling was “Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol”.  The main character, a theatre critic, provides scathing reviews of a handful of children’s Christmas pageants.  The other essays were hit and miss, 2 were great and 2 were only mildly funny.  You won’t regret reading any of them, but there are definitely inconsistent levels of quality.

The book crosses about every line that exists in this politically correct world; so if you’re easily offended, stay away.  It doesn’t have an overriding theme and there’s not much to be learned from it.  That said, if all you want to do is have a good laugh at the ridiculousness of the holidays, there can’t possibly be a better book out there.