Tag: business

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#BookReview: Egyptian Made by Leslie T. Chang

Fascinating Examination Of Modern Egyptian Work And Culture. As an American who has only briefly left the US, and never left the Caribbean region when leaving the US, it was fascinating to read such a detailed account of modern Egyptian work and culture as seen through the eyes of an American who lived there for a few years and who actively examined what she saw while there. From a sheer cultural studies perspective, this work was interesting indeed. As an examination of women’s place in society in Egypt, it was also fascinating in several different aspects – while there is *some* similarity to *some* minority groups in the US, this was largely a very different concept than how America operates, both in actuality and in vision. Even the work culture of the males shown within is so *vastly* different than American business and work culture, and Chang shows how this is largely the result of Socialist / Nationalist policies from generations ago that became so deeply embedded within the culture at large that no effort to reign them back in has been very successful.

The singular glaring weakness here is the absolute lack of any bibliography at all, at least in the Advance Review Copy edition I read. Indeed, it must be noted, that while I am accustomed to ARCs being “not in final form”… this was also one of the most incomplete ARCs I’ve ever been given access to. There were quite often threads that would end in “to investigate later” or some such, or “place chart here” or similar, among other issues of this type. Not enough to truly detract from the overall narrative, and certainly not anything to deduct a star over – I know the score with ARCs. But this being truly the most incomplete such book I’ve ever encountered needed to be noted, as it *did* impact my overall experience with the text.

Overall, this was truly a fascinating examination of a culture I’ve never experienced and likely *will* never experience, and I trust that the fully released version won’t have the incompleteness of what I was given, negating the only criticism I had here. Very much recommended.

This review of Egyptian Made by Leslie T. Chang was originally written on March 13, 2024.

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#BookReview: The Pragmatic Programmer by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt

Solid Advice For Programmers Of Any Experience Level. This book, originally released just months before I started college and updated 5 yrs ago from the time I read it as this 20th Anniversary Edition, really does have solid advice for programmers of any level and within any organization. Some/ much of it is stuff that I was trained as simply being “good practice”, but there are aspects to the discussion here that we *all* fail in at some point or another, and thus are good reminders of what the ideal *should* be. For those mid career coders trying to figure out where to go next, this is one of those books that can truly reignite your love of sitting down and writing code, free of all the corporate bullshit that exists any time you’re writing code for someone else. For those early career coders, this can serve as a guide book for some of the pitfalls to watch out for and what the ideal should be in most situations you’ll encounter. And for those truly “seasoned” veterans looking to end their career on a high note with style and grace, this can serve as a solid retrospective of all that you’ve seen and done and how much you’ve seen this industry grow, change… and do neither of those things. 😉

Truly a great text on the art of programming, and should be on every coder’s shelf right beside The Mythical Man Month. (Which, for those outside the industry/ who may have never heard of it, is basically the highest praise one can possibly give a book about programming.) Very much recommended.

This review of The Practical Programmer by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt was originally written on March 2, 2024.

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#BookReview: Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais

Theory + Application And Hefty Respect For Those Who Came Before. One thing that sometimes gets lost in the world of computing – specifically among those of us who make a career specifically inside this field of software development – is an appreciation of the history of the field before us. As a student many moons ago (I finished my degree requirements just over 20 yrs ago as I type this, ugh!), one of my favorite professors, one I talk about to this day, was a guy who had gotten his PhD from Harvard in the 60s in Mathematics and had come up through the early days of computing. We could get him talking about those early eras and… magically, class time was up before his stories were. 😀 Fascinating, but yes, as students we absolutely had ulterior motives there. 😀

Getting back to this book and the contents thereof, one of the things I like about it is that it so heavily references not just fairly cutting edge research (some apparently published as recently as 2017, compared to this text’s 2019 release date), but also *far* earlier results that *still* drive this industry, including the Mythical Man Month – introduced to me by the professor I discussed above, and the connection to this text – and Conway’s Law – which was *not* a topic we studied in my Computer Science classes in college, but which proves interesting and, according to these authors, still extremely relevant to how teams are organized within computing to this day.

This book, along with Mik Kersten’s Project to Product, was recommended to me by my Group Manager as I begin to truly look into where I want the next half of my career to go, and like that book, thinking about computing and, in this case, how teams within computing are organized and communicate both within themselves and within the overall organization is a different level of thinking than I, a Senior Software Developer “crewdog” coder to this point, have ever really given any thought to… and yet is as fascinating a space as any I’ve encountered as a coder. Indeed, having read both of these texts just a couple of days apart at the end of 2023, I find myself truly intrigued by the possible problem sets at these higher levels – and how to bring my experience as a “crewdog” to bear in working within them within my organization.

Truly a thought provoking text, particularly for those who either start out wanting to go straight into IT Leadership or perhaps those similar to myself who find themselves at mid career with Leadership as one of the few remaining avenues of career progression. This is one I believe I’ll be coming back to in text form and referencing for some time, having listened to the Audible version this time (and thus having no real sense of how extensive the bibliography for this book actually is). As this one is filled with both theory *and* application, it at least provides some insight into how the theory *can* work “in the real world”, making its points all the stronger for having this blend.

Very much recommended.

This review of Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais was originally written on December 31, 2023.

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#BookReview: Project To Product by Mik Kersten

Intriguing Theory Scant On Application. This is one of those books you might read in a Computer Science degree program – probably more on the Master’s degree level rather than the Bachelor’s, as this is more designed for Tech/ Business Leadership than necessarily a traditional Bachelor’s program that is more geared towards students entering the workplace or pursuing further academic careers. *In theory*, the theory here presented sounds pretty solid. While using a manufacturing plant as the touchpoint even though the author later admits that physical manufacturing and software development actually have little in common even in the theoretical world Kersten has crafted here, the actual software development theories *sound* like they could work. But that is precisely the ultimate problem here – though not enough of a problem to warrant a star deduction. Namely, that in failing to provide even a singular concrete example – even from within a classroom or study! – of how this could potentially work in the “real” world, Kersten does himself and his readers a significant disservice.

This book was actually recommended to me by my Group Manager when speaking of my own future career goals as an existing roughly mid career Senior Developer, and again, from a more Tech Leadership level, the book really was quite fascinating. I just *really* wish there had been even a single instance of real world application of the theory at any level at all.

Recommended.

This review of Project To Product by Mik Kersten was originally written on December 29, 2023.

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#BookReview: Right Kind Of Wrong by Amy C. Edmondson

Well Documented Examination Of How To Make Failure Work *For* You. This is one of those organizational psychology/ self-help pop psychology books that is fortunately about as light on the psychobabble bullshit as such as a book can be, and instead focuses on the science of how to fail intelligently and how to mitigate, minimize, and learn from other failures as well – yes, even some of the most catastrophic failures of the past 50 years or so (where most of Edmondson’s examples come from) can be at minimum learned from, and this is one of the large points of the text here. At roughly 30% documentation, it is on the higher end of average in my own experience, which is a great thing given all of the claims here. Organized into just a couple of handfuls of chapters, each built around explaining one of Edmondson’s core principles, this is a book that will work well in any learning environment, from college level business education classes to corporate book clubs/ leadership retreats to personal self development. And it is in fact quite practical, with quite a few lessons that can be easily (or at least readily) applied in almost any situation that seems to be becoming SNAFU or even FUBAR. Very much recommended.

This review of Right Kind Of Wrong by Amy C. Edmondson was originally written on September 3, 2023.

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#BookReview: Remote by David Heinemeier Hanson and Jason Fried

Hallelujah. One thing of note up front: I read the Audible version of this, so I have no way of knowing how well documented it is – and given its almost memoir-based approach, those tend to be on the lighter side of documentation. But again, because of the form I consumed this book in, I just don’t know.

This caveat understood up front, this text is absolutely phenomenal – and will have any office worker in 2023 scratching their heads over why virtually *any* of us are constrained to a physical location we must report into x number of times per week. This book is a decade old this year, released *well* before certain worldwide insanities led to a (sadly temporary) shift to very nearly 100% remote work for a time, and yet lays out the case for fully remote work *even with that era’s tech* so clearly and so completely that one will be left wondering why any business person would ever consider forcing their staff to work in a physical office space, unless that business person happens to own said space outright and can’t offload it because everyone else is going fully remote.

For those of us who love(d) working remote, this is absolutely preaching to the choir and having them sing its praises from the rafters. Even for those more opposed to remote work… read this book and try to find a reason the authors here haven’t already addressed, up to and including your own personal preferences and management styles.

Indeed, the most irritating thing about this book is how long it has existed and how few business leaders in 2023 are heeding its lessons. Particularly business leaders who spent 2020 and 2021 praising their teams’ increased productivity while fully remote.

So read this book. Learn why remote work really is the best work for everyone whose jobs don’t involve physically touching some widget or another. And then go and spread the message ever more.

Very much recommended.

This review of Remote by David Heinemeier Hanson and Jason Fried was originally written on June 14, 2023.

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#BlogTour: Snowed In For Christmas by Sarah Morgan

For this blog tour we’re looking at Sarah Morgan’s seeming annual Christmas story, this time a Hallmarkie type tale set primarily in Scotland. For this blog tour we’re looking at Snowed In For Christmas by Sarah Morgan.

Here’s what I had to say about it on Goodreads:

Hallmark Scottish Christmas. Let’s be real here, this book is essentially a Hallmark Christmas movie set in Scotland. How you feel about the entire tale will likely be pretty close to how you feel about the sentence prior to this one in this review. There are three different romance tales at play here, between each of three siblings – Ross being the sacrificial lamb with a made up girlfriend to distract his parents from his sisters’ issues but who becomes all too real, Alice with an all too real fiancee, and Clemmie with plans of her own… who then has her own story from there. Along the way we also get to see the conflict between Ross and his dad, both of them successful businessmen who love to talk about anything *other* than business with each other. Ultimately, Morgan weaves her magic and makes all of this work quite well – if pretty much exactly within the Hallmarkie mold. Still, this is yet another solid hit for Morgan, and exactly how good of a hit really depends on exactly what the reader themselves feel about this type of story – Morgan’s bread and butter. I happened to think it worked quite well, and it is very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Snowed In For Christmas by Sarah Morgan”

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#BookReview: Running With Purpose by James Weber

Cilantro Rub On A Perfectly Cooked Filet Mignon. Yes, the title of this review is an allusion to a particular meeting covered in this book, wherein Warren Buffett once invited James Weber to enjoy a steak with him in Omaha – and yet also describes this book to a T. Part memoir and part business leadership book, this is the story of James Weber pre-Brooks, and Brooks with James Weber at its head. And when the book is in either of these modes, it is truly tremendous. And I don’t just say this as a Millenial former runner (who needs to get back into that) who *loves* his Brooks Ravenna line shoes. I also note this as someone who has read and reviewed over 800 books in just the last 3 years alone across a wider range than most any other reader out there. Weber’s tale is remarkable, and his business insights and leadership principles are sound – and seem like they would be great guiding principles for those starting out or even those (like myself) in mid-career. The cilantro rub comes when Weber starts diving into political issues near the end of the text – though he *is* careful to come back to his own story and Brooks’ story after, in a classic sh*t sandwich layering approach. Why is there a cilantro rub on this great filet mignon? Well, like cilantro, the political discussion is going to be one you either love or you hate – there likely isn’t going to be any middle ground there, and there likely won’t be any convincing of those on the other side that they should change sides. So if you agree with the somewhere-left-of-center politics he describes… yay! You’re one of the ones that likes this cilantro! If not… read the book anyway. There really is a lot to be learned here. Very much recommended.

This review of Running With Purpose by James Weber was originally written on April 18, 2022.

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#BookReview: Going Public by Hudson Lin

Strong Atypical MM Romance. As an MM romance, this one both works and does a good job of showing off atypical sexualities – specifically pansexual and demisexual. And both leads are well fleshed out, with strong and compelling backstories along with solid reasonings for why they haven’t yet gotten together. On the business side… there are more issues with the story. For one, a late development should have happened sooner and for a very different reason, and likely would have in reality. For another, while it is refreshing in that the author had the courage to go *there*, one has to question just how real such a scenario truly is. But for those seeking to simply get lost in a MM romance and ignore pesky “reality” questions… this actually works quite well. Very much recommended.

This review of Going Public by Hudson Lin was originally written on March 5, 2022.

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BookReview: I Guarantee It by George Zimmer

Love > Fear. Growing up in the trailer parks of the 80’s, moving out of them in the 90s, and becoming the first person in my immediate family (and only the second person in my triple-digit-numbering extended family) to go to college at the turn of the Millenium, I was one of those kids that saw George Zimmer’s famous “You’re going to love the way you look. I guarantee it.” commercials all over Atlanta TV. (And I *think* they even ran on radio? Though Zimmer never mentions those campaigns in this text. So maybe I’m wrong there. 20+ yr old memories at this point. 😉 ) But *being* that (even former) trailer park kid… Mens’ Wearhouse prices of $250 and up were a bit too rich for my blood, so I actually shopped at some of the competitors Zimmer mentions late in the text about buying out. 🙂

With this background, I found this memoir from a man I recognized from TV in my childhood to be quite fascinating. In many ways quite honest – even at times brutally so – and astute, Zimmer openly admits to his luck, sometimes brilliance, and several of the key mistakes he made along the way. He also makes quite clear that he is still hurt by his 2013 ouster from the company he created – and its continual efforts to keep him from becoming a competitor. But in the end, this is a story about a truly remarkable “fortunate son”. A hippie who grew to become one of the titans of industry in America. (And who used his money to get the first Medical Marijuana legalization passed.) A progressive who is absolutely dedicated to capitalism. And a man who firmly believes that a paradigm shift from fear to love is what is needed in both industry and society as a whole.

An utterly fascinating read, and a shortish one to boot – I finished it in about 4 hours or so. Very much recommended.

This review of I Guarantee It by George Zimmer was originally written on August 12, 2021.