Pragmatic Programmer Issues

Books from last quarter – part one.

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I read or listen at least one book per two weeks. I want to share the list with you. First of all it is always worth to recommend good book. Second I hope you could help me. Please write your suggestion into comments. Thanks and happy reading.

This quarter list:

Crossing the charm

The must read for everyone involved in high tech industry. From the book you will learn about five stages of technology adoption, and how you need to have different attitude for marketing and selling.

 

 

Key Takeaways:

  1. “Early adopters” want a change agent. “Early majority” looks for productivity improvement for existing operations (you need to be better somehow).
  2. Elevator Speech Template – “For …. (target customers)  , who are dissatisfied with  ……..(the current market alternative). Our product is a  ………….. (new product category) unlike ………………(the product alternative). We have assembled …………..(key whole product features).
  3. segmentation, segmentation and segmentation.
    1. Enthusiast – “Name it and frame it”
    2. Visionary – “Who for and what for”
    3. Pragmatist – “Competition and differentiation”
    4. Conservatism – “Financials and future plans”

What Got You Here – Won’t Get You There

Some time ago I had a training it was great and helped me get better. The most used phrase during this training was the title of Goldsmith book – “what got you here, won’t get you there”. This book is must have! I will just put one key takeaway here, because you have to read this book to get “Twenty Habits That Hold You Back”.

 

Key Takeaways: The only person who stops YOU from the being on the top is YOU.

Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used

This book is must read for consultants. Want to know how to deal effectively with clients? Read the book. Author by using illustrative examples and case studies help us understand all aspects of consultant job. The book is also for non consultant, as each of us is a consultant at some point in our lives. Finally “Flawless Consulting” is less about how to consult and more about how to communicate.

Key Takeaways:

  • You have to manage the relationship – it is essential to good implementation.
  • Ideas about contract and getting commitment
  • Watch out for unrealistic expectations! (people think you should transform everything overnight)
  • You need to learn them to be able to solve their own problems after you’re gone.

Kobe Bryant. Showman

Creator of the bestseller Michael Jordan. He wrote another great biography of Kobe, who broke into the best basketball league at the age of only 17. Kobe was not only proud of himself eg. when he was asked about Jordan he answered “I’m going to be better than him”, but also extremely hardworking. He always was first at gym, and finished as last one. His live wasn’t easy but through hard work he was one of the best NBA player.

Key Takeaways:

  • Hard work is very important to your success.
  • Shows how our decisions creates our opportunities.
  • Being on the top isn’t dream, you must work even harder.

Critical Business Skills for Success

This course have five parts:

  1. strategy,
  2. operations,
  3. finance and accounting,
  4. organizational behavior
  5. marketing.

Every part is led by business professors from top business schools. In each part you will learn about everything from key terms through methodologies and case studies.

Key Takeaways: It is 60 lessons so it very hard to get key takeaways gere. This course brings MBA experience for you.

Free: the future of radical price

The book is about pricing models which give products and services to customers for free (referred to as “freemium”). The strategy works to attract users and then up-sell them at  premium level. Chris Anderson explores this idea as business strategy for today’s  companies.

 

 

Key Takeaways:

  • Sooner or later every company need to figure out how to compete with “Free”.
  • If the price is zero, we all are irrational (it is proved in other books) and take decision much easier.
  • “Generation Free”: Growing up post-Napster, younger generations find copyright irrelevant.

Designing Bots – Creating Conversational Experience

This is very important book to me, as I’m in conversational interfaces business right now. Ideal for designers, product managers and entrepreneurs – you will find out  what works and what doesn’t on real-world bot examples. Author is co creator of Slack messanger so he guide us through different bot platforms based on his experience. If you are interested in conversional interfaces use for your business, than this book is must read.

 

Key Takeaways:

  • Personality is important, but more important is to keep it consistent across the experience.
  • First things first: Define your bot’s purpose and core functionality.
  • Mainly there are two types of conversations, task-led and topic-led.
  • Use platform specific rich interactions (buttons, images, audio …)
  • When possible do not fall into bot-amnesia.

Next Quarter

Next in Queue 🙂

  • Small Data(audiobook)
  • Meaningful
  • What’s Stopping You?
  • Principles (audiobook)
  • The Entrepreneur’s Toolkit.
  • Black Swan  (Andrzej suggestion)
  • … and … feel free to make your suggestions….. in the comments

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