John Gardner "Personal Renewal" Speech

I first came across John Gardner from a March 1994 article titled "Meaning: Something You Build Into Your Life" that he wrote for "Stanford Magazine". Given to me by my parents, the piece is about the themes of human potential, character and commitment (other themes as well, but I reckon these three are weighty enough to suffice as a description).

I've not seen this exact article in electronic form ("Stanford Magazine" is archived online back to 1996), but did find a section of the PBS website devoted to Gardner, his life and his work. Part of the site is a speech that he gave in 1990 titled "Personal Renewal" containing many of both the same concepts and exact language later reprinted in the aforementioned magazine article.

Gardner's speech is reprinted here and some of the more profound highlights are below...

"If we are conscious of the danger of going to seed, we can resort to countervailing measures. At almost any age. You don't need to run down like an unwound clock. And if your clock is unwound, you can wind it up again. You can stay alive in every sense of the word until you fail physically. I know some pretty successful people who feel that that just isn't possible for them, that life has trapped them. But they don't really know that. Life takes unexpected turns."

"The things you learn in maturity aren't simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions, if you have any, which you do. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent, but pays off on character."

"I'm not talking about anything as narrow as ambition. After all, ambition eventually wears out and probably should. But you can keep your zest until the day you die. If I may offer you a simple maxim, "Be interested," Everyone wants to be interesting -- but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep a sense of curiosity. Discover new things. Care. Risk failure. Reach out."

"Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account."

Very cool stuff...

"Tropic of Hockey" by Dave Bidini

Note from me: This isn't a common occurrence, but in addition to this blog, I'm putting the post below on my hockey blog at http://ahockeyguy.blogspot.com/. The reason for the dual-location post is simple... I'm writing about a book that I just finished... and it's about... hockey!

"Tropic of Hockey" is from Canadian musician/author guy Dave Bidini (his website here) and it's a chronicle of his experiences with the game in such hockey hotspots (maybe literally, but not figuratively) as Dubai, remote (and not so remote) China and Transylvania.

As I touched on in my hockey blog post about the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships, the impetus for Bidini to write "Tropic of Hockey" was a growing sense of disillusionment he felt with the NHL version of the game and a desire to reconnect with it by playing and seeing it from different parts of the globe. While I do love the NHL, I could understand his romantic notions of the game and this desire to experience it in a new way. Not entirely the same, but it makes me think of my appreciation for the "Original Six" teams of the NHL and the fans in hockey markets that care deeply about their local team (see: hockey blog post about Montreal).

This said, there's a lot of stuff that struck me from the Bidini book, so I'll run through some of it here and try to explain why...

Chapter 4 - "Wendel and the Bells": Bidini's story about how he became a hockey fan again as an adult. A very cool description of how it came about and how one player (the aforementioned Wendel Clark of the Leafs) became his favorite.

Chapter 9 - "Bobby Clarke's Teeth": Mention of Bidini communicating with people in China entirely through the language of Russian hockey players they all know of. I like how the words "Fetisov", "Tretiak" and "Kasatonov" can tie people together.

Chapter 14 - "Journey to the Temple of the Dog": Includes anecdotes about Bidini and his friend masquerading as members of the press to secure interviews with favorite players and entry to parts of one of my most vividly remembered hockey events... Rendez-vous '87 in Quebec City between the Soviet National Team and NHL All-Stars.

Chapter 17 - "A Busload of Espo": Primarily about Phil Esposito the '72 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union. The description of the eight-game set makes me wish I had been a fan then (difficult since I wasn't born until a year later).

Chapter 23 - "The Last Canadian Game": Interesting to me for two reasons... one is how much I appreciated the description of Bidini's attendance at the final game in Maple Leaf Gardens (which I wish I had been able to watch Toronto play in). The second (and very different) reason is Bidini's mention of "The Whiskey Robber" during this section of the book on Transylvania. As I was reading this portion, much sounded familiar to me and it was because of my reading of "Ballad of the Whiskey Robber" by Julian Rubinstein. I had completely forgotten this it was a true (or at least mostly true) story about a Robin Hood-esque Hungarian hockey player. So cool... I love when stuff comes together.

So, all this said about the Bidini book... I liked it a lot and think that most hockey fans would as well... particularly those of us that love the history of the game and it's impact.

"Why We Shouldn’t End Our Manned Space Program" Article from Esquire

Finally.

I know this borders on the ridiculous, but I say... finally, the article "Why We Shouldn't End Our Manned Space Program" from the Feb 2009 issue (cover image below) of Esquire Magazine is online so I can write about it (and of course link to it).

It may seem a bit obsessive for me to have been continually checking the Esquire website, but me thinks the writing that good. Done by my favorite living writer (I know it sounds kind of odd to say that, but it's not fair to compare everyone to Ayn Rand), Chris Jones, it achieves that dual goal that I think so hard to find in writing... something about an interesting topic that's written really well.

I've linked to and written about writing from Jones several times, touching on various pieces from Esquire and about his book "Out of Orbit (or "Too Far From Home") and gotta say... I really like his writing. His stuff is insightful, poignant and colorfully written about topics of either interest or great import.

It doesn't relate at all to why I like the writing, but I'm very interested to know if as a Canadian, he's written about hockey. Hmmm... I might gotta try to find that out.

"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

Just finished reading "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell and I'd say that it's place high up the New York Times Bestseller List is richly deserved.



Gladwell is also the author of two prior best sellers... "Blink" and "The Tipping Point". Details of each of these (well, all three books) can be found on the author's website, but personally, I enjoyed "Outliers" the most.

The subtitle is "The Story of Success" and throughout the book Gladwell paints an interesting portrait of what causes some to achieve greatness, and others... not so much. He certainly doesn't give short shrift to the idea of talent leading to achievement, but provides example after example of how the right external circumstances are needed to lead people to the top of their professions.

In looking at this idea of the "stars being aligned", it's important to not overlook the prerequisite of hard work that Gladwell writes of. During the course of the book he details underclass New York City students achieving success academically... largely as a result of a school schedule that both takes more of the day and runs longer through the year than that of most students. Additionally, he lays out what he terms as the "10,000 hour rule" as a guide for what it takes to achieve mastery of a subject. With examples ranging from Bill Gates of Microsoft, Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems and The Beatles, he shows how these high achievers had early periods of their "professional lives" where they put in this amount of work to become truly proficient.

This all said, the external circumstance notion is where Gladwell details what he sees as a needed component of success that is often overlooked... the right time and place. For the inner-city student, they have to win a school lottery to attend this "KIPP School" in New York and for Bill Gates and Bill Joy, they were born at a particular time ideal for them to be a part of the personal computers revolution. More specifically, Gates and Joy both had the good fortune of being (through no real plan of their own) in a position to be able to put the time in (harken back to the 10,000 hour rule) to achieve mastery early on. This doesn't mean that they weren't both extremely smart, but does mean that the circumstances of their lives enabled them to be able to put the effort into their subject area and then capitalize on this mastery gained.

Another example from Gladwell around this idea of both fortunate external circumstances and development time spent comes from the world of youth hockey in Canada. It's a fair statement to say that the best adult players were likely some of the best players growing up and got the best coaching and most opportunities for meaningful practice. From this, the question becomes how they got identified as having potential... especially in a system where players by the age of 10 are grouped into "competitive" teams (which is where the elite usually come from) and "recreational" teams.

To get at the answer, you have to know that at a young age, the best players are usually... the biggest. At this same young age, the biggest players are often... the oldest. So, what you see when looking at the rosters of NHL players or the top junior leagues that feed the NHL is a preponderance of players born just after the Jan 1 birthday cut-off for classification into age groups. These players born at the beginning of the calendar year are then competing against players up to a year younger (when you match up someone born Jan 2 vs Dec 30 as an example). The difference isn't going to matter in the prime of their careers, but matters quite a bit at 10 years old when someone is determining who has more potential... and will get more ice time, access to better coaching and the opportunity to put in more work and get rewarded accordingly.

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A different section of the book revolves around how background contributes to success. Getting at this, Gladwell looks at commercial airline pilots and how their ethnic background (external circumstances in the vernacular of this book) contributes to their success or failure as a pilot (measured here in the most important scoring parlance... accident rates). For someone to fly passenger jumbo jets, they're almost certainly going to be smart and highly skilled at flying, but the external circumstance of their culture can have an impact on how likely they are to be involved in crashes.

The reason that Gladwell points to has to do with a culture's willingness to question authority. In multiple examples from the this section, he points out how people from certain cultures are going to be less likely to question their "superiors", even if they know that their superiors are wrong. This can manifest itself as deadly in a cockpit if you have a pilot who for whatever reason is making a mistake, but the "subordinates" (co-pilot and first officer in this airline example) are hesitant to directly point out or call the pilot on the error they see. Through either not saying anything or making gentle suggestions when forceful language is required, the people around the pilot could have prevented a crash from occurring... had they been willing to takes the steps needed to prevent it.

While not carrying as much import as the life or death involved in plane crashes, Gladwell also included a chapter with similar meaning around how class rather than ethnic circumstances can impact the success of two equally smart people (has to do with the interpersonal skills and willingness to question authority of those raised in the upper or middle as opposed to lower class).

These are just a few of the concepts from the book that struck me as most interesting. Whether it be about smart kids, pilots, hockey players inner-city students or computer guys, though, all the examples from the book touch on this idea of great success not coming out of the blue. Rather, a combination of talent, hard work, social circumstance and good fortune making it happen.

Very interesting read and I highly recommend.

Time Magazine - Feb 2 Issue

Great cover story by Joe Klein in the Feb 2 issue of Time Magazine.

Titled "Obama Promises New Destiny, Work Begins Today", it details both the language used in President Barack Obama's inaugural address and his actions preceding and now that he's taken the oath of office. As Klein highlights, especially interesting from the speech was Obama's message about the political process...

"What the cynics fail to understand is that that the ground has shifted beneath them- the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply."

Whether Democrat or Republican, some may feel this an impossible aspiration, but... as Pittsburgh Steeler head coach Mike Tomlin said of Obama, "he's selling hope, and I'm buying."

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Also from this issue of Time was the story "Books Unbound" about the publishing industry. As the book business has gone through great upheaval of late, one of the consequences has been the emergence of unknown authors self-publishing on the cheap... and in many cases becoming not-so-unknown.

To this idea of books not going through traditional routes to market, the article reveals that 4 of the top 5 best-sellers for 2007 in Japan were written on cell phones. Granted, the adoption of consumer technology in Asia is ahead of that in the U.S., but the statistic is amazing bordering on ridiculous.

Fortune Magazine 100 Best Companies to Work For

Fortune Magazine recently came out with it's annual "100 Best Companies to Work For" list and there's quite a few interesting views of the information.

The list itself can be found here (with the ability to select each company for a snapshot view) and a look at each of the 20 companies with over 350 job openings is here. There's also an interesting look at the online shoestore Zappos (#23 on the list) as well as info on the new #1 best company to work for... NetApp in Sunnyvale, CA.

Inauguration of President Barack Obama

From http://www.whitehouse.gov/...



From http://www.time.com/ comes Nancy Gibbs' piece "Barack Obama's Inaugural Address: Humility, Gratitude, Sacrifice". Excellent writing befitting the occasion.

Inauguration Tomorrow

The official Presidential Inauguration poster... designed by artist Shepard Fairey.

On a related note, there's a very interesting piece in the Jan 26 issue of Time Magazine titled "Obama's Permanent Grass-Roots Campaign" around the general population who got involved with the Obama Presidential Campaign.

From the 20,000 people trained in community organizing to 3 million people who donated money and 13 million who supplied their e-mail contact info, this is a large group of people with the ability to continue aiding the cause of what will now be the Obama Administration.

BusinessWeek Magazine - Jan 19 Issue

Several interesting things from the Jan 19 issue of BusinessWeek.

Probably most noteworthy was a book excerpt from Consultant Ram Charan in the Jan 19 issue of BusinessWeek. Titled "Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty", the book purports to give detailed steps on how corporations can make it through the current financial conditions. The excerpt itself provides an example of how a major company (which also happens to be a Charan client) reacted to the first signs of an economic crisis and what steps they've taken with their business.

It's of course difficult to fully evaluate Charan's book on just an excerpt... and I question a little bit the accolades heaped on a CEO who retains the author as a consultant... but, I did find interesting the employee communication that appeared to take place at Dupoint. Given that the main thrust of the actions were around reducing costs, this certainly must have both impacted employees used to the existing environment in the company, and concerned them with questions around their job security.

Probably not a lot different than actions that have had to take place at other companies lately, but where Charan appears to say Dupont has done it better is in the speed and execution/communication. From an individual employee perspective, people are going to be a lot more behind the actions of their company if they've had the reasons completely explained and share some ownership in the decisions themselves. The specific example that Charan provides is that within 10 days of official corporate action around cost control, each employee had both met face to face with a manager to discuss what was needed and also specifically asked what they could do to help. As Charan writes, these type of corporate actions are rarely going to fun for employees, but if both done quickly and with the buy-in of employees, the odds of success are going to be much higher than might otherwise be the case.

Also from this issue were the following (smaller) stories.

- "Digital Books Via Cell Phone" details the large number of books available through the App Store for iPhone downloads. Particularly interesting is the low-cost of many classic titles.

- The "Innovation" section of the magazine has as one of three different mentions what may well be the next big thing in personal computers. 2008 saw the introduction and popularization of mini "netbook" computers such as the eeePC from Asus or mini-note from HP and this type of device coupled with touchscreen technology will likely soon be coming to a store near you. Not a Circuit City, of course, but, you know... a store.

- Lastly, there's an interesting book review on "The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising". Sounds like a fascinating portrait of quite a guy.

National Day of Service: Monday Feb 19

Not to be lost in the excitement of the Feb 20 swearing-in of Barack Obama as President of the the United States is the day before... Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which very appropriately has had the designation of National Day of Service attached to it.

Below is a clip of future first-lady Michelle Obama discussing the idea of Service on Monday and volunteer opportunities can be found at the at the website http://www.usaservice.org/ and either it's event search page or other service opportunities page.



For an in-depth look at the idea of National Service, there's was a great 2007 Special Report from Time Magazine on the topic.




There's multiple articles as part of the cover story and all can be found under the Time heading "A Time to Serve". Especially compelling, though, is the introductory piece by Time Editor Richard Stengel.

Sports Illustrated Point After Piece on Kayla Hutcheson

Sometimes you come across a piece of writing that is just brilliantly worded and the topic almost secondary. From a pure "good writing" perspective, that's... well, that's incredibly cool... but, also pretty rare. More frequently, you read to find writing that's solidly written, but whose style takes a backseat to it's substance.

From the Jan 19 issue of Sports Illustrated, the end of magazine Point After piece on freshman Community College basketball player Kayla Hutchson provides a story of such weight. It's a short (one page in the magazine) telling of how Hutcheson has relied on her teammates to help her cope with the effects of a concussion and subsequent memory loss suffered on the court.

Powerful story that's both interesting and has a lot to say about the impact of teammates and friendship. Good stuff.

"Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin

It's been some time since I read it, but I highly recommend "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin (website here) for anyone interested in politics, Abraham Lincoln, or... on a more timely (and specific)note, President-elect Barack Obama's approach to coalition-building.



The subtitle of the book is "The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" and after reading it, I can say that the description fits perfectly. Lincoln comes across as a man who may still have had faults, but above all had the strength to both recognize that he needed to both reach out to and bring together behind him people with opposing viewpoints. To this point, Goodwin writes in great detail how Lincoln devoted significant effort to recruiting some of his most bitter rivals... knowing that these people were crucial to his ability to govern and lead.

Fascinating stuff and... applying this to the present-day, Barack Obama has both spoken extremely highly of this approach and utilized it in many of his Cabinet choices... which included both former Democratic nominee rivals and Republicans from the Bush Administration. Like many things, it will now be interesting (but, also very important) to see how the Obama administration shakes out and what guiding principles it continues to use.

Living Healthy Writings from Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Andrew Weil

There's no shortage of writing out there about how to improve our health and "live right", but two authors that keep coming up consistently in what I read are Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Andrew Weil.

Oz is a frequent contributor to Esquire Magazine and also appears regularly on television shows such as "Oprah" and the "Today Show". A search for his name just on the Esquire website gives 63 different articles he has either written or contributed to, one of which is an "in-depth plan for better health" from the May 2008 issue. Additionally, Oz was included here on Time Magazine's list of the "100 Most Influential People of 2008".

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Weil is the founder of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona... which takes a whole body approach to medical care that focuses heavily on prevention through healthy living. He's also written extensively (as his wikipedia page illustrates) and been featured twice on the cover of Time Magazine.

Most recently was in the Oct 9, 2005 issue of Time, which featured an in-depth article by Weil titled "Aging Naturally". Not to be confused with a one-trick pony, though, Weil also has 120 other articles that come up in a search for him on the Time website.

Weil and Oz taken together provide some really informative writing on a topic that could be considered... pretty important.

"What's Wrong with Silicon Valley?" Cover Story from BusinessWeek

Really interesting cover story from the Jan 12 issue of BusinessWeek.



With it's alternate title for the web of "Whatever Happened to Silicon Valley Innovation?" the story looks at the current environment of technology innovation and how it compares to the past.

The simplistic (but, still open for debate) answer is that it's lagging as companies focus less on basic science and "fundamental breakthrough" research and more on incremental innovation. Additionally, the idea of going public as a goal is implicated by the article as a cause for concern. The reason being is that this approach favors a more short-term view of the company and can limit the chance for big game-changing innovations.

Related to these concepts, an examination is made of the hottest private Silicon Valley tech companies. Right now some the firms generating the most attention are Facebook, Digg and Twitter... all social networking ventures. Social networking is a huge growth area and shouldn't be discounted, but it's also a fair question to ask whether it's emergence is as profound as actual breakthrough technologies around hardware (either broad categories like computer processing power or specific technology like the iPod or iPhone from Apple).

Interesting questions raised by the article... which also links here to a full-chapter excerpt from a book on the topic titled "Closing the Innovation Gap". Written by Judy Estrin... formerly the CTO at Cisco Systems and now an advisor to President-elect Barack Obama, it examines further this notion of short-term focus on the part of US companies... and investors in them.

"Voice of this Generation" Piece on Writing from Time

It's not a recent piece, but an article titled "Who's the Voice of this Generation?" from a 2006 Time Magazine bears reading.

Written by Andrea Sachs, it looks at the current crop of writers out there and examines why none of them can without question lay claim to being the preeminent young writer of our times. As opposed to past generations where writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway plied their trade, today it's harder to say who speaks for whom. There are certainly great young writers like Jonathan Franzen (who wrote "The Corrections") and Curtis Sittenfeld (who had written "Prep" at the time of this story and has since published "American Wife", which I reviewed here), but not truly seminal authors.

It's an interesting topic that has to do with some very interesting and brilliant authors... none of whom have reached that proverbial "next level"... yet.

Books and Authors of Interest

Since I use this forum to list and review the books I've finished reading, it probably also makes sense to utilize it as a place to note some of what I'm interested in reading in the future...

- Final three books of the "Twilight" series by Stephenie Meyer
- Dave Bidini
- "Dreams of my Father" by Barack Obama
- Reflections on the game book (believe it's "Open Ice") by Jack Falla
- C.S. Lewis
- "The Corrections" by Jonothan Franzen
- "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
- "The Snowball" biography of Warren Buffett
- "The Hero" by Jon Krakauer about Pat Tilman
- Erik Larson
- Eric Weiner
- Chris Jones
- Michael Bamberger
- “Heyday” by Kurt Anderson
- "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
- Dr. Andrew Weil
- “Flow” by Mikael Csikszentmihalyi
- Susan Casey
- Austin Murphy
- Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Max Barry
- Michael Lewis

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" came as part of the Christmas Day wave of hopeful blockbusters and even for those with high expectations, it definitely didn't disappoint.

The movie stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, but most intriguing to me prior to release, it was directed by David Fincher. His past directing credits (which can be found on Fincher's http://www.imdb.com/ page here) include "Zodiac", "Seven" and "Fight Club".

What I enjoyed most about the film was it's effectiveness at telling an "epic tale of life"... with the twist of it being lived in reverse by Brad Pitt's character... leading to the poignant scenes of relationships between characters aging in different directions.

To this whole "epic tale of life" concept... the movie reminded me of both "Titanic" and "Forest Gump". This connection makes sense given the fact that the screenwriter Eric Roth (whose imdb page is here) wrote "Forest Gump" as well. Another thing that helped give the film it's scope is the screenplay by Roth was adapted from an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of the same name.

A very compelling movie and the trailer provides a good slice of what it's about...

"Too Fat to Fish" by Artie Lange

I recently finished reading comedian Artie Lange's memoir "Too Fat to Fish" and... man, what a train wreck (not the book, but his life). The book itself is well organized and written and if someone is an Artie fan, they'll likely be entertained by it (which is of course the point). Some of the stories from Artie's life he's told while on air at the "Howard Stern Show", some are brand new, and all are interesting (again, if you're a fan).

Back to the train wreck of his life comment, though... Artie certainly deserves credit for his talent and work put in towards his comedy career, but it's both painful to read about his drug addiction and the situations it and his self-destructive behavior have put him in. Through what's likely equal parts luck and his talent (and associated people helping him), he's still alive and not in jail, but there's really no telling how long things will stay that way.

It was interesting reading this book about an entertainment figure who has gone through (and may well still be going through) drug addiction and comparing it to the memoir of a pro athlete who was also hooked on drugs. In his book "Hero of the Underground" (which I reviewed here) ex-Cornhusker and NFL player Jason Peter tells his story of addiction. One huge difference is that while Jason could of course go back to the addiction that held him for so long, it seems like Artie is still there. He hasn't publicly stated that he's on drugs now, but all indications seem to point in that direction.

The "Last Word" chapter from "Too Fat to Fish" is insightful both in that it makes reference to drug problems at the time the book was being finished and the forgiveness and help he's been granted due to his talent and the ability to earn money for people. While it's great that this has helped keep him alive and out of jail, there are limits of how much people will forgive and be willing to bail someone out (as Artie himself states in this section).

To borrow an old phrase, it's a slippery slope that he's on. As a fan... I hope he's able to keep it together and not fall off the metaphorical edge.

Cover Story on Cisco in Fast Company Magazine

Really interesting story in the recent Dec/Jan issue of Fast Company Magazine on Cisco Systems.

The piece by Ellen McGirt is titled "How Cisco's CEO John Chambers is Turning the Tech Giant Socialist" and details Chambers efforts to move decision-making in the company down from simply the top levels to a more collaborative approach. The advantages being both an increased speed to action and openness to new ideas. Interesting stuff from what sounds like an excellent work environment.

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Also from this issue of Fast Company were two smaller articles of interest. The first was Robert Scoble's column titled "Google's Push for Mobile Domination" about the company's mobile efforts. The impact of Google is of course widely known, but this would likely surprise many people.

Finally, there's a one-page piece titled "Next-gen Job Sites" that introduces four career sites people may not know of.

HP PC Division & Other Stuff of Note from BusinessWeek

The Dec 22 issue of BusinessWeek featured an interesting strategy profile on the HP PC business titled "How HP Got the Wow! Back". The gist of the article is how the previously money-losing personal computer division has turned things around by focusing on product innovation and design... while also reaping the benefits of company wide cost-cutting measures.

Interesting stuff, while most business writing is very doom and gloom, HP is popping up more and more as a company that should both do well through tough economic times and be positioned to thrive once things eventually do turn around.

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Additionally, the current (Dec 29/Jan 5) issue had several things of interest:

- A review of the new Michael Lewis book "Panic! The Story of Modern Financial Insanity". Lewis made a name for himself as an author with such varied topics as baseball ("Moneyball"), Jim Clark of Netscape/Healtheon/Silicon Graphics ("The New New Thing"), and football ("The Blind Side") and his new book is actually a collection of different writing during and about multiple financial panics in recent history.

- An interesting piece titled "A Wrench in Silicon Valley's Wealth Machine" about how private tech startups (Digg as the featured example) are seeing a reduction in their valuations... and as such are focusing more now on reaching profitability and less on a target date for going public.

- Many different pieces about the economy... all with a theme that things could get worse prior to getting better and people should attempt the dual tasks of saving (with a target savings of a year's living expenses) and maxing out 401K contributions to take advantage of current low stock prices.

Obama Election Night Piece from Esquire

A great piece from the Jan 2009 issue of Esquire Magazine is "American Surprise: How Election Night Brought Us Home Again" by noted author and frequent sportswriter-type Charles P. Pierce... whose website can be found here.

The short essay by Pierce is part of a collection of works from various Esquire writers who describe their experiences and thoughts about Barack Obama's election on Nov 4. I found all of them to be interesting, but Pierce's piece to be the most moving as he vividly paints this day into a historic context.

An image from the victory speech at Grant Park in Chicago accompanied Pierce's work.

Powerful.

"2008: Best Sports Year Ever" Story from Sports Illustrated

From the same Dec 29 Sports Illustrated issue with "Michael Vick's dog" on the cover comes an excellent piece from Michael Farber (who usually writes about hockey for SI) titled "The Best Year Ever 2008". Chronicling the amazing and incredible in sports from 2008, the story runs the gamut from David Tyree's Super Bowl catch against the Patriots to Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt's record-breaking efforts in the Summer Olympics.

While the above-mentioned story details the inspiring and amazing, a sidebar piece titled (and subtitled) "Precious Medal: An altruistic act by eight high school runners in Washington reaffirmed the value of sportsmanship" is equally inspiring, just in a different way.

"Michael Vick Dogs" Story from Sports Illustrated

It being Christmas, it's more than appropriate to have linked here the cover story titled "Happy New Year" from the Dec 29 Sports Illustrated issue.



The very well written piece by Jim Gorant details what's taken place with the 51 pit bulls taken from Vick's dog-fighting operation.

Not to give all the details, but keeping in mind the title of the article, the subtitle on the magazine cover and the allusion to a proper Christmas Day story... it's a very cool read.

Time Magazine - Person of the Year: Barack Obama

No surprise at all, but it's still exciting to see President-elect Obama as Time's pick for 2008 Person of the Year.



Featured in the Dec 29 issue are an insightful piece on Obama's current actions and priorities by the excellent writer David Von Drehle as well as a series of the best Obama images and art posted to the photo site Flickr. Really good stuff.

As scary as the current times are, I'm just thankful that Obama is the guy to lead us through them...

Nancy Gibbs essay from Time Magazine

I'm sure there's going to be other great stuff from Time's 2008 Person of the Year issue (one guess who it is), but I found compelling enough Nancy Gibbs' "Listen to the Kids" commentary to write about it here on it's own.

Really good stuff about children, tradition and (especially now two days before Christmas) what are supposed to be the things that really matter...

Sports Illustrated: Dec 15 Issue

Some interesting stuff from the latest Sports Illustrated...

- Brief mention of former SI writer Roy Blount Jr. and his new book "Alphabet Juice". Sounds as if it's an interesting primer on the English language (perhaps similar to "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" or those books written by Bill Bryson), but written by an accomplished former sportswriter.

- Profile on Northern State men's basketball coach Don Meyer titled "The Game of His Life". It's a really good look at the person poised to overtake Bobby Knight atop the list of men's NCAA coaches with the most wins. Beyond the victories, what's interesting about Meyer is the impact that he's had on the game and his players... and their impact on him as he lives with the effects of a near fatal car accident which required the amputation of his left leg below the knee.

- In depth look at the impact of Russian billionaires on the world of sports titled "To Russia With Love". From England's Chelsea Soccer Club to teams in Russia itself, these uber-rich individuals are raising the profile and skill level of the teams they own through huge cash layouts.

Rather than doing so for the purpose of turning a profit, these "oligarchs" are able to to spend lavishly for the purpose of enjoyment (and at the same time to curry favor with the Putin government by supporting Russian sporting achievement). The article has the astounding quote that "22 men reportedly control some 40% of the country's gross domestic product".

"Hero of the Underground" by Jason Peter

Sakes alive... "Hero of the Underground" by ex-Nebraska Cornhusker football star Jason Peter is quite the read. It's a memoir that takes the reader from Peter's youth to his role as a leader of Nebraska's famed "Blackshirts" Defense and then his NFL career... and subsequent descent into addiction.



There's so many levels on which the book is interesting. In the anecdote about a famous person category, there's the story of Peter's younger brother Damian. A hugely talented high-school football player, Damian was headed to Notre Dame to play for Coach Lou Holtz. However, a freak swimming pool accident left him paralyzed... and according to Jason, also no longer of interest to Coach Holtz.

Additionally, Peter's story shows some of the profound differences between life for a college as opposed to pro football player. He may have had it exceptionally good in college playing at Nebraska for top-level coaches in front of (what I can say from personal experience) extremely knowledgeable and supportive fans, but the NFL was a whole different story. Fans at the pro level were much more fickle towards the players (probably understandable given that they're large contracts) and the coaches much more desperately needed to win in order to hold onto their jobs. As a result, Peter found an environment where it was all about winning... to a point where the camaraderie was gone... and where you did whatever you had to do in order to keep your body performing at a high level.

This concept of health (or lack thereof) and what players did with their bodies in the pros takes the reader to the most interesting, and astonishing at times, aspect of the book... Peter's drug addiction and the hold it took on him. What started as a vicodin habit in order to keep playing then morphed into a full-blown painkiller addition. Throw in recreational cocaine use (often as an attempt to bridge the gap between the social life he loved in college and his outside of football boredom as a pro) and Peter's habits were set. Once his body officially gave out, he found himself a late twenty-something guy living in New York City with a drug habit, money to burn and a unfulfilled identity as a pro athlete.

From there, Peter began his hard-core partying career... including time spent holed up in $400/night LA hotel rooms with hookers and hanger-on fellow addicts. This all became much more complicated (and potentially deadly) when Peter eventually brought heroin and crack into his addiction menu. This whole portion (really, the largest portion) of the book is amazing in reading about the various situations that Peter put himself into and to know that he actually came out of each alive.

His story is certainly still an unfinished one, but after many trips in and out of rehab, Peter appears to have pulled himself through. Reading his story, it's easy to be amazed by the experiences he had, but also to hope that he can continue to keep everything together.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who... loves football, is interested in the psyche of the pro athlete and fascinated by tales of "extreme lives lived".

Time Magazine - Dec 22 Issue

One really good opinion piece and several interesting tidbits from the recent Time Magazine...



- In his story "Black Gold: It's Time to Raise the Gas Tax", Michael Kinsley presents a very compelling argument for why the gas tax should be increased. He makes the point that just months ago, oil (and correspondingly, gasoline) prices were at all-times highs, but consumers were dealing with it just fine. Now, the economy has tanked (pardon the pun) and oil/gasoline prices have plummeted as well.

Kinsley's argument is that we shouldn't simply celebrate our good fortune (while the economy remains poor) and aimlessly wasting gas and abandoning the adoption of hybrids and new energy sources and technologies. Rather, we should raise the gasoline tax to keep the conservation direction going... and at the same time cut payroll taxes to stimulate both job creation and reduce the taxes coming out of consumers paychecks.

Seems logical both from an economic as well as a trying to save the planet perspective.

- "The Six-Figure Job Hunt" is an interesting piece about the number of white-collar workers looking for work. One thing that stands out about it is rather than just being a doom-and-gloom story, it makes the point that there's still jobs out there through natural turnover and the right approach through networking and resume targeting can land them for those inclined.

- Time's "Top 10 Everything of 2008" is a list section highlighting the biggest people, stories and things from the past year.

"The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama

I almost feel guilty for saying this, but I found "The Audacity of Hope" (at least the first half of it that I did read) by President-Elect Barack Obama to be... ok. Well, good, but a bit boring..



I definitely agreed with many of the views he espouses about politics and found his personal anecdotes to be extremely interesting. That said, I also found myself wanting more personal anecdotes and less about policy. It's not a slam on the book at all, but perhaps just a sign that I would enjoy much more Obama's book "Dreams From My Father".

"Multi-touch" Screen Technology

I suppose I'm interested in it due to my huge appreciation of my iPhone and have come across a few different articles about multi-touch (using two hands in natural movements) touchscreen technology and one of it's innovators, Jeff Han.

This 2007 Fast Company Magazine article on Han was the first I heard about the technology (now fairly well-known on the "magic walls" used by various news organizations to show election projections.

Then in May 2008, the BusinessWeek article "A Touch of Genius" overviews the technology and then Time Magazine profiled Han as one of it's "100 Most Influential People".

Fascinating stuff both from the perspective of the technology out there right now and what's to come...

2008 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year Issue

Two excellent articles from the SI Sportsman of the Year Issue... one being the cover story on Michael Phelps, SI's Sportsman of the Year and the second being a profile of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver... SI's pick for it's inagural Sportsman of the Year Legacy Award.

The story on Shriver is extremely well written and (as could be expected) very touching. Interestingly enough, though, the story on Phelps is also moving as it gets into the time Phelps has spent as a role model and the impact that he's had.

Very good stuff...

BusinessWeek Magazine - Various Stuff

Below are some various and sundry stories of note I've come across in BusinessWeek over the last few months... no common theme to them other than I found each interesting.

Dec 8 Issue

- Book Review of "Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World"... written by Don Tapscott. Discusses examples of companies like Best Buy that use a company wiki to gather employee insights as well as platforms for social interaction and connection like Facebook. Sounds interesting...

- Piece titled "User-Friendly Finance for Generation Y" on PNC Bank's new "virtual wallet" consumer account offering. Designed by IDEO, the program sounds as if it utilizes a really solid user experience based on the desires of this young banking market.

Dec 1 Issue

- "Facebook's Land Grab in the Face of a Downturn" about the social networking company's efforts to expand it's user base.

- Book Review of "Outliers"... written by uber-insight guy Malcolm Gladwell, the book contains Gladwell's views on what causes some to succeed greatly in life. One concept from the review... Gladwell's idea of a "10,000 hour rule" (practice anything long enough and you'll get good at it).

Nov 17 Issue

- "LinkedIn and Reid Hoffman: Recession Ready" about both LinkedIn founder Hoffman's views on what Web 2.0 companies need to do to survive (invest/grow even in hard times) as well as what LinkedIn is doing to position itself.

- "How Nike's Social Network Sells to Runners" about www.nikeplus.com and how the company is using the site as a social networking tool... and increasing sales as a result. Really interesting from a marketing perspective...

Nov 10 Issue

- "Dell Bets Splashy Design Will Sell It's New Laptops" about the design efforts (led by former Nike industrial designer Ed Boyd) at the computer manufacturer.

Oct 13 Issue

- "The Power 100: The Most Influential People in Sports" featuring the list itself (compiled by panelists including Paul Swangard of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon) as well as features on Yahoo! Sports, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, and Gatorade's Sports Marketing head.

Time Magazine - Dec 8 Issue

Quite a few interesting articles from the most recent issue of Time Magazine...



The cover story is about Michelle Rhee, the controversial chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools system. It's a look at Rhee and her efforts to turn around the extremely troubled public schools in Washington D.C. and makes one think about Rhee's overriding philosophy that students will do better when they have better teachers... and the way you get better teachers is through better pay for the best ones. Interesting read...

Also in this issue was a look at President-elect Barack Obama's actions around the economic crisis titled "Why He Just Can't Wait". It chronicles the steps that have already been taken to prop up the economy prior to the Jan 20, 2009 inauguration and shows someone who appears to be really stepping up to a huge challenge.

Two different smaller pieces of note from this issue are below:

1. "Don't Panic, Retirees" from money writer Dan Kadlec which among other points makes the argument that the market should be going up and people should invest now to realize those gains.

2. The last-page essay from Nancy Gibbs about the current rush to collect items related to the Barack Obama election victory. Gibbs is a very poignant writer and I really enjoyed this piece that takes a broader look at collections as a whole and how as she puts it "collectibles are the memory of the moments that make us who we are."

"Zero Days" by Barbara Egbert

Just finished reading "Zero Days"... a pretty interesting book by Barbara Egbert, who took a sabbatical from writing for the San Jose Mercury News to hike the Pacific Coast Trail from Mexico to Canada with her husband and 10 year old daughter.



I came across the general story from reading an excellent newspaper article by Egbert for the Mercury News after the hike. I wish I could find it to post here, but at least for the time being will have to simply say that it was a really good piece and I enjoyed it more than the full-length book itself. While the topic of the through hike for a family that included the youngest person to ever hike the entire distance was interesting, I wasn't a huge fan of the narrative structure of the book that had chapters organized as topics rather than narrative following the duration of the hike.

This said, it was an interesting story and I have to give huge credit to both the then 10 year old daughter who completed the journey and the parents who did it along with her. Further details about the Egbert family can be found on their website, PCT Family.

Interesting Television Articles

Below are some interesting articles I've come across about various television shows...

- "The Wire": In the February 2008 issue of Esquire Magazine, David Simon, creator of the critically acclaimed HBO show "The Wire" gives a fascinating look into the newspaper industry through his story "A Newspaper Can't Love You Back". Really good writing about an interesting topic...

- HBO: In a March 2008 issue, BusinessWeek did an interesting profile "From Hitmen to Hitless" of the management issues at cable channel HBO as they attempt to replicate the success of "The Sopranos".

- "Heroes", "Lost", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" & other sci-fi shows: From it's May 2008 issue, Fast Company Magazine published the story "Rebel Alliance" about the successful young creators of hit sci-fi television shows... and how many of them were influenced by Joss Whedon, creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

- "This American Life": In May 2008, Time Magazine published "10 Questions for Ira Glass" with the creator of the popular NPR radio show... that has since been adapted into a Showtime series by the same name.

- "Mad Men": I don't actually have a specific article linked, but have come across enough mentions of the AMC show that I'm interested in watching it from the series beginning.

Esquire Magazine - December '08 Issue

As is almost always the case, there was some excellent writing in Esquire Magazine's latest issue... it's "Best & Brightest" from Dec 2008.




The cover story was written by Esquire writer-at-large Chris Jones, the object of my "writing man-crush". An in-depth profile of Vince Vaughn, it features the same type of great prose that Jones seems to deliver with each piece.

From this same issue, Jason Fagone writes a fascinating profile on iconoclastic video-game programmer Jason Rohrer and his most well-known creation, "Passage". Available for download here, it's a small game with old-school pixelation that has been trumpeted at video game conferences by some of the biggest game designers in the business. Rather than having more bells and whisltes than the current hot titles on the market, the game has enough depth in it's plot to bring both Rohrer and other industry bigwigs to tears... all in the five minutes it takes to play.

"The Hard Way" by Mark Jenkins

I recently finished "The Hard Way" by Mark Jenkins and celebrated reading this tale of mountaineering exploits and excursions to the remote corners of the Earth by... catching a cold and staying inside all week.



Well, while this is a bit of an aside to the book itself, it actually does relate. When I read Jenkins' tale of his various adventures, I admire him for the desire and heartiness to visit these dangerous locales, but don't actually want to myself.

What I can say, though, is that even though I may not wish to climb a mountain after reading about someone else doing it, I am probably a bit motivated to get out and go camping or hiking... and to do so with my son as he gets older.

So, that takeaway combined with the experience of being entertained by the interesting content combined with excellent writing (from someone who's doing what they love)... yep, it adds up to time well spent having read the book.

Time Magazine - Nov 10 & Oct 6 Issues

This is very much a hodgepodge posting, but below are links to some interesting articles I've come across in Time Magazine, but haven't posted about previously...

November 10 2008 Issue



Time's "Invention of the Year" piece highlighted the various product breakthroughs from in the last year. In the purely entertaining category, the list included the online video "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Joss Whedon and starring Neil Patrick Harris. The 43-minute 3-part musical has since crossed over from mere online video to now having a DVD in the works.

On the more serious front, Time's #1 Invention of the Year is a $399 DNA test that people can use to determine their susceptibility to various genetic diseases. While the test (and current science behind available to the consumer gene testing) has it's detractors, it's still a fascinating concept from the Google-backed startup 23andMe.

October 6 2008 Issue



Contained in this issue of Time was a profile of Michelle Obama, wife of now President-elect Barack Obama (whom I've written about a few times). Written by Curtis Sittenfeld, author of the novels "Prep" and "American Wife" (a fictional look at the life of current first lady Laura Bush that I previously reviewed), it's a fascinating look at this woman now very much in the public eye.

Also in this issue was a James Poniewozik commentary about the ABC Television show "The View" and what it provides to the public. The opinion piece makes the interesting assertion that "The View" is good television precisely because of it's inherent bias.

Poniewozik's point is that watching the show you know where each member of the panel comes from... and how they likely feel about Democrats or Republicans among other topics. As a result of this, people watching the show are able to listen to very different perspectives... while knowing whatever preconceived notions might be behind those views.

This becomes particularly interesting to me when you consider the oft-made argument that the media is biased towards a particular political party. My feeling is that I don't agree with this argument because I think that the media is not a large entity (like "The Borg" from Star Trek), but rather an collection of writers and broadcasters all of whom have their own particular feelings and leanings.

I think we can expect our network news anchors to come across as completely objective, but don't think we need to ask that of each and every person reporting information to us. Thus... you have the interesting dynamic that "The View" provides.

Fast Company Magazine - Nov 2008 issue

There was a couple of very different articles of interest from the November 2008 issue of Fast Company Magazine.

First was a profile of Microsoft Live Labs head Gary Flake and his efforts to innovate at the software giant. While it will take years to measure the true legacy Flake leaves at Microsoft, early returns have been interesting with the 3-D photo application photosynth as an example.

Also from this Nov 2008 issue was a Q&A session with Costco cofounder and current CEO Jim Sinegal. Among other things, it feature's Sinegal's views of how a big publicly-traded retailer can (as some assert) be overly generous to it's employees and still prosper (perhaps due in part to said generosity).

"Boys Will Be Boys" Writing from Time Magazine

About a year apart, Time Magazine published two issues whose cover stories shared a common theme.

The first was from Aug 2007 and contained a cover story written by the excellent writer David Von Drehle. Titled "The Myth About Boys" it examines the held in some circles notion that today's male youth are going down the wrong path and pretty much concludes... things are fine.

One interesting point the article touches on is the held in some circles idea that boys are not spending enough time exploring on their own, but rather spending all their recreational time in highly structured team sport environments.

Drehle doesn't completely disagree with this assessment, but does offer examples of how many boys are spending time on wilderness exploration and makes reference to the wildly popular "The Dangerous Book for Boys" activity guide book written by Conn and Hal Iggulden.

The second issue was Time Magazine's July 2008 annual Making of America special report... focused on Mark Twain.

Pieces range from Managing Editor Richard Stengel's "The Mark of Twain" introducing the issue and it's chosen subject to an in-depth look at the man titled "Mark Twain: Our Original Superstar" among several other pieces from the entire issue.

Great writing on interesting subjects from both issues. As to the connection between the "Myth About Boys" piece and Mark Twain himself... well, I think the guy who wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" would have been quite interested in what Von Drehle had to write.

"The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch

Just finished reading "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. It was written along with Jeffrey Zaslow after Pausch's lecture about life and preparing to die (Pausch passed away recently from cancer) to his Carnegie Mellon students.

The book itself is somewhat interesting, but it's primary impact was to make me want to actually watch the lecture itself and to learn more about some of the work that Pausch did while teaching. Two of the outputs of his efforts are the "Entertainment Technology Center" and "Alice".

The ETC is a master's degree program in what sounds to be incredibly cool stuff... robotics, video games, animation, etc. and Alice is a software program that teaches computer programming.

Additional information on these works as well as links to other aspects of Pausch's life can be found at http://www.thelastlecture.com/ and the aforementioned lecture itself is below...

"Saved" by Jack Falla

Just finished reading "Saved" by acclaimed hockey writer Jack Falla. It's a fictional look at a goalie in the NHL and blends in stories of family, commitment and life around a hockey tale.

While I would say that the book probably is a bit longer than need be, it did make me interested to learn about and read more from the author...

Jack Falla passed away in September 2008 at the age of 64. His career included stints writing for Sports Illustrated and more recently teaching communications at Boston University.

Some of his most well known writing was about his backyard rink in Massachusetts and can be found in his book "Home Ice: Reflections on Backyard Rinks and Frozen Ponds" or in a condensed version at this link to the story "How and Why to Build a Backyard Rink". Early in 2008, Falla also came out with the book "Open Ice: Reflections & Confessions of a Hockey Lifer" discussing his life spent around the sport he loved.

Barack Obama Victory Speech

What to say? Well... maybe the best way to express it by offering up the words of some others.

From http://www.time.com/, there's Joe Klein telling us that "Obama's Victory Ushers in a New America" or Nancy Gibbs giving us "The Meaning of Obama's Win: How He Rewrote the Book".

Really, though, the best words to use are from the man himself...



Other YouTube videos from Obama can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/BarackObamadotcom.

November 4, 2008: Election Day

This being said, "Why Barack Obama is Winning" is a very insightful piece from Joe Klein in the Nov 3 issue of Time Magazine.

Excellent Writing: From Esquire

Below is a hodgepodge listing of some really good writing from Esquire Magazine over the last few years...

- "What I've Learned" by Glenn Fitzpatrick, 46-year old Esquire editor diagnosed with ALS... from the March 2008 issue.

- "What I've Learned" by Carrie Fischer featuring some various ramblings in the Jan 2008 issue from the actress who portrayed Princess Leia. One of the most interesting is “I like having written the same way I like having gone to the gym. I’m a conversationalist more than a writer. I take dictation from myself. I talk about myself behind my back.”

- A Scott Raab written profile of Sean Penn just before the release of "Into the Wild", the movie Penn wrote and directed based off the Jon Krakauer book of the same title. Really insightful stuff...

- "I Do Not Have a Death Wish" from writer David Vann. This story was from the Dec 2007 issue of Esquire and it's a first-person account of Vann's preparations to attempt a round-the-world sail of a homemade boat. The follow-up to this introduction can be found here on the Esquire site. One of the compelling things here is that it's such good first-person writing of an interesting story.

- An obituary of sorts of writer W.C. Heinz by my favorite living writer, Chris Jones (previously posted about here as well as here). Jones references Heinz's short story "Death of a Racehorse".