sift everything

Within my small circle of aquaintences, Blue Ocean Strategy is popular again. Reading it through for the third time (the last time was more than a year ago), the book is so smooth and so rich compared to the business books I’ve read lately.

Most books are limited to pure analysis that is easy to back up with numbers. Afraid of being soft, most set aside our capacities for insight and intuition. Blue Ocean embracing those abilities and provides a system for their use. It’s immensely refreshing.

The book is also an arterial injection of confidence for companies facing an uncertain future. In such circumstance, many turn to consultants. With a consultant in the room it’s easy to convince ourselves that they hold all the marbles. A flashy, heavily educated, showman is mesmerizing - especially if they’ve written “strategist” somewhere on their business card. Books like Blue Ocean Strategy show that a process and some discipline can push a company further than any outside expert.

For those interested, here are comments made previously on this site:

Blue Ocean Strategy
The best sort of blue
When blue oceans turn purple
When sharks visit your blue ocean

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Before moving on to a review of John Ruskin’s book, On Art and Life, there’s one more bit to synthesize from the first two (here and here). Trouble is, I’m not sure how to say this best. I even dreamt about this last night. But it’s still a bit muddled.

If these authors are right, we need to diligently set up the information that drives decisions. Concept packages are critical and usually ignored.

Poul’s comment about the sinister consequences of capitalism made me realize that markets drive off insufficient information too. The information used to inform capitalistic decisions is both too narrow and too broad. It is too narrow in its focus on efficiency, cost effectiveness, and rate of return. It is too broad in its focus on “society” rather than individuals. Continue Reading »

After finishing New World, New Mind I was convinced of two things. First, more attention is needed around staging our thinking processes. Second, the authors didn’t had no idea how to do it.

So, while Cuban waves tickled the beach, I grabbed Edward De Bono’s book, Po: Beyond Yes and No. I discovered that this book is everything New World, New Mind should have been.

To be fair, De Bono’s work is light. The book doesn’t dig deeply into the supporting facts. He takes his authority as granted and plunges into the concepts. The Ornstein and Ehrlich book set up all the points that De Bono makes in his.

De Bono’s book is about the process of informing the process of thinking. Continue Reading »

My wife and I just got back from a week’s vacation in Cuba. Long days on the beach, hiding in the shade of a thatched roof hut gave plenty of opportunity for reading. I rolled through three books and intend to write reviews of each.

The first book was New World, New Mind: Moving Toward Conscious Evolution by Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich, 1989.

Next was Edward De Bono’s book Po: Beyond Yes and No, 1972.

Finally, On Art and Life by John Ruskin, 1853.

What follows is a review of New World, New Mind. The other reviews will come out in the next few posts.

Continue Reading »