I don't know if I'm much of a judge of business how-to books, not being particularly business oriented. I came into this one by one of the big early executives of Apple through a promotion among Blogcritics.
It seems pretty reasonable, and says some things that wouldn't have occurred to me. One thing that seemed real sensible was the importance of finding early fans, and gently pushing them into proselytizing. A handful of True Believers could do you more good than a buttload of expensive advertising.
He goes from what he terms telescopic to microscopic focus, that is broader visionary aspects of "creating meaning" to more narrowly focused practical considerations of business structure and corporate politics.
How good any of this advice is, I can't tell you, but the book is pretty readable. It would probably bring some good and useful questions to someone wishing to start or majorly re-think a business.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
what the hey?! is everybody reading this danged book except me?
2 - Anita Campbell
Yes, Mark! You'd better get busy and read it now!
3 - Eric Berlin
This book sounds good for business newbies such as myself.
Does the book focus on business in general, does it talk about different industries, is it focused on "start ups, etc.?
Eric Berlin
Dumpster Bust: Miracles from Mind Trash
http://dumpsterbust.blogspot.com
4 - Anita Campbell
This book is focused on startups, with a bit of bias toward technology companies.
BUT -- it holds a lot of useful information for business people who work in companies that have been around a long time. It also applies to non-tech companies, too.
What he teaches is a way of thinking about business, and a way of drilling in on what really counts. In other words, he teaches how to separate the wheat from the chaff.
For instance, Kawasaki suggests outsourcing non-core functions (e.g., processing payroll) as much as possible, but NOT outsourcing key strategic functions such as research and development. I think that is good advice no matter what size company you are. BTW, he's not talking about offshoring necessarily, just outsourcing which easily could be to a small business in your same country.
You have only to look at the largest companies out there to realize how good that advice is. No company can be great at everything. Just having a lot of resources doesn't guarantee that a company can focus and do something well.
Just look at how Microsoft has never been the top dog in search, despite owning the desktop. Or look at how dismally Yahoo failed at auctions.
And the risk they run is that if they take their eye off their core business, someone will come out of the blue and steal the core (witness Mozilla - Firefox eating MS Explorer's browser lunch).
Leaders in those companies could have learned a thing or two from Kawasaki, I think.
5 - Aaman
AFAIK, Internet Explorer is not the core business of Microsoft - they don't even make any money on it.
All other points are valid and interesting, though - I am awaiting this book via Amazon now and will review it soon
6 - Eric Berlin
Anita -
Thanks for the great insight. What you have to say makes a lot of sense, both from what I've seen and what I can sense about the business world.
Eric B.
7 - Anita Campbell
Hi Aaman, that's true about not charging for IE. Charging a fee for Internet Explorer, though, is not what is so valuable with it. It's about "owning" the desktop, including the browser. If IE wasn't valuable, why would MS have shelled out gazillions fighting the government's antitrust case over it?
It's one of those "strategic" plays, and I'm sure Bill Gates has all the chess moves played out in his mind about the value of IE.
Best,
Anita