What I read this summer

My reading list from my week in the woods.


The Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the New Consumer
Great book; would be most applicable were we a retailer but still very interesting. Basic thesis is that consumers are rapidly swapping into a mode of “trading down” on most items, e.g. looking for bargain, cheap, but still quality products. They then select a few categories that are meaningful to them and “trade up” in those categories to premium brands and experiences. The money saved on trading down goes directly into the trading up categories. A vast category of products/retailers thus left experiencing “death in the middle” by not appealing to either.

The central idea is worth the read, but the color provided in the examples is useful as well. Examples include Walmart, Sears, Toyota, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and many others.

The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution
Useful review of trends in the music business, followed by dreamy, visionary predictions about where music is going/should go. Most of the dreamy vision should be familiar to folks in Zune, but it’s still fun to read them. The authors are very knowledgeable about the web 2.0 trends and capabilities, and somewhat knowledgeable about the music business as it stands. Where I think they fall down is in their running polemic about the music space, which basically amounts to:

· Music consumers – always right, not really engaging in piracy but rather in sharing/promoting artists. If only someone could provide them with music discovery mechanisms, they’d be happy to pay for music.
· Music labels – stupid, narrow minded, silly. If only they’d do these three easy things, their entire business model would turn around and they’d be rolling in money.
· Artists – the real talent in the music space, and they’re all being held back by the evil labels. Soon they’ll all become businessmen and great things will happen.

I think dreamy visionaries will like this book but don’t really need to read it. Skeptics should read it, but will be annoyed by the tone.

The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture
The perfect antidote to “The Future of Music”. This book is one long screed about how awful the web and web 2.0 are, which makes it annoying, but not quite so annoying that it’s not worth reading. There is some good data gathered here, but oh my gosh is this guy insane. Basically, afaik his thesis is that web 2.0 is destroying our society and valued institutions, and is causing a lot of harm. The book is a somewhat random collection of gripes – the music industry I love is being destroyed, professional journalism is being destroyed, ID theft is awful, web child pornography is bad, online gambling destroys lives, etc. Under that, there are some interesting datapoints.

The “best” chapters for data are the “blogging is destroying news” section and the “the web is destroying the music experiences” sections. Best is very much in quotes.

The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history
(off topic, but worth mention). Great history book about the revolution in medical research driven by Johns Hopkins and Rockefeller in the 1900 – 1910 period and the vast test that establishment faced in 1918 when the worst pandemic in history hit following world war [I]. That pandemic killed 50M – 100M people worldwide. The extent to which that pandemic can be traced back through time to its source in Kansas is amazing, and the narrative is very well told.

Gripping story, good history.

Time Management from the Inside Out
Kind of an inspiring book, but not really concrete enough for me. Good psychoanalysis of the things that cause people to fail at time management though, and some basic steps to take that may help. I think I needed more of a cookbook of techniques than this offers.

China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World
Everyone should read this. Really great backgrounder on what’s happening in china and in the rest of the world. Full of insightful history, to public policy, to business impact I thought this book did a great job of answering my questions about China’s rise. I’ll steal more info from the publisher’s weekly review:

A lively, fact-packed account of China's spectacular, 30-year transformation
from economic shambles following Mao's Cultural Revolution to burgeoning market
superpower, this book offers a torrent of statistics, case studies and anecdotes
to tell a by now familiar but still worrisome story succinctly. Paid an average
of 25 cents an hour, China's workers are not the world's cheapest, but no nation
can match this "docile and capable industrial workforce, groomed by generations
of government-enforced discipline," as veteran business reporter (and Chicago
Mercantile trading firm founder) Fishman characterizes it. Since Mexican wages
were (at the time) four times those of China, NAFTA's impact has been dwarfed by
China's explosive growth (about 9.5% a year), and corporations and entrepreneurs
operating in China have few worries about minimum wages, pensions, benefits,
unions, antipollution laws or worker safety regulations. For the U.S., Fishman
predicts more of what we're already seeing: deficits, declining wages and the
squeezing of the middle class. His solutions (revitalize education, close the
trade gap) are not original, but some of his statistics carry a jolt: since
1998, prices in the U.S. have risen 16%, but they've fallen in nearly every
category where China is the top exporter; a pair of Levis bought at Wal-Mart
costs less today, adjusted for inflation, than it did 20 years ago—though the
company no longer makes clothes in China.

I would add that I thought there was a nice balance between threat and opportunity analysis; the book presents a balanced view of China’s perspective and the opportunity they present, as well as the scary side. I very much came away feeling that most of the US wounds usually blamed on China are in fact self-inflicted.