The Yaxis Live by Rajesh Kumar

A colleague who is himself a book lover and perhaps know I treasure them too, gifted me Bangalore Tiger by Steve Hamm. It is a book that covers tech giant Wipro, its origin, its growth, the people who made Wipro what Wipro currently is. Coming from the same industry, I felt greatly enthused to read this book. More so because the author Steve Hamm is a no minnow, but a columnist of Businessweek and likes.

Books on corporations are a tradition in the west, with every corporation worth its name has either seen a CEOs biography, or an external author such as recent published superb work Cold Steel by Bouquet & Ousey, or David Wise on Google.

Wipro is a great company. Not just because it is a path breaking commercial success (USD 4.3 BN for 07-08 fiscal), but because it has produced leaders such as Subroto Bagchi and others who are stalwarts of Indian IT industry even after they left Wipro. And of course, don’t forget Premji.

My primary complaint against this book is that it seems to have developed not by some detailed study, but from the PR material Wipro might have made available.Nothing wrong with using PR material. But seemingly relying on that alone? The entire description is dull and text heavy fashion. The descriptive nature of text makes you fall asleep as soon as you hold the book in your hand. Even after you read the book completely, you ask yourself about anything new that might have appeared in the book. Nyet, no. It also does not focus on elements of strategy well enough, rather spending space on the operational excellence. And loads of that. Perils of a journalist as an author.

Frankly, coming from IT industry myself, I had better expectations from this book. Frankly, I would love to read more books written on Indian success stories. And why IT alone, I’d love to see world class books on world class companies from India – my wish list includes Ranbaxy, the Tatas, the Ambanis, Satyam, the TVS group, Dr Reddy’s, Apollo Hospitals. Till then I could wait.

And warning, don’t try reading Bangalore Tiger at airports waiting for a flight- Soporific is the word.

Nicolas Carr became famous worldwide when his earlier paper (and then book) kicked up quite a storm. It was titled ‘Does IT Matter’ and argued that IT was no more to give a strategic advantage to any one corporation or entity over other – it would at best  help establish parity. While people are still trying to get over Mr. Carr’s simplistic logic carried in that gem of an argument, he has come out with another piece of work- I personally feel this is another piece of disappointment from Mr Carr. For the records, Nicolas Carr is the former executive editor of Harvard Business Review and has NYT, FT & Wired and this book is called The Big Switch: Rewiring the world, from Edison to Google.

First, the title. Does it represent:

- Switch ~ Exchange(As in a telephone exchange where you get connected to one another)?

- Switch~ Change?

- Switch~ Mr. Carr’s volte-face in going from digital pessimism to digital euphoria between Does IT Matter and The Big Switch?

The books begins with a little lowdown of the great inventor Thomas Edison. Edison and his team were behind the great electricity grid- prior to that, though companies were using electricity, but all was generated and consumed inhouse. And no, towns were not litup the way they are now. The consumers suddenly were not required to worry about generation of electricity, they merely had to open the tap. The net, according to Nicolas Carr, provides the same sense of aggregation, when it comes to data and computing is now more of a service.. He also hints that the world is now on the cusp of possibilities provided by such an aggregation. Why just hint, he talks about them in great details and liberally mentions about Napster, Google, Myspace, MyBlogLog, spam, search, Blackberry,YouTube, Standards, Gates & Page &  Brin etc in support of his ‘argument’. He also mentions quite expectedly mentions about Nicolas Negroponte , David Wise, Jagdish Bhagwati and so on.Why, he even mentions about offshoring as a phenomenon.

What is the point he seeks to make? He points to the twin phenomenon of aggregation and unbundling, both happening at the same time, when it comes to computing in general, and added to the net. The book does not have the clever language that one sees in books such as Wikinomics that can hold your attention, nor does seem to have a thematic thread such as in Blink. If you have been alive to the net and computing in last ten years, this would appear as bland restatement of facts, rather than any trendspotting or a hypothesis. Would I recommend you to buy this? Stay away is my advice.

When I run a search on the word ‘innovation’ in the books section at Amazon, it returned over two hundred and forty seven thousand records. Don’t believe this? Try clicking here or see the imagelet below.

What I am trying to highlight is that innovation is probably the most written about subject in last few years. To the point that at one point I sincerely believed the word has become cliched – till I became a believer in this word again.

Dr C.K.Prahalad and M.S.Krishnan have published a recent bestseller on "The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co Created Value Through Global Networks" (It came in a shrink wrap and hence the title of this post).

Frankly, the last time I read Dr Prahalad was BOP and came back with what I can call as subterranean dissonance. With the expectation that beneath the shrink wrap would be a new idea, a new thought argument, I look forward to reading ( and subsequently joining the debate on this subject by kicking off a post) this new rage in town.

Pablo has a nice post and some interesting videos on this subject.

Over the last few years, I have read several books around some of the great corporations of the world. Some of them have been written by people who have led those companies. Jack Welch (Straight from the Gut) and Carlos Ghosn(Shift) have written books which essentially talk about business transformation of the companies they have led, or continue to lead. I have also come across books such as those by Madan Birla (I have attended a webinar he gave in my company, not read his book titled Fedex Delivers) who have been senior leaders of some of world’s great companies.I have also come across books on a theme where the reflection of a corporation keeps coming back again and again – such as Tom Friendman’s The World is Flat (Sorry, but I remain a dissenter when it comes to The World is Flat as a book.)

I have almost finished reading Cold Steel by Bouquet & Byron. The books I have read in the past have traced the history of corporations over decades. This one actually traces a momentous event in the steel industry and the events preceding it- maximum spread of the events is just a few months and the level of detail is high, without being excessive. That event happens to be merger of Mittal Steel with Arcelor leading to creation or Arcelor Mittal, which is World’s largest steel company. The personalities are real, Lakshmi Mittal & Aditya Mittal from Mittal Steel side, and Josesph Kinsch and Guy Dolle from Arcelor side, ably supported by their aides, which included the Zaoui brothers( Yoel & Michael, who were advising the opposite parties!).

The books is written like a novel, with very significant description of events as they happened. It hold attention, despite the fact that outcome is known. Lakshmi Mittal’s determination, Aditya’s ability to sync and contribute to the senior Mittal’s vision, Joseph Kinsch’s ability to stand on his own, Guy Dolle’s character in holding their fort show stuff steel tough business leaders are made of.

The narration of the book is excellent. Unlike others who write in a passive voice and impersonal tone, this one has a direct narration of events that happened, giving the impression that the authors were present at all times to record the events. This unfortunately is also the weakness of this book – one does not know when the real facts have been blended with extrapolations to create a readable level of detail. This is also the biggest plus in favour of the book – it helps hold attention.

Go grab!

Okay, I totally agree it is a bad idea to judge a book by its cover. However, Nicolas Carr’s Big Switch ("The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google") has quite a compelling teaser on its jacket. I haven’t started reading the book though.

It says that a hundred years ago, companies stopped producing their individual power and joined newly created electrical power grids. Something like that is happening to our lives through the internet via the likes of Google, Salesforce.com, Microsoft and Google and so on.

"The Big Switch provides a panoramic view of the new world being conjured from the circuits of the "The World Wide Computer"."

Now, doesn’t that sound very promising? Geert Lovink has a detailed post.

1. This book is about personalities, and personalities.
2. Expect no great business insight, this book is general reading.
3. Ergo, if you hate business books and like general reading, go ahead and buy a copy.
4. The book is like an extremely long event report, language will make you feel you are reading a newspaper at bedtime.
5. The Arcelor management have been characterized from the beginning as irrational, insecure, somewhat immature. The authors have started this book with a certain mindset, which cannot be termed as fully balanced. And of course, as you would expect, Mittals family members and Mittal employees have been shown as competent and temperamentally very controlled.
6. Have no illusion, this book is only about the Arcelor and Mittal Steel merger, nothing more.

Blame it on IPL. My reading (blogging too!) has suffered a slowdown of late. More so because I did not notice seriously appealing business reading in my last few trips to Landmark and Odyssey stores. I also felt quite irritated at the parking problems in Chennai Citi Centre and the crowds at Landmark Spencers to just drop the idea of some serious book-surfing.

However, when you cannot chase books, sometimes books themselves beckon you. I find two books on my table competing for my attention. So what am I planning to read?

Nicolas Carr, thinker and author, who kicked a storm few years with his earlier work "Does IT Matter?" His latest book is titled equally provocatively, "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google".

The other option is "Cold Steel: Lakshmi Mittal and the Multi-Billion Dollar Battle for a Global Empire" by Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey.

I remain quite fascinated by anything steel since I first worked at SAIL. The sheer scale of anything to do with steel making is remarkably fascinating be it the production facilities, the mines, the business of steel and so on.

What does not help is that I remain equally fascinated by the transformational capabilities of the wires (read as the information flowing via those wires). Both steel and wires are quite international in its value chain (raw material sourcing, production, technology, markets etc). And by modern growth standards, both steel and wire are considered infrastructure now. There is one stark difference though- the business of wires does not have any clear dominant player, whereas the business of steel has.In a lighter vein it could even be said that one is in the business of flats, whereas the other makes the world flat.

Am I making too many assumptions about these two books.

So perhaps I would be reading both these books in parallel till the point one completely overtakes my attention. Any thoughts?

I have read The Tipping Point  by Malcolm Gladwell and even commented about it in passing. I did like the central point of that book and though been meaning to read Blink (Full title is Blink- The Power of Thinking without Thinking) but then reading has been a little low of late.

Finally I am resuming (with great hopes!) my reading for 2008 by borrowing Blink from my boss’ personal collection (I am blessed- he’s quite a bibliophile).

Meanwhile, do check out SR’s and prolific reader Heather’s impressions of this book. I shall come back with my thoughts few days from now.

Related post: Shelfari is a book lover’s delight.

The debate on globalisation moves forward. Move over Tom Friendman, here comes Prof Pankaj Ghemawat.

To be frank, when I had read Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat in 2005 at the height of its frenzy, my first thought was that it is an over hyped reporting, rather than something really based on facts and figures. It is good to hear that a scholar such as Pankaj says the same in this interview with Economic Times. Not that I am an accomplished scholar as Prof Ghemawat to be able to counter Tom Friedman’s oh-so-adored theory, but simply put, it appeared to further a romantic idea of globalisation which everyone wanted to hear, rather than something based on facts. I had done a post on this subject on this blog, which incidentally, was among my first blog posts.

While I have not read Prof. Ghemawat book Redefining Global Strategy yet, certainly waiting for it to appear in the shelves in India. So what if it was published in Sept 2007- the world is so flat yet.