Archives for October 2005

My Book Journal

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)

This blog is for me to take notes of the books I'm reading, so that I won't have to buy a bunch of books and then keep them around. I have too many books already, and some of them will have to be pruned out. I used to believe you could never have too many books, but now I read so much self-help, popular nonfiction, and books of passing importance to a) purchase them and b) archive them. So I'm going to keep my records here and then I'll be able to refer back to them if I'm ever looking for similar information in the future.  Read more »



A Citizen's Guide to Lobbying Congress

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)


I read this book last year and it was a really good guide to the political system. It does not get too far down into the weeds but is still very valuable and would be a really good read for any lobbyist who has to deal with volunteers. It would also be a valuable addition to any association training curriculum or board orientation process.

By Donald E. Dekieffer
ISBN # 1556521944



Adobe Illustrator 9.0 Classroom in a Book

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)


Okay so this is like the second time I checked this out from the library. It's my on-again off-again thing with Illustrator. You see, I have these graphic visions parading around in my head but I am unable to bend the pixels to my will. Since I am too cheap to buy the book that actually corresponds to the version of Illustrator that I have, the pixels' lack of malleability is really somewhat understandable (how lame). Anyway, half the lessons on the CD won't download and I have to do some font manager thing which looks hard. So I'm going to take this one back yet again. I think I'm too undisciplined to learn Illustrator from a book. I did find a free class to go see, so maybe that will help. N

By the Adobe Illustrator Team
ISBN#0201710153



The Commons

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)



This is a Jossey-Bass book and it's getting a wee bit long in the tooth. It is copyright 1992 but feels much older than that. It is quite theoretical and academic, not that there's anything wrong with that. NB: I got a little tired of it and just skimmed thru so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

To cut to the chase, the "theory of the commons" is based on nine assumptions, so let the debate begin.

1. Social Action: that a characteristic of a nonprofit and/or voluntary service is its intangibility.

I think this is not really true. I think a lot of junior league types spend a lot of time on "intangibles," but a lot of people I know in the nonprofit sector are awful worried about outcomes. My perspective is that it's a crappy nonprofit that assuages its conscience with complaints of its work being "intangible." Every nonprofit should come up with some kind of indicator or deliverable to justify its existence. Otherwise, leave the money for someone who can.

2. Affluence: This one seems like a hierarchy of needs issue. If people don't have their basics down pat, no one can participate in the betterment of society. Makes sense to me.

3. Authenticity: the theory "assumes that actors operating in nonprofit and voluntary settings are authentic, that is, they are what they appear to be to informed others operating in the same context." So anyone who is not authentic is subject to excommunication from the commons, and laws help inforce this (e.g. IRS's enforcement of charitable tax fraud).

4. Continuity: This part is really wordy and marginally comprehensible. But basically, I take from it that these are "traditional" organizations--the past matters, and people know have a duty to plan for the future to preserve the heritage of the community.

5. Rationality: That people aren't crazy. Shouldn't I have this?

6. Near-Universality: that the whole democratic idea of a "commons" is near-universal, "known in some manner in most, possibly all, human cultures." I suppose that this position seemed pretty sensible in 1992, before the postmodern neo-hippies of 2003 convinced us that really, some people must not be cut out for self-governance.

7. Autonomy: volunteers and such in these organizations are free to act for themselves. Or rather, that they are "capable" of doing so. "The ability to act with others to create and sustain and autonomous social world is one of the most fundamental characteristics of nonprofit and voluntary action." This part makes sense to me.

8. Intrinsic Valuation: whoa, on the lingo there. Evaluations of a given "commons," or "an autonomous common world," should be made from the values that arise from it. Is that like in the Bible "you shall know them by their fruits?" Or, is it the values that the group espouses. Those are different sometimes. Anyway, basically this one denies that a group should have to be accountable in any practical way for any of its outcomes. I'm not a fan of that idea.

9. Ordinary Language: "a satisfactory theory of nonprofit and voluntary action must be stated in language that philanthropic, charitable and altruistic actors can recognize and understand." This is pretty unclear, and doesn't quite rank with the other points listed.

So that's a resume of the "theory of the commons." I'm kind of an outcomes-oriented nonprofit/trade association/lobbying type so naturally I'm probably not the target audience for this work. Maybe if I were more of a charity, foundation environment it would be more useful.

By Roger A. Lohmann



Zig Ziglar on Selling

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)


Did you ever wonder who Zig Ziglar was? I had heard that name a lot and then I figured out he was a salesman. It's one of those names that just goes into the common cultural repository without anyone quite knowing why.

I got this book because, wanting to go into business for myself, I figure I need to know how to sell a thing or two. Basically, all the literature is telling me that people who you think of as jerky salesmen (you know the gold-toothed used car types or the people who call your office and go "you mean you don't want to save money???") are not right at all. Selling is about having a relationship with people and finding the people who need what you want to sell. So that part is easy. The part that makes me nervous though is the prospecting part. This book addresses that some, here are the tips:

1. Take personal responsibility for building self-confidence and self-esteem.

2. Selling is a transference of feeling.

3. You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. (This kind of makes sense, doesn't it?)

4. Tame the telephone. Make it work for you instead of against you.

5. To be the winner you were born to be, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win. (This is where the therapist comes in handy.)

6. Use the "Experimental Syndrome" to overcome feelings of rejection by making each call a positive "experiment" instead of a negative "experience."

7. Get on a regular schedule and make an appointment with yourself to be face-to-face with a prospect at the same time every day. (I don't really get this one.)

This is some good advice I think.

By Zig Ziglar
ISBN # 0785263322



Selling for Dummies

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)


The dummies series is exactly the kind of book that is nice to get at the library. I mean, I have found them to be terrific resources, but it's not the kind of thing you want a lot of on your shelf at home or at work. Plus, you either mastered the content and thus don't need the book anymore--or--you (sniff, sniff) failed in your pursuit. Either way, you don' t need the very branded look all over your shelving unit cluttering up your French poetry and coffee table books on Andalusian art. Gosh! This book is pretty useful tho - obviously very similar in philosophy to the book by Mr. Ziglar--only more diagrammy and flow-charty.

By Tom Hopkins
ISBN# 0764553631



How to Really Create a Successful Business Plan

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)


I got this book because I am ever thinking about starting a business or two. Who knows when that will actually happen. But I have started reading the literature. This book is a workbook. This particular edition is copyright 2003, which makes it pretty recent. The cover says it features actual business plans of Pizza Hut, Ben & Jerry's and others. First off the whole Ben & Jerry's thing didn't do anything for me because I don't like to support neo-communism. My second thought is that Pizza Hut et al are really big and make starting one's own business (presumably a small business) seem pretty inaccessible. But that was a first impression, and the book's exercises are largely pretty useful.

The book takes you through picking out which kind of business plan matches your business (kind of like whether a person should use a functional or a chronological resume). Then it talks about asking the key questions, knowing your market, knowing whether there is a market, and evaluating your financial positions. The thing that is good about this approach is that they teach a principle and then give you several real-life examples, which is clearly a good way to teach something. Then, proverbially, it finishes by having you "work the plan."

I have taken a class on this kind of thing at the National Women's Business Center here in Washington, DC (even tho I am not a woman) and they have classes that are very good at treating these issues. However, if you are more of a booklearner, but still want to put yourself through some rigor, this book is probably a good choice.

By David E. Gumpert
ISBN# 0970118171



How to Win Friends and Influence People

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)


I got this book at a place called Powell's Bookstore which has locations in the airport in Portland, Oregon. It was awesome because they had all these used books in the airport--perfect because it's not like you really want to spend 25 bucks for a book that you just want to read on the airplane.

Anyhow, I have heard of this book forever, and I finally decided this was a good opportunity to read it. I infer that it's the seminal work on interpersonal relationships, and a lot of what it has to say, I've learned from people who obviously were informed by the book. It is copyright 1936, so obviously it's stood the test of time. (My boss says that when you plan a conference, you should have food that stands the test of time. We used shrimp and quesadillas and apparently they work okay for that purpose.)

My takeaway from the book is that you need to let people "save face". For example, you shouldn't corner people and say "you should do whatever" because that will trigger their ego to respond. Instead, you should facilitate the process of letting them figure out what the problem is and why fixing it will be of benefit to everyone. (This is kind of like the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where you have Tula and her Mom and Aunt trying to convince the dad to go along with their idea.) You kill two birds, in a way, because your problem gets fixed, and if you tackle it right, you will have made a friend in the process.

Obviously, easier said than done, but these are some points that are worth mulling over if you are dealing with some interpersonal troubles. A takeaway quote is that a "person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language."

By Dale Carnegie
ISBN# 0671027034



Reading People

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)


I got this book at the airport in Cincinnati on my way back to BWI. I got it because I have been thinking that people skills are where the cash is at in this day and age.

Anyhow, the book was a fairly interesting nonfiction read for the airplane. However, I found I had already intuited most of the strategies they gave. Basically, if you boiled down the advice it would be "look around carefully and make judgments based on what you see." Of course, the authors were careful to point out that certain things were not good indicators of personality, and that exceptions to these rules are often called for. Most high-functioning people are pretty good at doing this kind of thing as a matter of course.

Here's an interesting quote that I liked, though: "Truly kind, thoughtful, and confident people do not treat others in dramatically different ways depending on their mood or their perception of what someone can do for them. As a result, watching how someone acts toward 'everyday people' can give you a pretty good idea how he or she will act toward you once the bloom is off the rose of your relationship."

By Jo-Ellan Dimitrius and Mark Mazzarella
ISBN# 0345425871



Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse
of Science

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)


This book rocks! It says everything that has been repressed deep inside me for years. Alan Sokal, the author of the book, is the NYU Physics professor who perpetrated a hoax on the literary establishment by getting Social Text to publish his parodic paper. He is my hero du jour, and a very smart and reasonable one.

Fashionable Nonsense is hilarious. I mean, I'm sure that it is hilarious only to a relatively small sub-sub-category of people who have read or studied "post-modern" or "foundational" theory and found it to be largely of ill report. I would read bits of the book to my spousal unit and we would laugh and laugh--funnier than Ashlee Simpson's hoe-down on Saturday Night Live.

Sokal's main targets in this book are Lacan, Kristeva, Irigaray, Latour, Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, and Virilio. I am more familiar with some of these theorists than others, but Sokal's criticism hits home, and he's smart enough to render a proper chastening. He is careful to dilineate that his criticism is narrow: when these theorists use science to make a point, it should mean something. Most people would agree, but the theorists seem not to.

My deal is that if these people want to invoke science as a metaphor, knock yourself out. However, to me, they seem unwilling to admit that they're simply invoking metaphors, as if that would be somehow facile or below them. Whateva. So they lay themselves wide open to the kind of argument that Sokal and Bricmont (I forgot to mention him, he teaches physics at the Université de Louvain in Belgium).

In the epilogue of the book, the authors put together a series of "lessons" to be learned from the parody, and from their arguments in general. The first one is awesome: "It's a good idea to know what one is talking about." Agreed. I look forward to reading the rest of Sokal's books.

By Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont
ISBN# 0312204078



Yardening: How to Grow Cool Weather Vegetables

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)



I know, this is technically not a book but I may need to refer to this in the future. This is a video made in 1987 which is a good treatment of how to garden. Now, I am a complete neophyte to the gardening scene, however this video gives you a good vision of how wonky you can be about vegetables.

Jeff Ball is the host and is likeable and not embarrassing to watch, if a little stiff. His big deal is "intensive gardening". Since this video is on cool weather vegetables he gets to show off his tunnel set up for lengthening the growing season. Since I live in the Mid-Atlantic, I don't think it's worth that amount of work to add some more months, but if you live in Minnesota, you might take the trouble. One good point he makes is that if you garden on a more year-round basis, you can get by with storing less food.

Good info on soil conditioning, disease, etc., which are the harder parts if you want to garden properly.



Boxer's Start-Up: A Beginner's Guide to Boxing

(originally published on Nick's Book Blog)


I got this book because I started taking boxing lessons earlier this year from a guy I found on craigslist. I started taking lessons because as I get older, I feel the need to be able to defend myself physically. I started getting the literature so that I would have more background to bring to the lessons.

Here is one of the more smack-talking quotes: "Boxing is at the heart of physical toughness. It's the barest art of self-defense. It can be the rawest measure of a person. It's the most basic of competitions where fears are met and overcome or all is lost. It's the ideal vehicle for unfettered agression. Short of actual hand-to-hand combat, it's the ultimate contest between two people." The rest of the book gets into more actual how-tos as opposed to this motivational stuff, which presumably the reader is into since he bought the book.

Anyway, I thought the book was a really good introduction, and the guy who co-wrote it was a true beginner, so he brings that perspective into his writing. For me, the most useful part were the run-downs of the punches: jab, straight right, hook and uppercut, along with notes about their various uses, etc. There is also a chapter that covers the basic combinations: double and triple jabs, one-two, one-two-three, right-left-right and left-right-left. These two sections were helpful to me in solidifying the stuff I had learned in my lessons.

In all, the book is very accessable and not intimidating. So it would be helpful to people like me who want to stick a toe in and who are not culturally savvy about tough-guy stuff.

By Start-Up Sports and Doug Werner
ISBN # 1884654096



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