Weekend Reading

(A day late thanks to a dead laptop.)

-- "Are We Heading Towards Another Internet Crash?" at The Independent: "Past technology revolutions suggest that there are two key factors that help companies survive burst bubbles. First, successful companies tend to ensure that they make their technology relevant and easy to use, rather than just promote its inherent qualities. The companies that survived the railway revolution, for example, did so by focusing not just on building new routes, but by providing toilets, new dining cars and better suspensions on the carriages. Similarly, websites such as Amazon, eBay and iTunes are all notable for their functionality. The iPod, too, provides not just mobile music but a great customer experience. Second, companies need to focus on operational execution. All too often, management attention is on strategy and the excitement of launching or acquiring new business ventures. The more mundane task of meeting customer requirements can get neglected."

-- "How Much of Leadership is About Control, Delegation or Theater" by Jim Heskett at HBS Working Knowledge: "Some leadership theater is unplanned, but it requires the right reflex action on the part of the leader. For example, I once observed Bill Pollard, then CEO of ServiceMaster, spill a cup of coffee at a board meeting at the company, one offering cleaning services whose leadership had long advocated 'servant leadership.' Without hesitating, he asked an associate to get him some cleaning materials and proceeded to get down on his hands and knees to soak the coffee out of the carpeting while his board of directors stood watching. No one commented on what was happening. It seemed taken for granted that it was a demonstration of what a leader should do in that case."

-- "Boxed Set" from Rob Walker's "Consumed" column in the New York Times' Sunday Magazine: "The crass use of the word 'unit' to describe a buyable collection of music makes a certain sense in this case. The $25 Buddha Machine is the size of a cigarette pack, with one button, an on-off dial and a rather tinny speaker. Inside is a chip containing nine digitally encoded music loops. The button allows the listener to switch from one to another, but that’s the extent of user control over the experience, leading some observers to refer to the thing as the anti-iPod."