Wilson Ng: Bizdrivenlife's Readings/ My Linkblog

Books On Project Management

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:09:35 GMT

Here are some Books on Project Management that I would like to rcommend during the course of my learning ( and also still trying to write a proj. management handbook of which some initial chapters are here) and my rating ( 1 to 5 stars - 5 stars being best):

1.) Thomsett, Michael ( 2002), The Little Black Book of Project Management, New York: Amacom
– **** Excellent entry level project management book containing a collection of basic (more…)

Popular business books

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:08:31 GMT

Here are some of the list of some of the best business sellers books I have been reading over the last 10 years. It emphasizes importance of staying on your feet, proper utilization of information that will aide in the planning and eventual execution designed to preserve the company’s competitiveness during the ever-changing business environment.

1.) Gerstner, Louis ( 2002), Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance, New York: Harper Business
- **** Gerstner, IBM’s CEO from 1992 to 2002 shares the insights (more…)

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 15:04:59 GMT

Moving Bizdrivenlife

I am now updating and moving to the new bizdrivenlife site here.

I will still maintain this site as a mirror site for some days and weeks, but most of my new posts will be at the new site. In the next few days, I will also transfer the www.bizdrivenlife.net so that if you are using this as your marker, you will be redirected there.

If you are using my feedburner RSS to download my posts, which is as follows:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ReflectionsOfABusiness-drivenLife, then I have redirected it to download from the new site, so you don't need to do anything. However, if you are not downloading anything new, pls. go to my new site, and subscribe to the Feedburner RSS on the upper left corner of the blog.

I hope that by moving my blog into WordPress, I can be more flexible, and it will be easier for you to search, locate the information you want, as well as notice the better organization of the new site.

The same 8 subcategories will still be there, and I have taken also the liberty of transferring some of the top posts the last few weeks there. My selected writings for the last one year is also there.

I am hoping with this new setup, I will be able to more easily communicate with you, and scale even better heights.

As usual, thank you for your support, and your comments are always welcome.

Sun, 25 Sep 2005 23:59:08 GMT

VoidStar

I've corresponded with Julian Bond since I started becoming acquainted in Ecademy. He has a wide range of interest, and I have been very impressed with his expertise on Drupal, a blogging and content management tool that powers Ecademy. He also has a blog that talks about mostly Google and Skype which are excellent technical analysis on how to get the best of these 2 technologies.

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 04:35:13 GMT

How to Know your Page Rank and Link Popularity (techdrivenlife) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled)

If you want to know how good your website or blog is, especially in Google, you can go to this free site to know. Google terms it as PageRank and it is possible to query this. This will indicate how influential you are, and what is your probability to have a higher search ranking when people search for certain keywords.

If you want to know specifically how many websites link to you, this site will also give you how you fare in statistics from 4 sites, Google, AltaVista, AlltheWeb, and Teoma.

Increasing your Blog Readers and Search PageRankings

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 04:22:54 GMT

Increasing your Blog Readers and Search PageRankings (Reviews)

I happened to drop by this great site, written by Darren Rowse. He has just earned over $10,000 from Google Adsense for the month of May 2005. He has a site that teaches how to earn from blogging.

Apparently, there are many techniques, foremost of course, is to increase your readership from both the quality and quantity of your posts -- but how do you get readers in the first place. Obviously, from being able to get the search engines to refer to your site, and to get your readers to come back. Once that is done, the more people who visits you, the more potential clicks your ads could get.

I spent well over an hour on his site, and here are some of the great links.

Adsense Tips for Bloggers1

Also in this series is Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8.

Blogging for Dollars

How to Keep First Time Readers to your Blog Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Also some great categories: Blog Promotion Tips, Search Engine Optimization Tips, as well as a link to a Search Engine Journal.

I hope you profit from it as well as I did, not only in money, but in terms of insights.

Sun, 26 Jun 2005 04:32:11 GMT

MarketingSherpa's 2005 Best Blog winners (Reviews)

Marketing Sherpa announced their top 10 blogs as chosen by 2,065 tough judges who carefully evaluated 52-nominated blogs to pick them.

Best individual's blog on the general topic of marketing and advertising

Seth Godin's Blog
http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/blog.html

Honorable Mention: Adrants
http://www.adrants.com

Best group weblog on the general topic of marketing and advertising

Winner: MarketingVOX
http://www.marketingvox.com

Honorable Mention (Tie):
Marketing Genius http://marketinggenius.blogspot.com
Church of the Customer http://www.churchofthecustomer.com

Best PR-topic blog

Winner: Media Guerrilla
http://mmanuel.typepad.com/media guerrilla

Honorable Mention: Strategic Public Relations
http://www.prblog.typepad.com

Best B-to-B marketing-topic blog

Winner: Guerrilla Consulting
http://guerrillaconsulting.typepad.com

Honorable Mention: B-to-B Lead Generation Blog
http://blog.startwithalead.com/

Best blog on small business marketing

Winner: Duct Tape Marketing
http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php

Honorable Mention: Small Business Trends
http://www.smallbusinesses.blogspot.com

Best blog on online marketing

Winner: Chris Baggott's Best Practices in Email
http://exacttarget.typepad.com/chrisbaggott

Honorable Mention: Charlotte Li's Blog
http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/

Blogs on Search Marketing

Winner: Search Engine Roundtable
http://www.seroundtable.com

Honorable Mention: Brad Fallon
http://www.bradfallon.com

Best Blog on Niche Marketing

Winners (tie):
Ypulse - Media for the Next Generation
http://www.ypulse.com/

WonderBranding - Marketing to Women
http://michelemiller.blogs.com/marketing to women

Honorable Mention:
Lipsticking- Smart marketing to women online
http://windsormedia.blogs.com/lipsticking

Best non-English-Language Blog

Winner: MarketingFacts (completely in Dutch)
http://www.mediafact.nl/weblog.php

Honorable mention: Media Culpa (in Swedish with some English)
http://www.kullin.net/

Top readers' choice write-in vote

Winner: Easy Bake Weblogs
http://easybakeweblogs.com

Honorable Mention: Collateral Damage (CMO Magazine)
http://www.cmomagazine.com/blog view.html?ID=401

Details on this SherpaMarketing link.

Sat, 25 Jun 2005 07:36:29 GMT

Review of a Game Site (Reviews)

I chanced upon this site Gawken - Video Game News & Stories.

Although I am not much of a gamer, I could see the site as interesting, informative and well designed. If you are a game aficionado, and loves to play and get the latest updates on PS2, Xbox, Nintendo, PSP, and others, this is a great site that gives succinct summaries of what is happening when and where.

Sun, 19 Jun 2005 03:24:51 GMT

LinkBlog 1 (Reviews)

I am starting to include in my reading reviews also reviews of links -- effectively what industry would call a linkblog( first here, but soon only in my readings/linkblog category). Here I share some of the great web sites I read and track, which I have not had time to put into my blogroll, or those sites which needs to be initially explained why the site is so compelling.

First is you should try to check out the site, Ask Dave Taylor. This is a great site where an industry guru answers( and he has answered over 500 of them) common questions on using technology, from windows xp, to ebay, to blogs, to playstations, to web design, and the like. To get started, you might want to check out his specific questions to the most popular questions he has been given, which many will also be of interest to you.

Another great technology news site, in which the author presents a neat summary of updates is LastRider's blog.

Pls. feel free to write me if you want to be included --- no promises.... Please note that my linkblog is very subjective. It has to be a blog I like, and it has to talk about issues that I am interested on, and consistent to my Bizdrivenlife tagline, ' a technology entrepreneur's take on winning in business ... and in life.'

Mon, 13 Jun 2005 12:42:32 GMT

Coach Carter Review (Reviews)

The movie, starring Samuel Jackson, is based on a real life story of a basketball coach, who believes that life is more than winning basketball, and it is about winning in life. He advocates being tough, and espouses discipline and education as central to success.

It does have some good parallelisms in a workplace. As a coach, he is also a manager, and a teacher, one who is responsible on training and motivating people how to move up in life. And nothing is harder a job than to convince people about your principles of success and the means to get there than when they don't agree with you on what success is. Coach Carter had difficulty when initially, the players already become bull headed after a small success, and also increasingly with parents and teachers who believed that dumbing down standards is the way to go. They want success but do not understand that success, or at least sustainable success needs to be properly courted and won over.

We all want the best for our people and our children, but are we prepared to be tough for them to get there?

Great performance from Samuel Jackson, and it is great to see that Hollywood still turns out movies that motivates and inspires. I see myself as being advantaged because I have read good books, and watch inspirational movies, and this is definitely one to see. I may also get the book as I was informed it is also well-written and inspiring.

Five stars out of five.

Sun, 12 Jun 2005 09:44:00 GMT

Madagascar (Reviews)

It is a great movie. It tells of four animals who lived in the zoo in bliss but yearned to go out to see the 'world'.

It is an entertaining comedy. Sometimes when you see comedies, it discourages you when you hear trite or overused jokes. Here the humor is fresh and original.

But what endears I think is that you can identify with the characters because you see in them the characteristics of many people you know today --- brash, loud, short-sighted, friendly, unappreciative of what they have and funny .... These characters, described as 'New Yorkers' are now really found everywhere in the world. We are now all in some way, consumers and practitioners of American junk.

Then there are the penguins -- psychos they are called , because they prefer to live in the tropical country and get a tan...

There is Alex, the lion, who cannot get over losing his 'steak', and there is Marty, the Zebra who feels that there is more to life than being contended and 'filled', and there is the giraffe and the hippo whose main mission in life is to find identity by logging along with their friends...

Interesting, original, entertaining. But most important, we see ourselves in the characters and story that they spun.

Five stars out of five.

Fri, 20 May 2005 03:20:50 GMT

A Great Puzzle! ( on readings)

I am posting on reading reviews although this is not exactly a book, but something else --- a puzzle that took as much time to create and design as a book.

It is a great puzzle designed by a Japanese. It is called the Crimson Room, and you should try it.

According to the person who introduced it to me, you can get to register and email to the creator if you solve it ( get out of the room) , and though it has been posted for several months, and over a hundred thousand have tried it, only 4,000 are said to have successful solved it.

You start off by being locked in the room, and you are supposed to find the 13 items that will get you out of the room.

If you find:

· 0-6 items, your IQ is very low, total idiot

· 6-8 items, Low IQ, u r an idiot

· 9-10 items, u r normal

· 11-12 items, your IQ is high, above the average.

Try it. There is one clue that I have been asked to share, and it is "1994". Here is the link. Good luck!

Would be great to hear about your experience here.

A business and its Beliefs

Tue, 18 Jan 2005 07:57:19 GMT

A Business and Its Beliefs ( book review)

This is a book by Thomas Watson Jr., IBMs CEO from 1956 to 1971, and son of TJ Watson, the founder. He wrote the book, which full title is "A Business and Its Beliefs: The Ideas that Helped Build IBM" in 1963.

According to the IBM biography,

" During his leadership, IBM grew from a medium-sized business to one of the dozen largest industrial corporations in the world. When Mr. Watson became CEO in 1956, IBM employed 72,500 people and had a gross income of $892 million. When he stepped down in 1971, employees numbered more than 270,000 and gross revenue was $8.3 billion. Fortune magazine once called him "the greatest capitalist who ever lived."

It is a great book, though I initially had misgivings getting the book. Are the principles of 1963 applicable today? When I looked at the Amazon site, it was ranked 433,861 in sales, and I would be the first to review it. Uhmmmm... If I had not been so enamored by his story by another book, "Father , Son & Company" which he co-authored with Peter Petre, I would not have bought this one.

Notwithstanding, I will not hesitate to say it is still one of the most important book in building the foundation of a great corporation, much akin to the principles in the bestseller book "Built to Last" by Jim Collins (#31 in Amazon list) . Only it is less sensational, but written by a True Blue practitioner who can really claim to the saying, been there, done that. With plethoras of business books proliferating, it is important to see, before believing, that the authors recommendations match his accomplishments. Or else, there will always be the question -- if he knows the stock market so well, why is he writing the book instead of investing in Wall Street?

It is one of those rare books, that is as relevant today as it was published over 40 years ago. According to Watson in laying the foundation on the importance of beliefs ( we call it now VISION) , "

"the basic philosphy, spirit and drive of an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements than do technological or economic resources, organization structure, innovation or timing. All these things weigh heavily in success. Buthey are, I think, transcended byhow strongly the people believe in its basic precepts and how faitfully they carry them out."

What are these basic precepts? He outlined three:

- have respect for the individual

- give the best company service of any company in the world.

- pursue all tasks with the idea that they can be accomplished in a superior fashion

He says, " The relationship between man and the customer, their mutual trust, the importance of reputation, the idea of putting the customer first -- all these things, if carried out wth real conviction by a company can make a great deal of difference in its destiny."

He is a great man, and it is a great book, if only to review what we may have forgotten in our haste to accomplish our everyday tasks. He is a great manager, but the one thing that will always put him in my all time list of great people will be an incident when he refused a higher salary and bonuses from a grateful board saying his pay was already enough, and he said something that I hope I will always remember in my own quest for fulfillment and happiness --- " I do not want to be a pig. "

Eat that Frog!

Sat, 27 Nov 2004 07:24:21 GMT

Eat That Frog! ( book review)

This book is an inspirational book about how to get things done by well known author, Brian Tracy. The full title is Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.

It has a less than palatable title, but it totally agrees with the basic premise of the book, which is that Eating a frog is a metaphor that means doing the most important thing that matters the first thing in the morning. This is the task you are most likely to put off, it being most likely UNPLEASANT, but also probably the one that will have the greatest possible impact on your life.

The book makes the premise ( which I wholeheartedly agree) that there is never time to do everything on your to do list, and there will never be. Thus, instead of reading so many books on how to organize your life, and try to do the yeoman's job of chasing the completion of all tasks, you have to accept the fact that if you cannot get everything done, you might as well focus on the most important task first.

This goes back to the 80:20 rule, which is that the most important top 20 percent of all your task will most likely determine 80 percent of your success, and instead of ticking it off one by one ( most people do their task list in list order, or worst, do the easiest always first), there is a good basis to believe you can be more success just focusing on these top 20 percent.

Brian Tracy focuses on three vital rules of effective personal time management: decision, discipline and determination. The book presents 21 ways to do this. It is a short, practical book of only 144 pages, but nevertheless presents much more substance than many books thicker in size.

Rated 9 stars out of 10.

Sat, 16 Oct 2004 07:52:38 GMT

List of High Impact Books by Paul Allen ( on reviews)

I've put in my list of reviews, some books that I recommend for entrepreneurs and business managers to read ( some books are slanted also towards managing technology). A great list, and great recommendation is found on this site. The book lists 10 titles, and although I read only four, this is a great list, and I myself will try to secure the others. Paul Allen ( not to be confused with the Paul Allen that co-founded Microsoft) is a managing partner of Infobase ventures, and also maintains a blog at this URL.

Business Books List 1

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 13:00:59 GMT

Business Book List 1. ( on reviews)

Following is a list of some of the best business sellers book in the last 10 years, my short comments, and the link to amazon.com. I will be presenting more lists and for some books, longer reviews in the coming posts.

1.) Gerstner, Louis ( 2002), Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance, New York: Harper Business

- óóóó Gerstner, IBM’s CEO from 1992 to 2002 shares the insights on how he was able to get things moving and thereby saved IBM.

2.) Bossidy, Larry with Ram Charam ( 2002) , Execution - The Discipline of Getting Things Done, New York:Crown Business

- óóóó Bossidy was chairman of Honeywell, and Ram shares insights on how to get the job done, and thereby define the true meaning of leadership in terms of ability to execute.

3.) Welch, Jack (2001) , Straight from the Gut, New York: Warner Books

- óóóóó Welch, voted most influential CEO of the 20^th century, shares his experiences of over 20 years in leading GE to become the world’s most valuable company. Excellent book in how to focus, provide vision, encourage teamwork, train and reward performance.

4.) Goldratt, Eliyahu ( 1992), The Goal, A process of ongoing Improvement, 2^nd edition, MA:North River Press

- óóóóó Dr. Goldratt’s book which introduced the Theory of Constraints, and change the way on how to look at productivity. A must read on improving everyday operations processes.

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 05:09:04 GMT

Bleachers by John Grisham ( reviews - Fiction , 2003)

John Grisham is reknowned for his long novels with complicated twists, insightful characters, and legal maneuvers. I picked up one of his latest books – only slightly over 200 pages, and large characters. This is probably less than half of his usual length. He is trading his pen for commercialization, I said. But nevertheless, I have never gotten around to reading yet many of his books. This looks easy enough to read enough in one setting, I told myself, and I did.

This revolves on the story of a very small town somewhere in the United States with a few thousand population. They would just have been one of those towns except for one thing – In the 60s, they hired a person to become an American football coach, and he was determined. He pushed his people, and he used training methods that would be considered almost torture, pushing his people to the hilt. There was one thing that mattered, and it was winning, and win they did. Soon, this small town were winning streaks in high school football that people nationwide were coming to the town to watch and recruit their best players, enabling some of them to go to the best colleges and universities. But there is always a price to pay for greatness, and during the quest, one person died in training, and many families and lives were distorted into this seemingly maniacal quest, an overly obsession on a single sport. How could winning a sports game mean so much?

The story revolved how this obsession affected many of the town’s people – some better and some worse. Was he then a hero? Was he somebody you should love or hate? The coach is dying, and that is on everybody’s mind. The story revolves around flashbacks on times spent together, and how they had lived. Should they be grateful for this man?

Although the scene is mostly about football, it is also about our careers, and whether our passion is on football, or somewhere else, this book touches a cord. Its story plot revolves only on handful of people, many of them towns folks. But it is a heartwarming story that allows us to ask the question that we hopefully should start asking early on. What is our legacy in living this one life that has been granted to us? How do we touch lives, and how would we want people to remember us by? A good book is one that forces us to reflect on ourselves, and this one delivers. Rating: 9.5 stars of 10