Inside the Tornado : Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley's Cutting Edge by Geoffrey A. Moore

Geoffrey Moore has high-tech marketing nailed. He understands how to position, package, and price the product.

He talks about Niche Marketing

• ... simplifies the whole product
• challenge inherently profitable
• represent capturable territories
• can be leveraged into adjacent segments

The tornado...

• ...focus on economic buyer and end user
• emphasize ROI as compelling reason to buy
• differentiate whole product for single application

Other essential points...

• Attack Competition to gain mass mkt share
• Position products horizontally as global infrastructure main street
• Sell to the end user
• Focus on the end user's experience of the product, seeking to gratify their individual needs
• Differentiate the commoditized whole product

If you have a high-tech product for sale you should consider "Inside the Tornado" as a guide.

The Craft of Sail: A Primer of Sailing by Jan Adkins

If you want to teach your spouse or child or grandchild how to sail this is the place to start. Adkins' book is beautifully illustrated and shows the mechanics of how it all works.

Can be read in a day. The joy will last a lifetime.

An Autumn of War by Victor Davis Hanson

I normally do not post on books that I haven't read completely and enjoyed just a little bit. I'm conflicted about this book, though, because it's well written and historically accurate yet it comes across as a diatribe or polemic designed to support George Bush and his war policies.

Here are some excerpts from page 12. I leave you, the reader, to decide if you'd like it or not.

Leadership in democracy also demands transcendence-the constant reminder to a free and affluent citizenry that their killing and dying is nevertheless for a purpose beyond mere victory. ...In the months to come we must be retold that we war to remember the dead, to save the innocent, and to end the violence.

All true enough but we must remember that this retelling comes after the war has started. Before we begin the war we need to think long and hard about whether it's neccessary, neccessary now, and do we have the army we'd like to have to start it. ???

Democracies are derided as decadent and soft. They are neither when aroused, but it requires vision to convince a complacent citizen that moderation in war is imbecility, that tragically real humanity is to put to rest those who would slay the helpless.

Absolutely true as any general or military historian will tell you.

For our generals to achieve successful battle command there must not be merely confidence, but at times understated arrogance as well. Caesar, Wellington, Nelson, and Grant were not much concerned with what the enemy might do-are our European allies on board? might our response prompt greater conflagration in the Muslim world? can we conquer this new face of terror?-but focused instead on what they knew they would and could do to the enemy.

Here's where Mr. Hanson begins to stray. Generals indeed need to be cocky, those mentioned certainly were cocky generals. But the questions raised are not military questions, they are political questions to be answered by the civilian leadership. In Grant's case this was Mr. Lincoln.

Still, we have been lectured by moderate Arab regimes on what we cannot do, even to the extent that the naming of our campaign "Infinite Justice" is inappropriate. We are waiting for leaders who will advise them sternly that nomenclature is the least of their worries, when three thousand of our kin are killed in the streets by men from their shores. Periodic scariness is not a vice in military leadership.

All true enough, but there is no point in antagonizing folks who don't have a dog in the fight. Using the name "Crusade" clearly was not going to win us allies in the Muslim world.

My Losing Season by Pat Conroy Available on Audio Book

I am not a sports fan. This is a sports book that is not about sports. I loved it.

Athletics provide some of the richest fields of both metaphor and cliche to measure our lives against the intrusions and aggressions of other people.

The game kept me from facing the ruined boy who played basketball instead of killing his father. It was also the main language that allowed father and son to talk to each other. If not for sports, I do not think my father ever would have talked to me.

Even in defeat there is education. In fact there is probably more education in losing than in winning.

Sports books are always about winning because winning is far more pleasurable and exhilarating to read about than losing. Winning is wonderful in every aspect, but the darker music of loss resonates on deeper, richer planes. I think about all the games of that faraway year that played such a part in shaping me, and it is the losses that stand out because they still make their approach with all their capacities to wound intact. Winning makes you think you'll always get the girl, land the job, deposit the million-dollar check, win the promotion, and you grow accustomed to a life of answered prayers. Winning shapes the soul of bad movies and novels and lives. It is the subject of thousands of insufferably bad books and is often a sworn enemy of art.

Loss is a fiercer, more uncompromising teacher, coldhearted but clear-eyed in its understanding that life is more dilemma than game, and more trial than free pass. My acquaintance with loss has sustained me during the stormy passages of my life... Though I learned some things from the games we won that year, I learned much, much more from loss.

Pat Conroy works his literary magic from the beginning of the book to the end. I learned a lot about Pat Conroy but even more about myself and about life. I learned something about basketball and about my friends too.

Losing prepares you for the heartbreak, setback, and tragedy that you will encounter in the world more than winning ever can. By licking your wounds you learn how to avoid getting wounded the next time. The American military learned more by its defeat in South Vletnam than it did in all the victories ever fought under the Stars and Stripes.

Unfortunately, we seem to have forgotten the lessons of Vietnam. Pat Conroy always seems fresh to me.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell Available on Audio Book

"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do."

Gladwell helps us understand behaviors that were previously mysterious. The Tipping Point also has quite a few interesting twists on the subject. He talks about Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen in a very different light. Other topics include The Power of Context, The Magical Number Seven, and Stickiness.

Whether you are a fan or not, Donald Rumsfeld, SecDef, frequently refers to "the tipping point." I assume he has read the book.

Smart Questions by Dorothy Leeds

This is one of my favorite business and communication books, maybe my all-time favorite.

Smart Questions tells you how to listen by asking questions. She gives you questions for all occasions: job interview, sales, managing up and down. She talks about the different kinds of questions and how to mix them up. She shows you how to use questions to work with your employees.

A top management consultant, Leeds shows how to turn ordinary conversational skills into impressive business tools. Includes tips on how to ask the right person the right question at the right time, reduce mistakes, gain control over volatile situations, and more.

This book is out of print but you can find it used for almost nothing. Do it.

The Culting of Brands by Douglas Atkin

The term "Cult" conjures up images of Jim Jones and mass suicide or Charles Manson and murder but the term has been abused. Apple, Saturn, and other companies have cult followings. For that matter, when I was a teenager Ford and Chevy had cult-like followings.

It turns out that once you get past the C-word connotation this is a very useful concept and technique. It is not the least bit deceptive or dogmatic. It really builds on some very sound marketing concepts:

• Listen to your customers.
• Connect your customers.
• Respond to your customers.

It turns out that if you do these things your customers will sell your products in ways that you never can. Atkin explains how we can use this behavior to build brand loyalty and strong sales.

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow

This is a fascinating history of the early Rockefellers. John D's ascendency was based on the supply and distribution of oil. The family fortune came from the monopoly of that distribution. Was it right or wrong? That's for the reader to decide.

What we can learn from this book is how modern day titans such as Bill Gates and Larry Ellison should dispose of their fortunes. John D. Rockefeller is a great example of how a ruthless capitalist businessman redeemed himself through philanthropy.

Ron Chernow is a meticulous researcher who tells a great story. There are some really touching personal stories about John D. and his progeny in this very readable book. This is biography at its best.

Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson

Isaac's Storm is relevant to the tsunami of 2004 which may explain why this 1999 book is back on the Bestseller lists.

True account "blends science and history to tell the story of Galveston, its people and the hurricane that devastated them. Larson follows individuals through the fateful day and the storm's aftermath."

He is a great storyteller and has done his research well.

The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw

Tom Brokaw writes artfully about ordinary men and women who did extraordinary things and expected no more in return than to simply live ordinary lives. This was my parents generation and I watched many of my uncles come back from war and build successful lives. Many of these careers were driven by college educations supported by the GI bill.

I frequently ponder the way we treated WWII veterans versus Vietnam veterans. How would the latter have fared if we had given them the same opportunities and benefits. Consider the reality that in WWII the whole country was at war, my mother and grandmother worked in a war materials factory. Contrast that with the reality that the soldiers and their families were at war but the rest of us were not.

There is much to learn from this book.

Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk by Maureen Dowd

I had hoped that this book would be passe by the time my hold popped at the library but alas...

I normally don't like collections of columns but this was an exception. The arrangement adds something. And... Maureen Dowd is simply one of the very best writers around. Here's an example:

"After 9/11, this administration had everything going for it. Republicans ruled Congress. The president had enormously high approval ratings. Yet it overreached while trying to justify the reasons for going to war.

"Even when conservatives have all the marbles, they still act as if they're under siege. Now that they are under siege, it is no time for them to act as if they're losing their marbles. "