Book Review - The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media (Francois Gossieaux)

Being someone who pays attention to the business scene in Singapore and other countries, I would like to appeal to all CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) to grab this book, The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media by Francois Gossieaux, and read. The reason is this book will help put right to what most marketing departments have done wrong and that is focusing on the "media" of social media instead of the "social" which is critical of the success.

In this book, the authors share with us the four pillars of a social media campaign and that is

1) Tribe VS Market Segments
2) Human-Centricity vs Company-Centricity
3) Network VS Channel
4) Social Messiness VS Process & Hierarchy

As you can see, some of the old management thinking and structure would now come under fire if one company is to truly be successful with social media. For instance, looking at (2), can a company be tolerant with deviants of their brands in the tribe they are engaging with using their social media.

For social media to be successful marketing tool for a company, it must be ready for radical changes in its mindset especially stop seeing social media as a channel of communication but rather creating a network of users that can help improve your services or products and also keep track of what your competitors are doing.

This is a strongly recommended book for all Marketing Officers out there. Start doing the right thing with social media or get left behind by those who do. Social media is definitely the next platform for companies to get their brands out there effectively and gather business intelligence.
Anyone who does not start doing the right thing, I would foresee great difficulties or challenges that could come at a greater costs to overcome.

Book Review - Getting Naked(Patrick Lencioni)

Books by Patrick Lencioni is always a very captive read and "Getting Naked" is no exception. In this book, Patrick showed us the three fears that sabotage us from serving our client better and building a stronger long-term relationship with our clients. These three fears are:

1) Fear of losing business
2) Fear of being embarrassed
3) Fear of being inferior

In one word it means the fear of being vulnerable in front of the client. In our attempt to be the specialist that wanted to solve our clients problem, we have made ourselves susceptible to these three fears and as such not asking questions or putting up suggestions that can help us provide the 'perfect' solution to our client.

In this day and age where people seldom meet each other without an electronic device in the middle, "Getting Naked" might give us the competitive advantage, to show our clients our sincerity in helping to serve them, in putting our benefits last and their first, in showing they are interacting with a warm human body and not an electronic device.

"Getting Naked" is strongly recommended for those who are in sales but that does not mean it does not benefit those that are in non-sales position. For those that are in non-sales position, this book can help you to build stronger relationship within and inter departments. Why do I say that? Well pick up the book and read it.

A strongly recommended book and I give it a 4 out of 5 stars. Check out his other books as well. I find "The five dysfunctions of a team" is another great read as well.

Book Revew - On the Brink (Henry M Paulson)

On The Brink reads like a financial thriller that is told from the very person, Henry Paulson, former Treasury Secretary, that is trying to save from the collapse of the US financial system, a system that I believe has been severely corrupted by greed.

In this book, it is told in the chronicles format. How the events unfold, how the rush to save both Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns ended up in the 'death' of these institutions. The moment I pick up the book, it is always difficult to put it down. This is despite the fact that I know the outcomes of the decisions. It also shows people how interrelated the banks, insurance companies and politicians are. Something that we should always take note of when analysing global trends.

It is a strongly recommended book for all those that want to know how the current sub-prime crisis unfolded, how these bankers and politicians move around (a phenomena that is seen in other countries), how the current change came about and some insights on whether such thing would happen again.

Buy the book if you want to understand how Wall Street works, understand the current Financial Crisis and use it to better understand and catch the unfolding of future economic/financial crisis.

Book Review - Analytics at Work (Thomas H. Davenport, Jeanne G. Harris, Robert Morison)

Analytics at Work is a sequel to "Competing on Analytics" written by Thomas and Jeanne.

In this book, the authors shared with us the benefits of implementing analytics, wherever possible, in all business decisions. For those in management, be it top or middle management, I strongly recommend this book to you, especially if you want to make the best decisions at the shortest amount of time.

In this book, the authors share with us the five key areas that all corporates should take note of when they want to successfully implement business analytics at their work place. The key areas are

1) D - Accessibility to High Quality Data
2) E - Having an Enterprise Orientation
3) L - Analytical Leadership
4) T - Strategic Targets
5) A - Analysts

These five areas are what management should always look out for if they want to implement business analytics successfully. These five areas serve as a good reminder to those that are in the Analytics, on where they can improve on and for those that are new to Analytics, what areas to start of with and what to do with each area if they want to experience the benefits of Analytics.

For this book, if it is read by middle and top management, should receive 4 out of 5 stars for its clarity and simple read. For those that are already in the analytics world, I am very sure you will still benefit greatly from reading these books as you will understand what are the knowledge and skills for you to progress from your corporate position.

Book Review - Discover Your Destiny: Big Ideas to Live Your Best Life (Robin Sharma)

Discover Your Destiny: Big Ideas to Live Your Best Life (Robin Sharma), is a sequel to his best-selling book, The Monk who sold his Ferrari.

In this book, Julian Mantle, works with someone who is called Dar. In the story, he shared with Dar the Seven Stages of Self-awakening. After going through the seven stages, you would be transformed and live a life that brings you great happiness and comfort, a life that you would strongly believe that you are to live, the Meaning of Your Life. As always, all transformation process will take great effort, go through great pains but at the end it would be all worth it.

How many times we have made choices so that we make the people around us love us but such choices made us more miserable? How many times have you chosen your choices through fear and in the end found out that these choices are not making you happy? If we truly want to live a life that we are meant to live, we need to stop "cheating" ourselves. Start to be conscious of all the choices we are making. Make these choices that will make us happy, take the path that will bring more meaning in our lives. That is what this book is all about.

Some of the key takeaways I gotten from reading this book is

1) Face your fears. Do not run away from it. Acknowledge the fear and make choices to conquer it. Usually after the fear subsides, what lies beneath are great comfort and happiness.

2) All setbacks have lessons that we need to learn, to bring us to the lives we meant to live. If we manage to learn these lessons that are hidden in those setbacks, the setbacks with the same nature would not repeat itself.

3) Do your best and let life do the rest. This reminds me of the Circle of Control which I think I read from 8th Habits by Stephen Covey. Inside the Circle of Control, we should give it our best, do our best so that we do not "betray" or shortchange ourselves. Whatever results, which is outside our Circle of Control, that we get, if we tried our best, we can feel proud of getting it.

There are still many nuggets of wisdom in books which is I share it with you in this blog, would meant putting the whole book in. So I strongly urge everyone to get the book, read it, practise on those takeaways that strike you the most. Remember, wisdom without execution is worthless.

Book Review - Guide to Investing in Gold and Silver (Michael Maloney)

Guide to Investing in Gold and Silver (Michael Maloney) is a book that I grabbed the minute I finish reading Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich. Because in the book, there is a recommendation to keep part of our wealth as Precious Metals so that our purchasing power is maintained.

In this book it makes a strong case to purchase Gold and Silver and to tell you the truth, it opens up my horizon reading this book. This book also proves that history repeats itself and if history is of any mirror or lesson, it is time to start preparing. I urge all of you to grab this book, read it fast and start considering precious metals as part of your portfolio. In fact, a large part of your portfolio.

Together with my economic background, these two books have help me to connect the dots and give me a better picture that we are really heading for disaster ever since the Gold standard is history in 1971.

In this book there are also some practical tips on how to make your investment grow fast. But this is on the pretext that you are able to control your greed and fear, two main emotions that drive all markets.

I strongly recommend you'll to pick up the book, start to gather data on Dow, Gold and Silver prices and start to invest in the cycle. I am doing it now.

I am not giving any stars for this book but I will give it 5 starts out of 5 for urgency to read it. Start thinking about precious metal investing!

Book Review - Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich (Robert T. Kiyosaki)

Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich (Robert T. Kiyosaki) is the new book from the Rich Dad franchise. Being a great fan of reading (but yet to take action) Rich Dad's series of book, I rushed to the bookstore to grab it the minute it is available and devour it within 1 week.

This book is seriously attention grabbing and what makes this book so special is the points made inside the book was something that I have studied in the university. I did not know that I was studying about the conspiracy at all.

Basically the book is pointing to a certain trend that most people should pay attention to especially poor and middle class. The 'reckless' printing of US dollars is going to bring us to an age of high inflation definitely, and I say this with confidence because I have studied it. Unless the US government do something about it which I seriously doubt so, not because they do not want to but circumstances does not allow.

How to be prepared for the trend? The concrete steps are not inside as usual for Rich Dad's book, but in the book it share the new world order that is already here in the world of money and to profit from it you need to follow the rules. And these rules are

1) Money is knowledge
2) Learn how to use debt
3) Learn to Control Cashflow
4) Prepare for Bad times and you will only know Good times
5) The need for speed
6) Learn the Language of Money
7) Life is a team sport. Choose your team carefully.
8) Since money is becoming worth-less and less, Learn to Print your own

In the book, I came to know many facts about the Federal Reserve of US and some of them are shocking indeed for instance, the Federal Reserve is set up by a group of private bankers. Its origin starts from a meeting in Jekyll Island (sounds scary right?)

Still not enough information to make you buy the book? Well inside the book, Robert shared what needs to be learnt in order to increase your financial literacy. Warning: They sound simple but skills needed to be learnt in order to learn these lessons.

I give this book 5 stars out of 5 and I strongly recommend it to everyone to read it and I suggest you read it fast and take immediate action.