3 comments about The Life of Adam Smith.

1. This is an extraordinarily interesting biography, especially for its insight into the very different world of 18th century Scotland. Smith's student start at Glasgow University with six professors, at which and education could be obtained for 10 pounds a year. His first book -- A Theory of Moral Sentiments -- in which he developed his concepts of morality, and which he kept revising along with A Wealth of Nations until his death. His first protest against tariffs -- an import duty on oats into the city of Glasgow, which would be unfair to his students who brought oats and peas from home and lived on 1 or 2 pounds a year for food. Writing is a bit turgid, eighteenth centuryish. Still, I keep thinking about the bits and pieces of the life of this most interesting man.



2. Easy to read in spite of the larger-than-life reputation of Adam Smith. Presents Adam Smith the man as a bit of an absent minder professor who talked to himself.

   However, the book shines in connecting Smith's life experiences to their effect on his thinking and writing. Extensive use is made of Smith's correspondence to flesh out ideas presented in his published works. The author is clearly more comfortable with the pedigree of thought behind "The Theory of Moral Sentiment" rather than "The Wealth of Nations", but Smith's ecomonics are still given thorough treatment. The disconnect between Smith's free trade theories and his work as a Commissioner of Customs is explored to the full.

   A quick read and a delightful look into the Scottish Enlightenment.




3. Those who are not looking for an academic biography should check out Adam Smith: The Man and His Works by E. G. West. It's concise, elegantly written, and keenly insightful. Only specialists and academics need bother with Ross's tome.

No comments about William Shockley - The Father of Silicon Valley (Biography).

4 comments about Architect of Quality : The Autobiography of Dr. Joseph M. Juran.

1. This book was a real eye opener for me. I know a little about the Quality world -- and Juran is the #1 man in Quality.

   He pulled the tools together into one place for identification of waste, putting the ideas into forms management could understand, and developing problem solving methods for fixing it.

   It was really interesting to see where this man came from and how his concepts and ideas came together.

   Easy reading and the sort of book that will make you want to dig into his other heavier management and engineering books.




2. This autobiography of Dr. Juran, who overcame childhood tragedy to make an impact on business and society, examines his career and work life with an eye to showing how they influenced his professional development and eventual reputation in the business management world. His concepts of quality eventually became a part of businesses around the world: Architect Of Quality will appeal to any interested in how the quality concept became embedded in the business plan.



3. Juran is known as a Quality "guru", but this book makes clear that he made significant contributions to management theory, human resources management and consulting as well. The historical perspectives provided by such a distinguished leader in these areas is illuminating. The book is a fast read, and is focused on his professional journey, with only a little about his life outside work (I would have liked more about this side of his life). His affection for the United States, and his work with the Japanese come through as high points.



4. 
   This is an excellent autobiography by one of the most renowned quality gurus in the world. His contributions to the field of quality management in his over 70 active working years is outstanding. Dr. Juran was the first to incorporate the human aspect of quality management which is referred to as Total Quality Management.
   
   Among the quality management ideas and concepts for which Juran is well known include top management involvement, the Pareto principle, the need for widespread training in quality, the definition of quality as fitness for use, the project-by-project approach to quality improvement.
   
   Juran was born in 1904 in Rumania. The family immigrated to the USA some few years later in search of the American dream and to escape poverty in their country. Young Juran was a gifted scholar with special aptitudes for mathematic and science. In 1920, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota. By 1925, he had received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He worked at the Western Electric Company in the Inspection Department of the famous Hawthorne Works in Chicago. This was a huge and complex factory, manned by 40,000 workers. This presented Juran with his first challenge in management.
   
   Juran was one of two engineers for the Inspection Statistical Department, one of the first of such divisions created in American industry.
   
   By 1937, Juran was the chief of Industrial Engineering at Western Electric in New York. His work involved visiting other companies and discussing methods of quality management. During WWII, Juran served in Washington, D.C. as an assistant administrator for the Lend-Lease Administration. He and his team improved the efficiency of the process, eliminating excessive paperwork and thus hastening the arrival of supplies to the USA allies. Juran finally left Washington in 1945 and chose to devote the remainder of his life to the study of quality management.
   
   Juran became Chairman of the Department of Administrative Engineering at New York University (NYU), where he taught for many years. He also created a thriving consulting practice, and wrote books and delivered lectures for American Management Association (AMA). It was his time with NYU and the AMA which allowed for the development of his management philosophies which are now embedded in the foundation of American and Japanese management. His classic book, the Quality Control Handbook, first released in 1951, is widely used reference work for quality managers.
   
   This is an excellent book that is highly recommended for managers as well as quality specialists.

2 comments about Elizabeth Murray: A Woman's Pursuit of Independence in Eighteenth-Century America.

1. I was at the book signing and got an autographed copy. I haven't read it yet, but the author is a hottie!!



2. This is an excellent biography not just for academics but also anyone who's interested in this period of American history or interested in women's history as well. Cleary does a great job of presenting this woman's struggles and life in a way that is entertaining as well as enlightening. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

3 comments about All I Needed to Know in Life I Learned Selling Door to Door.

1. This is a very fun, witty story which does more than tell a story of a self made salesperson, it inspires and educates along the way. Short, funny and to the point, it takes you back in time before the catalog, to door to door salemen, inspirational and motiviational, a must read for anyone in sales.



2. "All I Needed to Know in Life I Learned Selling Door to Door" will teach you, educate you and entertain you -- Robert Grottke has delivered a very simple book with a HUGE impact. Everyone in the business world should read this book
   
   All I Needed to Know in Life I Learned Selling Door to Door
   by Robert Louis Grottke
   Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (September 13, 2006)
   Language: English
   ISBN: 1419632000
   
   "All I Needed to Know in Life I Learned Selling Door to Door" by Robert L. Grottke, is a must read. This book is a fresh, simple, honest, straight to the point, modest, and articulately detailed nonfiction literary addition to an already crowded genre of self improvement books. This book stands out high above a majority in the genre. Mr. Grottke does something in "All I Needed to Know in Life I Learned Selling Door to Door" that many others from the same genre miss - And that is he lets his experiences, knowledge and lessons from life do his talking. This is a small book that achieves in a big way. There is a lot of truth behind the old saying, "You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?" "All I Needed to Know in Life I Learned Selling Door to Door" is a book that has clearly 'walked the walked.'
   
   Robert Grottke is a native of Illinois and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois. In his book "All I Needed to Know..." he retells working his way through college, selling Rexair vacuum cleaners, door to door. He later became a salesman with the Real Silk Hosiery Company, and proved so successful with that company that he was made the subject of a feature article and cover picture on the magazine, Salesman's Opportunity. Mr. Grottke then became a Certified Public Accountant, and worked for one of the Big Eight accounting and auditing firms at the time. He is currently the Chief Financial Officer of an international food retailing group, which licenses and franchises food stores in over 30 countries around the world.
   
   "All I Needed to Know in Life I Learned Selling Door to Door" is packed with lesson after lesson. One comes away from reading this book feeling motivated and ready to take on the world. Door-to-door direct selling is not a common employment in today's high-tech world of fax machines and email. The heart of this book is simple - Nothing is better than face to face interactions. It's impossible to email a handshake or fax a smile.
   
   One of Mr. Grottke first jobs as a young man (along with delivering newspapers and cutting grass) was a "pin boy," someone who resets the pins at the bowling alley. As the author states in the book, "This job experience provided me with some appreciation of what it meant to "work at a job.' "Working as a "pin boy" allowed. Mr. Grottke to work at his own pace and as he states was a "character building" which he says, "I needed a strong character as I started my selling career."
   
   In the summer of 1948, between high school and college, Mr. Grottke became a door-to-door salesman selling Rexair vacuum cleaners. He used his parents' 1947 Buick where began a journey that taught him life-instructions that he still practices today as a successful CFO with an international company. "The Rexair experience taught me a lot. I grew up a bit," the author writes, "I learned that if you keep trying, even in the face of continued failure, you can ultimately succeed. I learned a little about how to persuade people to buy something, when a short time before they had no idea they were going to make a purchase. I learned how to overcome objections, to listen to the customer and to respond. I learned to think 'on my feet.'
   
   "All I Needed to Know in Life I Learned Selling Door to Door" is a valuable book with many valuable experiences -
   * A Positive attitude should be in everything you do.
   * Don't be afraid to meet people.
   * It's very important to gain people's trust
   * Learning how to be a self-starter can last a lifetime.
   * Selling products can be fun and exciting but you must first sell yourself.
   * Listening is more important than speaking.
   * Hard work and ambition are learned and not taught.
   
   "All I Needed to Know in Life I Learned Selling Door to Door" will teach you, educate you and entertain you -- Robert Grottke has delivered a very simple book with a HUGE impact. Everyone in the business world should read this book - I'm very glad that I did."
   [...]



3. This is a great book and easy read. Lots of reminders of time gone by with common sense for today's sales person.

5 comments about Ben & Jerry's: The Inside Scoop: How Two Real Guys Built a Business with a Social Conscience and a Sense of Humor.

1. This was a really good book that shows "How Two Real Guys Built a Business With a Social Conscience and a Sense of Humor." This should be required reading for MBA's along with Hawkin's Growing a Business.



2. It's a chronicle of the intriguing journey of junior high friends who split the $5 cost of a home study course in making homemade ice cream and turn it into a $237 million company (1999 sales). Ben & Jerry's antics of giving away ice cream so they can 'get the ice cream into people's mouths so they will buy it,' take on some unusual situations. Free cones are offered to folks who register to vote, donate books to Head Start, or send postcards to elected officials for a variety of causes, and to celebrate at Fall Down Festivals with block long stilt walking races, music and other amusements. Solar-powered mobiles are used to transport the ice cream and a show on the road. They still sponsor customer appreciation day once a year when free cones are dipped all day.

   It's hard to resist a bowl or cone of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough or Cherry Garcia as you read this humorous show and tell of two guys who really want (and do) make a difference. You'll be ready to book a snow shoe tour of the Vermont plant by the time you finish reading about these guys' mission. Their values-led business (in addition to having fun) is to produce the best ice cream from Vermont dairy products, to increase the value of the of the company for the stockholders and create career opportunities and financial rewards for employees, and to improve the quality of life for the community. (They donate 7.5% of pretax profits to Ben & Jerry's Foundation that supports a variety of causes that improve the quality of life for children.)

   I'm using this book as a project for an organizational communications course and enjoyed the reading (and eating) more than I ever expected. It was the most fun I've had doing homework!




3. I read this book at the suggestion of a business school professor. It was supposedly a great illustration of the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurs.

   I found that the book tried more to be humorous than to convey any business knowledge to the reader. Everything seemed to be an inside joke. Rather than producing a well thought-out account of a business experience, the book fell flat with dumb humor. I was very unimpressed with how the company was run, and I don't feel like I got much from the book.




4. A good recount of how the company got going, but the last few chapters dragged.

   There are things to learn about how Ben and Jerry developed their company:
   1)They are geniuses at this. They actually figured out mass production without knowing what they were doing, they figured out marketing from scratch, they encountered financing and survived.
   2)They had a near masochistic willingness to work. Boy did these guys work hard (it would kill me to do what they did, even if I had the will to do it).
   3)They could adapt incredibly.

   4) and finally: There are pitfalls and prices to trying to make social profits and business profits at the same time and to not planning your company to be as big as it already is.

   You can learn about businesses in their growth phase from this book. You can learn about making sure a company has sufficient controls in place for its size. You may be able to learn whether you have what it takes to be an entrepeneur.

   The first 3/4th of the book were fun to read but for some reason the last couple of chapters, when Ben and Jerry were playing less of a part in the business, were slow and boring (I don't exactly know why but I know they dragged).




5. It's a hippie story. Rarely do you ever read a book about a company that makes you change your buying habits. For some reason this was one of those books to me. The story is pure Americana - gutsy, clumsy, real. Not the smoothest flowing narrative but if you like their story it flows none the less.

No comments about Frederick Billings: A Life.

No comments about Industrial Workers of the World - The Wobblies Revealed (Biography).

No comments about A Son of A Gun: An Immigrant's Story.

5 comments about Ted Turner: It Ain't As Easy as It Looks: A Biography.

1. This long, intricately constructed, infinitely documented biography reads like a film script, which is the only appropriate format for a biography of this larger than life subject. Ted Turner has led a life only a Hollywood screenwriter could concoct, but Porter Bibb has packed it all between two covers.



2. Ted Turner's life story would make a better movie than many of the old classics he bought the rights to broadcast on his stations. From allegedly giving a sales pitch in the nude (among other things), to wild speeches in hotel lobbies, winning an incredible number of sailing races, and even his own "Alistair Cooke" style film intros, this guy is full of antics.

   I was impressed by the depth of research Mr. Bibb brought to this book. I wish their was a little more of Ted quoted in the book, but this is an excellent amount of info on the man's life.

   - Julia Wilkinson, author, "My Life at AOL"




3. There is hardly a more colorful person in the history of twentieth century media than Ted Turner. He is mad, visionary, obsessed, gutsy, bi-polar, swash-buckling, touching and very likeable. Ted's CCN inspired me to push ahead with my own small technology company. After touring the early CNN headquarters in Atlanta, I brought back colorful CNN souvenir caps for my staff; and we wore them for a time in our office whenever we brain-stormed. This is a great and detailed account of Ted's adult years from family billboard company executive to AOL Time Warner vice chairman.

   You'll rout for this multi-billionaire after reading the book.




4. This book was an insult to my intelligence. Instead of an objective biography, it comes across as a paid P.R piece written by a Ted Turner sycophant. Don't waste your money on this trash. Too bad there isn't a "zero stars" rating!!!



5. Just some business details and too much sailing and private things.