Roman's miles: Marathon and my 17 weeks

From my bookshelf

Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman: In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters
How ones incumbent greatest fall from the hill, lost the market, or sank into oblivion. IBM, Ashton-Tate, Borland, Netscape...Great stories, great reading. A must read. (*****)
Peter Fingar: Extreme Competition: Innovation And the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
reading
Steven Gary Blank: The Four Steps to the Epiphany
reading
Robert C. Townsend: Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits (J-B Warren Bennis Series)
Absolutely relevant. Practical advice (*****)
Lawrence M. Miller: Barbarians to Bureaucrats: Corporate Life Cycle Strategies
interesting concept but very lengthy account. would be good for an article (***)
Clayton M. Christensen: Seeing What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change
reading
Patrick J. McKenna: First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals
reading
David Minter: Lightning in a Bottle: The Proven System to Create New Ideas and Products That Work
read review (*)
Thomas L. Friedman: The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization
Slowwww and borrrrring!!! Tom's interviewed so many bigwigs and visited so many places on the globe that it took 400+ pages to put his thoughts on globalisation. It's even more boring than "the world is flat". The best soporific I've tried... (**)
W. Chan Kim: Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
very shallow. many repititions and no new ideas. weak case examples and scarce case studies (**)
Vijay Sathe: Corporate Entrepreneurship: Top Managers and New Business Creation
Great mixture of academic approach and real life examples. Very informative with tons of advice and anti-patterns. (*****)
Atul Gawande: Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
In medicine, full of sceince and knowledge, men still are the #1 reason for mistakes and dramatic errors. An interesting insider's view of a surgeron on the worl so different from the hi-tech. (****)
Adam M. Brandenburger: Co-Opetition : A Revolution Mindset That Combines Competition and Cooperation : The Game Theory Strategy That's Changing the Game of Business
read my review (*****)
Chris Anderson: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More
too slow, too boring... probably wrong expectations (***)
Haruki Murakami: South of the Border, West of the Sun: A Novel (Vintage International)
Fondly, intimate, touchingly, frankly, kindly, sadly, mysteriously... In one word - Murakami. Life is great! (*****)
Patrick M. Lencioni: Death by Meeting : A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business
A business book shaped into a detective plot. Simple, pleasant reading for getting asleep, jogging, or waiting a delayed plane. (****)
Annabelle Gawer: Platform Leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation
A serious, academic reading. Too detailed barely to widen your horizon but a hefty serious exposure of the top industry companies' experience on building leading platforms. (*****)
Steven D. Levitt: Freakonomics CD : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Fun and intriguing. The approach is new and deserves attention. Tons of examples and research results but to my taste sometimes too long. Recommented! (****)
Bob Walsh: Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality
Might be useful for an absolute newbie to ISV/Starups. A great compliation of materials available in the net. (**)
Haruki Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Admiring reading! Moved away to the amazing world of Murakami. Relaxing, provoking, complelling. Hope the English translation is as good as the Russian one. (*****)
Keith Ferrazzi: Never eat alone
Read my review. (*****)
Execution : The Discipline of Getting Things Done
Great strategy, tons of experience, has to be re-read many many times. (*****)
Clayton M. Christensen: The Innovator's Dilemma : The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (HarperBusiness Essentials)
Good idea, great examples, slow following. An audio-book is a compromize version for grasping the point/utilizing driving time... (***)
Madan Birla: FedEx Delivers : How the World's Leading Shipping Company Keeps Innovating and Outperforming the Competition
strong structure, convincing examples, wholesome reading (****)
David H. Maister: TRUE PROFESSIONALISM : The Courage to Care About Your People, Your Clients, and Your Career
fount of visdom! very practical, pragmatic, and instructive set of advice. A must read for each. (*****)
Patrick Smith: Ask the Pilot: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel
Nice reading for fun! I'd rename it to "flying for dummies" and recommend as a source of many interesting facts to every road-worrier to enrich knowledge about his working place:-) (*****)
Geoffrey Moore: Dealing with Darwin : How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution
A crispy definition of 15 different areas of innovation focusing. A widevisionning book. As usual for Geoffrey his plain rich English makes reading true pleasure. (*****)
Al Ries: Marketing Warfare
Amazing analogies, clear examples, bright ideas. A must read. (*****)
The Group of 33: The Big Moo : Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable
The book consists of many independent essays written by different authors so there is no one style or one stream of thoughts. Some part are better others not so even. Good for listening in a gym. (****)
Lisa Haneberg: H.I.M.M. - High Impact Middle Management: Solutions for Today's Busy Managers
A gist of practical recommendations for beginning manageres. Lots of concrete advice, schemas, templates, and checklist. Greate reference for day-to-day activities. (*****)
Guy Kawasaki: Rules For Revolutionaries
The most precise writing on how to build your buisiness in a customer- oriented focus. Clear statements, vivid examples, great citations and an amazing list of accompanying books. Another NOBS item. (*****)
Andrew S. Grove: Only the Paranoid Survive : How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company
Another book to put on your night table. Clear language, nice methaphors, thrilling plot. Last cople of chapters is a bit outdated but the guist of the book is durable. (****)
Rob Ryan: Entrepreneur America: Lessons from Inside Rob Ryan's High-Tech Start-Up Boot Camp
After reading John L. Nesheim's books this one doesn't add any new value. Very boring and too much selfish sodden. (**)
Dean Karnazes: Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner
If you want to hear an example of driving one behind the edge here it is. So unleashed passion, so ultra-self-sacrificing striving, so superhuman challenges... If want to learn how to set up real targets for yourself this is a good start:-) A must-have weapon to fight depression. (*****)
Malcolm Gladwell: Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
After the Tipping Point it's boring and very slow. Couldn't force myself on completing the book. (**)
Jim Collins: Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't
Interesting research, stunning results. Another stroke in the vivd mosaic of how to (re)build a great brand for customers, a gold-mine for investors, and an alluring place to work for the team. Requires constant re-reading. (*****)
John L. Nesheim: The Power of Unfair Advantage : How to Create It, Build it, and Use It to Maximum Effect
Good exposure of what a founders team has to think about. As an addition to "high tech start up" comes with many concrete 'to-do's and complements the first book by many practical advice. Another handy book of a startup founder. (****)
Thomas L. Friedman: The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
The conclusions Thomas comes to are sriously arguable. The book's pace is too low for me and simple ideas are backed by very wordy lengthy examples. To my taste and my current interests it's close to waste of time. (**)
Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Inspiring. New concepts, new analogies, new parallels, new approaches. Usually a theory's examples are more interesting than the hypothesis they illustrate, but in this book the theses are as well interesting as their examples. You'll want to re-read this book again and again. (*****)
John L. Nesheim: High Tech Start Up, Revised and Updated : The Complete Handbook For Creating Successful New High Tech Companies
Just an ABC book for anybody who wants to know about start-ups and new to the realm! Conveys you through all the stages of a startup from an idea's birth to the after-IPO stage. Very precise and concise writing covering tons of details. Intriguing real-life examples. Don't skim through! (*****)
Scott Bedbury: A New Brand World : Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the Twenty-First Century
Very impressive. An integral approach on the brand building as a whole from one of the fathers of Nike and Starbucks. Amazing English. Enviable creator's experience. Great histories of building best modern brands. (*****)
Gordon MacKenzie: Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving With Grace
The most intriguing biography book I've read. Nice language, great consepts, admiring experience. Definitelly a must read for thinking managers. (*****)
Michael A. Cusumano: The Business of Software : What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad
Very instructive and interesting introduction for beginners in the industry. Few chapters (about the history of IT) are boring a bit but the case study of the 10 startups at the end lives it down in full. (****)

So I've decided - I'm preparing for my first marathon!

The target doesn't look astonishing and if I do it I don't think I'll memorize next year as a year when I did my first marathon. It looks rather a bit frightening and intimidating but still appealing. It's a challenge - no doubt. I never was an athlete and never attended organized trainings. Episodically I attended a gym and ran few times a week 3-5 kilometers.

I started running again maybe 3-4 months ago and started with 2,5 miles. Then I increased the distance to 4-5 miles and went to the gym 6 days/week. I couldn't run without a target just for fun. I needed some mission to accomplish and I decided to start this preparation. I've chose the LA marathon that will happen on March, 19 next year. As a program to prepare I stick to Hal Higdon program that spans over 18 weeks and I have only 17, so I'll skip over a week. Yesterday I started my first week. It's a tough program: this weekend I'll run 6 miles but in 9 weeks I'll run 15 miles already. I told you it's frightening:-)

As you see I opened a new category "Running" and will publish blogs related to the marathon preparation only there (to let my readers distinguish and skip if they want). Wish me some luck and you're welcome to read about my runner's experience:-)

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