Reading List

I have read some amazing books in the last month. Everyone should read these books!

1) Megatrends China: Written by a guy with the last name Nesbitt. He wrote the original Megatrends in the early 1980's. I read this book in 6th grade, and developed a city of the future as an enrichment project. I picked up Megatrends China at the library just because I recognized the title from back in the day. Megatrends China was written by an American and his European wife, but most of the research was done by Chinese business students. The facts were taken from a database that they compiled and translated into English. The database was taken from all mediums of news reports, print, television, and the internet. The data is a compilation of the way the Chinese view themselves. After reading this book, China is my new 2nd favorite country. My favorite idea was "Borrowing Arrows." I will come back to its relevance in modern business policies. "Borrowing Arrows" comes from a story about some Chinese dynasty's army that was stuck on one side of the river without any arrows left to fight the bad guys. So they tied a rope to a canoe, filled it with straw and it sent it out into the river. The morning was foggy, and, due to the low visibility, the bad guys assumed the canoe was filled with warriors. They shot arrows into the canoe. Once enough arrows filled the straw, the good guys pulled the canoe back to their side with enough arrows to finish off the bad guys. If you know anything about China's current events, you will see the application to their business sector.

2) The Aid Trap, written by Hubbard et al. This is my dream job described in a book. I even emailed one of the authors, and he thought I had good questions about the book. It has a concise history of economic systems as well as the international charitable giving paradigm. The essence of this book is that all of the money poured into developing countries since the 1970s has not served to raise the world's poor out of poverty. Even the UN's Millenium Plan to bring the world out of poverty by 2015 is not going to happen on time. Instead, the authors say that we should pattern aid after the Marshall Plan. I had heard of the plan, but had to Google it. Charitable organizations should stick with emergency aid, food, refugees, etc, but not development. The Marshall Plan lent money to businesses in Europe after WWII. Their plan calls for the same format. The businesses, in turn, would repay the loans to their respective governments. The federal governments have to agree to the rules in order to qualify for this investment. The money has to be spent on infrastructure or other programs that lead to stability and business development in their country. If we believe in Capitalism and pro-business measures in America, why do we thwart the business sector of the countries we want to help? Or if you are Bono, and do not believe in Capitalism, but still move your business to another country entirely when your hometown decides to start taxing you, this still applies to you. If a foreign charity comes into a poor country and builds a well, that's great. But then the well breaks, and they have to wait for another charity to come along and build a well. What if, instead, we give a loan for a well-building business, facilitate education and training through grants and American professional societies and universities, and allow the local guy to build the well and earn the money? Then he can feed his family, employ others, and pay taxes to his government. What a concept. The authors use China and India as examples in this book, and the references made more sense to me after reading Megatrends China.

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you already know what a dork I am. So it should come as no surprise to you that this idea practically brings me to tears. Working for the Auxiliary last year taught me that if I am going to spend all day going to meetings, answering emails, and putting out fires, it had better be for something worthwhile. Could rebuilding a country and lifting millions of people out of poverty be any more amazing? I am going back to school in Boston so that I can be ready when someone takes the concepts from this book and actually starts a business. Or, I would like to run a Food Bank. Yes, I aim high. I know.

3) Socialnomics. Author unknown at the moment. I'll have to get back to you, or you could Google it as I am currently sitting in on a conference call from San Antonio where my friends are planning the 10th Annual BAMC Auxiliary Charity Golf Tournament. (It was all great until I heard that the newest Marriot Golf Course and Convention Center is hosting a tournament and Gala at the end of March. The tickets are $800, including golf, the gala and a hotel room. This is all benefitting the CFI and the Ft Sam Hoston Fisher House. Why are my friends going through the trouble now? Maybe the Fisher House manager should have mentioned this other charity golf tournament back in September when my friends started meeting for our tournament.) Moving on, this book describes the effect of social media on economics. There is a paradigm shift in marketing, production, and revenue streams due to internet sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube. A key point of the book is that Barak Obama would not be the President if not for the masterful work of leveraging social media. The author cites the number of times Obama was mentioned on social networking sites the last month before the election. He dwarfed McCain on those sites. By a huge margin. Another point was that you either life your life more fully because it sounds cooler to post that you went snowboarding on Facebook instead of sitting around watching reality tv re-runs. Or you tamed your life down because you did not want your bad choices going viral on Youtube. People get fired over things like that.

Coincidentally, I just read a report by NY Times publisher that says their opinion is that we, the public, should not expect to view things online for free. (Did they forget that I already pay for the internet in my cable bill and on my phone? If they wanted to make money off the internet, then they are in the wrong industry. They deliver news, not the internet.) Nonetheless, they are going back to charging us to read news on their websites. How about this: NY Times charges you for the news while I study up real hard, find the news, write it on my blog where you can read it for free. And then I have so much traffic on my blog that I get someone who will pay to advertise on my blog. Which sounds more likely?