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the most they ever had

Rick Bragg is a Pulitzer winner and one of my favorite Alabama writers and a good friend of Sonny Brewer, a Fairhope writer.  He just signed a new book for me, The Most They Ever Had.  It is the collection of a set of stories.about textile mills.  These miles were a big part of Alabama.  Cotton still is.  The set of stories looks at it from the management and worker side.   You can see some of the same transitions caused by the war and depress... READ MORE Posted November 01, 2009 at 07:58 PM

A nice book by Tracey Kidder

One of the first books I ever remember reading was A Soul of a New Machine by Kidder when was I about 12. Okay, I am sure I read Dick and Jane before that. It was given to me by my uncle who was one of the first people I was around who was very educated. He spent most of his life in the Military and they continued to educate him through a couple a masters and a phd.   Not bad for a boy from Fairhope.   His education and what he was accomplishing through it (... READ MORE Posted October 30, 2009 at 12:39 PM

MerchantCircle a "Dominate niche social network"

I spent the last 2 days down in Los Angeles doing a series of Business Development meetings.    We did it the way we often do down there which Benioff mentions in thesalesforce book.  We picked a nice hotel and brought people to us.  We ussually do this at the resturaunt next to the pool at theHotel OceanainSanta Monica.  It has a great view and great staff.  While we do go out for some meetings, this allows us to get more done and we have found people love ... READ MORE Posted October 22, 2009 at 11:12 AM

StubHub tells me the Oakland A's are in the Playoffs

So for a few short moments today, I felt pretty bad for not keeping track of the team I have held season tickets for for over 20 years.   I think I checked out on the A's about 60 days ago.  So imagine my suprise when Stubhub told me that I needed to order my Playoff tickets for the A's with the lead line"Get great seats to any Oakland A's playoff game"I had visions of being in the suite for a playoff game versus the Yankee's and seeing the Yankee's steal the playoffs again wit... READ MORE Posted October 19, 2009 at 04:58 PM

Behind the Cloud, The Salesforce Story

I received the new book by Marc Benioff in the mail on Friday.  I had preordered it after seeing Marc post pieces of it on facebook.  Once again Marc establishes himself as a great marketer.  I bet all the early ordering of Behind the Cloud leads to a early top listing on Amazon. Having partnered with Salesforce at Spoke and meeting him since then a few times and even have invested in a deal or two along side of him. I think one of those meetings was even for one of t... READ MORE Posted October 18, 2009 at 09:23 PM

A book about the Great Reset and Lehman

I had the chance to attend the Liberty Media Internet Leaders conference the week before last.   Alot of people don't know who Liberty is but it has to be one of the smartest media companies out there.  Ranging from its investment is Serius/XM radio to IAC, these guys have done some great deals over the years.   John Malone, Chairman of Liberty Media, Greg Maffei, President and CEO of Liberty Media, were two of the speakers and used the term The Great Reset a number o... READ MORE Posted October 18, 2009 at 06:02 PM

Facebook and the Accidental Billionares

Okay so avoiding my ongoing reading of the 10 Books about the Great Depression is getting out of hand, now I am reading more books to avoid it than the ten I am supposed to read. I just finished The Accidental Billionares.  Actually I started and  finished on a six hour plane flight out to the east coast last week and I took a two hour nap during the flight.  It is not a challenging read, it is pretty empty so there is just not much to force you to actually read. The book is ab... READ MORE Posted September 23, 2009 at 07:38 PM

The Widow and the Tree

As you guys know I have been recently avoiding reading my ten books on the Great Depression.   While in Fairhope, Alabama this week, I was able to pick up a book that had been signed for me on release day at Page and Palette. Sonny Brewer wrote the Widow and the Tree about a story alot of people around the country have heard in one of those classic CNN and other national news stories that are about a seemingly small event but take on a life of thier own.  In this case, the stor... READ MORE Posted September 21, 2009 at 09:14 PM

In between reading books, I found..

So I have been pretty busy with a launch so I have been held back in getting posts out on my 10 Books about the Great Depression, a process I have been avoiding for too long.   I did run across a couple of blog posts today that  made me think a bit about what I see in the start up world. Mike talks about how to kill a start up by hiring executives coming out of a post by Andreesen.    I have seen this over and over.  You hire an executive instead of an entre... READ MORE Posted September 08, 2009 at 04:57 PM

Another Book while avoiding my 10 books from The Great Depression

As I have mentioned before, I am trying to get my way through10 booksabout theGreat Depression. Some of thesearebetterthan others.   But I also seem to get pulled off track every once in a while.  It is just too depressing to read that much Great Depression stuff.  So after my learning a bit about howmuch people feelthat WWII pulled us out of the Great Depression, I picked up another book about WWII.I picked up the book 1942 byWinston Groom.  Winston is from my h... READ MORE Posted August 18, 2009 at 09:42 PM