It’s a good read, but there is a page and half that has had a major impact on me, showing me where I have a huge blindspot in business and how I stop my own progress.  This page and a half is possibly the most important material I’ve read in a book in several years (for me it applies directly).

The author talks about the Fallacy of Planning in a business setting. He ranks plans in this order:

1. Very Good
2. Good
3. Best
4. Fair
5. Poor

Why is Good ahead of Best?  Simple, to arrive at Best takes orders of magnitude more planning than Good.  Also, who defines Best?  How much time is spent creating the Best plan?  Will Best stand the test of time?  Can everyone agree on Best?  Would Good work just as well as Best in the real world?  Is Best satisfying the client’s need better than a Good plan?

Choosing the “Best” plan leads to Paralysis by Analysis.  I know this firsthand!  Good plans allow for quick action and constant improvement. The most successful people in the world have acted on Good plans that they have refined over time.  An actionable plan is more successful than a plan that never leaves the drawing board.

Personally, I’ve fallen into the Best trap many times.  There is no such thing as a “Best” plan.  Going forward the “Best” plan will be the “Good” plan that I can put into action and refine over time!

A lightbulb went off in my head when I got this concept.   Thank you Harry for this valuable lesson.

Examples of Cloud Computing include Google Apps, Apple’s MobileMe and  Amazon’s S3.

A brief history of how we arrived at this point in computing history. A few decades ago all of the brains of a computer lived in huge mainframes. Terminals (aka “green screens”) connected to the mainframe and processed user input. The terminal relied on the mainframe for all computational tasks. In the 80′s, the personal computer took off and the processing was moved from a central mainframe to the local desktop. Today, we’ve come full circle back to the centralized mainframe model, except now the mainframe is a distributed group of computers spread across many datacenters, aka “the cloud”, and your web browser is the terminal.

In Nicholas Carr’s book Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage the author puts forth the hypothesis that we are approaching a Star Trek level of computing: ubiquitous access to IT resources, to the point that IT is no longer a competitive advantage in business but rather a utility like Electricity. Carr argues that innovations in IT are so quickly copied and commoditized that there is little competitive advantage to being on the cutting edge of technology.

Carr recounts that less than 100 years ago major companies were formed based on the strategic advantage of placing plants near railways for distribution of goods. Furthermore, placement near the few available sources of electricity offered short term, but sizable advantages to manufacturers.

Carr argues that IT will follow the same path as railways and electricity: quick adoption of new technologies and standards continually reduce competitive advantages for early technical adopters.

Carr raises some interesting points, but completely glosses over the value of upper management in matching a company’s needs to the market’s available resources.

Cloud Computing offers a rigid set of services. Customization is rarely possible. Rather than fit the technology to your business, Cloud Computing dictates that the business is fit to the available technology.

Is there a business benefit to adopting a Cloud environment? My opinion is we are still a few years away. However, companies like Intuit are aggressively pursuing delivering their traditional shrinkwrap applications over the Internet. The transition to Cloud Computing is just now beginning, but as Carr points out, there is little advantage to being on the cutting edge!

In the book Is the American Dream Killing You? How the Markets Rule our Lives Paul Stiles explores how Capitalism and unabated Free Markets have destroyed the American Dream. The market is unrelenting, driving Americans into further spirals of debt, work and detachment.

The book lays bare the issues created in a culture where celebrities rule, financial concerns outweigh morals and the media has more influence than our nation’s greatest minds. The current housing crisis makes this book a very timely read, but don’t expect a feel good ending.