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Book Review Living With A Seal

October 6, 2019 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Book Review Living With A Seal

31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet

Yet another great book review! Living with a Seal was a fun read about a 31 day period where Jesse Itzler hires a Navy Seal to live with him. During this 31 day period Jesse is put to the test both mentally and physically. Jesse wanted to take on this challenge to whip himself back into shape. The events throughout this book make for great entertainment and inspiration. After reading this book it definitely gave me some ideas of how to push myself in different areas of my life. Watch the video to learn my thought on Living with a Seal.

Transcript – Living With A Seal Book Review

Hi folks! Thomas Henson here with thomashenson.com. Today is another episode of… Book Club? I don’t know. Still don’t have a name for this, but today I’m going to be reviewing Living with a Seal. Awesome book. Let’s find out all about that right after this.

Today, in this episode where I’m reviewing a book, comma, I am on a mission. If you’ve watched my goals 2019, heard me talking about how many books I want to try to read. Missed my goal last year. We’re chugging along this year, trying to get to the halfway point. The books that I’m reviewing today, really good, was actually referenced and referred to me my Erin Banks. You’ve seen me do some videos with her with the Big Data Beard team, where we went through in machine learning course. Her and I have talked about some certifications.

The book that she recommended was Living with a Seal: 31 Days of Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet. I will say, throughout the whole book, you never know who that person is, but I know who it is. If you Google around you can find out. The real premise of the story was, it was not written as a book. I think it started off as a blog. Jesse Itzler, he’s really famous and entrepreneurial. He’s been involved with Zico water and NetJets [Phonetic 00:01:23]. When he wrote this book, was when he was really going through the big push for Zico water. You get to see a little bit of behind-the-scene what was going on from a business perspective. It’s not a business book per se. He’s an ultra-runner, he’s an adventurer. He was actually on MTV, so I think he was a musician at some point. I guess when I was young, or maybe a little bit older. Either way, the premise of the book is, he’s in a little bit of a funk. He’s an ultra-runner, and he really wants to push the limits. He’s doing his business, and running his day job there. He’s also got a son and a wife. He’s in a rut, like we all seem to get, as we go through phases in our career. He just wants to jump-start himself, to push himself really hard. He meets the SEAL at an ultra-running event, and he’s talked to a couple times, and he convinces him to come live with him for 30 days. The caveat is, he must do everything the SEAL says when the seal says as far as getting everything going. You still able to work, still able to do everything, but the SEAL follows him around for 30 days, and they come up with some crazy workouts.

Going throughout the book, you hear crazy workouts that they do, it’s really awesome. Actually, Trying to take some of those in my own day-to-day activities, and really trying to push the limit. It was really cool just to see how Jesse, who was probably already more fit than I was at that time, and even now, and how he felt like he was in a rut. It gives you that perspective of we all feel at times we’re not doing as much as we could, whether it be from gym, whether it be from learning, anything like that. You’ve got to try some crazy things you really get you out of your rut. Also, One of the things, followed SEAL after the fact, but one of the things you really follow through this is you have to do something that sucks every day. [Laughs] If you do something that sucks every day, by volunteering, you’re volunteering did you some kind of crazy workout. Maybe you going to go do 20 miles, 10 miles, whatever your craziness is for that day. If you volunteered to do those things, it makes it a lot easier do the things that you have to do in life, whether it be around the house, for family, or in your career.

That’s the really cool portion, that I took away from the book. Let’s go through a couple of things I really like. They go through the background for both Jesse and the SEALs. Jesse’s background was pretty cool, where he talks about some of the things that he kind of hacked his way. Think of hiring a SEAL to come live with you for 30 days. That’s like a life hack, right? It’s different ways of experimenting, getting things done. He brought that into his business life as well, so he talks about how he took chances on getting contacts, and meeting people throughout his career, and then also SEAL goes into some of his background, and all the things what he’s gone through, and it’s pretty cool. He’s living with Navy SEAL. They’re following around, and doing workout, so it’s really cool. It’s the workout and the mindset thing that really challenges Jesse and shifts his focus. When he goes into it, they start off doing, SEAL wants to see how many pull-ups you can do, how many push-ups you can do, and he kind of gauges a test. They also do some running things, because running was a big focus of it. When he goes in, Jessie can’t do 100 pull-ups, but they test out, they do however many pull-ups you can. Then, seal is like, “Hey, do 100. We’re not leaving this gym until you do 100.”

It really refocuses the mind, where it’s like, hey, you have something that you have to do? You’re going to do it, right? No matter how long it takes. Jesse was kind of able to break through, and do that. Back to the reader, if you’re reading it, it gives me that mindset, too. To really push, and so, I’ve done a lot of really cool things since reading the book, where maybe even setting a timer and trying to just some workouts in a hotel, or while I’m on the road, or even here in the Big Data Big Questions office, too. It really gives you an opportunity you really push, and do those thing, did you feel good afterwards, too. Some of the coolest workouts and I wanted to pick out. The burpee test. The goal was to get 10 to 12 minutes. You do a hundred burpees. Jesse did that between meetings. SEAL made him do it between meetings. I think he was his full get-up. I don’t know if you wear a suit to work, but he had some kind of button down it seems like, when he was talking about it.

The four miles every four hours 48 hours. They scaled up to this. I think they started off with two miles every four hours for 24 hours, at the end what they did was are we doing for miles every four hours 48 hours. I think that essentially turns into a marathon or two marathons. I’m really bad at math. Anyways, That was a really cool workout. Also, it was working their way up to some of the push-ups, too. It was pretty cool. Jesse, I think, at the end, he got 200 push-ups in a day. Just being able to test you do those things. A lot of this stuff you can hear on Joe Rogan’s podcast, too. Jesse actually appeared on there, I told some behind-the-scenes stories, around some of the things that he and SEAL did. Towards the end of the book, you still don’t get you know who SEAL is, but if you watch Joe Rogan, or if you subscribe to this channel here, we’re going to review a book, and I’ll tell you who was the seal, if you haven’t already Googled it and found out as well.

Would I recommend this book? Hell yeah! It was pretty awesome. You get to go through, and see what normal life for all of us are, as far as work, in family, and doing things like that, and then see what happens when you insert a SEAL it’s going to really kick you. Kick you in the rear, and get you rolling through doing things that suck, and see what it does to you. Maybe that’s why Zico water was so big. I don’t know, probably not. I think Jesse would have been successful either way, but it was really cool to see it all go down around that same time. Second off, it’s really going to you to do things outside your comfort zone. We talked about it a lot here. One of the things that I’d really been pushing and working on the last couple years of speaking. I’ll tell you, it’s a challenge to get on stage in front of 100-200-300, whatever your limits are, and keep pushing those limits. But I really can say, had I not probably been gaining confidence by doing things that get me uncomfortable in the gym, or running, and doing those other things, I think that really translates into what I’m trying to do from a, hey, you don’t want to get up, and do 20 minutes of learning? Too bad. Just do it. Give you that mindset, where you’re like, I’m already doing these other things from a health perspective in my life, so what can I do you feed my mind? Or, what can I do to challenge myself within my career? It doesn’t have to be speaking, just for me that is. Definitely check out this book. Then, the book that I read right after this one, I’m going to follow it up here, called Can’t Hurt Me. Find out more about that one next, but I definitely recommend this book and recommend pushing yourself outside your limits. Until next time, see you again on Big Data Book Club. We still don’t have a name.

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Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review

Book Review Shoe Dog

May 22, 2018 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Book Review Shoe Dog

Shoe Dog Book Review

Slowly working my way to completing all the book recommendation I keep finding. Shoe Dog was recommended from many different sources as a must read business book. The story is the journey of Phil Knight building the company that is today Nike. This book is filled with stories I had never heard of about Nike. Find out what I thought of the book and my favorite part by watching the video below.

Transcript Shoe Dog Book Review

Hi, folks, Thomas Henson here with thomashenson.com, and today, we͛’ve got a special episode for you. I͛’m going to tell you about a book that I just read called Shoe Dog. And so, it͛s about the creation of Nike and how the company that we know now as Nike with merchandising, all the apparel, and it͛s just a worldwide leader in footwear especially when you start thinking about major athletes and contracts that they have with them. And so, it͛s a book all about how Phil Knight and his team started Nike. So, find out more right after this. So, today, I͛’m doing a book review on Shoe Dog. So, it͛s a memoir. It͛s called a memoir of the creator of Nike and how Phil Knight built a team and built the company. This is worth billions of dollars. So, think about most famous athletes in the world, so Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, tons of Olympic stars from around the world involved in anything from tennis all the way to football, Ken Griffey, Jr. The names just go on and on. And, they started out just as a shoe company. And, in fact, this is a little tidbit that I learned while reading the book and this is one of the reasons that I͛’m recommending it because there is so much in this book. So, Nike, the name Nike actually used to be Blue Ribbon.

So, it started as Blue Ribbon. It started out as a dream by Phil Knight after graduating from a graduate school. He went to a business school at Stanford and he was an athlete as an undergrad, and he wanted to continue running and being a part of running community, so he had this dream. And, it was a paper that he written about how to disrupt the shoe industry in America. And so, that paper that he had in grad school, he thought he did pretty well with it and so he had a dream to do that, and he actually did it. So, he started by booking a trip. So, he wanted to do kind of before he started his real career, he thought he wanted to give a one shot. And so, he booked a trip around the world, talked to his dad about being able to see things before settle down and getting a job, and kind of like your last hurrah, so a lot of people have that. And so, on that trip, he actually stopped by Japan, met with a shoe manufacturer there and started the business relationship there, and that͛s what really started him being able to start selling shoes in America. And so, time grows, it͛s actually a start-up culture. So, for me. it was really interesting to hear about this company and for me, when I grew up, Michael Jordan, just do this and be like Mike, that͛s how I thought of Nike. There are some controversy in the ͚90s about where the shoes are manufactured and some of the working conditions, and they actually touched on it in the book, too. But for me, I always thought of Nike as this big, huge enterprise, not like this little feisty startup. But throughout the book, you hear about how they were a feisty startup. And, they pushed off going public, so having an IPO quite a few times because they were like, ͞Hey, we don͛t have to wear suits and ties to work, and we don͛t want to disrupt our culture.͟ They͛re like, ͞We have a culture.͟ And, it͛s kind of like what we hear about whenever you think of Apple and a lot of the start-ups going on right now. That͛s how Nike was. And now, they are a big and they͛re an enterprise company, but it͛s just kind of amazing that they pushed off going IPO so many different times and now you look at it, they͛re like a billion-dollar company, multibillion-dollar company right all around the world. So, I thought that was really cool. There͛s a lot of tidbits. So, if you͛ve read Walter Isaacson͛s book around Steve Jobs and kind of his life and a lot of his career in Apple, you͛ll see a lot of similarities.

One thing that was really interesting too is Phil Knight was more of an introvert and so it was just kind of funny to hear his management style and his critique on himself as well as his management style saying, ͞
I wasn͛t really big on encouragement at times.͟ But, for him to be an introvert, he had to break out of his shell when they were going through troubling times because everybody was looking at him for a leader.

So, I think it͛s a must read just because of what Nike has meant for the shoe industry and how he disrupted it, and it͛s really cool to see that perspective. Another couple points too, you are just getting one side of it, too.

So, if you͛re going back to making that comparison with the Steve Jobs͛ book I read by Walter Isaacson, it wasn͛t written by Steve Jobs, but you get to see both sides of it, where with Phil Knight, you͛re really just looking through his lens, but it͛s a really cool book. I recommend going out and finding it, and learn as much as you can from it.

So, that͛s all. Make sure you subscribe, so that you never miss doing Isilon tips. I͛ve got some interviews that we͛re doing. I͛m doing these book reviews, too. And, honestly, if there͛s a book that you͛ve read that I haven͛t reviewed yet or you want to suggest it to me, put it in the comment section here and I͛ll read it, and I͛ll give you a shout out, too. We could kind of go through it. So, make sure you subscribe and I will see you next time

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, Books

Start With Why Book Review

February 1, 2018 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

start with why book review

Can Start With Why Help Data Engineers?

One of the most popular Ted Talks is Simon Sinek’s where he talks about the Golden Circle. The talk is based on his book Start With Why. Last year I was gifted the book after watching the video during a meeting. While the book is not necessarily about Technology or Big Data it certainly applies for Data Engineers/Data Scientist.

One of the keys skills I’ve talked about before is know what the business use case is for your Big Data Projects. Start With Why builds upon understanding why we are doing the task in our careers. As a engineer we tend to focus heavily of the what and how (think tools/frameworks/coding techniques) but the why is acutally the most important aspect (also the hardest to express).

Favorite Quotes From Start With Why

  • “The problem is, we’ve all been in situations in which we have all the data and get lots of good advice but things don’t go quite right”
  • “They engineered the outcome they wanted from the beginning. If they didn’t achieve their desired outcome, they understood it was because of a decision they made at the start of the process” 
  • “Every instruction we give, every course of action we set, every result we desire, starts with the same thing: decision”
  • “Price always cost something. The question is how much are you willing to pay for the money you make?” 
  • Rebates “Call it the tax on the disorganized” 

Watch the video below to see my Start With Why Book review.

Video – Start With Why Book Review

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review

Book Review: Boyd the Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

November 8, 2017 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Boyd the Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

Why read a fighter pilot book? 

Ever heard of the OODA loop?

It’s the basis for agile development. Observe, Orient , Decide, and Act (OODA) is the feedback loop coined by John Boyd. The point of the loop is to go through these steps repeatedly faster than your foe.

In Agile software development we try to mimic these steps in our iterations of work. First, we find a problem to solve (Observe). Next, we create a user story how to solve the problem (Orient). Then, we add the user story to our development schedule (Decide). Finally, we develop the solution based on the user story (Act). At the end of this loop the feature/enhancement is pushed to production where its usefulness is tested which starts a new feedback loop. The faster we can iterate through these loops the better our applications will be for our users.

Watch the video below to find out more.

 

Transcript How a Fighter Pilot Created DevOps

Hi, Thomas Henson here with thomashenson.com, and today, we’re going to do a book review on Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War.

Stay tuned, right after this.

Hi, welcome back. Today, I’m doing a book review on Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. You’re probably thinking, “Okay, wait a minute. This is a fighter pilot book. How is this going to relate to technology, big data, you know, software development?” Let me just say, it absolutely applies. You use it every day, and you probably learned about it in any of your business courses or any of your corporate meetings that you’ve been in.

I’m sure somebody’s referenced something in there called the OODA loop. I’ll talk a little bit about that here in just a second. I did want to tell you how I got into the book.

I got into the book following Ryan Holiday’s, I think it was books, maybe 25 or 20 different books that are biographies that everyone must read. It’s been on that list, and I’ve been making my way through that list. I’ve also seen it recommended a couple different other places. I’ve been wanting to do it, kind of been putting it off.

I probably should have gotten to it a little bit faster. The book is about John Boyd. He was fighter pilot back in, I think started out in World War II. He didn’t really ever see any combat experience there. The book is really good. It’s really about his career and the way that he solved problems.

The way that he approached solving different problems. One of the first things that he did, and was really known for, is he changed the way that fighter pilots and the way that fighter planes are designed, and how they’re measured as well.

He came up with a formula and different way of being able to measure how velocity, and how banking, and some of the other terms that I don’t really understand around fighter pilots and around planes, but just avionics in general.

He came up with a way to change that, and it changed the way that every fighter plane around the world, not just in America, was designed, and how they’re designed still to this day. He totally changed that part.

Another huge part that he changed was, he changed the way that wars are fought. A little bit about war strategy in there, so if you’ve read The Art of War, and some of the other books, he took a lot of that information for a lot of different campaigns throughout the years, researched some of it, and actually came up with a different way to strategize, and to do war fighting.

When you start looking at that, that actually bleeds over into business. He came up with what you’ve probably heard of as the OODA loop. It’s the observe, orient, decide, and act. The OODA loop is what we use in business strategy, but it’s also what we use in agile development.

Jeff Sutherland, who was a fighter pilot, I think in Vietnam. You can read in his agile book, where he actually voices and references the OODA loop in the way that agile development is done, and the way that we solve problems even in software engineering.

You’re probably seen it, too, in a lot of corporate events, and I think it started becoming part of business curriculum in a lot of colleges around the US, sometime in the early ’80s, too, so all from that strategy, John Boyd was the father of that OODA loop and the strategy there, and doesn’t get a lot of credit for it.

I’m not going to spoil too much of it and tell you why he doesn’t get credit, or how it all evolves, but let me just say, I recommend the book. It’s a really good read. It’s probably something you can do in a week, week and a half, if you’re just reading about 30 to 40 pages a day.

I definitely think that anybody should read it, so there’s also some personality things in there too that you can learn from. It’s not just about learning all the things he did, but you can actually, because it follows his career, and it’s a biography of him, you could follow and learn from some of the mistakes that he made, too.

Really good book. Everybody should probably check it out. At least put it on your list and get to it at some point. Learn more about the OODA loop and some of the other things. Make sure you subscribe. I know this is a book review, but if you have any questions around Big Data Big Questions, you can subscribe here, so that you’re never going to miss an episode of that. If you have any questions, make sure to put it in the comments here or go to my website, thomashenson.com, and look for the Big Data Big Questions, and submit the questions there.

Thanks, and I will see you again next time.

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, Books, DevOps

Big Data MBA Book Review

May 1, 2017 by Thomas Henson 1 Comment

Big Data MBA Book Review

Big Data MBA Book Review Video

Today’s book review on the Big Data MBA holds a special place in my library. I had read this book before meeting Bill Scharmzo and after sharing a steak with him I reread it. It was already an amazing book in my eyes because as a developer it opened my eyes to many of the problems I’ve had on projects. Hadoop and Big Data projects are especially bad about missing the business objective. Many times the process for using a new framework goes down like this…

Manager/Developer 1:  “We have to start using Hadoop”

Questions the team should ask:

  • What is the business purpose of taking this project problem
  • How will this help us solve a problem we are having
  • Will this project generate more revenue? How much more?

What the team really does:

  • Quick search on StackOverflow for Hadoop related questions and answers
  • Research on best tools for using Hadoop
  • Find a Hadoop conference to attend

Boom! Now we are doing Hadoop. Forget the fact we don’t have a business case identified yet.

One of the things stressed in the Big Data MBA is connecting a single business problem to Big Data Analytics. Just like how User Stories in Scrum describe the work developers will do, our business problem will describe the data used to solve the problem.

The Big Data MBA is a book about setting up the business objectives to tackle. Once those objectives are fettered out and the data is identified, developers can work their magic. Understanding how to map the business objectives to your technology is key for any developer/engineer. In fact the more you understand this the further you can go in your career. For this reason, I highly recommend this book for anyone working with Big Data.

 

Transcript

(forgive any errors it was transcribed by a machine)
Hi folks and welcome back to thomashenson.com and today’s episode is all about Big Data and so the book review that I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time so stay tuned.

[Music]

So today’s book review is the Big Data MBA it’s by Bill Schmarzo a fellow DELL EMC employee and a person who worked at Yahoo during the early days of data analytics ad buying and also the Hadoop era – this book focuses on the business objectives of Big Data a lot of things that we as developers and Technology technologists actually kind of overlook and I know I have in the past and it’s all about okay you know we want to be able to take a dupe and ready to implement it but this comes into what the business objectives are – one of the things that I really like about this book is Bill talks about anything over six months is really just a science experiment right and so that’s really an agile principle – so if you’re in the DevOps and agile software development you’ll kind of understand the concepts of hey let’s find one or two small objectives that we can make a quick impact on and you know anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks and then we can just build those use cases – and so a couple of the examples he uses on just single products right so instead of trying to increase like all your products you know revenue by like 10 or 20% you said let’s just pick one or two and I really like that approach right because what you can do is you get everybody together so it’s not just your you know developers your business analyst and the product owners it’s you know people from marketing your executives everybody gets in a room and you know a lot of whiteboards up and you actually sit down and you talk about these objectives so if we’re willing to you know increase the process of one product in two months what are we going to do so we’ll look at what we have from a data perspective and we’ll start data mapping so currently this is the data that we have what are some outside you know data sources that we can bring in what would help us answer questions right so what what questions will we love to be able to answer about our customer and is there data already out there about that and so I really like this book I think anybody that’s involved in big data or data analytics should be it I mean it’s definitely you know high-level business objectives but even for I do you know developers and you know your big data you know developers I think I think it’s really important for them to understand those objectives one of the big reasons there’s a lot of projects in software development and Big Data fail is we don’t tie to a business objective you know we have a tool or widget or a framework that we want to use and it’s great but we’re having a hard time really bringing it to into the CFO or the upper level management on what objective and what benefit we’re going to get out of using this tool and so for people you know they’re involved in Big Data you know even from the development side I think this will help you be able to champion those initiatives and be able to you know have more successful projects too so make sure you check out the big data MBA by Bill Schmarzo and to keep in tune with more Big Data tips make sure to subscribe to my YOUTUBE channel or check out thomashenson.com thanks

[Music]

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Big Data, Book Review, Books

The Phoenix Project Book Review

September 14, 2016 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Where do I start with DevOps?

Working in IT Operations is hard like really hard. Most of you who have been doing for years already know this. Technical debt seems to pile up and developer/operations are constantly being asked to more with less. Most companies are now an IT organization which puts more pressure from the business to help generate revenue.

DevOps is the key to helping IT operations transform from a fragile chaos ridden teams into agile disciplined teams. Sounds like another absurd promise from the buzzword of the day. I’d probably think that way, however, my back ground as a Scrum Master tells me it’s true. In the the developer realm we have been using agile frameworks since the Agile Manifesto was written in 2001. Yes we have a Manifesto!

Phoenix Project Book?

Before jumping in head first I recommend reading The Phoenix Project. It’s a fictional account of a company where everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Of course the problems all fall on IT operations. The book walks through how a company can transform from a traditional IT organization that is seen as a cost center into a revenue generating part of the company.

Find out more by watching my review of The Phoenix Project and DevOps.

 

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to get my latest videos.

Transcript

Thomas Henson here with thomashenson.com. Today, we’re going to do a book review on the Phoenix Project. If you’re interested in DevOps, stay tuned.

Book Review

The Phoenix Project is a fictional account of an IT organization. You’re probably saying, “Hey, that sounds kind of boring. Why would I want to read a fictional account of an IT organization?” But it’s actually a really good read. It goes through a fictional account of Parts Unlimited, which is an aging company that’s in a very competitive environment. The IT organization just can’t seem to get everything together with all the requirements that’s being put on them. They have a CEO that’s on CNBC a lot promising this new application. The application has been in development for quite a long time and they just can’t seem to get it to market. You follow around the VP of IT, as he’s new into the role, been with the company for a while, and you see a lot of the challenges that they have.

My Perspective

From my perspective, it’s a really good book, because I just came in from the application development side and started working with IT operations people. For me, I’ve started seeing some of the challenges that they have. Coming from the Agile environment and doing Scrum, I realized hey, we can get our requirements out; we can test things; we can push new features out very quickly, but a lot of our challenges come from testing with the operations side. I remember sitting in a meeting one time, and the customer was asking about all the things that we were doing. He was really happy about them, but then he switched to questions about, “Hey, how is this going to be maintained from an operational perspective?” I was like, “I’m not really sure why you’re asking me. We’ve got all these cool features. It’s going to be an awesome project. It’s meeting all the requirements that you have. Here’s the requirements that we need to support that. Now, in the out years, I’m not sure how big the project is going to grow, because it’s just going to be awesome.” I really got beat up in that meeting about those questions. It’s like okay, you’re creating this application, but what’s it going to do in the future? How is it going to balloon up? What’s the cost to maintain an application? How complex is it? One of the things I was thinking when we were working through it is, “Yeah, there are some challenges, and it’s a new system that the operations people have to learn, but everybody wants to learn Linux.” The question was, “Well, we’re going to have to hire somebody. We’re going to have to pay for training.” Those are the things I really didn’t think about. This book puts it into perspective.

Book Examples

One of the examples that they use in it is that a lot of times, developers take a pig, and they throw the pig over the wall. They high five each other, because everything is done. But that pig is given to the operations side with little or no instructions. It’s something that they have to maintain for years on end, where application developers, we get to go to the next project. I thought it was a really interesting read. I thought it was really good, especially for somebody that’s done Agile development on the development side but never really thought about it from a DevOps perspective of how is this going to be used in operations?

Would I Recommend It?

I would recommend this book for anybody, whether you’re a developer, work in IT operations, or even just curious about how IT should work in your organization. It’s a really good book. It’s a really quick read, too. I think you can probably do it… I think it did it over in a weekend. It’s a really good book. You should check it out. For more updates, stay tuned to thomashenson.com.

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Agile, Agile Resource, Book Review, DevOps

Book Review Scrum by Jeff Sutherland

February 17, 2015 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

I just finished reading “Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time” by Jeff Sutherland.

scrum by Jeff Sutherland book cover

The version of Scrum by Jeff Sutherland I read was an audio book actually narrated by J.J. Sutherland, who is Sutherland’s son. Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time is a quick read or listen however you decide to do it. It’s a book that can be easily finished in a weekend.

It’s not a book that is going to tell you exactly all the details of running a Scrum team, but it gives the basics on how to start using Scrum. Most of the book is about why Scrum works and builds the case for Scrum for all projects.

Anyone reading this book will find it interesting and easy to read. Sutherland gives a brief history of Scrum’s origins and then goes into many real world examples of Scrum.

Scrum by Jeff Sutherland

Good:

  • Several examples of Scrum working outside of Software Development.
  • In depth talk how to build the case for Scrum in any organization.
  • Great explanation on the of history of Scrum and how it was modeled after fighter pilot training.
  • Opportunity to learn Scrum from one of the co-creators of Scrum.

Bad:

  • Short book that left me wanting to hear more examples.
  • Not a technical book about how to Scrum but a why to use Scrum book. I only say this for those experienced in Scrum looking for a technical book.

What I learned:

This book was great for giving me different ways to present the need for Scrum in an organization. As a ScrumMaster I always find myself selling Scrum to others inside and outside of my organization. This book will definitely give me more examples to talk about.

I learned new parts about the history of Scrum. Some of the history of Scrum I wasn’t familiar with was Jeff Sutherland’s career in the Air force. Jeff was a Top Gun and used much of his experience as a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War to create Scrum.

I would definitely recommend this book for any manager looking to improve his team’s performance. Scrum is well known in the software industry but the principles can apply outside of software development as laid out in this book. In fact the book goes into many examples of Scrum being used outside the software development industry.

While the book is for those without experience in Scrum, anyone interested in Scrum would enjoy. This is definitely a book you will want to pass around the office.

Let me know what you thought of the book.

 

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, Books, Jeff Sutherland, Scrum

Book Review – Nuts

January 13, 2015 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Back a couple of years ago while working on my MBA, I had to read  Nuts: Southwest Airlines Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. At first I looked at it as an assignment I just needed to get done, but what I found was an amazing story about a start-up.

airplane taking off
Photo by khunaspix,
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Southwest Airlines was a renegade airline back in the 80’s and 90’s. The company  started out as a regional airline in Texas but has became one of the biggest airlines in the US.  Many people attribute Southwest’s success to their low fares but over the years Southwest wasn’t the only company with low fares. So if low fares weren’t the cause of Southwest’s success, what was? Below are some of the reasons I attribute to  Southwest’s success.

Motivation

  • Celebrations help Southwest motivate team members to achieve their mission. Southwest’s team members work together to achieve goals then celebrate achieving those goals with a party.
  • Giving back to charities keeps employees motivated by letting them know they have a purpose other than just a great career at a great company. Together they are helping the Ronald McDonald House all around their hubs.
  • Maintaining a company newsletter that is interesting and keeps the employees engaged.
  • Painting the Planes builds morale and a sense of pride (and is just fun).

Communication

  • Southwest creates an internal news letter that allows for company wide communications.
  • Southwest has a innovative marketing campaign that includes using front line team members for their ad pieces.
  • Southwest celebrates win and losses with all team members which allows for more communication between team members.

Management of Change

  • Southwest is known for creating an environment that allows for a culture of change.
  • The Southwest “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” program encourages change management.
  • Southwest hires personnel who might not have the industry bias toward their area of expertise.

Ethics & Integrity

  • Charitable contributions and giving back to the community.
  • Honoring all contracts even when legally Southwest could back out.
  • Herb is able to work closely with unions on contracts in good faith.
  • Southwest puts employees first, even over profit.

Time Management

  • Southwest team members take an ownership role in their jobs.
  • Southwest team members regularly do jobs outside of their scope. Herb can be seen working with the ground crew around Thanksgiving.
  • Southwest team members are encouraged to show their unique personalities throughout their work. Herb arm wrestles for charity and publicity.

Power & Politics

  • Southwest keeps a policy of giving all levels of team members too much information. This allows for all team members to know what is going on with the company at all times
  • Southwest has a policy of “being serious about work, but not taking yourself serious.”
  • Southwest has an open door policy meaning that all levels of employees can talk wit the CEO or any manager.

Decision Making

  • Southwest’s motto for decision making is “do the right thing”.
  • Southwest uses the “do the right thing” attitude for all team members, not just leaders.
  • Southwest givse their employees as much information as possible, which improves their decision making ability.
  • Simplicity is one way Southwest speeds up decision making, this prevents paralysis analysis.
crazy face
Image courtesy of artur84 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

While this book has never been listed as the top 10 business books to read, I think it’s a must read. A lot of the things Southwest did in the early years has been copied many times over now. Southwest was one of the first companies to embrace the weirdness factor and only hire weird employees.  If you are looking for a book on how to run a successful start-up, start with this book.

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, Books, Leadership, Management

Book Review – Winning Jack Welch

January 5, 2015 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Winning: The Ultimate Business How-To Book by Jack and Suzy Welch is a book about how to succeed in business the Jack Welch way. The book offers advice for your career from Jack’s experience.
success starts here sign
Jack Welch was the famed GE CEO that come up from the ranks at GE. Welch’s tenor as CEO was from 1981 – 2001. During Jack’s time at GE a lot of people under him went on the become executives or CEO of other companies. Winning gives tips for navigating your career as a whole. Not a how to guide for your career but a wholesitc approach to career/business management.

In Winning Jack describes his philosophical management approach. Welch provides many examples from his career at GE and speaking engagments around the world since retirement. One story that stuck out was about Jack’s first big mistake. Early in his career Jack was running a factory at 28 and was responsible for creating an explosion at his plant. Jack was sure he was going to get chewed out by his leadership but instead was asked what he had learned. Imagine the impression this left on Jack, throughout his career Jack took the same approach with his staff. Success has cost and Jack is very open those costs. He admits to failing in the work life balance area and that he didn’t have a very good relationship with his kids while they were small. Part of this could be attributed to a generational mind set because it wasn’t seen as a priority in his era. The book overall covers how to succeed in the world of business and life the Jack Welch way.books on shelf

With every book I read I like to pull out the points that I can apply in my business/life.

Winning’s  3 key themes

  1. Optimistic outlook – One key theme Jack hits you over the head with is to never consider yourself a victim. Even in times where you are the victim it is does you no good to play the victim card. Instead he encourages readers to take a can do attitude with them into everything they do. Sitting around blaming others is not going to fix the situation, the most important thing is to move forward. Do not let setbacks derail you. Jack devotes a couple of chapters on career development and having a positive attitude is the first key to having a successful career. No matter what position Jack was hiring for he always placed a positive attitude as the first trait he was looking for in a candidate.
  2. Candor – The most used word in the book because it is at the core of all the principles Jack teaches. None of the other principles will work unless you are in a candid environment. Welch differentiates between being candid versus mean spirited. Candor allows you to have honest and open evaluations in your organization. People know where they stand because of the candor in your organization. Think about how well you could benefit from open and honest feedback from your staff and leadership.
  3. Executive Training Programs – During Jack Welch’s tenor as CEO at General Electric, GE was known as a hotbed of talent. Many Senior-level executives and future CEOs came from GE. While hiring great talent accounted for some of that success, the main reason was because of their executive training programs. Jack says the seed for the idea was from Pepsi but the success of the program was from the GE leadership. Management would identify potential future leaders in the company and enroll them in the executive training programs where they would be trained to become executives.  In baseball terms Welch called this stacking his bench. He was always trying to ensure when they lost a great leader they always had someone ready to step in and replace him.

Conclusion

This was the second time I read this book and probably won’t be the last time I read it. It’s one of those books you need to read every so often to keep yourself motivated. Some good career tips about how to find the career you want and how to go about evaluating companies you want to work for. Hopefully you will read this book and apply some of the same strategies to your career. If you liked this article be sure to sign up for my email list.

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, Books, Business, Motivation

Book Review – The Future of the Mind

May 29, 2014 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

The Future of the Mind is a new book review in my book review series. Michio Kaku, the author from Physics of the Future,  just released The Future of the Mind where he exposes breaking scientific finds that revolve around the human mind.

avitar holding book
Stacking those books

The Future of the Mind Overview

The Future of the Mind is a futuristic look at what scientific breakthroughs are on the horizon and how those will shape our minds. The research for this book was based on current proven scientific research not theoretical research. The book covers short, medium, and long term predictions for the mind and the science behind those predictions. While reading this book Kaku touches on ethical dilemmas such as whether society would be okay with healing mental illness in patients. Are we playing God if we heal children who are autistic? The last part of the books diverges into the future of mankind through immorality and space travel. Kaku’s premise is that if have the ability to become immortal then we could accomplish more technological feats once thought impossible. In the end mankind’s destiny is in our own hands.

What does the future hold?

  • Brain Chips – What if instead of  a Google Glass you could have a chip implanted in your brain? In the near future we will have the ability to access the internet,  communicate with our friends, and upload new skills by just using our minds. The research being done on mapping the mind is allowing scientist to experiment uploading memories in the brains of mice. One day soon we will have the ability to do this to humans. One example Kaku uses is to use this technology for displaced workers to rapidly acquire new skills.
  • Fix Brain Illness & Injuries – The effects of brain injuries and illnesses are devastating for families. Scientist  are working on inserting microelectronics sensors inside the brain to help some of these effects. A cochlear implant is an example implanting devices in the brain to fix illness or injury. While a cochlear implant are being used in the present it is a  proof of principle for inserting electronics in the brain. We are starting to enter the era of medical science where fixing brain injuries and illness will become common practice.
  • Upload Ourselves Robots – If humans gain the ability use robotic limbs or upload skills through brain chips; are we still human? How long until human bodies are more mechanical than biological? Kaku predicts in distant future humans will be able to upload our consciousness into computers. Once we are able to upload ourselves into computers this will give humans the chance at living forever.

Opinion

The Future of the Mind was the second book by Michio Kaku I have read. Both books (The Future of the Mind and Physics of the Future) were very similar and overlapped in many areas.  I really enjoyed this book but was not shocked by Kaku’s predictions for the future. Most of his prediction are already out there in known but the interesting part is the how close we are to realizing these future technologies. I would rate this book a 3 out of 5.

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, future, Michio Kaku, Physics, The Future of the Mind

Book Review – In the Plex

March 15, 2014 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Ever wondered: How did Google get started? What about what is like to work at Google from day one? How did Google build an empire in it’s first 10 years? If so then pick up a copy of In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Live.

avitar holding book

Overview

In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives begins with Google starting as a thesis project for the Larry Paige and Sergey Brin as PhD candidate students at Stanford. The founders had great access to resources and talent while at working on the project at Stanford, but they soon realized for their search engine to grow they would have to move from a research project to company. The founders were not concerned with making money, it more was more about the cost of crawling the web and storing that data too big for a PhD project. The book covers Google from inception to 2011 about a ten year time span. During this time span Google starts out as a small start-up renting a garage focusing solely on Search at that time. In the late 90’s the Search business was not a profitable business model. Since Search was not profitable Search Engines gave poor results until Google came around. Google’s only real competition in the early years came from Excite but Excite’s growth was capped because the parent company did not believe Search would be profitable. In the end it turns out Search can be very profitable, I mean profitable in the 10’s of billions. In The Plex covers Adsense, Gmail, YouTube, and other Google technologies as well.

Googly Culture

Are they Googly? The culture of Google is modeled around a college campus employees work as students and their manager acts more as Professor rather than a traditional manager. In a typical week an employee works 80% of the time on their project but are allowed to work the other 20% of the time on a project of their choosing. From the start the founders insisted on hiring research minded Computer Scientist from elite Computer Science Universities, this combined with the 20% rule lead to many many innovations at Google. Many innovations developed at Google were published but by the time the results were released Google already had a huge lead on their competitors.

Map Reduce

One of the biggest innovations that came out of Google in the early years was the Map Reduce project. Map Reduce  was published by Jeffrey Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat in 2004. Map Reduce basically gives Google the ability to process large data sets in a relatively short amount of time. The Map Reduce paper was the brain child behind the Open-Source Apache Hadoop technology used by Yahoo, Facebook, and many others. Any company that deals with large amounts of data is using a Map Reduce related product.

Should you read it?

Google is the pioneer in big data before it was Big Data. So much of the big data buzz today is built around those innovations and practices developed by Google. Regardless of what your job title In The Plex will be very beneficial. In The Plex enabled me to have a practical application of how big data and machine learning can benefit the user. Companies are leveraging big data analytics for multiple purposes, by reading In the Plex you can see where is all started.

Tell me what you thought of the book or maybe you have a book that is similar that you think I should read. Just post in the comments below.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Big Data, Book Review, Books, Google, Hadoop, Machine Learning

Steve Jobs – Book Review (#1)

September 28, 2013 by Thomas Henson

Steve Jobs Book Review

Before reading this book about the life of Steve Jobs I did not know much about Jobs. I never was really into Apple products until the first iPad came out, and then I only used the iPhone and iPad. What I had heard about Jobs is he was a creative genius, who in the 80’s fought with Bill Gates for the first personal computers. Wow did I learn a lot from this book. The book was written by Walter Isaacson, although he was tasked by Jobs to write the book, Isaacson interviewed more than 100 people including Jobs. Throughout the book Isaacson would write the stories as Jobs told them and then present what he thought really happened from the others he interviewed. The overarching theme of Jobs in the book is he had a distortion reality field around himself and he could pull others into that field. By distortion reality field it meant the way Jobs thought things happened were not always the truth. Without giving too much away about the book I wanted to give 3 great messages I took from the book.

Lessons from the book

photodune-2526527-books-xs

  1.  Surround yourself with great people.– From as early as his high schools days Steve Jobs surrounded himself with very influential people, there was a story early in the book where young Steve called up the Bill Hewlett, CEO of HP, to get a part for school project. Before Steve came back to Apple he very close with Larry Ellison, CEO of Sun Microsystems, and relied on him as a trusted adviser. In fact Larry Ellison offered to raise the capital to take over Apple before Jobs was brought back in the late 90’s.
  2. People will pay for quality. – It is easy for businesses to get caught up in the Walmart type competitive environment, in which all that drives consumers is price. Jobs wanted to create quality products for people who wanted great products. Those quality products also had to be visually pleasing as well. In business it doesn’t have to be a race to the bottom for great products or services.
  3. Create something people don’t know they need. – There were times where Jobs was advised to pole consumers to find out what products they wanted to see Apple develop. Jobs pushed back saying consumers did not know what they wanted and it was Apple’s job to give them something they didn’t know they needed. While most businesses need to rely on customer feedback, the point here is to not let that feedback stifle your innovation. New markets are created not by customer surveys but by innovative products. See Blue Ocean Strategy for more about this topic. 

 

My favorite quote in the book is about presentations, Steve Jobs hated PowerPoint or slides of any type he would say “If you know what you are talking about you don’t need slides”.

Here is a video we watched during a marketing meeting in 2012. It might be an older video but the message is timeless.

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Apple, Book Review, Books, Motivation, Steve Jobs

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