20 Years of PMC-Sierra

A BIG “Thank You” to Colin for hosting a party at PMC.Burnaby to celebrate 20 years of PMC-Sierra. It was lots of fun. I can’t believe it was that long ago.

More Good Reads – Snippets

I’ve read a bunch of great books that I’ve yet to write about. I’m hoping to provide more detail on these, but it’s just not happening for a while. So I thought I’d make a quick list. Enjoy.

Science, Business, and Work

• Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help, by Edgar H Schein This is a must read. Schein is the guy who coined “Corporate Culture”. This gets to heart of how to help & get help. Powerful stuff. Get moving. It’s short ( ~150 pages ), well written, and to the point.
• Imagine: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer I really liked this book. It’s just so cool. The reviews and ratings (Amazon) unfortunately are not so good though. Not sure why. I think it’s because Lehrer hits some pretty sensitive areas that not everyone is going to like. Also this is a magazine level read and not a scientific paper.
• Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life, by David Allen Mr. GTD provides more colour on his “Getting Things Done” process. I particularly liked the discussion on longer term planning coupled “now”. The two dimensions of “What are you gonna do next?” and “Planning over a few levels ( or horizons )” seems very practical. I’m giving it a try.
• The Disease to Please: Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome, by Harriet Braiker This book is not what I thought. It is extremely useful. We’ve all got a bit of this in us.

Spiritual

• Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, by Thich Nhat Hanh This is a very calming book. Very peaceful. A big Thank You to my brother-in-law Philip who gave this to me. It is a collection of 1 to 2 page stories. Each story takes a while to process.
• The Beginner’s Guide to Walking the Buddha’s Eightfold Path, by Jean Smith This is a really simple plain spoken book. Highly recommended if you want to learn what Buddhism is about in North American language. This is even simpler and more straight-forward than Pema Chodron. That said, it is not really a beginners book.

My First Attempt At Teaching Lean Launch Pad

fyi … I’m running a Workshop based on the Steve Blank’s Lean LaunchPad at entrepreneurship@UBC.

Here is a link to the blog I’m using for the course. E@UBC Customer Development WorkShop Blog

My first impression is that this is way better than the Customer Development Course I’ve been teaching. Having groups doing real work makes is it much more tangible.