My Top Reading for 2007 - Pleasure

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling

• Nothing came close to this.
• I was 4th in line for our family copy and got it in 4 days …. How good is that

2. Ender’s Game ( and Series ) - Orson Scott Card

• Fantastic! The audiobook is well done.
• Sci-Fi at it’s best.

3. A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore.

• Immensely entertaining.
• Audiobook narrator Fisher Stevens is “perfect”

4. American Gods - Neil Gaiman

• In Made to Stick terminology this book is extremely “sticky”
• Darkish and compelling — a “page turner”.

5. Spook Country - William Gibson

• I’m a fan and he didn’t disappoint with this one

6. The Mauritius Command - Patrick O’Brian

• I’m trying to read one of these fantastic books a year.

Podcasts — Pleasure

1. Vinyl Cafe - Stuart McLean
2. The SandTrap - Erik J. Barzeski

My Top Reading For 2007 - Work Related

Here are links to my favorite “work related” reads in 2007. I’m not restricting myself to books released in 2007.

Top Work Related Books

1. Made to Stick - Chip & Dan Heath
• Wanna communicate better in real and business life
• Do not pass go … go directly to bookstore
• It’s even entertaining fun & good for you
2. No Asshole Rule - Dr. Bob Sutton
   

   • Guess that you’re thinking –”He’s not talking about me”
   • Do not pass go … go directly to bookstore
3. Dealing with Darwin - Geoffrey Moore
   

   • Moore tackles innovation strategies.
4. Leadership and the New Science - Marg Wheatley
   • Provides hope for those of us addicted to “corporate herion”
   • How many business books are inspired by Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics
5. Long Tail - Chris Anderson
   • This is a big part of our world today. Seems like common-sense, but the examples are not always what I thought.
6. A Random Walk Down WallStreet - Burton Malkiel
   • This is a good “sanity check” for people who read a lot of analyst reports or think they can “beat” the market.
7. The Four Steps to Epiphany - Steven Gary Blank
   • This is a tough read, but the content is fantastic.
   • If you’re developing new products “u need to read this”
   • hopefuly future editions will be easier to read.

Honorable Mentions for 2007 (Music)

Here are some great albums released in 2007 that didn’t make my top 10.

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Music - 2007 Honorable Mentions

1. Sloan - Never Hear the End of It - This is a great album. The only knock is that 30 songs is a lot to digest. Involves effort. thx to Seattle Dave for the tip.
2. Shout Out Louds - Our Ill Wills - I really like track #12 “Hard Rain”. This lives in my car.
3. Menomena - Wet And Rusting - This is very interesting. It’s original. Thx to Eric for tip.
4. Ian Hunter - Shrunken Heads - This is a great album. Easy to like at first, and easy to like months later.
   
5. Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis - Not sure why I don’t like this more. It is very good.
6. Thievery Corporation - Versions - 2007-ish … not their best. But I have a soft spot for this band.
7. Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity - This is one strange sounding band. I really like “+81″ and “Perfect Me”. This is not for everyone. My better half would throw it out
8. Rickie Lee Jones - Sermon on Exposition Boulevard - There are some great songs on this album.
9. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? - This has some great songs, but it just didn’t stick like some other albums. My kids really like it.

My Top Ten Catalog Discoveries of 2007 (Music)

I bought and enjoyed a lot of albums that weren’t released in the past 12 months. They are from the “catalog”.

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Top Ten Catalog Discoveries

1. They Might Be Giants - No! - If u have kids u need this album! If u don’t have kids u need this album, too! “Fibber Island” is the most sung song in my household this year. period. Way too much fun
2. Lali Puna - Scary World Theory - This is a chill-out album — #4 “Contratempo” is the most listened to song in my iTunes library this year.
3. Booka Shade - Movements - German techno dance gets everyone movin’.
4. Elliot Smith - Either /Or - This is a real “grower”. You might remember some of the songs from Good Will Hunting
5. Miles Davis - Live at 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival - Almost Blue’s - “So What” is played at warp speed. Whew this is great.
6. Thelonius Monk - Monk, Alone in Paris - Chill before it was called Chill. Beautiful.
7. Bob Mould - Body of Song - I loved Husker Du. Need I say more. This is way more mellow … in a good way.
8. Household Names - The Trouble With Being Nice - Can you say “power pop”. My friend Dave can. Thx for the tip.

9. Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins - This has a great album cover and good songs too.
10. Fugazi - 13 Songs - Get out your skateboard Careful driving with this on.

My Top Ten Albums of 2007

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Iain’s Top Ten Albums of 2007

1. Dinosaur Jr - Beyond
2. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
3. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
4. Neil Young - Massey Hall 1971
5. Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder
6. Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
7. Shins - Wincing The Night Away
8. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
9. Burial - Untrue
10. MIA - Kala

Note: I’m breaking with tradition and posting my “Best of 2007″ lists during Christmas buying season instead of boxing day week. There will be 4 sections/posts: First up “Iain’s Top Ten Albums of 2007″, then Top Catalog discoveries, followed by Honorable mentions “new” and “catalog”.

Presentation #3 - UBC Technology Entrepreneurship Club

Thanks for inviting me to speak. Most of the post-presentation discussion was directed at career choices and “what is eng phys (of physics) good for?”. Along those lines I highly recommend reading Marc Andreesen’s posts on Career Planning and an old presentation of mine on “Fizz”.

Here is my 3rd presentation at UBCWhat does Marketing Do? “The Pursuit”

The first half is a 50k-foot view of technology marketing and the 2nd Half is a template for a monthly marketing review.

Key Points follow.

4 Steps to Epiphany - First Thoughts

I’ve been intending to comment on Steven Blank’s, The Four Steps to Epiphany for a while now. It has taken me longer to digest than I first thought.

So far I really like the following.

career planning - pmarca

Marc Andreesen has posted a great series on career planning for those who want to make a difference. His disclaimer is that this is not for those looking for life/work balance. A good read for kids and parents.

ubc fizz entrepreneurship - Part 2 - Marketing Case Study

My second talk is titled Market -> Customer -> Product Cycle for Complex Systems Business.

In this talk I describe the continuous cycle of planning and action that I believe brings success to tech companies. Since it is a big topic I found that I needed to pick personal examples that lasted over a decade in time. The end result is that I leveraged my personal experiences at PMC through the ’90’s. This may seem dated, but I believe that this experience is very applicable to marketing teams in today’s complex system’s businesses.

Today, the best example that comes to my mind are the Cisco Networkers conferences. Cisco sets the bar for leveraging the user group into a significant part of the product offering. This is a huge competitive hurdle that no other networking vendor has been able to compete with. I believe this is a significant part of why they own enterprise networking.

Entrepreneurship Talks - Fizz

I presented my first of two talks on entrepreneurship to UBC “Fizzers” yesterday. The presentation, references, and recommended reading links can be found on my Fizz page.