Tech habits of the millennial generation

Came across this interesting post for business technology writer Nicholas Carr, which indicates some interesting statistics on the computing habits of college freshman at Amherst college:

Clive Thompson recently pointed to a post in which Amherst College's IT director provided some stats about the school's new freshman class. The students' tech habits are pretty much what you'd expect - everyone's on Facebook, no one has a landline, laptops have almost entirely supplanted desktops, and the Mac's beating the PC.

What I found most striking, though, were the stats on email. About 180,000 emails are received each day at the school (which has around 1,600 students), and 94% of those emails are spam. The storage required for the emails received last year equaled the total storage required for all the emails received in the preceding five years combined. And 95% of email storage now goes to holding email attachments rather than the messages themselves. Email has become everyone's personal data warehouse.

With the management of email systems growing increasingly onerous, it's hardly a surprise that a lot of colleges are choosing to offload those systems to Google and other cloud providers.

As a upper end Gen-X'er, I pretty much follow the same trends as well, with the exception of replacing my PC based laptop with a Mac, as I find the Mac's powerbook an elegant laptop, but overpriced and am too lazy and un-interested now in trying to figure out how to keep my Windows based files compatible with a Mac. There was once a time I found such pursuites interesting, but no longer.

Without exception, I agree with the explosion of email and the use of it as a personal data warehousing tool. This is especially the case in corporate America where memo, documents, files, images, etc. are stored on people's email readers and most if not all corporate workers spend an inordinate amount of time organizing and categorizing emails to keep as a reference database.

It's become the virtual file folder, but one which grows expoentially beyond the largest physical file folders one could think about, and I think managing and retreiving what we need from it is mainly wasted energy and time. I use gmail for my personal email, and though I like the searchability of it, I can't say having all the gigabites of storage has made my life any more efficient or effective. Actually it seems the contrary for the most part.

Social networking sites suck for business

Funny claim in a Harvard Business School online forum, where Paul Michelman claims “why I'm dropping you as a Facebook Friend” due to his lack of being able to make real business connections via Facebook. Thus he proclaims, “I'm ready to sever my ‘business’ ties and limit my Facebook use to exclusively personal correspondence. Not only will it keep out a lot of noise, but it will solve another pressing problem: keeping my inappropriate friends, and the even more inappropriate friends of friends, at a safer distance from my professional associates.”

Facebook really is, as it claim to fame signifies, one of the largest “social networking” sites. You would expect then, that most people who inhabit that site are there for mostly social reasons.

But there has been a trend recently, to use Web 2.0 social networking tools for business related networking, and one of the most popular and one which I use regularly is LinkedIn. Like anything else, after the initial excitement of meeting business contacts you have not seen in a while, you start adding lots of contacts after which you start to question whether any of it is worthwhile. As another blogger Ann All states:

I had dinner with a friend the other night, a busy and successful freelance writer who specializes in coverage of the restaurant and food industry. We were talking about networking sites, and he admitted, “I’ve got 100 people in my LinkedIn network, but I don’t know what to do with them.” Another editor here tried using LinkedIn to round up sources for a story she was working on. Most of the suggestions turned out to be dead ends. She got some interesting leads, though few related to the story in question.

Earlier in her blog, she alluded to the fact that this experience is no different than when she attends trades shows or conferences, she can leave with handfuls of business cards, only to throw away most of them. I’ve experience similar things, but unlike the expectations of the authors above, I had no illusions that joining a site like LinkedIn would provide lots of quality connections, or any real quality connections for that matter.

But it’s like anything else in life, the amount of genuine effort you put into something will generally provide a genuine return back. From my own observations, most people I see put up a shallow profile and just try to add as many connections as possible. I think there are 4 effective ways to use an online business networking site:

1. If its mainly business contacts you are looking for, then join a business only networking site and think carefully how you will set up your profile and the image you want to portray. The better the image is that aligns to what you do and offer, the better the chances are that someone or company will contact you looking for a fit. Its all part of that “Personal Branding” thing.
2. You will need to engage actively in the site. For example, LinkedIn has a Q&A section where you can pose questions categorized by industry interest, and again, you will need to give thoughtful, well articulated and genuine answers and pose relevant and timely questions so that people both in and outside your network become responsive.
3. LinkedIn and especially other networking sites such as Plaxo have an aggregating feature, where you can link your other online presences such as blogs, business websites, etc. to it, that will be effective in both directing others to informative and interesting sites and links to learn more about you, and those sites and links can direct people back to your social networking site.
4. If you meet a potential business contact offline, follow up and link to them online and visa versa. Then follow up.

But even if you were to do this regularly, I do realize that it will be on rare occasions that you will meet that quality business contact. It's just the way it is, and is very similar to the mass mailing advertisements that I used to do when I owned a retail business. The ROI on those were typical less than 1%, but the hope was that of that 1%, you would acquire a few high quality customers who would become future long term customers. In addition, there was a common held notion that it takes on average, about 10-15 exposures by a potential customer such that the next time they need some service or product provided by you, that they'll think of visiting your establishment.

My feeling is that this personal banding of yourself via business networking sites is of a similar ROI, and at least anecdotally, my return has followed a similar pattern I experienced running my retail business. The main difference between the two, was that for retail marketing it was mostly a matter of cost (how much and how often was I willing to pay to do mass mailing), whereas with personal business branding, it is really a matter of time (how much and how often am I willing to participate online). But all in all and as they say, the principles of marketing remain the same... you gotta do it and you gotta do it often.

But I would also like to add that your results will vary.

Guy Kawasaki on "The Art of Start"

I've always heard good things about Guy Kawasaki, and know he was responsible for much of the success of Apple in both it's early and later years. In addition, he is a noted author and venture capitalist and Angel investor for high tech start ups. So it was with good fortune that I came across the following video lecture:



One thing that is very apparent watching the video, is that the Guy is very articulate and intelligent and is no doubt why he held the role of chief evangelist at Apple. Though very inspirational, I'm very cautious of individuals who talk excessively of things like "innovation", "paradigm shifts", "out-of-box thinking", etc., because only a small percentage of entrepreneurial efforts result in the next Google, Apple, or Microsoft. For every one of these once in a kind successes, there are hundreds, if not thousands of failed efforts.

Nevertheless, its still motivating and inspirational to view, listen or read inspirational people such as Guy and makes me want to scratch my entrepreneurial itch... But, because of my past entrepreneurial pursuits and since I'm not getting any younger, I much more attuned to factoring and mitigating the risks a lot more then I was in the past.

I think its a matter of balancing motivation and inspiration with pragmatism and caution.

The banalities of the creative generalist

I discovered this pretty interesting blog posting about the notion of being a creative generalist. He describes the notion that:

Nothing can substitute for depth of analysis, and there's proven value in specialization – it's what education, career paths, scientific research, and technological innovation are built on – but generalism is a secret talent. With so much complex information, fragmented in so many ways and developing faster and faster, it is increasingly important to have generalists around to make sense of it all, of the big picture. People who appreciate diversity, who are in the know about the wider world and who understand how things interact are invaluable observers, matchmakers, and pioneers of the intersectional ideas so vital for success in today’s knowledge economy, conceptual age, and global community.

But what exactly do generalists do? That’s the question most often asked of me and it’s not an easy one to answer. By definition, generalists tend not to focus (actually, they do focus but just not to the extent that specialists do), they don’t often travel in groups (lacking common associations, designations, and unions), and their shape-shifting versatility changes them frequently. But they are definable and there most certainly are essential traits and skills inherent to them.

It's a pretty long post, that's peppered with anecdotes and quotes from famous writers, thinkers, and business people both past and contemporary who have been known to exemplify broad generalist thinking that was done in a very creative manner. One particularly good example, was the inclusion of the writer Frans Johansson, who is the author of the famous book Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation.

A great example from the book, was the French telecom engineer whose passion for entomology led to close observation of ants that suggested algorithms now widely used to route traffic around the Internet. This is certainly a prime example of creative, generalist epiphany at its finest. Though while I'm a believer and a strong advocate for adopting a creative generalist approach to solving business, as well as any problem, I feel there is the danger inherent to this type of thinking and that is if it is pursued unchecked and irrationally, it succumbs to triteness and banalities. Even worse, it can lead to sloppy thinking.

Here's my rationale:

1. The majority of people still do not adopt proper analytical and logical skills to problems. Its no secret that this country suffers from a lack of scientists and engineers, and is why so much of these functions are imported in from other countries or outsourced. But underlying this problems is not such much a shortage of technical skills and education, as bad as that has gotten, but really is a lack on educational institutions teaching of how to think critically, analytically and logically not only in science and technology, but in other disciplines as well. Having people adopt a more holistic, generalist view without proper rigorous analysis is dangerous. In addition, the whole idea of "creativity" if not defined properly become merely intellectual fluff.
2. Like those infamous "team-building" exercises that have become popular in corporate America, where you have employees engage in goofy exercises with each other, in order to spark creativity and teamwork that has now become a source of dread for most employees, the same could happen if you try to artificially induce creative generalist thinking. The example of the French telecom engineer from Johansson's book was no doubt a combination of years of study and passionate pursuit of different fields of study, that converged at some serendipitous point and lead that engineer to his extraordinary discovery. I think if you try to hard to artificially induce such discoveries, you run into the problems of making the process banal and even drudgery much like the team building exercises. Google is a prime example recently of company known for having a creative work environment, yet despite this has had an exodus of key employees recently due to boredom.
   
3. Again, like the example of the French telecom engineer just mentioned, it seems we get enthralled by what seems to be a spontaneous spark of creative genius that leads to such incredible discoveries, and forgot that many such individuals got to that point from years of research and study, and probably toiled for years with painful detail to data and analysis. Like Edison said, its "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" and I think its important to emphasize the hard work, dedication and attention to details it takes to achieve such insights as well as being more creative and holistic in your thinking.

Nevertheless, the blog was an excellent read and I recommend the site and thought I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments and pursuit of being a creative generalists, I do so with the above caveats in mind. I actually go further then the author and believe that in order to compete in today's competitive and intense global world, that you have to have subject matter expertise in a few areas AND the ability to generalize and think creatively through problems.

The Long Tail and Personal Branding

In a previous post, I had written about the importance and paradox of personal branding. I was just now thinking about and reading some literature on the topic of "The Long Tail", which as a Wikipedia defines, "is the colloquial name for a long-known feature of some statistical distributions... In these distributions a high-frequency or high-amplitude population is followed by a low-frequency or low-amplitude population which gradually 'tails off'".

The graph below is a nice illustration of this phenomenon:



As the graphic illustrates, in these types of curves its about 20% of the whole area being measured that dominate about 80% of the phenomenon. Indeed, it is Pareto's 80/20 principle that is being displayed and the long tail is in a sense a Pareto tail. This is important to keep in mind, because later I will show how Pareto's principles come back to us.

This notion was popularized by the Wired article written by Chris Anderson which is probably the most commented and written about article in Wired history. Here's how he describes the Long Tail:

You can find everything out there on the Long Tail. There's the back catalog, older albums still fondly remembered by longtime fans or rediscovered by new ones. There are live tracks, B-sides, remixes, even (gasp) covers. There are niches by the thousands, genre within genre within genre: Imagine an entire Tower Records devoted to '80s hair bands or ambient dub. There are foreign bands, once priced out of reach in the Import aisle, and obscure bands on even more obscure labels, many of which don't have the distribution clout to get into Tower at all...

When you think about it, most successful businesses on the Internet are about aggregating the Long Tail in one way or another. Google, for instance, makes most of its money off small advertisers (the long tail of advertising), and eBay is mostly tail as well - niche and one-off products. By overcoming the limitations of geography and scale, just as Rhapsody and Amazon have, Google and eBay have discovered new markets and expanded existing ones.

This is the power of the Long Tail. The companies at the vanguard of it are showing the way with three big lessons. Call them the new rules for the new entertainment economy.

The music industry is where the effect of this has been the most pronounced, as the industry has lost significant market share to downloaded music both legal and illegal. The reference to Tower records is most telling of all, as that franchise recently declared bankruptcy and has closed all its stores down.

So what does this entail for someone (like myself), trying to pursue establishing a personal brand? Quite a bit.

My feeling is that the whole idea of trying to brand yourself is predicated on there being enough market share in the long tail for your to monopolize. Because lets face it, you are trying to be a "minor" celebrity within your chosen profession, industry, service, etc. niche. In other words, you don't want to be just another Joe/Jane competing with a bazillion other Joes and Janes for a job, business opportunity or gig. You want your brand, namely you, to be recognizable enough in your chosen niche such that opportunities come to you, instead of like the rest of the herd, fighting for the scraps.

Let us now look at the main tenets of the Long Tail and how they will influence your pursuit of your personal brand dominating a niche (I got this summary from an Amazon book review of "The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson):

1. In virtually all markets, there are far more niche goods than hits, as a result of the improvements in the basic tools of production (i.e. Internet).

In the regard, it would be the ability for you to distribute your brand and ideas about you very efficiently, effectively and cheaply through the internet. Just like I'm blogging here and all the other forums I participate in related to my specialty.

2. The costs of reaching these niches is now falling dramatically thanks to digital distribution, search and a critical mass of broadband technology.

The key here, is having your self-brand to be easily searched and identified. As I posted in my previous blog, while it is very easy to get your brand out there, paradoxically, so it is the same for everyone else, so you have to work harder to distinguish yourself.

3. There are a range of tools - from recommendations to rankings (think search) that help to shift demand down the long tail, and help people find useful/relevant niches.

Yes, and given that you are targeting a niche in the Long Tail, there is a more highly focused audience and potential market demand. The key as I mentioned, is to be easily identifiable and recognizable.

4. The effect of all of this is that the demand curve will eventually flatten, with the hits becoming relatively less popular and the niches growing in popularity.

Yes, but as I will mention in a moment, your niche will eventually grow into its own meaty curve with sub long tails within it.

5. All of the niches add up to comprise a market that rivals the hits.

We are already witnessing this phenomenon with the advent of user directed content on YouTube, blogs and social networking sites that is now rivaling traditional mainstream media, and in some respects have exceeded it.

6. The internet can reveal a natural shape of demand, undistorted by distribution bottlenecks, scarcity of information and limited choice of shelf space.

While this is true, there is a concern where the Long Tail gets too flat and the demand distribution gets too diluted. When this occurs, the curve can shift back.

History seems to indicate that no matter how much a certain technology, and the internet was a pretty huge one, disrupts economic patterns, there is still only a finite amount of people, time and attention you can expect to obtain, thus the fundamental laws of economics will still hold. When the Long Tail becomes to flat for your particular focus, the Law of Diminishing Return will kick in and effect you.

Thus, here's what I'd recommend in your strategy to expand your personal brand:

• Pay careful attention to the niche you are targeting. Will you have enough time to occupy the upper quadrant of the Pareto curve within the niche you are focused on? Is it large enough to be worth your effort?
• If so, then Pareto's law kicks in, because in every economic phenomenon, about 20% of the entities control 80% or more of the resources. You cannot escape this, so make sure you obtain and sustain the monopoly or oligopoly to which your brand identifies with.
• Then when you are a well established personal brand, be careful of overexposure and complacency. The very same disruptive forces that allowed you to dominate a niche, can displace you as well. Clayton Christensen documented this well in his book, "The Innovator's Dilemma".
• One way of preventing the above, is to parlay your brand to capture another niche. A great example of this is Arnold Schwarzenegger, a person who found a way to become a dominant brand within the niche of bodybuilding, then parlayed that skill to gain great prominence in business, acting, and politics.
• Finally, you are the CEO of the company called "You", thus you must work hard much like a company does to market and acquire mind share as opposed to market share, and do all the very same practices the big companies do to maintain it. Fortunately, you are a one person show, thus you are more nimble and can adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

Interesting what I'm describing above is much like the phenomenon of Fractals in Chaos or Complexity Theory. Each time you zoom into the Long Tail, you see other Long Tails, each with their own Pareto curves. Likewise, your brand niche could be as software programming expert, and within that field, there would be sub-niches such as Java expert or web scripting expert, and so on and so forth.

Lots of work and things to think about, but what could be more important than being mindful of that identity called "You"?

The Paradox of Personal Branding

I just found this interesting blog about "Personal Branding" from a techie named Jeff Atwood ironically. I say ironically because most techies are not known for wanting to market and hype anything, let alone themselves. But in this competitive "look at me" generation where anyone can now publicly display themselves for the whole world to see, with the most gratuitous examples being celebrities such as Paris Hilton and the like getting an inordinate amount of media attention for being nothing but vapid celebrities gone bad, it has become very hard and almost imperative to distinguish yourself from the pack. Hell, isn't that what I'm doing now?

I do though love the fictional dialog in the blog used as an example of the process:

Jack meets Janet and they start talking. Jack explains who he is and what he does for a living and Janet does the same. While Jack is speaking, Janet is very busy trying to "box" Jack.

She's looking for some tag-- "software engineer", "technical architect", "project manager"-- something that will make it easy for her to remember. Of course, Jack is doing the same thing. It's a "boxing" contest.

There's nothing wrong with this approach. We all do it. Here's why: When Janet finishes her meeting with Jack and later meets an old friend Paul, Janet needs an easy way to explain who she met. She'll say, "I met Jack for coffee and he's a software engineer" rather than repeating the whole spiel she just heard from Jack.

There is hope, though. If Jack made a compelling introduction, something memorable and remarkable, Janet would be compelled to say a few more words about Jack. Jack won the "boxing" game.

This requires more than communication skills. You need to be working on something that is remarkable or be remarkable yourself. In other words, you need to be working on your “personal brand.”

Indeed, as the author states, being technically great at your job only keeps your head above water and you need to pursue avenues beyond just your normal career if you want to excel and be remarkable.

The ones he advocates pursuing such as:

• lead a user group
• create a popular open-source project
• write a blog
• publish a book
• publish articles
• speak at conferences

are things I'm actively pursing as well. I guess the question then becomes, what if everyone starts to pursue these things too? Won't it dilute the competitive personal advantage one gains, since everyone else is doing the same? Well then you will have to do something more remarkable to stand out from this crowd. And I have noticed more professionals pursing these pursuits, since the cost and barriers to entry by way of blogs, podcasts, user groups, YouTube videocasts, etc. have made it easier for everyone.

But I think the reality is that though it may be easier technologically, we are basically all under the same constraint of time and also the fact that most people will not want to put forth the effort. Also, not everyone is a natural sales person and may not be inclined to pursue self promotion.

But no doubt the world has changes and the pace is much faster and it is harder to distinguish yourself from the crowd. Paradoxically, the technological tools have made it easier, but has also increased the noise and you now have to shout much louder to be noticed.

Marc Andreessen's Career Opinions

Marc Andreessen the very famous co-founder of Netscape, has written a series of insightful blogs on career planning:

1. Part 0: Introduction
2. Part 1: Opportunities
3. Part 2: Skills and Education
4. Part 3: Where to Go and Why

I especially like how the disclaimer on the introduction blog states right off the bat, that "these posts are aimed at high-potential people who want to excel throughout their careers and make a significant impact on their fields and the world. These posts are not appropriate for people for whom work/life balance is a high priority or for whom lifestyle is particularly important". In other words, the advice is geared towards highly ambitious, work-a-holic types looking to not only make billions, but to change the world!

Given Marc's history and impact he has had on the world through founding one of the most important and used products of the century, the web browser, it lends a lot of legitimacy to what he advocates.

There are a multitude of career help books espousing the politically correct notion of how important it is to balance work and personal life, but the reality is that if you have high ambitions, forget about it, you will need to make considerable sacrifices. But I believe that if you have a genuine passion and desire to be the best at what you do, which is typically some kind of career, given that all of us need to earn a living to keep food on the table and a roof over our head unless what you have a passion for is purely a hobby, then it really shouldn't feel like sacrifices but simply things you have to do to achieve your goals.

But on this notion of following your passions, which Marc advocates throughout, he contradicts himself and it is a point I'm in complete disagreement with him about, and that is in Part 2 where he states:

Some people argue that college will be your one chance in life to pursue your passion -- to spend four years doing nothing but studying whatever you love the most, whether that's Renaissance literature or existential philosophy.

I disagree.

If you intend to have an impact on the world, the faster you start developing concrete skills that will be useful in the real world, the better -- and your undergrad degree is a great place to start. Once you get into the real world and you're primed for success, then you can pursue your passion.

A typical liberal arts degree will be almost useless on its own. So you usually won't have the option of immediately entering the workforce in a high-impact way when you graduate, and you'll have to go get a useful graduate degree.

First, if it is your burning desire to become a hot shot entrepreneur, then I think going to college will be a waste of time. The reality is that colleges and universities are really nothing but an extension of high school with more challenging (though this is subject to debate at a lot of colleges, even the elite ones) classes, where students who are considered too young to join the corporate world stew for a while and prove that they can slog it out 4 more years proving they have the necessary stamina to do pencil pushing (or keyboard typing) white collar work. In addition, there is still that prestige factor of getting a college degree felt by both parents and students.

It's no accident that some of the greatest entrepreneurs (Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Richard Brandson, etc.) were either college drop outs or did not bother to attend at all. You could argue that getting a college degree will give you an advantage when entering the work force, and while this is true on average, a true entrepreneur with a burning passion to make it big would not need such a temporary advantage (I say "temporary" because after a few years in the workforce, the college degree becomes moot, and one's real world experience is what counts). Furthermore, overcoming the advantage your peers have with a college degree is something a true, determined entrepreneur would welcome overcoming anyway.

Second, if your going to go to college, then in my opinion, getting the broadest education you can is best, because the reality of the new world is that a student will be changing their careers multiple times and being able to learn new skills quickly will be an important asset. Having a broad educational foundation is best, and it should be on the fundamentals: critical reading, thinking, writing, mathematics, and science. But the bottom line, is to completely disregard Marc's recommendation to pursue classes that "have a technical element of some form -- that teach you how to do something substantive", unless that is what you want to do, and pursue whatever you find interesting and make sure it and you employ the fundamentals to your full advantage.

You can pursue something as esoteric as art history, and so long as you are motivated to use your creativity, logic, and analysis and be able to articulate this well in writing and speaking, then this will help you in whatever career choice you pursue. Anyway, a popular notion and one in which I fully agree, is the notion that creative right brain functions are just as, if not possibly more important than the typical analytical left brain functions in the new world. This was well articulated in Daniel Pink's book "A Whole New Mind" and is a book I highly recommend.

Finally, in our highly competitive and fast paced world, you have to acquire the discipline to constantly learn new things. It will make you a more productive person, and in addition will make you a better human being all around. If you can learn to acquire a genuine passion for learning just to satisfy your curiosity and to explore your mind and intellect, then you will be able do this without it feeling like a chore. It is this acquired ability that has allowed some of the most influential people in our history, to change the world.

The Hedgehog vs the Fox

In a famous essay by Isaiah Berlin titled "The Hedgehog and the Fox", he takes the famous Greek notion that "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Basically, it is a metaphor for the kind of person who is a generalist (Fox) or specialist (Hedgehog).

In the professional business world, this difference is typically seem in the roles of executive/manager who typically has to be more of a generalist, verses a technician/engineer who are typically specialists. That is not to say an executive cannot be a specialist, as a good example would be a CFO that has a very focuses and specialized expertise in the finance and accounting of a company she/he is running. Likewise, there are high level software architects that have a very broad and generalized knowledge of many technical areas such as object oriented design, operating system architecture, database models, etc.

In a blog by Timothy Ferriss, of the "4 Hour Work Week" fame, he argues that being a generalist or "Jack-of-all-trades" is the way to go. He cites 5 reasons for his postition, and with the exception of his statement that "based on my experience and research, it is possible to become world-class in almost any skill within one year", which I find questionable, I have to agree with it overall.

Highly technical people in my experience, for example, do seem to pursue technical purity and perfection at the expense of getting whatever it is they are engineering done in consideration of usability, functionality and most importantly, within the strategic alignment and business goals for which the product is being developed in the first place. This probably accounts for why so many high-tech projects fail, are abandoned or have usability issues.

But why hold the belief that you can only be one or the other? I would rather take the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none" to "Jack of all trades, master of a FEW". We are finite beings with a finite limit of time, resources and abilities, thus I think the most optimal way would be to work hard at being the best at some particular field, then having a broad enough mindset and general knowledge base to take that success and parlaying it into achieving a high level of success in another field.

This way, you get to experience and achieve success and expertise in a few diverse fields, while also expanding your experience, knowledge and skill sets. This seems to be the best of both possible worlds.

Arnold Schwarzenegger vs Timothy Ferriss

I read the following two books in succession, and much to my amazement, both had very similar themes and though Arnold is older then Timothy Ferriss, they both published their text around the same age and both had best sellers with their first published books. Below I cite a review I wrote on Amazon for both texts:







I happened to decide to read some self-help type books because like everyone else, I hit a stagnating point in my career and wanted to read about how some of these purportedly self-made successful authors achieved success in life. By some strange coincidence, I read Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder" then TimothyFerriss's "The 4-Hour Workweek" in succession, and though these two authors may seem an anachronism, the similarities of their central message, namely, how they were able to achieve their dream lifestyle are exactly the same. Only the techniques and philosophical underpinnings differ.

Timothy Ferriss and 4WW as already reviewed on this page, advocates much of the platitudes written by other self-help authors such as life is short, do not spend every day in a job you hate to buy things you do not need, follow the Pareto 80/20 principle, etc. Of course the most interesting aspect is the notion of outsourcing the repetitive, low level work in your own business pursuits much like the big corporations are doing now to maximize your free time to pursue the things you enjoy, like the "mini-retirements" Ferriss takes regularly to all the exotic places that we all enviously wish we could do. I think this is really the core of the book and is why the book achieved such popularity in such a short time. The world has truly become flat, and the threats and discordance of an increasingly globalized world and outsourced workforce underlies all of us who occupy the once exalted white-collar job. Ferriss masterfully targets this underlying fear and concern, by turning it around and telling the Reader that you can fight back by doing the same think the big companies are doing to you, by utilizing the same technologies and outsourcing techniques, such that eventually you'll be able to kick back in a hammock with a drink in you hand, and in the other a laptop or cell phone with wireless Internet access to run your outsourced business in some exotic location like Tahiti or something, that the book cover depicts so well.

On Arnold, what can I say that has not already been written and talked about the man? To me and many others, he is the very embodiment and walking, living example of what all the self-help books advocate especially on topics like setting goals and visualizations. In the auto-biographical book, Arnold talks about how when he was 15 years old, he came upon bodybuilding and realized that "my life, the answer I'd been seeking. It clicked. It was something I suddenly just seemed to reach out and find, as if I'd been crossing a suspended bridge and finally stepped off onto solid ground." The first half of the book describes the single-minded determination, persistence and hard work he subjected himself to, to achieve his goal of becoming the greatest bodybuilder of all time, then parlaying that success as the foundation to achieve his other goals of becoming a successful businessman, actor and leader. It chronicles his life and achievements from the age of 15 to about 22 when he won the greatest bodybuilding competition, the Mr. Olympia for the first time. Reading this section really allows you to get a first hand account of the mindset Arnold had to achieve the great levels of success he was able to achieve and is eye-opening and invaluable. The second half describes exercises and diets you can do to achieve your own physical goals. While this section may be dated by recent advances in knowledge about strength training, and be biased to people like Arnold with great genetic, physical, nutritional and drug enhanced abilities, you can still benefit from his advices about regularity, dedication and sustained efforts required to obtain that six-pack ab, muscular biceps and of course good health.

Now, what I found so uncanny was the similarities of both authors, in that Ferriss is 29, and found great success in running a business in an innovated way, and used that success to write a best selling book on his first try. Likewise, Arnold was around 29 when he wrote and published his book, and used his great physical presence and huge success in a relatively unknown and marginalized sport of professional bodybuilding to publish a best selling book on his first try. Also, both men are savvy marketers and self-promoters and used those abilities shamelessly to catapult their first time published books to best seller status on their first try. Ferris from what I've read on his blog, used exactly that, his blog and Internet presence to build an audience long before the book was published and also by ensuring he got connected to other best selling authors and learning from them and using their connections to make sure his book would get published and read by a large audience. In another biography I read on Arnold, when the publishers of his book told him he would need to go a 10 city book tour, his response was "why only 10 cities, why not 50 cites", because he understood that to get his book sold and read by a large audience he had to get the word out.

But where the similarities end, the differences are quite pronounced. Though I do admire Ferriss and his marketing savvy, and his ability to articulate his agenda in an intelligent, if somewhat shallow way, I can't help but a feeling that his methods do not have long term viability. In addition, somewhat like Arnold, he's big on his athletic achievements but many seem exaggerated, and many if from what I've read online are unsubstantiated. Arnold, on the other hand, does not need to exaggerate anything, as he won the greatest bodybuilding championship 7 times, was at one time the highest paid actor, has made millions not only from acting, but owning real estate, a publishing company, restaurants and even leases a 747 airplane to southeast Asian countries, and is now governor of California, America's largest economy. His success and track record are for real, and when you read in his book about the psychological attitude he utilized such as goal setting and visualization and the use of good old fashion hard work, determination and perseverance, he never advocates a get quick success scheme.

In all fairness to Ferriss, he understands well the need for a catchy title and book cover and the frustrations of all the corporate cogs stuck in their Dilbertesque cubicles and to bank on their frustrations of now only working a dull and frustration job for long hours, but having that very job be outsourced to another country! And despite the ease with which he makes it all sound, there was much planning, strategic surveying, and persistent hard work to get his book and the image surrounding it to sell as well as it has. I think if anything, you can learn a great deal from how he got to where he is, and is in fact the very kind of traits Arnold talks about in his book that lead him to his success.

Not to berate the general attitude of this great country, but I think America has too much of a mentality of quick fixes and gains. Don't like your physical appearance, just to do plastic surgery or suck the fat out with liposuction. Likewise, all the get rich schemes too many to mention that permeate our national psyche. Reading how an immigrant like Arnold Schwarzenegger achieve his success with a positive attitude, gold old fashion hard work, determination, persistence, setting objective and attainable goals resonates with me much more deeply, especially since my parents are in his same age range and immigrated to this country with nothing and achieved success using his principles.

In conclusion, while I find Ferriss's book a bit gimmicky and shallow in details of how he achieved his lifestyle, it is still a worthwhile read and though many could claim much of his advice is common sense, if we all lived life utilizing true common sense intelligence, wouldn't we be all successful? Arnold's suggestions are to set clear and objective goals, visual yourself achieving success, and working hard everyday to achieve your vision. What could be more common sense?

Both books are worthwhile reads, but if you had to choose one, I'd pick Arnold's any day. His successful record speaks for itself.