Books, books, books!

Jurgen Appelo of Noop.NL posted a great article about books. He posted 8 questions about books and I would take up the challenge and answer these questions.

1. How many books do you read (on average)?
I read about one book a month.

2. Which books did you read lately?
Peopleware
1001 Ways to Reward Employees
The 24-Hour Business: Maximizing Productivity Through Round-the-Clock Operations

3. Why did you choose to read those books?
The 1st two books are about team management and performance management. The 2nd book is about businesses running 24/7 schedules and how to optimize the operations. I am currently into operations management and these three topics are the most important areas that I am working on.

4. What is your (brief) opinion of those books?
These are niche market books with very specific topics. They did an excellent work in discussing, elaborating, providing lessons learned and best practices with the specific topics discussed.

5. What book are you reading now?
Toyota Talent: Developing Your People the Toyota Way
Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way

6. What is your opinion of that book so far?
Content-rich! These 2 books delved into the nitty gritty details of how Toyota produced and retained talented people.

7. Which books are you planning to read?
The 100 Best Business Books of All Time by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. I am still waiting for my order since the popular bookstores here in the Philippines do not have this book in their list yet.

8. Why do you intend to read those books?
I would like to know what are the additional business books that I need to add to my library.

9 Which 2 books had the biggest influence on you? (Olav Maassen added this question to the list)
The Greatest Salesman in the World
Jonathan Livingston Seagull

I read both books when I was still in secondary school and both gave me that profound sense of drive and motivation coupled with a healthy dose of optimism that enabled me to challenge myself constantly in order to rise against adversity and mediocrity and follow my dreams.

The Stork

This was one of the advertisements from Monster.com. Watch and be inspired by its powerful message.

Making Things Happen and The Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook

Each time I have a chance to go outside the Philippines, I bring with me a list of books that I am unable to buy locally. Thus, when travel beckoned a few months ago, I took the opportunity to buy the project management book, Making Things Happen by Scott Berkun.

This is the updated version of The Art of Project Management which I partially read before courtesy of a friend who lent me his copy for a few days. It was a great book chock-full of practical advices and best practices from a program manager who has been refined by Microsoft's "furnace."

Much to my dismay, both books are not available locally thus when I arrived to my destination, I immediately went to a Borders store and bought a copy of the book.

I also found another great book, The Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook. I am planning to take the Black Belt certification and this book is a great resource for re-learning the more than 100 tools and methodologies used in Six Sigma including that of Lean Six Sigma.

Career Timeline

I got the idea of a "career timeline" from the resume of my former Director and with his permission, I also applied the same concept to my own resume and made some revisions and improvements along the way. Here's how it looked like.



It was a straightforward graphical representation of my resume but portrayed, in an easily understandable medium and in so few words, my work experiences, competencies and trainings.

Unfortunately, this has been put to shame when I saw the resume of Michael Anderson. His resume elevated the career timeline into a different level. It is better viewed than described so click here to view his career timeline / visual resume. Click here as well to understand his thought processes behind his resume. I think my career timeline needs a makeover.