5 comments about Voices into Choices: Acting on the Voice of the Customer.

1. The Voice of the Customer is an emerging discipline in global business today. "Voices into Choices" is one of the best text I have read on the subject of how to go about obtaining, analyzing and turning customer data into innovative solutions. The book is laid out in easy to follow chapters that takes you through a simple step by step process. Each chapter starts out with a one page summary of that particular step. Additionally this page is very useful to go back to as a review. At the end of each chapter is a checklist that enables you to make sure you are ready to move onto the next step. The book is conveniently wire bound to keep it open to the page you need. If you are interested in optimizing your customer research, this book is for you.



2. The principles used in this book are some of the most useful I have come across. In one book it allows teams to analyse a problem in a structured way, come up with solutions and make execution plans. All without the members of the teams killing in each other. The techniques allow people to do this because it is based on logic and fact instead of opinion.



3. As a Research Fellow with the Procter & Gamble I purchased over 200 copies of this to provide a training framework for our people in Product Development positions worldwide who have responsibilities for understanding, and more importantly effectively translating the consumer's desires into breakthrough products. This 'manual' demystifies this very human process in exciting -not boring- formats. The processes described are those that were once only understood by a limited number of professionals. Voices into Choices makes listening, gathering, digesting, and communicating consumer needs a fundamental new skill that can be learned and mastered by an infinite range of businesses, profit and non-profit.

   I have used the skills learned to map needs for several new, global P&G products, and at the same time used it for my church long-range planning process. These are core skills that seem boundless; only limited by the imagination of the person who has learned them.

   Although I have recently retired from P&G, it will stay as a primer that I will continue to use my consulting business.




4. This book captures a process we relied on heavily at McKinsey and Co. It is a step by step guide to helping project teams understand, interpret and act upon the customers' needs. This book is helpful to anyone running a project - whether it is an internal or external project. As the president of a large business, I am ready to buy this book for my entire staff. I would be thrilled if my employees ran projects in this manner and streamlined their communication with me. One of the most useful books I have read in the last five years and hopefully one that my staff will quickly adopt as their process they use to manage.



5. I have used the Voice of the Customer and Concept Engineering processes for the past 7 years at both large and small companies and have continued to relly on this book. The process can be well adapted based on the scope of the project. The book is very cleary laid out and is an excellent reference. It is packed full of helpful tips and information. I recommend it to anyone wanting to proactively listen to their customers.

2 comments about Energy Systems and Sustainability.

1. This book, and its companion "Renewable Energy", are excellent introductory books to the topic of energy. The basics are explained in clear language, the references are up-to-date and the graphics are colorful and very helpful. These two books take a HUGE topic and make it understandable and interesting. I hope that new editions continue to be published.
   
   If I had to make one complaint, it's that it's focused on the UK, which in terms of energy is a relatively small country. But in today's world, that is a minor issue. The book gives you the tools you need evaluate other sources of information.



2. The author presents an overall about the Renewable Energy Sources (RES). I recommend this book for those ones with no previous experience in this subject. Good book for a fresh start in RES business.

5 comments about Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality.

1. It is subtitled "Essays on Man's Relationship to Materiality"...and my copy perhaps is almost ready for the Smithsonian. So much for my relationship with my materiality, eh? Well, I'm still learning. This book is one of his most accessible collections, his writing style here is so light and readable that it's clear that he is getting a kick out of his own whimsical turning of phrases. The words, the symbols, the images, the numbers in which we define reality are NOT reality and according to Watts, we confuse our descriptive world with what is really going on, thus we are distanced and numbed to real situations in the real world...we become blind to nature, we fail to connect to the living vibrations. These essays--I know, yet more descriptives--are designed for us to recognize the problem. (Money is not wealth. We are not our clothes. Food is not the packaging it is placed in.) These essays tell us ways we can connect to the cosmic consciousness...so we can avoid self destruction. One of the best essays is the short piece on Zen scholar DT Suzuki in which, I find, has the best line about both Suzuki and the Alan Watts of this text...it is "as if he had seen the Ultimate Joke and as if, out of compassion for those who had not, he were refraining from laughing out loud." Well, that is almost the way I have often been described, like I've told a joke that few people get...Anyway one of Watt's best, it's a pity is no longer in catalogue....



2. If you think this book is about getting your priorities straight and considering what really matters, don't bother. This book is alot of junk ideas from the sixties. I threw the book in the garbage so that no other unsuspecting person would get it. What a disappointment.



3. Alan Watts is one of my favorite philosophers. His wisdom is timeless, and his views refreshing in this age of mass media hype and overplayed political propaganda. Does it Matter? That is an important question for everyone to ask themselves. I'm not going to list here the many topics covered in this volume, and certainly I'm not equal to Watts in trying to explain it. The book is worth owning even for his writing about children. One can get a whole new perspective on the Columbine shootings, for example, by reading what Watts said about children several decades before. Columbine wasn't a surprise. It's a great book for those who take time to think about life and the real way of the world.



4. Certainly one of the best of Alan's books I've read! Written towards the end of his life, it details various things that had happened to him, and explains how and why he developed from them. Very readable. I'd suggest this is the book to get to see if you like Alan's style of writing, although his others are somewhat deeper.



5. You need to be an Alan Watts fan to fully appreciate this book; it is not the place to start if you are just getting into him, but it is important if you want a fully representative collection of this brilliant man's work.
   
   Watts' writings, considered as a whole, come close to providing a workable philosophy of life. This book contains essays, some quite funny, about materialism. But it wouldn't make much sense unless you were already familiar with his more important and serious work explaining and translating Buhddist and Hindu thought and practice into Western terms.

1 comments about How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take To Change a Christian?: A Pocket Guide to Shrinking Your Ecological Footprint.

1. I bought this as part of our church's effort to be better stewards of our property. This was the most superficial of works. It had nothing new to offer and was certainly not worth $8.00. I would compare it to an article in a mass market periodical. For a church that is watching its budget, it was a real waste of money.

4 comments about The Plot to Save the Planet: How Visionary Entrepreneurs and Corporate Titans Are Creating Real Solutions to Global Warming.

1. The author explains that "green= growth". Ultimately,
   carbon emissions drive costs up on many fronts.
   Traffic jams cost $65 billion dollars annually.
   
   The book provides some unique engineering feats to
   promote the "green" goal. For instance, a raised floor
   in a building facilitates an efficient use of the
   duct system so that night air cools the building from
   the bottom up. Resultingly, less air conditioning is used.
   
   
   The Pope Manufacturing Co, of Hartford has built an
   electric car costing $98,000. The Tesla auto costs .02/mile
   to drive. Transportation is known to account for 20% of
   Greenhouse gases. Walmart has cut back energy use by
   creating "green supercenters" . Lower energy use means more
   profits. i.e. This feat is accomplished by using motion
   sensors to control the freezer light.
   
   The German government guarantees that renewable energy
   companies will make money. Heiner Gartner has created a
   solar energy complex ; wherein, 10,000 solar panels
   fuel 1500 houses. Q Cells is a profitable solar energy
   company. Carbon sequestration is a process; wherein,
   greenhouse gases are buried. The ABB Grid System is a
   Swiss company specializing in power. The author explains
   a scenario; whereby. the Mojave Desert can power the
   entire West Coast.
   
   This book ought to be read by the entire USA Congress.



2. Fortune magazine veteran Brian Dumaine has just published a highly readable new book. It will be of interest to anyone in need of having their spirits lifted from the assumptions that we will be hostages forever to third world oil despots, or that global warming must inevitably lead to Pittsburgh being the next great beach town.
   He identifies technological advances that are likely to play a significant role in lessening our middle east oil Jones, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What makes this an exciting read is that these are not theoretical laboratory experiments, these are tested technologies that are already working their way into daily economic life, or at minimum are in the prototype stage. My favorite is the algae that eats carbon and poops biodiesel.
   Dumaine is a guy who looks more at home in wingtips than Birkenstocks - another reason to feel some optimism after reading the book. He has done his own research and filtered all these ideas through the screen of how much venture capital each idea is attracting. The VCs get plenty of things wrong, but it is not usually because they have failed to thoroughly consider the economic viability of an idea, and these all pass the test.
   Read it. You'll sleep better.



3. Brian Dumaine's "The Plot to Save the Planet" is excellent. As a college student interested in environmental issues, I hear a lot about the coming environmental apocalypse and the heavy burden of CO2 that my generation will inherit. How refreshing to read about real ways to turn the tide!
   
   Dumaine's book focuses on green technologies that have been substantially developed and invested in already -- technologies that can help to reduce our carbon footprint today, whose impact will only grow as investors and consumers continue to recognize their green power and economic viability. It is fueled by the idea that the same creative, entrepreneurial sensibility that got us into this climate change pickle can --- and will --- get us out of it.
   
   "The Plot" covers everything from electric cars to carbon munching algae to green architecture. It is divided by chapter into segments on each of these topics, profiling green up-starts and their venture capital supporters, describing how the new technologies work, how they could reduce our CO2 output, and how they are getting big. Each chapter represents one part of the puzzle, and Dumaine shows that a mosaic of all these new ideas could have an enormous effect.
   
   The book is infused with the author's enthusiasm for the possibilities offered by these new technologies, and the enthusiasm is contagious. "The Plot to Save the Planet" is a highly informative, fun read, written for the layman. Check it out --- you'll enjoy yourself, learn a lot, and feel much better about the many ways we can turn around our energy crisis.



4. I found this very interesting, but not as hopeful as I think Brian Dumaine intended. All the green ideas and enterprises envisioned by the entrepreneurs that Dumaine talked to depend on being cost effective. Solar panels, wind turbines, scrubbed coal, safe nuclear, ponds of algae eating CO2, ethanol from switchgrass, etc., will not be developed until they can produce energy as cheaply as fossil fuels. Dumaine even has a chapter with a subtitle that spells it out: Chapter 2: "Green is the Color of Money: Nothing Happens without Money."
   
   These green alternatives will become cost effective when governments either install a carbon tax that will raise the cost of fossil fuels or otherwise subsidize the green alternatives. Dumaine, incidentally likes the idea of a carbon tax as opposed to what is called a "cap and trade" system in which companies or nations that do little polluting can sell shares to companies or nations that are polluting more. In this way corporations and nations will be encouraged through the marketplace to reduce their polluting ways. The sad thing is that right now it looks like the world as a whole and the US in particular are not ready to decide which, if either, of these solutions to employ.
   
   Another way green alternatives can become cost effective is to wait until fossil fuels become scarce and therefore so expensive that solar, wind, etc., are cheap without subsidies. The danger with this plan--which is the one we have been following willy-nilly--is that by then we may be berthing our ships at the port of Memphis, Tennessee and growing our bananas by Canada's Hudson Bay. That is, if we're lucky. More likely we will be engaged in brutal warfare for scarce resources while we watch the poor people of the world starve to death. And in any case our standard of living will plummet since the relatively high standard of living we enjoy today is based on available, inexpensive energy which will become scarce without alternatives.
   
   Reading this book makes it clear that our energy and pollution problems are with us not because we lack ideas on how to combat them. Dumaine demonstrates that there are ideas aplenty, from hydrogen fuel cells to solar panel farms to ocean wave turbines to geothermal energy, etc. What we lack is the political will to do what is necessary to enact these ideas and the wisdom to choose the right combinations since it is clear that there is no single solution to replacing fossil fuels. When I say "political will" I mean we have to elect people who will have the courage and the foresight to look beyond tomorrow's bottom line and see the consequences clearly some decades down the road when fossil fuels will be in short supply relative to demand, when the only economically feasible answer will be to burn massive amounts of coal in the quick and dirty way coal is burned today. The result will be the return of the horrific pollution that darkened the skies of 19th century London, only this time the extent of the clouds will be greatly increased.
   
   Another disturbing thing about reading this hopeful and very interesting book is what has happened since the book was written. With the global financial crisis upon us, the venture capital for green alternatives has dried up like a shallow pond fanned by hot desert winds. Suddenly we are not using as much oil as we did just a few months ago. The result: a precipitous fall in the price of oil. What this means is that many green alternative projects are suddenly not cost effective. Oil at $150 a barrel makes solar and wind farms good investments. At $50 a barrel, they are likely to lose money.
   
   Incidentally--or not so incidentally, depending on your perspective--our children and grandchildren, whether they like it or not, are subsidizing our use of fossil fuels. They will have to pay the environmental costs. Dumaine quotes Hermann Scheer, a member of Germany's parliament as expressing this view, and then explains: "...though it looks like we now enjoy cheap fossil fuels, the fact is that we are dumping the real costs--the droughts and floods caused by global warming, air pollution, and world conflicts--on our children and their children. It is not the legacy decent people should leave their offspring." (p. 171)
   
   Dumaine estimates this de facto subsidy at about $500-billion worldwide per year. He estimates that the true price of gas to society is $3 to $4 more than we currently pay. (p. 172) If the real cost were added on in the form of a carbon tax, green alternatives would become cost effective and investors would not fear becoming suddenly priced out by an OPEC decision to pump a lot more oil.
   
   In answer to those who think that green technologies need to stand on their own without government subsidies, Dumaine notes that "many twentieth-century American industries would not have developed as quickly as they did--if at all--without government largesse." He points to the auto industry which benefited from the billions of federal dollars that our government invested in the interstate highway system as an example. He could add the trucking industry as well.
   
   One of the reasons for this head in the sand attitude so prevalent in the United States is the faith-based belief that the future will take care of itself or that something like the "rapture" will come and make all our good intentions moot. And then there are people who care only about themselves and the here and now. Not so strangely that is the way corporations, by their very nature, "think." It is these short-sighted and bottom-line directed entities that are largely making the decisions for us about how we will fuel our economies. We need to make those decisions ourselves.

No comments about The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook: When it All Comes Together.

No comments about The Power of Sustainable Thinking: How to Create a Positive Future for the Climate, the Planet, Your Organization and Your Life.

3 comments about The Natural Step for Business: Wealth, Ecology & the Evolutionary Corporation (Conscientious Commerce).

1. This is a terrifc book in that it not only lucidly explains the framework of the Natural Step but also gives some excellent practical examples of major corporations starting down the path towards sustainability. This will give them a great competitive edge. With examples like the Natural Step model being applied by the likes of IKEA and Interface one can remain optimistic in the face of the torrent of negatives about the degenerating nature of the world environment. I hope that this book will encourgae others to look nto what the Natural Step has to offer..



2. The authors provide a real service with this book. So far much of the published work on The Natural Step framework has remained conceptual, without a lot of practical examples of the model in practice. The case examples of IKEA, Collins Pine, and Interface provide valuable references for organizational managers and consultants who are working to build more sustainable organizations. I highly recommend this book.



3. Exceptional book describing the background of the Natural Step process but more importantly provides evidence that companies who embrace sustainabilty in every aspect will be well rewarded for their efforts. Well done with loads of detail.

5 comments about Fourth Generation Management: The New Business Consciousness.

1. While I think the title "Fourth Generation Management" overstates its impact, I wish every senior manager in corporate America would read this book. Many of today's larger corporations are filled with managers so busy fighting for their own promotion (or survival) that their decisions and actions fail to move the organization towards its goals. Adding to the problem is a general laziness in the thought processes displayed by many career-minded individuals. Further compounding the problem is the mindless tampering that always seems to backfire, resulting in increased costs and waste. In this very readable book, Brian Joiner provides solid explanations for these phenomena and offers insight into how to address these issues. As a management consultant, I often recommend this book to my clients. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me - adamleft@webspan.net.



2. Joiner, being Deming's former protégé, has not let the latter down by the technical content of this book. It is straightforward and realistic in its teachings and does not glorify the illustrious side of 'Quality' and its affiliated managerial principles. Most managers should find it relatively easy and practical enough to apply.

   A manual well written.




3. To survive in today's business environment, it's not enough to just keep improving - you have to do it faster than the other guy does. Brian L. Joiner provides valuable direction in how to get better faster. This approach transcends goal-based management by focusing on the needs of the customer. Only then do apparent contradictions between customer service and cost-cutting become manageable again. The author admits that the teachings of management guru W. Edwards Deming heavily influences his advice. We at getAbstract recommend this very helpful work to managers searching for a more enlightened, more effective approach. It will be particularly useful for those who need a strong rationale to do what they already think is right.



4. This is an excellent book, with many breakthrough ideas explained in a very compelling way.
   
   I recommend this book for practitioners working with Lean, Systems thinking or general operational improvement, however, if you are into six-sigma you will not understand the profound knowledge this book contains.
   
   There are a many reasons why I like this book, it has some memorable insights and phrases. Such as `don't work on costs, work on the causes of costs'.
   
   Joiner also highlights how most managers manage their business without any theory behind their actions.. `We should be thankful if the action of management is based on theory...'
   
   Joiner relentlessly pushes the notion that organisations must be `understood and managed as a `system', while developing process thinking, making decisions on customer data and understanding the theory of variation'.
   
   He then goes on to say that the typical management response to calls for improvement is to either 1) distort the system or 2) distort the figures instead of improving the system.
   
   Most people in the world of operational improvement will have come across the Deming PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) cycle, Joiner explains and supports this process very well but he adds a significant insight, what he says is, that when starting to make improvements you must start at CHECK, in fact he devotes a whole chapter to this important variation on Deming's PDCA theme. `Performing check is what most organisations fail to do. Check uncovers things we would just as soon not know, it forces us to look at the huge wastes in each of our activities and exposes it all, and the non productive or plain stupid things we have unknowingly been doing for years. It creates the gut level energy to do a better job of taking Action, of Planning and Doing'.
   
   Joiner states that `a fundamental tenant is that nothing happens in a predictable, sustainable way unless you build mechanisms that cause it to happen in a predictable sustained way'
   
   He talks about listening to management conversations for insights into the organisations real intent and focus he says ... `The way top management spends its time and the questions they ask of each other and the rest of the organisation is critical in determining the focus of the organisation.'
   
   The book goes on to explain how to reduce process variation, the sections about how managers respond to variation would be amusing if they were not real, i.e. how managers work on the people instead of working on the system and the injustice that results in addition to the loss in organisational performance.
   
   A good example of system variation resulting in perverse decisions and behaviour is illustrated by an example Joiner uses in telling a real story about a bank teller, who on several occasions got rewarded for her performance and at other times chastised....finally, she was unlucky enough to loose her job. Later, when talking to a friend she said that she never understood why she being praised because she hadn't done anything different and likewise the chastisement. Further conversation revealed that she had been a victim of system variation, the performance factors were attributed to her and not where they should have been that is to the system in which she worked. Essentially she had lost the Variation Lottery. He quotes Dr. Lloyd Nelson `failure to understand variation is the central problem of management'
   
   Joiner also wallops the inappropriate use of standards (accreditation schemes like ISO and BSI) because they are a barrier to improvement and creativity. He argues that standards far from improving the organisation often result in a loss of performance. `They stifle creativity, deflect attention from customers, increase red tape and make work inflexible, while providing only the minimum acceptable outputs'
   
   When it comes to people motivation he states that `to optimise the organisation as a whole, intrinsic motivation works better that rewards and punishment'
   
   Finally he states that in order to get `better results you must have better methods' and he goes on to explain what those methods are.
   
   This is a fine book, with excellent practical ideas as long as you see people as an asset capable of improving their own workplace and not as a cost to be `managed'.



5. Brian Joiner really captures the key concepts leaders need to understand to lead their businesses today. His explanation of variation should open many eyes and help many businesses avoid over-correction and over-compensation for what is just occurring. And that is just one of the many useful concepts this book provides.
   
   This book is a classic and should be core to business school curricula.

5 comments about Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture.

1. This book creates a false alarm about our future limited by fossil energy availability, energy utilization, and its impact on food production. The author says the US population has already exceeds the level of long-term sustainability. Increased malnutrition and even starvation are possibilities. The author has selected data to support his own nightmare of a very dramatic food crisis within our lifetimes.
   
   He appears to imply that the food and energy crisis in North Korea may be an example of what will happen to the world, without discussing North Korea's dictatorial government and its military expenditures, including preparations for nuclear weapon manufacture and their delivery. He says that the increased food productivity due to the Green Revolution is largely due just to increased fossil energy usage, but new plant varieties and agricultural technologies are most important for the successes of the green revolution.
   
   The author, D. A. Pfeiffer, does not clearly acknowledge that domestic coal, and then shale can be processed, in an environmentally benign manner, into transportation fuels and nitrogen fertilizer with proven technologies, when oil and natural gas availability becomes a truly economy limiting energy constraint for our nation.
   
   The author has his agenda to promote permaculture and similar agricultural technologies, and blames the government and agricultural industries for these technologies not being utilized now. He does not acknowledge that less that 2% of our US population are farmers, and that they feed us in a very economical manner, as a result of large-scale agriculture, use of considerable inanimate energy, and improved technologies. In contrast, the author advices, "Sustainable agriculture, for all intents and purposes, means a return to small scale farming, where the acreage can be managed by a family, and a horse or mule with a plow." (P. 69) Which option would you choose? This reviewer labored very hard on his father's medium-sized farm until college graduation, and then I chose not to return to the farm. This choice of not to farm is made by many rural youths. For this reason our rural population declines and increases in average age.



2. I wish I had read this book last year, I would already have prepared a vegetable garden to plant this spring. I know about Peak Oil, etc. but this book really got my attention. It provides a clear explanation of how dependent our food supply is on fossil fuels. Higher and higher food prices are in store for us, soon. And that's before we start to see food shortages. The agricultural land in the U.S. can only support about 200 million people, and we have almost 300 million. Plus this agriculture is heavily dependent on oil (to run the irrigation pumps, harvest, process and transport the products), and natural gas (to make fertilizer..who knew?). In a politically unstable world of rising fuel prices, not to mention a future without those fuels, do we really want to rely on imported food to feed our nation? Or go to war over food? This book outlines the problems and has an action plan and extensive list of resources to help solve the problems. Yes! There are things you can do to avert this crisis, whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country.
   Spade up those (organic) Victory Gardens, folks, and learn how to provide and preserve at least some of your own food. Support your local food producers. This year. You'll be glad you did.



3. I bought this book by Mr. Dale Allen Pfeiffer even after reading his horrible book "The End of the Oil Age." I don't care who this author hates, blames or votes for. I did buy Eating Fossil fuels and I must say that I am glad I did. It's a good work! It's professional. It's well written and in this book the author is not foaming at the mouth political. All liberal democrats leaning to the left just love Cuba and it's redistributing of wealth and the Cuban miracle. The Cubans decided to get up and grow vegetables rather than starving to death. Really, you guys give them too much credit for doing what's necessary to eat. Overall, I liked Mr. Pfeiffer's book. It's well done. Regards, Keith Renick, Peachtree City, Ga.



4. One good thing about this book is that the author does not need 300 pages to explain the Oil/Agricuture relation. What I liked most of this book is the explanation on the evolution of agricuture to these days, making clear that Oil is an important contributor to production performance, due to the use of fertilizers, pesticides and of course the energy derived from it in Industrial Agriculture. I agree with the author that we are beginning a transition to a new way of living, not pleasant, due to the fact that oil depletion will make difficult to attain a sustainable agriculture, even a sustainable civilization with the population numbers we have. The effects are visible, inflation and food crisis.
   Most people think that technology will remedy the situation, but if you read more about energy you will realize the future's precarious situation. Governments in the world need to put an eye on it and start doing energy projects, particularly Nuclear. India must control its population growth also. I have my opinion on Cuba but considering all this is a very informative book.



5. Even though I believe that this book is on an important subject, I thought that the material was overly brief and only stated what others have said without proof. Seemed really short on background facts and technical reasoning.