Faction and fiction - some of my absolute favorites:

Bengtsson Frans G; Röde Orm

Bryson, Bill; Neither here nor there, Mother Tongue, A Short Story of Nearly Everything, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

Ballard, J.G.; Empire of the Sun

Coetzee, J.M; Elizabeth Costello,

Fry, Stephen; Paperweight

Grey, Anthony; Peking, Saigon

Ishiguro, Kazuo; When we were Orphans

Kneale, Matthew; English Passengers

Kjaerstad, Jan; Erövraren, Förföraren

Lewis, Michael; Liars Poker

Lewycka, Marina; A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian - Saga Award for Wit 2005

Lindgren, Torgny; Pölsan

Lundell, Ulf; Jack

Lodge, David; Nice Work, Small World and many more

Lurie Alison; Foreign Affairs

Mitchell, David; Cloud Atlas

Morris,Jan; A Writers World

Naipaul, V.S.; Magic Seeds

Niemi, Mikael; Populärmusik från Vittula

Roberts, Gregory, David; Shantaram

Robinson, Marilynne; Gilead

Roy, Arundhati; The God of Small Things

Theroux, Paul; Dark Star Safari

Townsend Sue; The Queen and I

Tunström Göran; Berömda män som varit i Sunne

Wolfe, Tom; The Bonfires of Vanities and many more

Updike, John; Villages

 

 

Writing this on the plane back from the International Workshop of Electronic Payment and E-commerce in China - held in Chengdu - the multimillion capital of Sechuan. As always amazed by the speed of progress in China and the hospitality and puzzled by the challenge to the environment that the economic growth there and everywhere else pose.

My presentation was dealing with e-business- and e-public- sector-embedded e-banking - much focusing on e-commerce payments and e-invoicing as stressed also in this blog earlier.

Took to re-reading one of my favorites: David Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined - one iconic book for sure. Picked up the following:

Space
The real-world treats it as measurable distances indifferent to human needs.
The web as links among pages representing a spring of human interest.

Time
Real-world: ticking clocks and the relentless schedules they enable.
The Web: time runs as intertwining threads and stories

Perfection
Real-world: an ideal we humans always disappoint
The Web: perfection just gets in the way

Social groups
Real-world: becomes more impersonal as they grow
The Web: individuals retain their faces no matter how large the group becomes

Matter
Real-world: stuff that exists independent of us
The Web: pages that we have built full of intention and meaning

Moral
Real-world: we follow a set of principles
The Web: authenticity, emphaty and enthusiasm guide our interactions

And much more that should be realized by all sorts of management today.

Good reading

My recent favourites in business and IT:

Business – my ranking
Surowiecki, James; The Wisdom of Crowds - how collective wisdom shapes business
Benkler, Yochai; The Wealth of Networks
Korkman, Oskar; Customer Value Formation in Practise
Gilbert, David; Stumbling on Happiness
Battelle, John; The Search – the Google story
Weinberger, David; Small Pieces loosely Joined
Moore Geoffrey A.; Dealing with Darwin - innovate forever
Tapscott, Don; Growing up Digital - the net generation
Peters, Tom; Thriving on Chaos
Dixon, Patrick; Futurewise

Technology – my ranking
Barry, Douglas K.; Web Services and Service-Oriented Architectures
Newcomer, Eric; Understanding Web Services
Marks, Eric A & al Executive’s Guide to Web Services
Kaye, Douglas; Loosely Coupled
Daconta, Michael C; The Semantic Web