Books Read in 2011 .... from Ocean City, New Jersey
One just manages to gain a little time on our tiny barrier island here in Ocean City, NJ during this festive time of the year. Between wrapping up a real surprise sale contract that will close in mid-January (a surprise at this time of year here in our resort community) and working on my 2012 "life plan" (,after reading Paula Hathaway's excellent blog post), I managed to finish a wonderful book by Walter Isaacson ... Steve Jobs (2011). I really wanted to read this one so I went down to the local library and found a free copy ... but I thought I'd probably not get around to it until after the 25th of December. But I got so involved in reading it, I found enough time to finish the book ... buy one for our son - being shipped out to California right now, and take enough notes to be able to add a few thoughts into my life plan as well.
By the way, before I forget ... check out my next posting where I will highlight some of the books that I read this year ... and in a second posting, suggest some others that just caught my eye in the weekend issue of the Wall Street Journal. There is nothing more satisfying then to have a great list of book to contimplate reading in the coming months.
As I read "STEVE JOBS," I was so impressed in the effort made by Walter Isaacson ... his interviews, his interesting organization of the book, as well as the intriguing life of Steve Jobs. As I read on, I couldn't help but to look at his 1955 birth comparing it to my own 13 years earlier and our son's birth 19 years after. In so doing, I looked at how so much had changed during this time frame causing the book to mean that much more for myself and my son who happens to be in that business out in California.
I then looking at some meaning from the book that I might apply to real estate and my work in that field. Now I don't take notes on all my readings, but I did with this one. Let's look at "the Apple Marketing Philosophy" and think of it for our own business: "(empathy) ... an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer - we will truly understand their needs better than any other company; (focus) ... in order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities; and (impute) ... it emphasized that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys - people do judge a book by its cover."
I did find Steve Jobs to be a challenging and often very difficult person/manger/companion/etc. But, as Isaacson states at the end of the book, he was "the great business executive of our era." Don't go to long without getting a copy of this book and reading it!!! dap
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