At a board meeting of a business association for which I serve as director, we were debating on what to do since one of the directors had to cut short his term because of a reassignment.

So, we debated on what to do.  After an hour of discussing it, one director said, " hey wait, I’m sure our article of incorporation and charter should have a provision for this."

Which it did.  So essentially that solved the problem for which over an hour of debate did not.

I just noted that we have had many meetings on which we keep revisiting old issues for which past meetings and our process rulebook has already defined a solution.  However, by keeping the debate up, and soliciting new ideas and discussion whenever the same problem occurs, the meeting actually end up making the issue murky and confusing.

Maybe the next time there is an issue, a good way to find a solution fast is to check past records and minutes of the meeting, or simply consult the rule book.  Why keep reinventing the wheel?

Tomorrow’s Trends: Trends in outsourcing white collar work

I found some interesting insights in a Booz Allen paper concerning the growing trend in outsourcing white-collar work.

First, companies will increasingly go offshore for talent, not for lowering costs. The current thought process is that the main reason to outsource is to reduce costs. That may be true for more rote activates, but as outsourcing becomes more white-collar, companies will be looking for specific skills and talents.

A Classic detailed workout on launching a site during these days.

Guy Kawasaki, famous tech evangelist and author,  enumerates the steps and the expense of launching a social web site.

How to Change the World: By the Numbers: How I built a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site for $12,107.09

4. I learned four lessons launching Truemors:

1.

There’s really no such thing as bad PR.
2.

$12,000 goes a very long way these days.
3.

You can work with a team that is thousands of miles away.
4.

Life is good for entrepreneurs these days.

I have similar feelings.  Book Summaries or abstracts are great, but if you want to get the essence, it is always commendable to go for the original work.

Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog: Books vs. Book Summaries

As I started to read The Black Swan I noticed that getAbstract offered a summary of it. I read the summary last weekend, and although I’m sure it was both accurate and thorough, I didn’t have the same sense of satisfaction I had when I finished reading Taleb’s original work. That’s when I realized that I truly enjoy all the little stories and side-bars he tends to fill his books with — those elements simply cannot be recreated effectively in a summary, period.

So while I still love the getAbstract service, I’ve learned that there are occasions where it’s still more enjoyable to read the book itself. In the business book world, these cases will be few and far between for me, but it’s important to note that they do exist!