Cookbooks: 300 and Counting

(Photo credit: chotda)

I must have at least 300 cookbooks. I never counted them but there are stacks of them by my bed to be
read, a teetering stack on top of the fridge (perhaps I should look into life insurance should I choose to continue living this dangerously). I have horizontal stacks at my mother's house, stored in her library. I have piles of them in tote bags in the trunk of my car. I also belong to cook book clubs where I get a monthly selection. I scour second hand book stores for out of print treasures. It's how I learned
how to cook. 

My very first cookbook was given to me when I was just married. It was called the  Daughter-in-Law Cookbook and I tried every recipe at least a couple of times. Since then I've known many cookbooks, but become intimate with a select few that are now worn well and stained  much. Favorites include Diane Lucas' French Cooking, Aby Mandel's Cuisinart Cookbook, The Plaza Cookbook with its hard to find old fashioned recipes, Martha Stewart's Cookbook for things like uncooked  tomato sauce, Luchow's Cookbook for the recipe for sauerbraten.....so many. And I can't wait to find more!

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ICT Article

PETALUMA, CA - AUGUST 16: A construction worker cuts a piece of wood on the top of a home under construction at a new housing development on August 16, 2011 in Petaluma, California. The Commerce Department reported that new home construction fell in July with homebuilders beginning construction on a seasonally adjusted 604,000 homes for the month, a 1.5 percent decline from June. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

I found an article about talking about a dissertation by Marianne Kivela. I thought it was quite interesting, and I wanted to share it on this blog. Hope you find it as interesting as I do. Many more posts to come, I promise! The gist of the work is that Finnish ICT companies focus on technology and processes, when they should be focusing on market inputs. In my experience this is the case in 90% of all Finnish ICT’s, but now it has been academically validated!

Marianne goes on to conclude that if ICT’s focused on flexible modular product development and had effective channels for market input they would be in a much better position to succeed. Hypothesis proven! Marianne claims to look at the problem from a more business orientated perspective. I just cannot wait to read her work!

Dr. Petri Salonen has written his dissertation on modular product development… I believe it was in 2004. The software industry with all its glamour is always a generation behind more mature industries like auto manufacturing and construction in their methods and processes. Auto manufacturers have for a few decades build cars from modular components in order to reduce their new product introduction cycles and cost structures. In the construction industry modular building techniques are even older. If we look at the open source community it is all about reusability and components… and that is why open source is flourishing. If we look at what is new in construction, it is self fastening modular locks. You lift walls in place and they seamlessly lock together without bolts, welding or hammering. What would be the equivalent for software? A universal API perhaps? Small software companies could specialize in innovating certain modular functions and the big boys could piece them together in an optimal configuration to meet market needs virtually on demand.

What comes to better channels of market input there is NO substitute for being present in person. My “framework” is simple. Find out where the largest concentrations of potential clients are and move your executives and product management there. If you are relying on analysts and third party market studies then good luck. Analysts are reactive by nature and influenced by resonance. If analysts had insight into the future they would be product vendors as the margins are a lot better. You can always outsource your road map development to a third party, but do they understand your dream the way you do? Will they change the world? If you don’t have a life altering vision then why are you developing products in any case? The worlds full of substitutes… we need life altering!

Get to the Bottom of Your Allergies

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