Other Interests: pursuing your passion

Anonymous lawyer gets his just rewards!

Anonymous Lawyer is a novel developed from a blog.

It is funny, outrageous, sad, bitter, twisted and perceptive.

If you are or have been a lawyer (or worked in any professional services firm) you will recognise one of the characters.

Well written and worth reading.

Best of 2006

The usual "best of ..." articles are being published.

I thought these were worth noting:

• Wired's 300 best gear and gadgets
• best innovation and design books
• New York Times 100 notable books
• 10 places to get free images
• top 10 YouTube videos
• top 50 blogging resources
• Top 10 mistakes in web design

The Echo Maker: brain damage and our identity

The usual stories you read in the newspaper about brain damage discuss the person's change of personality and the burden on the spouse or other carer. Sometimes a story will focus on the "oddity" aspect: such as the SMH story on the man with an uncontrollable sex drive after an accident.

Richard Powers' The Echo Maker focuses on a man who cannot recognise his sister after an accident and his search for his memory, starting with the cause of his accident. Along the way we meet his sister, a neurologist author and the cranes who come to Nebraska each year.

This is a compelling story which shows the frustrations of all involved: the victim, the family, the doctors, the friends. There is a satisfactory resolution but not necessarily on all levels.

New York Review of Books' review by Margaret Atwood.

Celebrate success

Launching John Trigger's first novel Upshot last night, Jim Soorley (former Brisbane Lord Mayor) made the point that celebrating an achievement is just as important as the achievement itself.

And the publication of JohnTrigger's first novel is an achievement. Congratulations John!

Six word stories

Wired magazine asked science fiction and fantasy writers to write a story in 6 words. The results are great.

A sample: The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.Orson Scott Card

Climate change

The issue seems to be straightforward: we are creating too much carbon dioxide.

In The Threat to the Planet in the New York Review of Books, Jim Hansen summarises the issues in the climate change debate.

More info: The BBC Climate Change site.

Keeping it simple

Every now and then I go on a reading binge but the book that I've enjoyed most lately was one of the simplest and easiest to read: tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.

It's about Mitch's relationship with his former professor, who is dying.

One of Morrie's lessons: So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they 're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

Is your business really focussed on your customers?

The cliche of the moment is "customer-centric" but most businesses that claim to be focussed on customer satisfaction will only in fact do what the customer wants if it fits within the business' own policies and processes.

Want help? Sure, but not between 1 and 2, that's our lunchtime. Want a fixed meeting time? OK but we might have to keep you waiting for 30 minutes.

I recently saw a presentation by Gail Kelly the CEO of St.George Bank. She said her bank was totally focussed on her customers. How did she know? She said that independent surveys of banks measured how many customers were thinking of switching to another financial institution. Whilst the average was around 18% , the result for her bank was NIL! She described how her bank was structured to achieve that goal. She talked about how she got the right people for the right job.She talked about her role as a leader to ensure the customer focus continued. And of course it reflected in continuing increasing profits.

If a bank can do it, why can't professional service firms?

Matt Homann has 3 great posts by Ron Baker : 1 on what it means to have a customer and 2 on repositioning professional firms (starting with pricing in The firm of the past and The firm of the future) so that they are truly customer focussed.

And even though Baker discusses the need to move from hourly billing to value pricing, it's not just about the money element. It's about looking at things from the customer's point of view: what are they getting from you, not time but a result. Not efficiency but effectiveness. A customer's measurement of satisfaction is different from that of most professional service providers. Until a business's KPI's for customer satisfaction are the same as the customers' how can they claim to be customer-centric?

Book Review: Fat, Forty and Fired

Nigel Marsh's Fat, Forty and Fired is not a "do it  yourself" change your life book. But it is a very readable  account of the author's attempt to take advantage of a forced redundancy by spending one year not working and helping his family.

What is clear through the humorous stories is that the author understands that to repair his relationships with his  wife and four children he first needs to fix himself: by acknowledging his alcoholism, losing weight and changing his priorities.

As an English advertising executive in Australia he has plenty of material to work with. He is not your average house-husband: he attends Quaker meetings, trains for an ocean swimming race and fits in a European holiday.

This is a very easy to read book with enough personal insights to give every man (and woman) food for thought.

Grug: now animated

My friends Bob and Leigh have completed a clay animation of the classic children's story Grug.

Now they're looking for a distributor and funding to do the whole series.

Anyone interested? They deserve some support.