At the very first job I had in corporate America, one of my favorite experiences is picking up a Wall Street Journal on the way in every morning. Everyone gets a copy, from the intern to the execs, and certain subjects especially those that pertains to our industry make for fodder  in those social discussions at the happy hour.

Hence there is always this feeling that you are at work. Even now, I still have a strong tendency to talk about my industry at a social gatherings rather than nonsensical things like football (except Ohio State football of course) sports in general, fishing or  other mundane topics. My feeling is that I get enough of that from my non-work related friends.

But I digress, my real topic today is how to read newspapers and magazines - WSJ actually have a publication called, "How to read the WSJ". The key things is to realize that though most of the stories are half decent and interesting, there is just not enough time in the world to read them all and still be productive.

Recently I have increased my magazine subscriptions - and that is not counting my RSS feeds, favorite sites and also using the online version of businessweek.

This is about speed reading at its best. Rule 1 - scan. There is no point reading the whole thing. Scan, by reading blocks of word, read first or last sentences in paragraphs, this is a way of finding  the topic sentence.

Rule 2 - browse the magazine. These rules are in no particular order, however before you read a publication - flip through it to determine which articles or section are important to you and pick out one or two articles that you will read fully. Most often, it is not the main article which although interesting, may simply be too verbose.

Rule 3 - categorize, is this something you are reading for interest, education or entertainment. No one reads Maxim for education :) or do they?

Rule 4 - identify takeaways. So as not to have wasted your life on reading useless information, try to take one thing away from each reading. For me is is often a statistics - which made for good party fodder e.g. Do you know that more currencies are traded every week, that the size of the S&P 500 in the United States?

Have other rules -- do share in the comment section.

This is quite an interesting read and I urge you to read it.

The thesis is - the triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society. This is one of those universal political statements that apply not only in public life but in private life as well. Surely, I can think of exceptions, but that is not the point. The point is that there is something innately appealing about freedom. Freedom is the willingness to do whatever you please, as well as to do what is right, while taking responsibility for whatever you chose to do. 

Mark Skousen's Persuasion versus Force - Complete Text

Lunch time

How could you let me let myself down

I feel the pangs of hunger

Which wasn't there a few minutes ago

Was it because it time to test my free will again

Chorus

Lunch time

Lunch time

Lunch time

In my head I want to eat healthy

But you and I know I wouldn't

In fact I would rather not eat at all

but  be the health freak that goes for a run

what the heck the burrito is calling my name

and once again I would have let myself down

lunch time

chorus

lunch time

I want to eat healthy, but I know I wouldn't

Maybe I just need to stop eating at my desk

And go for a walk or something

This is really killing me slow

all because of my lunch time

Lunch time

Lunch time

The 50 best business blogs - Times Online

This is an interesting group of blog, with a British view, given the source. However, some of my favorites made it.

Including Posner and Becker (very cerebral)

Scobeleizer - this I used to read but he pissed me off so I am about TechCrunch and GigaOm now.

I plan on trying the ABI research on the wireless blog as well as the CleanTech blog in energy.

Check it out.

In an attempt to work on creating an accurate world view for myself, a plan in my mind is to review the front pages of the following electronic papers. But since there are so many I like. I will only look at 3 in the various categories every morning.

News/Business

1. WSJ
2. BBC
3. IBD

Africa/Nigeria

1. AllAfrica
2. NigeriaWorld
3. NVS

Social

1.TMZ

It is one thing to be lucky, quite another to be good. However, the important thing is to be self aware enough to recognize when one is lucky and when one is good. Complicating the issue, it the fact that those that are good often seems to make their luck. Pop research often claim that the prepared mind (or the good in this case) are more attuned to opportunities and hence tend to be luckier.

Making things is about making people. A good philosophy for a manufacturing operation similar to Toyota's philosophy is based on the foundation of hiring motivated people who are capable of learning. The best way to learn is by doing. In the process of continuous improvement hold teachers accountable when students don't learn. And the best learning occurs when the job is broken down into specific teachable tasks.

A common refrain is to say, "I will get to something as soon as I am less busy".

The reality is, we are never less busy. As if less busy is a state of having nothing to do, a state that is desirable. For most functional adult this is not the case, we are always busy it is a matter of priority, if there is nothing to do, we will make up something. Saying I will get to it when I am less busy is essentially saying this is not high on my priority right now.

An interesting way to look at is is various stages of professional life. As a student in high school, you are busy - there are many more classes to take, there is the challenge of wanting to do well. Therefore you have to prioritize your time between playing or studying. College is more of the same, more materials to read, but also more play options including spending time with friends, chasing the opposite sex, developing other interests etc, when you start working even more of the same.

The epiphany is, the balance is in prioritizing while cramming more into the time that we do have. Continual self improvement requires that one be able to do more in less time. The one constant for everyone is 24 hours in a day.

Do more with less for much more

This is a rather reluctant post I have been thinking about it for a while however it is never really fully formed. The core of the post is about dealing with the cards life deals to you.

There are some diseases like ADD and Bipolar that a lot of people have however some people seems to have been able to turn this disease into strength and I have wonderful admiration for folks like this.

An example is the CEO of JetBlue, who has been able to turn his diagnosed attention deficit disorder (ADD) into a strength by consciously focusing on details. There is also a famed GE Investment trader  - that I know, work with and am afraid of - who is extremely successful because of his debilitating bipolar disease. This guy can simply keep a million things in his mind at the same time. When he is up, he is like this powerful lion of a guy who seems to be able to do any and everything. However when he is down he is like an helpless baby.

In short, we are all born into varying circumstances in life, but I believe in each of us is the ability to turn those circumstances into strength.

History they say repeats itself or in another form, "those that fails to learn from the lessons of history are bound to repeat it"

In high finance today, it is all about Private Equity, I have written about PE in another post, however the angle today is what is next? The PE euphoria today is very similar to that of LBO's in the 80's, in fact some of the players are the same people. To understand, what is next, one has to understand the thinking of the Princes of New England, the Captains of Industry, these guys that live in Northern New Jersey and Connecticut and work in 'the city'.

Their thinking is very similar to Jim Crammer's dictum, "there is always a bull market somewhere" - these capitalist are the epitome of hold no prisoners mentality. The hallmark of their trade is their lack of loyalty or emotion about any enterprise - less making money for themselves and their investors. In the annals of capitalist, these guys are the stallions. Hence, as soon as they run of either cheap money to take companies private with the promise of fixing it, the PE craze will be over and they sure will morph into the next big thing.

 The next logical steps are either to take those same companies public (if there is a receptive market) or to find smaller nimbler companies, that addresses the needs of these same giant's market more cost efficiently and pump those up.

A lot of companies that are now getting big themselves were born in the post LBO bubble, for example Home Depot in retail followed the death of Woolworth and Federated Stores.

The genius of wall street & main street or whatever you want to call these manhattan bound automatons is their ability to make something out of nothing literarily. Whether, it is mathematical finance or goodwill accounting, behavioral finance or favorable tax treatment, advertising, branding and marketing or off balance sheet financing, these highly paid professional are at the end of the day convincing someone, that something is worth more than they know it is really worth.

This is the game, for example the biggest deal of the LBO era, the $25.1 Billion acquisition of RJR Nabisco by KKR, actually destroyed value. A cursory look through the news archives shows that it was RJR's exec that first tried to buy the company for $17 Bil. with the promise to unlock the value once it is private. KKR finally won the deal, Icahn got into the picture to force a breakup of RJR due to a proxy fight. All these people made money, the employees of RJR lost their job and the most competitive tobacco company is no longer in the US.

While one can argue for various reasons, why this is the case e.g. cigarette litigation, the essential lessons is the role of LBO, the debt the companies are saddled with and the long term effect.

As companies gets bigger, the tend to become more inefficient, this inefficiency is painted as locked up value, the PE convinces people/the market  they are capable of unlocking this value at a premium. They get paid, reduces oversight and in the long run they destroy value.

Next blog, using the theories of Joseph Schumpeter and creative destruction, I will point out why these "destruction of value" might actually not be bad for the economy as a whole.

 For sure we are in the middle of the summer and time for the beach reading. Having read the first version of this book, it is sure on my list of to read for this summer, however, I don't want to buy it - so if you own it and you want something on my list, lets do an exchange.

I think there are web sites out there, where you can do this sort of things - I will look around for those sites and maybe try my hand.

All in all, I will like to read this book before the summer is over.

Amazon.com: The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders: Books: Jack D. Schwager