Rich, B.R. and Janos, Y., Skunk Works, Little Brown and Company, New York, 1994

I have had this book in my library for quite some time and although I've browsed it before, I recently had the opportunity to actually read it. Why I didn't read it earlier, I just don't know because it is just so full of stories and wisdom on many levels.

For those who don't know - the Skunk Works were (are still?) a top secret Lockheed shop for the design, development and manufacture of advanced and innovative aerospace systems. If U2, SR-71 Blackbird and stealth planes mean anything to you - then this book tells their story.

Bennett, W. and Crawley, S., Wayne Bennett - Don't Die with the Music in You, ABC Books, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2007.

I have this question I ask at dinners/lunches which is "If you could have any three people as dinner guests who would you have?" with the variations of dead or alive or alive only or politicians or sports people and so on. It can sometimes give you an insight into the person, but it always throws up surprises as often they are an obscure person. I am shallow enough to admit that Elle McPherson is always on my list (because she is an inspirational business person ... duh!!). BUT ...the other one is Wayne Bennett and I often change the third person.

Humphrey, Watts, S., Winning with Software: An Executive Strategy, Addison-Wesley, Boston, 2002

The message here is that if you wish to develop good software, particularly of any significant size, you need a robust process and a team of disciplined programmers/engineers. The operative words here are robust and disciplined. These two terms, particularly the discipline one, resonate particularly well with me, because one of the significant causes of a problem project is the lack of discipline to follow a defined process. The further message is that "quality counts" - even more so than schedule. This is particularly relevant to any business that uses software.

I attended this presentation quite some time ago last year and blogged about it at the time. But then my site went pear shaped. It is worth putting it up though. Michael Schaper had some interesting facts to discuss. So her is my original blog entry.

Along with Donna Cox of Mantra Training and Development, I attended the Canberra Business Council (CBC) (of which HolisTech® is a Corporate Member) and Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) luncheon. Apart from doing a little networking (not that I am good at that), we listened to an interesting presentation by Dr Michael Schaper, the Deputy Chairperson of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). It was titled Small Business - Future Opportunities & Challenges.

I was browsing the other night and again came across some comments on the Government 2.0 Task Force. It is an interesting initiative and I am uncertain as to how much it will achieve to be very honest. But nonetheless, it is inevitable in a democratic society and with the more on-line "savviness" of the younger generations.

Milton, N, Knowledge Management for Teams and Projects, Chandos Publishing, Oxford, 2005

This book started slowly for me. But once I could see where Nick Milton was coming from, quite a few things "clicked". Being a project and program manager myself, some of his concepts resonated tremendously and I will implement them in some of the areas I work in including some of my clients.

Camrass, R. and Farncombe, M., Atomic: Reforming the Business Landscape into the New Structures of Tomorrow, Capstone Publishing Limited, UK, 2004.

Atomic attempts to identify the future business construct based upon trends identified today. Camrass and Farncombe take the analogy of an "atom" that can become part of larger molecules to form value adding business structures. These are more agile and focused organisations than the monolithic businesses today. To their credit, they try to identify those "atoms" rather than just generalise:.