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Unlike most writers, Dickens is equally at home in both the short story and the full-length novel format. This is because his novels were serialized in periodicals in their first publications. Only later were they edited for book form. "Sketches by Boz" is an offering of Dickens's first attempts at writing for a living. It consists of 56 passages, most of which can be read in a single sitting of less than half an hour. These are divided into four sections: "Our Parish", "Scenes", "Characters", and "Tales". Of these, only the last contains fiction. The 44 nonfiction accounts are just as entertaining as their made-up brothers. In fact, I found them even more fun to read at times. Dickens only thinly disguised the identities of his victims while lampooning them, and as editor Dennis Walder so rightly points out, many of these descriptions would surely result in lawsuits for libel if they were published about public figures today.
This was my first experience reading a Penguin Classics edition of Dickens, and I was extremely pleased with it. The editor introduced "Sketches" with a few notes of academic and historical interest, a particular one of which I found to be of great interest as it finally answered a question I'd had for half my life: namely, where Dickens had acquired his nickname of Boz. But more important for today's reader of Dickens is the "Notes" section at the back of the book in which Mr. Walder defines Dickensian slang and explains the author's references to people, events, and places of early nineteenth century London. Much of Dickens's wit is lost on today's reader without such disclosures.
One of my favorite ways of reading a classic author is to collect all of his or her works and then read through them at a leisurely pace in the order they were written. I did this with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the intention of noting how his style developed over the years. I was surprised to find an unexpected benefit of that project: I was transported to those times and felt as I imagine one of Doyle's contemporary fans must have felt as he read each new Sherlock Holmes story. After finishing Doyle, I immediately began collecting Dickens for a similar project. "Sketches by Boz", being a collection of Dickens's first literary efforts, was of course the first in this series. The second Dickens book is "The Pickwick Papers", of which I have the Library of the Future edition. But after reading the Penguin Classics "Sketches", I'm determined to first replace "Pickwick" with the Penguin edition. The Penguin books are reasonably priced and well worth every penny.
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The book is built around five basic concepts for a targeted group of high profit margin customers:
(1) Instant Value Alignment with customers (FedEx's commitment to on-time delivery and instant access to tracking information)
(2) Instant Learning by employees and customers (Dell Computer's computer-based education at work cell assembly sites)
(3) Instant Adaptation of the organization (G.E.'s focus on building a direction for the company around vision and trust)
(4) Instant Execution of value for the customer (Progressive Insurance's accelerated claims processing methods)
(5) Instant Involvement of all stakeholders (Cisco Systems' involvement with its suppliers and outsourcers from development through implementation for customers)
A company can progress towards having all five elements in a three step process. First, you become a market leader by emphasizing either product/service innovation (employing instant learning and adaptation), operating excellence (using instant execution and involvement), or customer closeness (relationship building based on instant alignment and involvement). Second, you turn that into locking customers in by adding one more key element from the five part model. Third, you complete the transition into providing all five elements.
A t-strategy is described for making this transition. You find an opportunity that is unfilled (such as the desire to be alone in the middle of other people that is partly served by the Sony Walkman), develop a key core competency for that conceptual space, and expand into some zero-time operations. You first apply that vision, core comptence, and distinctiveness for one market, then expand it into different, but similar (and usually related) markets. These market extensions form the vertical part of the 't' shape. For example, Dell Computer wants to employ direct selling with a competency of build-to-order to dominate the market for PCs by operational effectiveness. It expands from desk-top PCs to portable ones, then to servers, and now into storage.
Now that you understand the model a bit, let me share a few quibbles. First, I disagree with the idea of focusing on a subset of customers who can provide the highest profit margin. I think a better concept is to identify the customers where they will give you the greatest combination of competitive insulation, profitability, and improvement in your economics of providing goods and services in order to be able to take on more customers profitably.
Second, several stakeholders are missing from the discussion here such as shareholders, bondholders, the communities in which you operate, and those who regulate what you do. More thinking needs to be done about how to apply the model there stakeholders.
Third, the authors argue that providing all three dimensions gives you a guaranteed customer for life. I disagree. You could still be upended by someone with a proprietary technology with the same zero-time elements that gives an edge in bringing more benefits to the customer. Another way of thinking about this is that technology can still be disruptive to this strategy (see The Innovator's Dilemma).
Fourth, the authors do not address how to make the cost-benefit trade-off decisions. Getting closer to zero time gets more and more expensive. How much is it worth? How fast should you transition to this level of performance? The book will tend to encourage a too-fast transition, in my judgment.
Fifth, when is a non-zero time response better? If someone asks me my opinion on an important subject, they may not want a response in 1 second. They may prefer that I pull together all of the resources of my organization for the next 3 days instead and provide a better answer. The book doesn't address that class of circumstances.
Sixth, how do you correct for errors? I frequently stay in hotel chains that pride themselves on writing down my preferences. Then they smile broadly as they anticipate my needs and provide those preferences. The only problem is, that those aren't really my preferences. For example, staying at a luxury hotel with a sore throat, I ordered mid-afternoon tea with lemon. I don't usually drink it that way, but that's the way it always comes when I am at that hotel. In another luxury hotel, someone asked me casually if I liked the room I was staying in. I was feeling friendly and happy, and said, 'Oh, yes!' Well, for the next six years, I had the same room -- even though I actually preferred a different room. I respect what these hotels are trying to do so much that I don't have the heart to tell them they are unintentionally giving me the wrong service.
Basically, like all models, it is a lot easier to understand than to do it well.
After you have completed this fine book, put yourself in your stakeholders' shoes. What would you really want from your company? How would you like to go about making that happen? How would you like to adjust your needs and the responses you receive? Then use those insights to talk directly with your stakeholders about how well you are doing. If you are like most of the companies I study, you aren't ever delivering the right value. You'll need to get that straightened out before you start working on getting great value provided in zero time.
Be effective!
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A big must read for all pregnant women no matter you health or walk of life.
Little legnthy on information on disability leave and State Government contact information.
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but some of the systems suggested are dated. the book needs an upgrade to keep up with the times.
satish paul
Now, I mention this 2nd edition bit because I first stumbled upon this book sometime in the mid-late '80s, and the 1st edition from '79 or so did great coverage of old albums from the '50s-'70s, but good luck on getting the latest word on John Cougar or Def Leppard or the King of Pop or those other '80s artists we loved so much! Some solace was to be found when a 2nd edition came out in 1992 -- you could now find out what Rolling Stoners thought about '80s albums you had aleady purchased by then (in addition to the '50s-'70s albums, naturally).
Well, I think you see what I'm getting at. This is a great guide to what's out there at the time of publication, but it rapidly goes out-of-date. Sure, you'll find out good information about (yes, I'll go ahead and call him what I know him as) Prince's older albums, but as far as learning about the 348 albums he's released since 1992, you're out of luck. This is a book that really needs to come out in annual editions -- though that would be a difficult and likely unprofitable option for the writers. Too bad -- I may actually be willing to plunk down the money once a year for this thing.
A drawback is that out of print albums were omitted, which makes the guide incomplete as soon as these albums are reissued. And of course the guide is outdated. Any guide is the moment is goes off to the presses.
That said, we want an update now.