Mindy Gibbins-Klein
4.0 out of 5 stars Concise, Clear, Logical, Missing the Magic Sauce, January 23, 2014
I read this book and have ordered a book recommended by this author, Ron Brown's How to Build Your Reputation.
Having published nine books myself, I am a little jaded when someone says “write a book and be recognized.” However, I do like this book. It has a clear message, it is concise, it is very well written, and on balance I think it provides anyone interested in becoming “known” with a very fine starting point.
What it does not have is the magic sauce or distinguishing factor that leads to an “aha” experience. By way of example, I recently reviewed 25 years of publishing on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), three quarters of it from international speakers at my conference, only to realize that the fundamental mistake I made from 1992-2006 was to not register the conference such that every speaker's contribution was “indexed” for all those that cannot be bothered to go beyond the standard guides.
So I do recommend this book, think of it as a warm-up exercise for books that are much more specific.
If I were re-doing my 25 years of pioneering of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and intelligence reform I would:
a) register the conference so all speakers' contributions appear in the register of Conference Proceedings
b) publish a book each year of the best of the best from the conference, while offering one contribution each year to a specific journal in each of the eight tribes of information (academic, civil, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, non-government/non-profit)
c) tried harder to be invited as a speaker to national associations such as college presidents, mayor and governor's associations, chambers of commerce, police chiefs association, young journalists, etcetera.
d) done a better job of defining best in class practices rather than letting beltway bandits corrupt my ideas to make money while delivering nothing of value — some inspector general and congressional audits would have been useful interventions.
There is one point that is not made in this book that I now consider, at the age of 61, to be very important. This is something I really grasped after watching a DVD, Frank Lloyd Wright: focus on finding and nurturing younger people who will carry on after you are gone, who will have the integrity and the passion to do the right thing instead of going along with all those who strive to do the wrong thing righter (this is Russell Ackoff 101, see for example The Democratic Corporation: A Radical Prescription for Recreating Corporate America and Rediscovering Success).
This book made me think, and that alone is worthy of four stars.
