The "Do Right" Rules
by Peter Chantilis

Peter Chantilis passed away unexpectedly on March 6, 1999. I can't say enough good things about Peter or about this book. He was a friend. He was a fellow professional speaker. Take a moment to visit to his tribute page to learn about this great guy.

Nina Atwood's first book and one I highly recommend. Click here for more information on Nina Atwood.

Date Lines: Communication From "Hello" to "I Do" and Everything In Between
by Nina Atwood

Nina Atwood's second book. I think it is even better than the first one!  Click here for more information on Nina Atwood.

Nina Atwood's third book. They keep getting better. Click here for more information on Nina Atwood

I read about this book. I decided to read it, but not yet.

Then I saw an interview with the author on TV. I decided definitely to read it, but not yet.

Finally, with the encouragement of a mentor, I read the book. It helped me to question more about where I am and what I am doing that any other book I've read lately.  

It has helped me to begin to change my life. I should have read it sooner. You should read it now.

I just discovered this book. Seems that David (the photographer) is the husband of the partner of someone I met on the net.

Since I am a Cherokee, this particular book was very appealing to me, even before I bought it.

I bought this book some years ago. During a recent move, I found it. I didn't know then what I wanted to do when I grew up. I'm still not sure. But this book is helping.

In the preface Barbara Sher writes: "Are you having trouble going after what you want in life because you can't figure out what it is? I want you to know that you are not alone." Judging by this book's sales, apparently not.

It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now
by Barbara Sher

This is the first book I read by Barbara Sher.

Back in the spring of 2000, contemplating my midlife and the change of centuries, I found the book so interesting that I created a page of quotes by Barbara Sher.

Finding Your Own North Star
by Martha Beck

This is another book I recommend for those who don't know what they want to do when they grow up.

In some ways this is very similar to Barbar Sher's work, above. In other ways it is very different. These two books form an excellent pair, and I recommend them both.

How to Find Your Mission In Life
by Richard Nelson Bowles

This tiny book is by the author of What Color Is Your Parachute? That other book has been wildly successful. Based on that success, I bought this book. I'm sorry I did.

The essay is actually very tiny and is derived from an essay in the early editions of What Color Is Your Parachute? He made it large enough to be a book on its own by adding woodcuts and blank pages.

His answer is a strongly Christian answer. If you are not religious or not Christian, this book won't add much. And even if you are, the answer isn't, to me, particularly helpful.

For Mr. Bolles, your mission in life is (1) to be conscious of God. (2) to do good works and (3) to have a mission that serves God's purpose.

Even if you accept these premises as "the answer", the book still doesn't tell you how to find what mission in life will, for you, satisfy these three components.

I was very disappointed in this book. Before you buy it, borrow one from a friend or check it out of the library. You can read it in an hour. Read it cover to cover before you buy it.

One of those on my must read list. I have never had anyone tell me they were sorry they took the time to read this book. And, this is an easy read. If you travel much, this is a great one for airports and airplanes. And, you find yourself quoting it, lending it and recommending it.

Becoming a Technical Leader
by Gerald M. Weinberg

This is the third Weinberg book I ever read. While many people do not associate "leadership" and "technoids", there is not any fundamental conflict.

This book provides not just ideas, but practical, working steps that can be used. I recommend it for everyone in technology who is also in a leadership position. (And I also recommend it for leaders in general.)

This is the 2nd edition (1995) of the 1975 classic. In this edition, Brooks adds four new chapters.

Brooks was in charge of operating systems development for the IBM 360. (At one time, that project had 1000 people working on it. Thus, each calendar day is four man years.) And on projects of that size the problems of human interaction become easily visible, including the classic:

Brooks Law
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Everyone should have this book.

Are Your Lights On?
by Donald C. Gause & Gerald M. Weinberg

If you haven't figured it out by now reading this page, I like Gerald Weinberg. His books, even his later ones (which he co-wrote) are easily readable and filled with great advice. This book is designed to help you understand problems and problem solving.

Their four step process is deceptively simple:
1) Identify the true problem
2) Determine the problem's owner
3) Locate the problem's source
4) Decide whether or not to solve it.

His book helps probe the power and pitfalls of the approach.

Another of my must read books. Together with Weinberg's Secrets of Consulting (above), it is high on that must read list.

We focus today on hardware and software. Demarco and Lister help us focus on the big variable:  people. And, this new second edition expands on the first very well.

This is the book that let me learn to muffle my phone, become uninterruptible, and recognize the furniture police. It helped me observe that we give people more space to park their car than to work. And it poked big holes in that management code-word:  professional.

Quality Software Management
by Gerald M. Weinberg

Quality Software Management
Volume 1: Systems Thinking

Quality Software Management
Volume 2: First-Order Measurement

Quality Software Management
Volume 3: Congruent Action

Quality Software Management
Volume 4: Anticipating Change

In fairness, my recommendations of these three books are based on (a) my prior experience with Gerald M. Weinberg and a rather cursory skim of my new copies.

At this time, I haven't yet even read all of one of the books.

Nevertheless, I decided to include them because I have already found a few quotes I intend to use and so will be referring to them in my professional speaking.

Experience says that when I mention a book, the audience wants to know more about it.

Putting the information here on this page will help them find the books. And, by clicking on the books they can obtain some review information from Amazon.com.

I first met Randall W. Rice at one of my very first speaking engagements in Oklahoma several years ago.

Since then we've corresponded a couple of times and I've been reading his newsletter.

This book takes a people oriented approach, and I like that. Consider the top-ten challenges (presented in Letterman fashion):

10: Getting Trained in Testing
9: Building Relationships with Developers
8: Testing Without Tools
7: Explaining Testing to Managers
6: Communicating with Customers & Users
5: Making Time for Testing
4: Testing What's Thrown Over the Wall
3: Hitting a Moving Target
2: Fighting a Lose-Lose Situation
1: Having to Say No

If you have never faced these obstacles, you don't need this book. (But then, if you've never faced the obstacles either you've never tested or you need to discuss denial with your therapist.)

The Psychology of Computer Programming
Silver Anniversary Edition
by Gerald M. Weinberg

This was the first Weinberg book I ever read. I read it early, very early, in my programming career. I loved it then.

I then forgot about Weinberg and this book until I read Secrets of Consulting. I returned again to the book.

Now the Silver Anniversary edition brings back all of the classic work (including what the author considers "errors"). Rather than correct these "errors" Weinberg has added new commentary with his current thoughts.

If you are a programmer who wonders what makes yourself tick, you should read this book. If you manage programmers, you must read this book.

I enjoyed this book also. I bought it because it was by Weinberg. I recommend it. But, I'd recommend you buy The Psychology of Computer Programming first. And, that is especially true now that Psychology has been reissued in the silver anniversary edition.

An Introduction to General Systems Thinking
by Gerald Weinberg

Yes, another Weinberg book.

This one is not just about computers. It is about "systems". It is about thinking in the large. It has been used in university courses and professional seminars across the world for 25 years.

Quoting now from the book description at Amazon:
"Scientists, engineers, organization leaders, managers, doctors, students, and thinkers of all disciplines can use this book to dispel the mental fog that clouds problem-solving. As author Gerald M. Weinberg writes in the new preface to the Silver Anniversary Edition, 'I haven't changed my conviction that most people don't think nearly as well as they could had they been taught some principles of thinking.' "

This is the printed version of The Online Hacker Jargon File. It is not a dictionary of corporate information technology terms. It is a dictionary of the hacker culture.

The Deadline
a novel
by Tom Demarco

In this book, fiction, a novel, Tom Demarco writes about the development of six software products. Mr. Tompkins, a manager downsized from a giant telecommunications company, divides the huge staff of developers at his disposal into eighteen teams -three for each of the products. The teams are of different sizes and use different methods, and they compete against each other . . . and against an impossible deadline.

For many of the same reasons that Dilbert is so popular (it allows us to look at others, and to recognize ourselves) this novel succeeds, not only as a novel, but also as an exploration of much that is wrong with software management today.

(See also Peopleware by Tom Demarco.)

Did you ever think about the Telegraph?  Before it existed news and information took "forever" to travel. Once it existed the world was instantly smaller.

Tom Standage has thought about the Telegraph. And, he has researched it and written an entertaining and fascinating book.

It turns out that much of the Internet hype isn't new. Consider this quote from the Amazon.com review:

Imagine an almost instantaneous communication system that would allow people and governments all over the world to send and receive messages about politics, war, illness, and family events. The government has tried and failed to control it, and its revolutionary nature is trumpeted loudly by its backers.

We've been here before!  I recommend it.

If you are a graphic artist you probably are most comfortable with handshakes and verbal agreements. And, if you've been a graphic artist for any time at all, you've probably been stung at least once because of a misunderstanding.

This book is for you: straightforward information coupled with a variety of business and legal forms. You can copy these forms and use them today.

This book contains more than over thirty forms that graphic artists need in every-day business. Examples are:  Estimate for Client, Preliminary Budget and Schedule; Proposal Form; Job Sheet; Production Schedule; Estimate Request for Suppliers; Contract with Illustrator/Photographer/Printer/Sales Representative; Merchandising Agreement; Release Forms; and Permission to Use Copyrighted Work.

Graphic Artists Guild Handbook:
Pricing & Ethical Guidelines
by Graphic Artists Guild, Rachel Burd (Editor)

This is one of the most respected, most cited references in its field. It addresses virtually every aspect of the pricing and ethical standards issues facing today's graphic artist. And, it covers the gamut of disciplines including advertising, publishing, traditional media, web-design, 3-D animation and other emerging technologies. It is a soup-to-nuts approach touching almost ever aspect of a job: planning. proposals, pricing, budgeting, legal issues, intellectual property, contracts, artist's representatives, billing, and credit and collections.

Coverage includes management, marketing, client and employee relationships, legal rights and ethical standards, studio health and safety. There are several chapters under the "Rights" section that address copyright, fair use and infringement, plagiarism and influence. They address not only the legal issues but also the ethical issues as well.

The Business Side of Creativity: The Complete Guide for Running a Graphic Design or Communications Business
by Cameron S. Foote, Mark Bellerose

This book focuses on the business issues related to creative businesses, particularly the "freelance" businesses. Fees, estimates, billable time, running a small business with employees, forms and more.

A simple book. Instructions. Forms. A step by step guide. It isn't as necessary for the web savvy who can read the Library of Congress web site and understand the instructions and forms. But if you are the kind of person who wants a third-party instruction book, this one is for you.

How to Register Your Own Trademark: With Forms (2nd Ed)
by Mark Warda

A simple book. Instructions. Forms. A step by step guide. Unlike the copyright process, the trademark process is more complex. New revisions at the trademark website make it easier, but I recommend that all but the most detailed get a guide book and I personally like this one.

Fowler's Modern English Usage
by Henry Watson Fowler,
revised by Sir Ernest Gowers

My father gave me several books. But this one is the one I remember best and cherish most.

Fowler is irreverent. Although clearly British (he calls for single quotes on the outer quote, double quotes on the inner quote, in contrast to the American system), most of what he has to say applies equally well to the states.

And, much of what he had to say directly contradicted my English teachers, my university style manual and many others who cited "rules" but couldn't seem to explain them.

Don't believe me?  See the Amazon.com site. And compare the reviews of this book and the next one!

Touted as the third revision of this classic work, this book fails to pass muster. I do not recommend this book . I bought one so I could see if it was as bad as I'd been reading. If you are a language student you might want one too. Otherwise, stick with the original. Fowler (see above); it is a classic. To my mind, this is an attempt to capitalize on the Fowler "brand" with a new book that loses both the passion and charm of the original. Sir Ernest Gowers (who revised Fowler for the 2nd edition.) made modest changes. Burchfield should have imitated Gowers.

Billed as a look at happiness, and life, from the viewpoint of a doctor and biologist, this book explores the classic question: If you're so smart, why aren't you happy?

In the modern world, we now have all of the luxuries that humanity has ever dreamed of: comfort, convenience, health, arts, cuisine, limitless diversions, and world travel. Dr. Abraham explores the confusion and unhappiness that, despite all we seem to have, dominate so much of our lives today.