If a Think Tank is going to provide solutions then it must draw from many sources of information. A Think Tank must consider all the experiences, education and observations of its members and it must scour the Internet, Libraries, Conventions, White Papers and read books, both recent and old. Why you ask? Well, it is simple really, you have to look for clues wherever you can and you must take all those clues and cross-pollinate into other fields of study, industries or areas of thought.
Let me give you a for instance. This last week the Online Think Tank divided up a number of books on all sorts of subjects and pitted each chapter and piece of information from those books, most of which were ten years or more old, against the current paradigm, direction and trends of today. Interestingly enough, things have drastically changed in many ways however you might be surprised to learn how similar things are and how frequently history actually repeats. Listed below are some of the books we reviewed and a few thoughts on each one of them:
A. “The corporate Warriors – Six Classic Cases in American Business” by Douglas K. Ramsey. There were many quotes in this book and one which stood out was; “War is simple: its success lies in its accomplishments,” — Napoleon Bonaparte and another quote; “war is capitalism with the gloves off.” In the book was Ted Turner VS the networks, Pepsi VS Coke, deregulation of the airlines, General Motors VS Japanese in the damning years, MCI VS AT&T. However, it could have been any time period; the book could have easily been about Microsoft VS Google by simply changing the name of the businesses involved – it would be hard to tell the difference. Some other quotes that were quoted;
“In guerrilla warfare, small units acting independently, played a principal role.” Mao Z dong.
“The gorilla in advance his own tactics for each movement of the battle in constantly surprises his enemy.” Che Guevara
“It is essential to understand the flow of the opponent’s personality, to find out his strengths and weaknesses.” My young Miyamoto Musashi
“Offense is defense, don’t kid yourself.” from Me.
B. “His Excellency — George Washington.” By Joseph Ellis. Contrary to popular belief, George Washington made a number of mistakes and probably was not the best general for the job and he lost many battles and many men. Benedict Arnold went down in history as a traitor and probably would have led the Patriots to a more swift victory, had he not become disgusted and switched sides. Often, our presidents are misjudged by history, and it seems that the victors of battles generally write their own history. Today we see the media reshaping our current history, and yet in the future. We may see the current conflicts much differently and rewarded in the history books, our current president for his great timeliness in taking action in the Middle East.
C. “Vegetables and Fruit” by James Crockett, 1972. It is amazing the amount of knowledge, that is stored in older books on how to do things. It is amazing that no one takes this advice seriously and yet currently, everyone is talking about organic foods and trying to shop and buy them. There is lots of talk about roof-top gardens, as if this is something new. In reading this book and the various chapters such as; Joys of Growing Your Own Garden, Planning and Planting, How to Raise Fruits, Nuts and Berries, and Practical and Pleasing Herbs; it appears to be quite evident that everything you need to know about eating right is most likely available in a book that you can buy at a garage sale or Thrift store for about $.50, thus, I wish to ask a question; how can anyone say that no one can afford to the right or that those who are poor, lack the information necessary to protect their health and eat healthy?
D. “Reengineering the Corporation — A Manifesto for Business Revolution.” By James Champy, and Michael Hammer. 1993. As we watch such corporations as Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Delphi Corp. tried to reinvent themselves, we should consider it that they are doing nothing that is new and they should’ve learned from past mistakes during the damning years. What does reengineering mean? Does it mean starting over, fixing things with duct tape and baling wire, getting rid of the bureaucracy and inefficiencies? Does it mean starting a steering committee to see what to do or hiring a Machiavellian dictator or Czar of reengineering? Why is it that every corporation knows what to do, yet continually gets into these problems?
E. “Bankruptcy 1995 — The Coming Collapse of America and How to Stop It.” By Harry E. Figgie Jr. and Gerald J. Swanson Ph.D. written in 1993. Apparently, the United States of America did not have an economic collapse in 1995 and apparently, our government woke up and stop spending money, and eventually pay off the debt and enjoy a surplus. There are too many doom and gloom anti-capitalists predicting the downfall of America or the collapse of our monetary system, it simply is not so. In fact, although the stock market is readjusting, and housing is down quite a bit, we only need to look at the equity markets to see all the trillions of dollars waiting to be invested; in fact, in 1993. The Grace Commission Projections, The FED, the OMB and the Secretary of Treasury were all off on their projections, nevertheless, the problem was solved.
F. “Best Practices for Transforming Your Organization.” By Price Waterhouse, change integration team 1995. It is interesting to watch stock prices tumble when companies make big mistakes, and yet it is no secret, what Wall Street is looking for. When a mistake is made, then change needs to occur and corporations need to keep up with the changes in the market and the economy. Fluidity of motion is important in corporate America, just as it is on the battlefield, those who forget these truths will be doomed to repeat them.
G. “Marketing Myths That Are Killing Your Business — That Cure for Death Wish Marketing.” By Kevin J. Clancy and Robert S. Schulman, 1994. This book is about business performance, market share, partnerships, and in just reading the table of contents; it is in education. Then there is a place at the beginning to test your own working IQ in marketing, you might be surprised. Why do companies and small businesses keep making the same mistakes?
There are certain things you do in marketing and certain things you do not do and it is amazing to watch our government agencies make public relation mistakes, and some of our largest corporations do some of the dumbest things or launch the most insidious marketing campaigns. It’s not like this information is a secret, it is written in all the books, and it is quite available to anyone with half a notion to surf the Internet or buys a marketing book at a used book store.
H. “Maestro — Greenspan’s FED and the American Boom.” By Bob Woodward, this book takes us from 1972 to 2004 during Greenspan’s reign at the Federal Reserve. Alan Greenspan was successful, due in part to his philosophy and his strength of character to do what he knew was right regardless of those who criticize and wanted things to be easy.
Today we see many complaining that Mr. Berneke needs to lower interest rates to save the stock market and that is ridiculous, because the stock market has turned into a gambling casino, and it is time for it to realign itself with the reality of our current market. It is amazing how similar situations were handled long ago, and how they are still handled today, despite the whining snivels from Wall Street. It is not the Federal Reserve’s job to make sure that everyone on Wall Street makes tons of money, nor is it in the best interest of the United States economy to prop up a stock market, which needs to right itself. We live in the greatest nation ever created in the history of mankind, and we ought to protect our economic resources with sound decisions, not on the whims of the stock market.
I. “Science on Trial — The Whistleblower, the Accused, the Noble Laureate” by Judy Sarasoni 1993. This book written over a decade ago and shows that science and cheating in research has been going on a long time, this was a different story than the current story in the news of the problems with science and the cover-up in the cloning discovery in North Korea. Obviously, we should not be surprised; this is nothing new.
J. “Net Trends — The Saturn Cyber Trends That Will Drive Your Business, Create New Wealth, and Design Your Future” by Chuck Martin 1999, who was also the author of “the Digital Estate – Electronic El Niño” this book talked about, brick-and-mortar stores, online brochures, the future of content, e-mail marketing, intranet systems, enterprise software, e-business wired workforces, customer data and E-learning. It dealt heavy into intranets, which united the customers, the vendors and the employees with instant feedback. It also explained the problems that we now face with identity data and the sharing of e-mail lists. Perhaps we should have listened to Chuck Martin in 1999, as now we are spending millions of dollars at the Federal Trade Commission trying to figure out how to stop identity theft and we have all sorts of rules now to enforce the protection of the data. This issue might have been able to be headed off at the past long-ago, too late now, as now we are all desperate for a solution and it will not be convenient or inexpensive at this late stage.
K. “The Course of Mexican History.” By Michael C. Myers and William Sherman; Oxford press, 1987. One interesting thing about old history books is that they often present the information slightly different, this is because every decade or so we change the perception of history in order to make us all feel good. The tortilla wars and riots in Mexico City, should not be so unexpected, neither should the riots that followed the last presidential campaign in Mexico. Likewise, we should not be too surprised to find 5 million people living in slums outside Mexico City or the officials and the Catholic Church telling people to come to America to work and sent back money. It seems the border problem with Mexico and the number of illegal aliens entering the United States of America has been a problem since well before the Jordan Commission and in 1987, the problems were nearly identical. Without knowing the true and correct history of Mexico, our nearest neighbor to the south, it is hard to put together a reasonable and rational plan to fulfill our mutual interests.
L. “Only the Paranoid Survive – How to Exploit Crisis Points that Challenge Every Company and Career” by Andy Grove 1996. The most interesting concept in this book has to be the concept of; Strategic Inflection Points, which discusses product life cycle curves and how to ride it to the top and then as you are going prepare another start to continue to ride up the chart without going down the other side. Why is this relevant? Well, consider the United States of America and the 200-year civilization curve. Think about how we are starting to drown in political correctness and might end up like the Roman Empire if we continue on this tract.