Tuesday, December 22, 2009

“Business book reviews - Dallas Morning News” plus 1 more

“Business book reviews - Dallas Morning News” plus 1 more

Business book reviews - Dallas Morning News

Posted: 21 Dec 2009 05:25 AM PST

The Knack

Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham (Portfolio, $25.95)

These Inc. magazine columnists combine their experience with start-ups with lessons they've learned from their entrepreneur-readers.

They caution against having a "sales mentality" when starting up. While every new business needs sales, it needs to manage its cash flow. That means profit margin, not gross sales, should guide expansion decisions.

Low margins put stress on monthly cash flow. The lower the margin, the more likely you'll tap precious capital (your savings, your credit cards, investor dollars, etc.) to pay monthly overhead.

With a break-even point of $50,000 in sales at a 20 percent margin, you generate $10,000 in gross margin. And $100,000 at 10 percent generates the same $10,000 but increases your break-even point. To support the incremental sales, you'll tap capital.

Should you enter a market that has many competitors or look for something new? Unless you have the deep pockets required to educate a market, you're better off entering a proven market.

But if you're a first-time entrepreneur, it's generally better to start a business than to buy one. The way it does business may not fit how you want to operate.

Think Twice

Michael Mauboussin (Harvard Business Press, $29.95)

Will your decisions achieve their expected outcomes?

That depends on two things:

Your tunnel vision. Did you use a one-size-fits-all decision-making process or develop a process based on the circumstances? An off-the-rack process leads to overlooking alternatives that take you out of your comfort zone. Did you oversimplify a complex problem?

What others do in response to your actions. This is the wild card.

To wit: Ed Whitacre, chairman of GM's board, fires the CEO and promotes executives to pull together "his team." No one knows whether GM employees will embrace the changes. And no one knows whether car buyers will stay away because of the company's troubles.

Time will tell.

Jim Pawlak reviews business books for The Dallas Morning News.

bizbooks@hotmail.com

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Chris Gill: 5 best writings about the Chinese art scene in 2009 - Shanghaiist

Posted: 22 Dec 2009 12:51 AM PST

This list was contributed by Chris Gill, of Shanghaieye.net. Chris has been working as a painter in China since 1992. He also writes for The Art Newspaper. Currently you can see his work at Shanghart Beijing, in the group show "Stolen Treasures of Modern China," until December 31. Today, Chris points out five English-language pieces or websites about the Chinese art scene that you should have read in 2009.

1.Lisa Movius pretty much captured the moment with her Shanghai Talk article "State of the Art," rounding up the Shanghai art scene as the city headed into both ShContemporary and the eArts festival. Money quote:

Careers were sped up. They were ruined by success. Artists need to have time to experiment, to play around, rather than chase whatever is popular.
2. Pauline J. Yao's essay, "A Game Played Without Rules Has No Losers," first appeared in international artist network website e-Flux. While it's quite long, it's also a very informative and interesting take on the cultural underpinnings of Chinese modern art. Money quote:
The legacy of anti-institutional practices that we most readily associate with contemporary art in the West barely exists in the Chinese context; if anything, it represents a conundrum for artists who strive to maintain a critical stance while supporting the aim of mainstream acceptance. The process of reconciling these two goals—of gaining entry into hitherto closed institutions locally while at the same time maintaining an "outsider" or "anti-establishment" aesthetic or political position in the eyes of the global community—produces a tension that underlies artistic production in China, just as it does in many other developing art centers.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
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