As an Independent Software Developer I have to wear many hats. I can't be expert in everything but that won't stop me trying It's important to keep learning, to achieve that it is necessary to be, amongst other things, an avid reader.

If you intend to read a lot of non-fiction books it is important that the quality and tone of the writing is easily digestible and that the experience is as pleasurable as possible.

Of the books I have recently read (mainly Marketing or Programming related) there are two that stand out and will be afforded pride of place in my collection.

These books are:
Title: The Startup Success Guide
Author: Bob Walsh




Title: Inbound Marketing
Authors: Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah

I could waffle on for ages about how good these books are, how much I learned from them and how indispensable they are to anyone who wants to grow their tech business in the next few years, but I won’t. Just buy them both. Today.

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Tags: Book Review, Books, Bob Walsh

There is a section near the end of Bob Walsh's latest book, The Web Startup Success Guide, where he interviews several well known, and less well known individuals.

The most interesting interview in my opinion came from a person I had not heard of previously: Lou Carbone from Experience Engineering.

Bob's introduction did not give me any idea as to just how much I would enjoy reading this interview.

It's difficult to explain what it was about Lou that I liked, but his comments resonated with me. He was talking about the customer experience and how important it is to the success of a company.

His opinions matched mine and made me realise that I need to get those values across to my customers, I need to make their experience the best it can be. I am a decent person with a deep routed sense of justice and a desire to be the best I can be, and a desire to provide the best service I can. I need to prove this to my customers through every interaction they have with me or Arten Science.

Lou has given me a lot to think about and a lot of work to do.

It sounds just like common sense, and it is. Sometimes though we all need a reminder, a prompt. Common sense isn't so common any more and people like Lou are needed sometimes to remind us of things that deep down we already know.

Written with JustWrite and ooSooM. Free Utilities from Arten Science.

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Tags: Bob Walsh, Startup Success Guide, Lou Carbone, Experience Engineering, JustWrite, OoSooM, Book Review

I’ve just finished reading Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle. This is a very well written and incredibly interesting insight into the company and the man who made it what it is today.

Far more interesting than Bill Gates, Larry Ellison is the brains behind the worlds 2nd largest software company. Anybody who flies a Russian Fighter Jet in their spare time is definitely worth reading about

Despite the fact that this book was written in conjunction with Larry it never feels that Larry has altered the text to suit himself, in fact there is footnote on many pages direct from Ellison in which he expands upon, and sometimes disagrees with the writer on a given point.

I found this book fascinating - if you know of Oracle and or Larry Ellison and you are interested in how decisions, and fortunes, are made by one of the worlds top technology firms - read this book.

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Tags: Book Review, Oracle, Larry Ellison