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Book
Review
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The
Real thing,
Constance L Hays, Random House, 2003
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Constance L Hays, Random House, 2003
An official biography of the Coca-Cola, this
book traces the birth of the drink to a post
Civil War America. While the book is full of
interesting details, what makes it truly fascinating
is the insight that it gives into the culture
of a big transnational. Telling us how one Benjamin
Franklin Thomas figured out that what was sold
so long as a syrup concentrate mixed at pharmacists’
soda foundation would sell much more in bottles,
the book explains how Coke emerged as one of
the world’s most admired corporations and
it sells one of the world’s best recognised
brands. The author gives an account of how,
despite being a century old, the company still
continues to innovate and grow at an admirable
pace. Hence, for any executive seeking to understand
what makes big corporations tick and how they
function, this book will come in pretty handy. |
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The
Psychology of Electronic Trading,
Brendon CW Seeto, John Wiley & Sons, 2003,
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Starting with a thriller-sequence description
of a live-wire electronic trade executed minutes
after 9-11, this book explains what goes on
in the minds of people in electronic marketing
with details on selective attention, social
comparison, persuasion effect and cognitive
dissonance. With the foreword written by Mark
Mobius of Templeton, the book details how the
intricate factors of human psychology affect
electronic trading more than one would like
to acknowledge. Calling for a revision of one’s
notions of market psychology, this book is surely
a worth-read for anyone who would like to know
about the intricacies in the spooky world of
electronic trading. |
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How
Canon got its flash back,
Nikkei, John Wiley & Sons, 2003,
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| This book
is a detailed account of the ups and down of
Canon that started as a little optical shop
and is now the cutting edge of high-end digital
cameras and flat panel display. This book portrays
how the founder, Takeshi Mitarai, an obstetrician,
developed copiers - aspiring for US patents
and finding ways around them. With interesting
titbits strewn here and there, this book also
details the hardware and software inside each
of the company’s many gadgets, and the
strategy that Canon has adopted to build its
technology. Having started as a contract manufacturer
for Hewlett-Packard before starting its own
brand, today canon files nearly as many patents
as IBM. This book is an authorised case study
of Canon and helps understand how a Japanese
company operates. |
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How
Canon got its flash back,
Nikkei, John Wiley & Sons, 2003,
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| This
book breaks some of the hackneyed notions about
advertising. If one believed that clutter and
pervasiveness are the distinguishing marks of
today’s advertising, the author suggests
that one think again. By looking closely at
the production and consumption of advertising
in its relevant socio-cultural context, the
author challenges the seemingly established
notion that the earlier advertising efforts
were “naïve”. While taking a
left-of-centre view on the substantial volume
of critical academic work on advertising published
in the last few decades, the author submits
by increasingly intervening in the relationship
between people and objects, advertising has
reached its current status as the medium which
elucidates the relationship. |
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Magazines
