We should all be so lucky! (And we can be. . .)

Judging from the "Advance Praise" comments on the back cover, Guy Kawasaki's latest book, Rules for Revolutionaries (HarperBusiness, ISBN 0-88730-996-8), written with the help of "dream research assisant" Michel Moreno, can't help but be a bestseller:

"Rules for Revolutionaries will become the anthem of our times."

". . .a Roman candle of proven truths . . "

". . .a must-read manual. . ."

". . .he's showing us how to thrive. . ."

". . .golden, myth-popping, nuclear-powered, in-your-face truths that will prime entrepeneurs to soar into the new millenium."

The book is all of those things and more. Its subtitle clearly shows the book's main intended thrust: "The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services." You'll also find it valuable as a study guide to the works of the most interesting thinkers of the late 20th century, a compendium of hilarious and inspiring anecdotes, a useful personal self-help program, and very entertaining to read. For the purposes of this review, rather than attempting to summarize what the author means to say, I'll simply urge you to read the book and concentrate on why I think his efforts are successful.

("Read the book!")

As a writer, Guy communicates an immediate sense of openness that compels anyone with an ounce of empathy to address him happily in the first person -- so "Guy" it is. In fact, the only reference to "Mr. Kawasaki" in the entire book is contained in a reprinted rejection letter from Microsoft he received in 1982! This comes near the very end of the book, after a paragraph headed "Never consider the battle lost," the point being that Guy didn't give up after getting a thumbs-down from Redmond. If he had, the world might never have experienced Macintosh evangelism and you wouldn't be reading this book review today.

Guy's openness is one of the things that makes him a mensch. He readily admits and laughs at his own mistakes, some of which are whoppers! For example, he once lost every penny of a $110,000 investment in a software company that went bankrupt. He also declined an invitation to interview for the CEO position at Yahoo in its early days, because it was "too far to commute, and how can you make a business out of a search engine?" The fact that he can laugh at these incidents (at least we think he's laughing!) makes him approachable, admirable, and even noble: a mensch, in other words, the sort of person you want to take advice from and emulate. (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a helpful GMAT, "Guy's Mensch Aptitude Test," is included in Chapter 8.) Each of these incidents is there for a reason, of course. Turning down Yahoo is given as an example of "Bozosity," which is another way of saying that just because someone occasionally acts like a Bozo, he or she is still capable of making the world a better place. The "$110,000 Lesson" is cited to illustrate the point that you should never ask customers to do what you wouldn't. In this case the company failed because of a far-fetched marketing notion that Guy, sitting on the board, had a chance to shoot down but didn't!

The book itself succeeds on several different levels. First and foremost is the aphorism-laden format: the chapter titles, lists, and most paragraph headings consist of short, pithy, humorous phrases, things you want to remember because your first reading of them lights up a place in your own brain and makes you grin! "Eat Like a Bird, Poop Like an Elephant," for example, will stay with you forever and help you remember just what the point was. (Gather information constantly, taking small bites from every possible source, then disseminate what you have learned in massive, generous amounts!) Almost every page sparkles with these flashes of truth and humor: "Fail Quickly but Last Long," "Eat Your Own Dog Food," and "Flow With the Go" are just a few examples.

This kind of phrasing produces great mnemonic devices -- excellent teaching aids. Another important tool is the use of exercises given every few pages. These consist of everything from essay-writing prompts to multiple-choice questions, all of them very useful, clever, and thought-provoking. There are also extensive notes and a wide-ranging list of "Readings for Revolutionaries," plus relevant URLs. The bibliography alone is worth the price of the book!

Guy has structured his presentation following a saying attributed to the sculptor Brancusi: "Create Like a God, Command Like a King, Work Like a Slave." Each of these segments contains three solid chapters with their own complementary exercises and memorable phrases as noted above. This enables you to work your way easily through the material in short bursts without diminishing your comprehension of the whole. In fact, I have rarely seen a more easily-digested ("Eat Like a Bird") mass of collective and individual wisdom ("Poop Like an Elephant").

See what I mean?

So the book is divided into easily-managed portions, marked by clever aphorisms, epigrams, and witty sayings that stick in your mind (like the Bob Dylan lyrics or Zen koans some of us remember), but does it work, and why? In a word, absolutely! -- and for the reason that whether through blind luck, divine grace, or enlightened design, our friend Guy is dispensing fundamental psychological and spiritual truths! That they work in an entrepeneurial context goes without saying, but this reviewer found the razor-sharp psychodynamics underneath the friendly exterior perfectly applicable to all kinds of real-life dilemnas. When you read the book you will be struck by how many things you want to remember just to get through your day in one piece. Advice like "get on base and leave home runs to chance" and "leave the important stuff to amateurs" can save your sanity and your life, not to mention your business.

Not too long ago I had a chance to communicate with Guy on the topic of Claris Emailer, and in the course of our e-mail exchange I opined that I would never use Outlook Express or Internet Explorer because they were children of Satan, i.e. Microsoft. He responded immediately that this was exactly the kind of attitude that was hurting Apple, because it turned people away from decent products (like Explorer) that actually worked better on Macs than on PCs! Well, I still haven't given these applications a chance, but you know what? I found myself in Rules for Revolutionaries. (Gulp!) There I was, under the heading "Why Does Bozosity Exist?" in a paragraph labeled "Anchoring:"

"People remain anchored to their original opinions and have to be moved from these starting points. Thus, anchoring limits the practical range of opinions. When you think about most of the epigraphs cited at the front of this chapter, these people suffered most from an inability to see beyond the limits of their anchors."

Guy has dedicated the book to his parents, "because they taught me how to think, act, and defy," and that pretty much sums up all two hundred and six pages of this work. (The final concluding chapter is in many ways the best part of all, but that's all I'm going to tell you about it. Read the book!) The positive spirit is infectious, the intellect and wisdom is inspiring, and the price is right: $25 or less from Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, or your neighborhood bookstore. (And while you're at it, don't forget to visit the book's Web site at www.kickbutt.com!)

Thanks, Guy!

John H. Farr also edits the daily Apple Computer News here at Applelinks

and writes a weekly column (FARR SITE).

 

 

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August 21, 2008