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Some books provide unexpected insights into our professions. The source of the wisdom is just as surprising as the insights themselves. Through various points in my journey in text messaging, these books revealed an answer I didn’t know I was seeking, provided the missing piece of a puzzle I was looking to solve, or yanked me out of operational minutiae to see the big picture. Here are the top five, listed in order of impact.
The Network: The Battle for the Airwaves and the Birth of the Communications Age – Scott Woolley (2016)
It is the story of the birth of American communications told through the tale of friendship. David Sarnoff, a lawyer, and Edwin Armstrong, an engineer, form an unlikely friendship. With a shared optimism about the new world, they created the network that carries Radio and TV to this day. If you want to understand why some things in the industry are just the way they are today, you’ll probably find the root cause in this book.
“When wagering on the future of new wireless technology, always bet on the optimists—eventually they’re going to be right.”
Shoe Dog – Phil Knight (2016)
Every builder of text messaging solutions will relate to Phil Knight’s story. When Phil started, he didn’t own any of the core ‘IP’ around making shoes. He didn’t own any of the supply, and neither did he know if he had demand. He did believe there was an underserved market of runners he could help. While everyone wanted to sell to the next PreFontaine, Phil realized no one was selling to Pre’s fans. He focused on the runner and then made sure he could bend the unwieldy, piranha-like supply chain to serve his customer.
“Running track gives you a fierce respect for numbers, because you are what your numbers say you are, nothing more, nothing less.”
Views on Public Questions – Theodore Newton Vail (1917)
Peter Drucker, the best management thinker of all time, called Vail one of the most effective decision makers in US history. This Forgotten Book is a collection of his shareholder letters, essays, and speeches that Vail’s friends put together as a gift to him. The book shows why Drucker was a fan. Vail’s dissection of the challenges of subscriber growth (let alone the use of the term) is as relevant today as when he wrote it in 1911. The writing is clear, and the message is timeless.
“Effective, aggressive competition, and regulation and control are inconsistent with each other, and cannot be had at the same time.”
SMS: The Creation of Personal Global Text Messaging – Friedhelm Hillebrand (2010)
This is a must-read for understanding why SMS has been ubiquitous for over three decades. Hillebrand (and others) documented the many meetings and negotiations that happened to SMS could work on every device on any network anywhere. This task was more complicated in 1984 than it is nowadays. Some manufacturers even suppressed the first ring to check if the incoming signal was voice or text. All that is alien now when all connections are data. This book chronicles the origins of one of the most famous successes in global interoperability.
“take responsibility for service standardisation — e.g. by including all entities relevant to the service in the scope of standardisation; give priority to simplicity at the expense of complexity.”
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters – Mallory Ortberg (2014)
What if the classics were said (and read) like text messages? Once you see them in text bubble format, it’s hard to imagine it told any other way. The book is funny, light, and authentic. But it also shows you how impactful the text message format is and why short-form messaging has become the world’s enduring medium.
I’d love to hear the books that gave you unexpected insights into your profession. Join the conversation here.
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