Weekly Bookmarks
92nd Edition – November 8, 2020
Most people are starting to realize that there are only two different types of companies in the world: those that have been breached and know it and those that have been breached and don’t know it.
Attribution – Unknown
1. Cyber Attacks Scare the Living Daylights Out of Me
Have you ever been hacked? My email was hacked last month, and I’m still licking my wounds.
This past week, I spent nearly 2 weeks visiting with a former FBI agent who is an expert in cybercrime. Here are four truths that retired agent, Scott Augenbaum, reminds his audience that he’s shared more than 1,000 times:
- no one expects to become a victim
- you’re not getting your money back if you were robbed
- the bad guys normally don’t get arrested
- the majority of cybercrime is preventable
Stay tuned, Scott will be joining us on the podcast in a few weeks. For now, I recommend his readable and easily-digestible playbook on cybercrime entitled, The Secret to Cybersecurity.
2. My Biggest Question about Remote Learning
If you are a work-at-home parent with a child doing remote learning, is it working? Is it a better learning experience?
This week, I’ve been reading about a video gaming legend, John Carmack. He hated the college life so much at the University of Kansas that he dropped out after only 2 semesters.
Carmack is now an AI expert who uttered this question at college, “Why can’t you just give us a project and let us perform it?”
Classroom learning was torture for Carmack who learned by doing. A typical vacation meant taking his computer with him and coding for hours. Ditto on his honeymoon.
Here’s the question–is learning only about taking classes, memorizing facts from textbooks, and being encouraged on what vs how to think? Obviously, we’re all different, but the question is still an important one.
Source: Masters of Doom by David Kushner
3. What Goes Up Must Come Down
VC investor and the author of Measure of What Matters, John Doerr, once told a co-founder of Fast Company magazine that in every business his firm invested in, just a single sentence or paragraph could describe their business model’s unique advantage.
But he went on to say that the factor that explains their success at the beginning is what accounts for their failure later.
Do you agree?
Source: Rules of Thumb by Alan Webber
4. The Financial Math of Tom Peters
Tom Peters celebrated his 78th birthday this weekend.
I’m reminded of a profit formula he is known for:
K = R = P where Kindness = Repeat Business = Profit
or
K = R = P where Kindness = Employee Retention = Profit
Just curious, what’s your favorite Tom Peters book?
5. Books that Great Marketers Read
Don’t ask me why, but I enjoy reading marketing books – the good ones bend my mind. Accordingly, I’m anxious to listen to Terry O’Reilly’s newest book, This I Know: Marketing Lessons from Under the Influence. Who is Terry? He only has more than 1 million weekly listeners of his podcast, Under the Influence from CBC Radio.
Oh, and he’s a reader too. Like book lists from influencers? You might enjoy his recommended books which include The Castle on Sunset, Dream Teams, Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story, and several others.
This Week’s Podcast
Minecraft, Halo, and Fortnite are a few of the most popular games ever played online by enthusiasts both young and old. Did you realize there is a business simulation that’s been played by more than one million online through more than 1,000 organizations? The game is also enjoyed by entrepreneurs too. We spoke with the founder behind these games on this week’s addition of the CFO Bookshelf Podcast.
Thank You For Reading. Thank you for making this a successful newsletter.
If you like the content above and the posts at CFO Bookshelf, may I ask a favor? Feel free to share this with other readers along with commenting on your favorite blog posts on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.
Always be learning.
Leave a Reply