Pics Of Pattaya

You have heard about Thailand for many, many years. And your friends may have gone to Pattaya and have told you stories that you just cannot imagine (even though they are altogether true). You have conclusively bolstered up the spirit to travel half-way around the world to see if romance can be a certainty.

Hopefully, you have done your homework. With the availability of the Internet, getting information is readily available. But you have to hunt all over the place to find it.

You have to read the Bangkok Post and the Pattaya City News. You have to hang out in the forums reading and asking questions. You have to take the abuse from the old timers for the stupid newbie questions. You read so many things that your head spins and you are trying to sort out what is true and what is BS.

You have enough to do with getting the plane ticket, hotel booking, passport, packing, and trying to remember everything.

What you need is a Newbie's Guide. This book is written specifically for you: the guy going to Pattaya for the very first time. Even if you have been there before, you will still find some good info and save some money.

You can find out where to go and, more importantly, where not to go. You will get recommendations on bars, go-go's, restaurants and hotels.

Find out how to get through Suvarnabhumi International Airport and to your waiting ride with ease. You even get a map of the airport.

Think about it. What would you rather do; fight through a mob of people and only to be ripped off by the taxi mafia, or have a driver waiting for you at half the price?

Do you want to waste time going to bars and restaurants that are the pits? Do you know that you can get a hotel room for under $20 per night? Have you decided where in Pattaya you will stay – north, central or south?

You will also get to email the author and ask as many questions as you want. This way, if you have special concerns or just want to make sure you understand everything, you can have direct contact with a guy who has been going to Thailand since 1973 and currently is retired there. Info straight from the horse's mouth!

Why spend hours, days, or weeks searching all over the Internet when you can get all the information you need in one downloadable eBook.

The eBook will set you back $10 and you will save double that much when you book your taxi with the email address I provide in the book. You can even get the ePub and download it directly to your Kindle, Nook, or SmartPhone.

You will save time and money knowing which bars to frequent and which restaurants to eat at. You will save money booking your hotel online.

So, quit wasting your time surfing the 'net and pick up the eBook or ePub. It will make your Pattaya vacation so much better. Go crazy. Go Pattaya Crazy. Get the newbie's guide and save time and money. Have a great holiday.

But, be warned. Once you go to Pattaya, you will be addicted for life.

Larry Westfall is a retired expat living in Thailand and loves Isaan Thailand and girls of pattaya

The Evolution of the Business Model Concept

Below is a second iteration representing the evolution of the business model concept, including graphical representations, significant publications and books on the subject. Thank you everyone for your input, comments and emails with additional models and publications.

Which business model concepts are you still missing? Which significant publications? Comment below or send feedback to anders@tbmdb.com

Thanks,
Anders

Version 2:

The Evolution of the Business Model Concept (version 1)

Thank you for the input to Version 1 of The Evolution of the Business Model Concept. An updated and extended version of can be found here.

Best Selling Books on Creativity & Innovation in Business

Best Selling Books on Creativity and Innovation in Business, Ideas, Innovative Companies and Top Innovators. Learn to innovate...
The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativit... by Tom Kelley $19.77	Managing Creativity and Innovation (Harvard... $13.57	Positive Turbulence: Developing Climates fo... by Stanley S. Gryskiewicz $35.28
Managing Innovation, Design and Creativity by Bettina von Stamm $72.82	Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Produ... by Tim Hurson $18.45	Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rule... by Roberto Verganti $23.10
Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the ... by Judy Estrin $20.40	The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for ... by Matthew E. May $17.16	The Manager's Guide to Fostering Innovation... by Dr. Charles Prather $13.22

The Big Book of Creativity Games: Quick, Fu... by Robert Epstein $16.46	Fast Creativity & Innovation: Rapidly I... by Charles W. Bytheway $43.96	Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creati... by Alan Axelrod $21.33
Creativity and Innovation in Organizational... by Hoon-Seok Choi Leigh L. Thompson $79.95	Swarm Creativity: Competitive Advantage thr... by Peter A. Gloor $31.19	The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs: Insan... by Carmine Gallo $16.50
Creativity and Innovation in Business and B... $97.49	The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strateg... by Thomas Kelley $19.77	Leadership for Innovation: How to Organize ... by John Adair $14.00

The Innovation Manual: Integrated Strategie... by David Midgley $40.00	The Rudolph Factor: Finding the Bright Ligh... by Cyndi Laurin $13.26	CATS: The Nine Lives of Innovation by Ph.D.,Stephen C. Lundin $14.96
Creativity in Product Innovation by Jacob Goldenberg $52.19	The Leader's Guide to Lateral Thinking Skil... by Paul Sloane $11.53	Giant Steps in Management: Innovations that... by Julian Birkinshaw $29.99
INNovation: Creativity Techniques for Hospi... by Florence Berger $85.00	On Creativity, Innovation and Renewal: A Le... by Frances Hesselbein $20.00	Corporate Creativity: How Innovation & ... by Alan G Robinson $13.57

Business Innovation eBook

Leading Creativity and Innovation eBook. Business Innovation Resource Kit - 212 pages Definitive Guide, 439-slide insights Innovation Bootcamp, Annual Innovation Report. 212-page collection of over 55 best practices, case studies, and insights on the current state of Creativity and Innovation in Business at Top Innovators including Apple, Google, Netflix, 3M, Frito Lay, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, GE, BMW, Deloitte, Southwest, Nike, IBM, Dell and more. "Your report from the eBook and definitive guide was the primary reference that we used." Used by over 550 leading organizations including HP, Pepsi, EDS, Nokia, J&J more... Learn more...

Apple's Innovation Strategy

How does Apple, the #1 innovative company in the world, innovate and create game-changing innovations such as the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad and more? What is Apple's secret recipe for innovation success?

Download Apple's Innovation Strategy, and learn how Apple became the #1 innovator through:

• Creativity and Innovation
• Innovation in Products
• Innovation in Business Model
• Innovation in Customer Experience
• Innovation and Leadership
• Steve Jobs Visionary Leadership
Learn more...

The Design of Business (2009)

The Design of Business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage, by Roger Martin was a positive surprise as it was a quick read, well structured, delivered several interesting concepts and some in depth cases on design thinking and business model innovation.

Even though several of the cases are familiar for many readers (such as P&G, Apple, Cirque du Soleil, McDonalds and RIM) Roger, who is dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, professor of strategic management, and author of the book The Opposable Mind, adds interesting perspectives and sometimes information from behind the scenes working as a consultant and advisor. The book is an extension of Roger's popular article (free download) from 2004 with the same name.

The book in three bullet points:

• It introduces and explores the concept of the "Knowledge Funnel" describing how knowledge advances from mystery to heuristic, to algorithm for businesses to gain efficiency and lower costs, and the activities of moving across the knowledge stages (exploration) and operating within each knowledge stage (exploitation).
• To accelerate the pace at which knowledge advances through the Knowledge Funnel, it presents the concept of design thinking as the necessary balance between analytical thinking using deductive and inductive reasoning (with the need for reliability and the ability to produce consistent and predictable outcomes), and intuitive thinking (with the need for validity and to produce outcomes that meet a desired objective).
• It discusses challenges (primarily the results of proof-based analytical thinking) faced by organizations, CEOs and individuals within organizations, to build structures and processes that foster, support and reward a culture of design thinking, and how different CEOs have used different approaches to generate successful outcomes.
  

A brief summary of the different chapters:

1. The knowledge funnel: How discovery takes shape
The introductory chapter starts with a story about McDonalds journey from mystery (how and what did Californians want to eat) to algorithm (stripping away uncertainty, ambiguity, and judgment from almost all processes). It briefly discusses analytical thinking, intuitive thinking and design thinking, to solve mysteries and advance knowledge, and the fine balance between exploring new knowledge and exploiting existing one.
It introduces and explores the concept of the "Knowledge Funnel" describing how knowledge advances from mystery to heuristic, to algorithm for businesses to gain efficiency and lower costs. This is explored also in later chapters: "Mysteries are expensive, time consuming, and risky; they are worth tackling only because of the potential benefits of discovering a path out of the mystery to a revenue-generating heuristic", "The algorithm generates savings by turning judgment… …into a formula or set of rules that, if followed, will produce a desired solution" and “Computer code – the digital end point of the algorithm stage – is the most efficient expression of an algorithm”.

It also addresses the need for organizations to re-explore solved mysteries, even the founding ideas behind the business, and not get too comfortable focusing on the "administration of business" running an existing algorithm.

In addition, the first chapter presents abductive logic, and some ideas originated by philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce; that it is not possible to prove a new thought concept, or idea in advance and that all new ideas can be validated only through the unfolding of future events. To advance knowledge we need to make a "logical leap of the mind" or an "inference to the best explanation" (or "Leaps of Faith" that John Mullins and Randy Komisar calls it in the book Getting to plan B see review/summary) to imaging a heuristic for understanding a mystery. Free preview of Chapter 1

2. The reliability bias: Why advancing knowledge is so hard
The second chapter focus on the distinction between reliability (produce consistent, predictable outcomes by narrowing the scope of a test to what can be measured in a replicable, quantitative way) and validity (produce outcomes that meet a desired objective, that through the passage of time will be shown to be correct, often incorporating some aspects of subjectivity and judgment to be achieved). Roger's main point in the chapter (or even in the book) is that today's business world is focusing too much on reliability (due to three forces: demand for proof, an aversion to bias and the constraints of time), with algorithmic decision-making techniques using various systems (such as ERP, CRM, TQM, KM) to crunch data objectively and extrapolate from the past to make predictions about the future. "What organizations dedicated to running reliable algorithms often fail to realize is that while they reduce the risk of small variations in their businesses, they increase the risk of cataclysmic events that occur when the future no longer resembles the past and the algorithm is no longer relevant or useful" With the turbulent times we live in, where new mysteries constantly spring up that reliable systems won't address or even acknowledge, businesses risk being outflanked by new entrants solving old and new mysteries developing new heuristics and algorithms. "Without validity, an organization has little chance of moving knowledge across the funnel. Without reliability, an organization will struggle to exploit the rewards of its advances… the optimal approach... is to seek a balance of both"

3. Design thinking: How thinking like a designer can create sustainable advantage
Chapter three starts with an interesting case of Research In Motion (RIM) that leads into the discussion of what is really design thinking. Roger uses the quote by Tim Brown of IDEO, "a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity" and adds himself "a person or organization instilled with that discipline is constantly seeking a fruitful balance between reliability and validity, between art and science, between intuition and analytics, and between exploration and exploitation". That designers live in the world of abductive reasoning, actively look for new data points, challenge accepted explanations to posit what could possibly be true (in contrast to the two dominant forms of logic - deduction and induction, with the goal to declare a conclusion to be true or false).

The chapter ends with the first discussion on roadblocks to design thinking (many more to come), with one being the corporate tendency to settle at the current stage in the knowledge funnel, and another how "highly paid executives or specialists with knowledge, turf and paychecks to defend” has the company's heuristics in their heads with no interest in advancing to the algorithm stage, making the executives less important. This leads nicely into the forth chapter about the transformation of Procter & Gamble.

4. Transforming the corporation: The design of Procter & Gamble
A.G. Lafley's transformation of Procter & Gamble from an incumbent in crisis to an innovative and efficient organization in just a few years has been widely covered in the business literature. As a student some years back I made an internship in P&G's Connect & Develop (connect with innovators outside the company and develop their ideas for P&G products), and have since been reading up on everything I can find about the transition and why other companies have not been able to make the same transition. Roger adds interesting perspectives, from his work with the company and its first vice president of innovation strategy and design, Claudia Kotchka, to develop "a comprehensive program that would provide practical experience in design thinking to P&G leaders". One of the top-down efforts being to drive brand-building from heuristic (in the minds of scarce and costly senior executives) toward algorithm, providing less senior employees the tools needed to do much of the work previously done by high-cost elites who then could then focus on the next mystery in order to create the next brand experience. The chapter also covers the Connect & Develop initiative and how it bulked up P&G's supply of ideas in the mystery-heuristic transition where it was thin, enabling it to feed more opportunities into its well-developed heuristics and algorithms of development, branding, positioning, pricing and distribution.

Another highly interesting topic covered in the chapter is the change of processes within P&G, including the strategy review, at P&G. Lafley recognized that the existing processes was a recipe for producing reliability, not validity, "so risky creative leaps were out of the question". A transition from annual reviews with category managers pitching, "with all the inductive and deductive proof needed to gain the approval of the CEO and senior management" to "forcing category managers to toss around ideas with senior management… to become comfortable with the logical leaps of mind needed to generate new ideas".

5. The balancing act: How design-thinking organizations embrace reliability and validity
The chapter focuses on the need to balance reliability and validity, and the challenges to do so (foremost all structures, processes and cultural norms tilted towards reliability). "Financial planning and reward systems are dramatically tilted toward running an existing heuristic or algorithm and must be modified in significant ways to create a balance between reliability and validity". Roger presents a rough rule of thumb "when the challenge is to seize an emerging opportunity, the solution is to perform like a design team: work iteratively, build a prototype, elicit feedback, refine it, rinse, repeat… On the other hand, running a supply chain, building a forecasting model, and compiling the financials are functions best left to people who work in fixed roles with permanent tasks". The chapter feels somewhat repetitive, in the uphill battle for validity, and more obstacles of change are presented:

• Preponderance of Training in Analytical Thinking
• Reliability orientation of key stakeholders
• Ease of defending reliability vs. validity

In this chapter, Roger also discusses how design-thinking companies have to develop new reward systems and norms, with an example of how to think about constraints. "In reliability-driven, analytical-thinking companies, the norm is to see constraints as the enemy", whereas when validity is the goal "constraints are opportunities" and "they frame the mystery that needs to be solved".

6. World-class explorers: Leading the design-thinking organization
In chapter six several interesting cases, and approaches of different CEOs, are presented, one being the widely covered case of Guy Laliberté, and his Cirque du Soleil. Again Roger adds to the existing body of knowledge with the twist of reliability vs. validity in creating a new market, and the knowledge funnel taking a one-off street festival into an unstoppable international $600 million-a-year business with four thousand employees. Laliberté has reinvented Cirque's creative and business models time and time again, "usually over protests that he was fixing what was not broken and that he could destroy the company". Other CEOs and cases covered in the chapter are James Hackett of Steelcase, Bob Ulrich of Target, and Steve Jobs of Apple.

The role of the CEO and different approaches to build design-friendly organizational processes and norms into companies are discussed referring to the different cases presented.

Again, Roger returns to the reliability vs validity battle, now from a CEO perspective with terms such as "resisting reliability", "those systems-whether they are for budgeting, capital appropriation, product development…", and "counter the internal and external pressures toward reliability".

7. Getting personal: Developing yourself as a design thinker
In the final chapter the focus is on how a non-CEO can function as a design thinker and develop skills to individually produce more valid outcomes even in reliability-oriented companies. Roger refers back to his previous book The Opposable Mind, and the concept of a personal knowledge system as a way of thinking about how we acquire knowledge and expertise. The knowledge system has three components:

• Stance: "Who am I in the world and what am I trying to accomplish?"
• Tools: "With what tools and models do I organize my thinking and understand the world?"
• Experiences: "With what experiences can I build my repertoire of sensitivities and skills.

Roger then presents the design thinker's stance, key tools (observation, imagination, and configuration), and how to obtain experiences by trying new things and test their boundaries.

Roger also presents five things that the design thinker needs to do to be more effective with colleagues at the extremes of the reliability and validity spectrum:

• Reframe extreme views as a creative challenge
• Empathize with your colleagues on the extremes
• Learn to speak the languages of both reliability and validity
• Put unfamiliar concepts in familiar terms
• When it comes to proof, use size to your advantage

This is a great book and I recommend business developers and business model innovators to buy it, as it is a quick read with several important concepts and interesting cases to learn from. I believe design thinking has the potential to help managers break out from the Matrix they live in and again realize the real world behind the existing algorithms.

If you find this book review/summary helpful, please go to the Amazon book review page and rate my identical review "Helpful" Thanks!

Disclaimer: I read the book at the beautiful cliffs of Vernazza in Italy, and was in a very good mood. I actually read the book twice.

Other book reviews/summaries:
Business Model Generation (2009)
Getting to Plan B (2009)
Seizing the White Space (2010)