“There are eight million stories in the Naked City; this has been one of them.” That famous line is from the movie The Naked City, a story about a murder in New York City. Sure, in a city of that many people there are certainly that many stories if not more. But what about elsewhere? Take a more less-populated area, for example. Of course there are, and the book Yarns From A Country Courier by Charlotte Heikkinen is a collection of stories by this teacher / journalist from her life as she chronicled them in her newspapers columns over the years.

My interest in this book is rooted in the fact I know Charlotte’s sons, both of whom are of course mentioned in her stories. I bought a copy of this self-published tome from the author herself, as she setup a shop at a local community market. As I read through her tales of growing up in the rural Midwest, among the yarns of her life I had several takeaways.

A slice of history – The tales told here are much more than a personal story of one woman, but the story of how life was where she was at that time. These stories need to be told, and each one is a square in the vast quilt of history.

Know your audience – Just before I bought my copy of the book she was talking to the person in front of me who was buying their own copy. She told them the text is in big print to benefit her target audience of an older generation. As I write this post I am nodding my head getting used to my new bifocals, so I appreciate the attention to detail to have larger text on the page for her readers.

More encouragement to write my own – After reading the book I said to myself, as I have said before, “I need to write my own book.” I guess I can say I am making progress towards it one blog post at a time. And for as much as I encourage others to write and publish their own book, I need to start making a more concerted effort on my end.

Yarns From A Country Courier was an enjoyable read, telling the stories of life from the middle of the last century to the present. I especially liked the mentions of her sons, but I digress. For anyone interested in the personal nuances and challenges of rural life at that time, I highly recommend the book. As I pass along all books I read, I am passing it along to the parents of another friend of mine – I have enjoyed engaging in conversations with them over the years and have enjoyed their stories; perhaps after reading this they too may be motivated to write their own book?

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Have you ever gotten to the end of the work day and said to yourself, "self, what was that all about?" Whether you are stepping away from a home work setup or plunking yourself onto the seat of a car, bus or train, many people have feelings like this on a regular basis. And perhaps have had them in some cases for some time.

We know there's a better way. In his latest book - his 21st book overall - business consultant Seth Godin sums up the issue with one word – significance. The Song of Significance is a call (or a plea; choose your action word) for a better, more rewarding way for people to work. It features real cases from business throughout the verses (not chapters) of the book who are fostering a culture of significance. The imagery of the bee on the cover and in the book comes from how a beehive works.

I was lucky enough to get this book through the Marketing Over Coffee podcast, as one of the co-hosts John Wall did a great interview with Godin and he gave John copies of the books to offer to his listeners. Though a quick read, it was packed with thoughts and I got many takeaways from this book.

I generally agree with this – As someone who has worked for companies, as a consultants to them as well as having my own business, I have strong feelings on how teams should work collaboratively and be in concert with a greater vision and mission of an organization.

Limen – It is always my hope that, if anything, I will learn some new words from a book. From verse 61 it is “limen” which is the stone or beam at the top of a threshold or doorway. It is also a point where a stimulus can produce a response, but the secondary one is not the intended definition. Here the reference is about an in-between place.

Think Globally, Act Locally – Being in agreement with having significance in ones work is one thing, making it happen is another. Even if you or I are not in a position to make global change, seek out the ways to make significance in what you do personally. Then expand it from there, to your immediate team, department, division or beyond. This is something I have always strived to do in my own teams, against all odds.

The Song of Significance has an accompanying booklet which is meant to be distributed to teammates. It is a summary of the salient points of the overall book. This is a unique idea that maybe more books should have.

If you’re looking to make change in your team or organization or just looking for some motivation for yourself, I recommend reading The Song of Significance. I will be giving my copy of the book, and some of the booklets, to a colleague who works at my co-working space. He and I talk frequently about work and teams and I know he will appreciate this book.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Of all the books I’ve read and blogged on over the years, it’s no surprise I have enjoyed some more than others. There were some where going into reading them I didn’t exactly know if I was going to like it or not. In most cases I did but they were a few where I didn’t for a variety of reasons. Then there’s the book War for Eternity: Inside Bannon's Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers by Benjamin Teitelbaum. I was given it as a gift a while ago and when I got it I said to myself, what’s this about? I tucked it into the back of my bookshelf and recently rediscovered it and decided to give it a read.

As when I first got the book, upon finishing it I asked myself, what’s this about? It is a story of the life of Steve Bannon, a man who has done everything from being Chief Strategist to President Donald Trump to a part-owner of the sitcom Seinfeld. Where it tells much of his life’s story it is not a biography per se, rather it touches on many of his past events and activities that led him to the inner circle of the White House and his belief in Traditionalism. Despite the ambiguity that clouded me as I read the book, I always manage to find takeaways from every book I read.

Traditionalism – Prior to reading the book, I had never heard the term Traditionalism before, and even as I got into the book, I started looking up the term online from various sources to try to wrap my head around it. From what I gathered it is a belief in traditional, conservative values with a deeper, spiritual meaning. I think.

At Cambridge Analytica – Beyond Traditionalism, of the events in his life referenced include his time in the Navy and the fact that he had a role at Cambridge Analytica. This was something that was a surprise to me because where I had heard about Cambridge Analytica in the news and it’s relation to Facebook, I never heard about any tie to Bannon. With the controversy around the firm and its involvement with targeting voters in the 2016 election, someone like myself who considers himself informed thought I should have been aware of this.

Riding the Tiger – This is actually the second time I heard of this tale, which is taken from a book by Julius Evola of the same name. The tale is (and I am loosely paraphrasing it) of a man who was threatened by a tiger and was unable to defeat it, so he decided to jump on its back and ride on it until the tiger was too tired to attack him. The first time I heard this was from the book No Hero which I recently read and wrote about.

War for Eternity was an interesting book, though I’m undecided as to whether or not I recommend it. If you are looking for a read outside of what you may normally read this might be a book to consider.

As I giveaway all books I read I decided to give this one away to the general public. I placed it – as you can see in the accompanying photo – in a seat back pocket on an Amtrak train from Milwaukee to Chicago. Hopefully somebody picked it up and decided to give it a try.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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People often ask me how I keep up with the changing world of technology. Where it can a lot at times, a combination of reading, researching, networking, self-study, on-the-job experience and formal training keeps me in the know. When my program at work was going to move from proprietary Web hosting to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, I needed to understand enough to work with it. Using a combination of methods mentioned above I dove into the Azure pool head-first to immerse myself in this new ecosystem.

In the course of my research I found Azure certifications, where self-study and courses verified by an exam would yield a qualification stating my knowledge in an area of Azure. The most basic level is Azure Fundamentals, or AZ-900 as the exam is called. As most technology certifications are from software vendors, I felt this was a great place to start. To prepare for the course, I went thru some online training from Microsoft and picked up a copy of the book Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam Ref by Jim Cheshire. As much as I like online, having a tangible book I can go back and forth through was something I was looking forward to.

Reading a test prep reference book is a swim in an ocean takeaways, but there were several meta ones I got from this book.

It was outdated at press – A fun fact is that this is the second edition and second copy of the book I have owned. The first, I found out, was already out of date when I bought it. I gave that to a colleague who was somewhat new to working hands-on with Azure. As the platform is constantly changing and adding new features it’s hard to have a current print book.

A different approach to software development – Azure isn't just cloud hosting. It also includes the ability to integrate what are commonly referred to as micro-service applications. To the non-techie, this means that rather than writing code from scratch to send and receive text messages, for example, you can simply use such a service that Azure offers. And of course, you pay Microsoft for that usage. Where it makes for smaller codebases for applications, you are also deeply hooked into the Microsoft cloud architecture.

I don’t need Azure certification – After reading the book, and coupled with the other resources available to me, I realized I didn't need the certification. Sure, I could have spent even more hours and studied and taken the exam (for a fee) but for how I will use my knowledge of Azure it wouldn't be the best use of my time. Rather than knowing how to implement and configure Azure Front Door, I simply need to know it exists and what its purpose is.

More and more technicians have a need to learn about Azure cloud - and other cloud services such as Amazon Web Services, or AWS - as more and more companies are moving to the cloud from their on-premise data centers. Therefore the need exists for training and certification. This exam prep book covered it all - at that time - and if anything, subsequent editions will include changes to the platform. If you are into consuming information in book format, I highly recommend this reference guide.

As I passed along the last copy I had of this book to a colleague at work, I am doing the same to another colleague at work who is also getting immersed into Azure. Between their deep knowledge and my strategic knowledge I know we will build great technical solutions together.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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After sending a book I read to a good friend, he recommended a book back to me – he didn’t give me his copy of it as he said he rereads it every once in a while to “remind” himself. With a review like that, I promptly bought my own copy of the book and put it on my bookshelf. And there it sat, literally for years, until I recently read it. Long overdue, I wish I had read it sooner.

What was the book? What Happy People Know by Dan Baker. At the time of writing the book, Baker was the Founder and Director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch. If you’re unfamiliar with Canyon Ranch, it’s a wicked expensive resort yet worth every penny (so I have heard). As part of the overall resort, he worked with guests who were escaping from the day-to-day of life and trying to reset before reentry to the real world... which is my condensed assessment, not his words. As a result of his experiences there and throughout his career, he shares in this book what he has learned about the aptly titled book.

As I read through Baker’s stories, which in themselves were takeaways for me, I also had several specific takeaways.

Adaptation level theory – This theory states that once we become accustomed to any form of pleasure, it no longer has the power to make us happy. From too much sugar to too much money to too much vacation (if there’s such a thing), too much of anything can eventually be a bad thing.

We have 2 brains? – When talking about love, the association is always with the heart. If you asked people about this, they would say it’s emotional, however there is research this is actually physical and your heart communicates with your brain in a pairing called the heart-brain. This unity can be both beneficial and detrimental to your health depending on how your heart feels.

A bad case of the VERBs – Baker stated a patient had a case of victimization, entitlement, rescue and blame, or VERB. This resonated with me as I know I have had a case or 2 (at least) myself over the years and likely you reading this has as well. It’s something he says we do to ourselves and something we need to stop doing.

Sometimes we need help – Getting our stuff together is easy for some but not others. Even for those who mostly can get their stuff together, on occasion we may need help from others. Whether a loved one or a friend or a therapist, help is a good thing. It’s also ok if you observe someone having a challenge with their stuff to offer your help.

What Happy People Know is a good read and despite some sad stories, it is a very positive and encouraging read. I now know why my friend rereads is on a regular basis and I agree with him doing so. No matter your mood or outlook, this is a book that will get you thinking about attitude in a positive way. Where I may reread this in the future, for now I am giving away my copy to my nephew; he has been reading a wide variety of topics including many self-help books. I hope he and anyone else who reads it enjoys is as much as I did. And my friend too.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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