Customer Reviews

The 10 Second Internet Manager

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This book is basically an Internet version of Mark McCormack's classic, What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School. His basic point is how you can get more done in less time, with fewer errors, and less effort. That is essential in any fast-paced situation. Anyone who has wondered how an Internet CEO expands a business rapidly will get valuable details that can be applied to anyone's business in shrinking elapsed time.

If I say all of those nice things, why didn't I rate the book higher? Basically, because it seemed to me that all of Mr. Breier's principles serve to create many transactional interactions, but do relatively little to create and extend trustworthy relationships. Just because someone e-mails me three times a day doesn't mean that I feel any closer to them.

Mr. Breier often seems to confuse more activity with effectiveness. For example, his claim to fame is as a marketing thinker, yet the weakest of his principles had to do with picking brand names. In fact, the name of his business, 'Beyond.com,' seems to me to be a perfect example of a name that will be hard to turn into a meaningful brand. With a better brand name, the cost of building could have been vastly less. He is pleased to report in the book that appearing mostly undressed on CNBC got him lots of impressions for the company's Web site. I agree that it got lots of impressions, but at least some of them had to be bad impressions.

I was particularly surprised that he missed the lesson of The One Minute Manager, which this book is supposed to update. The main idea of that book is to encourage people by catching them doing something right, and praising them. They they get things done without much support, other than helping them learn. Mr. Breier's world would not permit the time to do that. His book is filled with lists of do's and don'ts -- far more than most people will be able to remember, each of which must be executed in ever faster amounts of time. Who would want to live like that?

At a time when Internet business models are rapidly becoming obsolete, I had expected that he would remind people to stay ahead of the competition with evolving business models and to treat and help employees and customers better than anyone else does. I looked in vain for those important priorities. The closest he gets is telling people to 'make feedback your friend.'

The book's concept is a good one, but the execution just isn't there. Those who have trouble speeding up their activities will probably get some good ideas here, though, as a time management book in the Internet age. I gave the book three stars for its ideas on that subject.

After you finish this book, consider what your top three priorities should be to ensure the most rapid and sustained success. How can your organize what you do to accelerate progress in those areas? How can you organize your time to make your work more fun and meaningful to you? How can you improve the lives of those you come into contact with? Feel free to add any other dimensions that you care about to these questions.

Don't expect a lot of deep insights in this spare volume, but there are some good ideas here that make it worth reading. The chapter on using e-mail, alone, is worth the cost of the book. I summarized that chapter and distributed it to other members of my department.

I picked this up because someone in my family lost money on the company that the author was running that he uses as his main example for the book. I now see that this book is emblematic of the entire dot-com disaster -- focus on gimmicks and marketing and cross your fingers somebody won't catch on to how empty most of it is. How could anyone whose company collapsed as spectacularly as Beyond.com (now trading under 50 cents) have the gall to give people advice on how to run an Internet company?

This book is just an ego trip at high speed. Breier is obsessed with speed, from his computer, his employees, his meetings. There is no reason to believe all this run around as fast as you can, email your brains out stuff works in any meaningful way if you don't have the mgt smarts to actually sell stuff and get paid for it, day in and day out. His advice about the importance of branding sort of sounds slick and right -- if you don't realize that when it came time to do it, he so spectacularly botched it. Beyond spent a fortune on its patently offensive "naked man" campaign to build up its consumer profile and then totally pulled the plug in order to refocus on govt and business -- two audiences where having a customer able to order software online while sitting around the house nude would not exactly fly as benefits on the old purchase order.

This book is useful for disorganized people who can't get through a simple list of errands in the course of a day, but as for figuring out how to run an internet company, well, where's Bezos' book?

so, I'm standing in the hallway at Amazon.com, and Mark Breier is complaining about having to drink warm Pepsi. The vending machines only had Coke, so he had to bring his own Pepsi in, and was keeping it under his desk.

A passer-by hears this and says, 'Mark, why don't you put the Pepsi in the fridge?'

Breier looks startled, and then shouts at the top of his lungs 'BIG IDEA! BIG IDEA! PUT THE PEPSI IN THE FRIDGE!!!', runs into his office, gathers up several six packs in his arms, and runs back into the hallway, shouting 'PUT THE PEPSI IN THE FRIDGE!!!BIG IDEA! BIG IDEA!' on his way to the fridge.

If you want to take managment advice from someone who can't figure out how to chill a beverage, buy this book.

This book exemplifies the Internet Bubble with a capital B: 95% marketing hype 5% substance. The author gloats about such practices as having the company's system admins optimize the email login services so that he could get his mail few seconds faster. No mention of how much that actually cost the company. Another interesting story, how while Breier was making a presentation to a brick and mortar company (read value oriented) he was criticized by an older manager as not having anything substantive to offer. Breier's explanation: some people just don't get it. P>This is one of the most irritating books I have ever read. The author never takes a break from selling or hyping you -- a perfect example of rich x-Stanford students selling internet hype in Silicon Valley, making millions doing it, and leaving average Joe holding the bag. It all sounds great until you actually start thinking about it. What is scary is how other CEO's had endorsed this book while beyond.com was trucking along; a lot of CEOs who must have a lot of eggs on their faces.

Mark Breier represents everything wrong with the Internet Economy: his disarming enthusiasm masks his lack of intelligence and innovation. It's always bigger, faster, more more more with him, as though you could mask stupidy with an illusion of confidence. I am shocked anyone buys this book after his running Beyond.com into the ground.

Having worked at Beyond since its inception, I must note that I've never seen 1. so much money blatantly wasted, 2. so many (200+) employees disgruntled under one roof, and 3. so many buzzword-rich corporate mottos used to mask the company's executive incompetence.

I can only recommend this book as a resource for what NOT to do with your internet company.

This book is able to express all the necessary skills required to make it as an effective manager (dotcom or otherwise). I read this book in under 2 hours, but don't let the # of pages fool you. It's all the information you need concentrated into the time you have to read it (almost none). The tips presented can help anyone that wants to succeed, from the experienced manager to the office newbie. I was able to immediately use the information provided, especially the email tips!

I found the book pretty interesting and well worth the time invested in reading it. Able to digest the information in a few short hours, the book contained several useful chunks of information that any manager could immediately incorporate in his/her daily routine. A good read for all types of managers, be they a senior executive of a .com, a middle manager at a mid-size company or a first-time manager. The book also contains some time management principles that can be applied even if you don't have a staff reporting to you. I'd recommend giving it a whirl...

I really enjoyed this book. I have a ton of business books, but most of them are high level. They focus on theoretical or strategic issues around operating like an Internet company. "The 10-Second Internet Manager" is a much faster reader and has some great tips that I was able to apply immediately in saving time and getting better results. I think e-mail and meetings are the biggest time sinks of my current company life and this book offers specific tips I can share with others in my department. I also like the fact that they have a Web site, www.10secondmanager.com, that I can check out for more tips.

A very fast read and well worth the investment of time and money...

Although the book description promises a book for 'all managers' operating in the Internet age, there really isn't much content that can be used outside of B2C web site management. Whether or not you are a technology manager, this book will be a waste of time unless you manage a B2C dot com.