Customer Reviews

The Age of Speed: Learning to Thrive in a More-Faster-Now World

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I notice that most of the reviews are positive and am surprised that I have such a different view. Based on the strong reviews, I picked this as my latest airplane read. The book is divided into 36 short essays that are usually about two pages long. A lot of the material is redundant. The author has a fairly anti-blackberry bias, which is fine, I can certainly understand that, though my iPhone has been a real advantage to me in achieving speed.

He creates an easy to memorize taxonomy of people and businesses, Zeppelins that can't achieve speed, balloons that don't have to, bottle rockets, fast, but misguided, and jets which is what we want to be. It was a good start, but should have been developed more.

The book does preach against multi-tasking, something we are starting to see more of and those are valuable thoughts to consider, though I am personally not planning to give it up at this point.

My favorite essay was from the author's personal experience, racing across a tightrope, I would have loved to have seen that.

The bottom line, mildly entertaining, the author has lead an interesting life, but the book will not help you and the time spent reading it is better invested trying a different book.

I was desperate for a read for the flight back from Tampa, and finally found this book at the airport. I can understand why some folks are impatient with it and spontaneously derisive, but as someone with over 1000 non-fiction reviews under his belt, I'm going to come down solidly in favor of this book. The Lord's Prayer is short and simple and not the Bible. Let's keep this in perspective.

Any book capable of getting me to put down five pages of notes on an airplane is a five star book. Either you get it or you don't. This book is not a how to build a company book, it is a how to think about building a company in an age when you either become one with the highway, or you become road kill.

I found the presentation including the mostly dark separation pages attractive. This book is a "just enough" book for reflection, not a tome trying to prove there are ten thousand angels on the head of a pin.

Now here are my notes, don't buy the book if you do not like my notes:

+ Speed trumps privacy, expense, convenience, and fear.

+ Crackberry can drop your IQ by ten points (2.5X smoking marijuana)

+ Speed no longer a luxury, now an expectation

+ Haves and Have Nots now joined by Haves NOW and Haves Later

+ Time is the ultimate irreplacable commodity (it is possible I appreciate this author more because I see the connections--for example, on this point, Colin Gray, author of Modern Strategy, says that time is the one strategic variable that cannot be bought or replaced. This happens to be REALLY IMPORTANT.

+ Transaction speed trumps "too much attention, too much interaction"

+ Learning to save time open more options which opens more trees

+ Herd resists speed--it still has a connotation of "reckless, naughty, impatient." GET OVER IT.

+ Speed is best applied to mundane repetitive tasks, then to the repetive important. At no time does the author suggest that one should not spend TIME on the special, but he does point out that short-cuts can be justified and should not be automatically scorned.

+ 1990's pushed us into constant digital learning, but many have not gotten with the program. See Don't Bother Me Mom--I'm Learning!

+ New game is speed. Will have an impact an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE more than the present infantile Internet (this will include many of the things Google is working on, including the hand-held as THE device, voice to text, text to voice, etc.

+ the TIME VALUE of activities can now be ranked and we must learn to do this.

+ the equation of TIME, QUALITY, COST has changed. LESS TIME is needed, and that opens options for packing more value into the same old time.

+ Stress today is from the sense that being "always on" blurs the lines between work and home,. The author excels at illuminating how liberating it can be if one is "always on" BUT ALSO always free to do work from home or elsewhere. The trick here is to not confuse the OLD ideas of work as being a place and time, with the NEW ideas of work and non-work from anywhere anytime.

+ Organize based on values and passion, not time and place.

+ Those organizations that adopt this philosophy of "Results" are finding a 35% increase in the bottom line and a 100% retention rate. These are the author's numbers, I am not a fact checker, but I believe this.

+ Getting to warp speed requires elimination of drag and fiction

+ Multi-tasking is bad--it splits the brain (divide by number of tasks)

+ Constant interruptions are bad, memory is compromised and destroyed

+ The author presents an excellent quadrant illustration that I will summarize in text here (envision, in relation to speed, Succeed Fail on one axis and Resist Embrace on the other):

- Fail Resist: Zepellins (this is the USG and the US Intelligence Community--without a clue in the brave new world, wasting $60 million a year of the hard-earned taxpayer dollar).

- Fail Embrace: Bottle Rockets. This could be the neo-cons, who decided to take America's power for a test drive, clueless about reality. They broke the bank AND the rest of the world.

- Succeed Resist: Ballons, blowing in the wind.

- Succeed Embrace: These are the Jets, the ones that see that speed is empowering, that in the spirit of aikido, one can go with the flow and be empowered by the flow.

+ Lessons from bats:

- Sense opportunity

- Be flexible

- Adjust rapidly

The above is the epitaph of the US Government. We have 27 secessionist movements in the USA, and a massive public uprising in the making, precisely because our corrupt politians, our inert civil servants, and our oversly obsequious generals and admirals have all come together to betray the public trust.

There are only two points on which I would fail the author, but neither is sufficient to reduce my appreciation for this excellent work.

1) He makes a glib and uninformed reference to Competitive Intelligence, while flogging a product, WebQL from QL2. Two observations: first, competitive intelligence is passe--the new thing is commercial intelligence, which provides a 360 view, and does not focus solely on competitors. Second, Silobreaker.com is *the* commercial intelligence tool, when combined with a global network of runners, observers, indigenous and international experts, analysts, and distributed processing power.

2) The author praises Google without really understanding the company. Google is indeed fleet of foot, but it is earning $1 for every $10 million in fantasy cash given to it by the individual stockholder (Wall Street would never have made such a mistake--Google is over-capitalized and out of control). Google achieves speed with its computational mathematics (good but unregulationed and a potential economy crasher), and its total disdain for privacy, copyright, and all standards of propriety (Google steals everything it touches including your medical records and email). [For more on this , Yahoo for "Google 2.0: The Calculating Predator" -- and the reason to use Yahoo is that Google is manipulating what you see. Google can no longer be trusted.

The author ends with some suggested solutions that include:
+ Filters
+ Trusted Sources
+ Trusted Destination
+ Focus on goal not route
+ Authentic purpose
+ Aligned organization
+ Alighed individual
+ Be true to your star, others will gravitate

+ Speed and simplicity go together.

I am *very* comfortable giving this book five stars. It is what you make of it. I, obviously, found a great deal in this book, and I will leave it at that.

Well done. Righteous.

Olympic-speed skier turned business consultant (and "Speaker Hall of Fame" inductee) Vince Poscente reveals "for everyone feeling trampled by the speed of life and business, how to get ahead of the rush once and for all." He identifies four behavioral profiles: Jets (the best), Bottle Rockets, Zeppelins and Balloons.
Rarely have I seen a book that offers so little content for a $22 hardcover list price. The 232 pages are padded with 44 full-page chapter and section headings and full-page quotes like "We drown ourselves in trivia and excess." It also contains space-filling "Fast Facts" like "Thirty-six people died when the 804-foot Hindenberg exploded and crashed into the ground in 1937. It was filled with more than seven million cubic feet of hydrogen" and "Reverend Run of Run-DMC is Russell's little brother." Page 12 offers a half-page definition of a Mach number.
After reading a few banal observations (for example, Technology has made life busier and more complicated and Blackberries have the potential to erode productivity) I reviewed the index to find anecdotes on a few companies of interest and then returned this book to the library. This material might support a solid oral presentation but has been stretched far too thin for this medium.

If you find yourself thinking about how times have changed and everything seems to be moving too fast, then you'll find the information in "The Age of Speed" attention-grabbing and interesting. If you're more into a slow paced existence, than this may not be the read for you.

I read many books on many different topics and I have mixed feelings about this particular selection. It's a book you have to be ready for - you have to be rushing through your life at warp speed to truly appreciate the information contained in this book.

Here's the premise: Just because we're going faster, doesn't mean it has to be of lesser quality.

Let's be honest here - I read it in the beauty salon while getting my hair colored. Yes, I read The Age of Speed quickly, from start to finish in two hours. It's really not that "speedy" of a read, but I felt it just didn't have that much information or "meat." Maybe I missed the point but I kept waiting for the big "aha." I didn't feel it quite delivered the information I was anticipating.

On the positive side - I learned a few things about coping with and even appreciating the fast paced world in which we are currently living.
Here are a few examples:
*Going fast doesn't necessarily mean working harder. We have the tools at our disposal to accomplish more in less time than our counterparts twenty years ago.

*Every time we speed up the time it takes to complete an unimportant task, we create the possibility of more time to do something we feel is significant.

*To master the discipline of agility, we must also be flexible in our thoughts and actions - and this is an exercise in humility and courage. Being flexible is a test of our willingness to acknowledge weakness and take risks.

*The last section of The Age of Speed held the most draw and information for me. It is entitled "Tips and Tricks from the Age of Speed." This section is a summary of the book's top points and then applies these points to the real world. Example: Be Conscious of Bonus Time - If you figure out a way to save time at the bank and the grocery store, do you earmark that time for something rewarding or do you just fill in the time with passive activities?

Conclusion: All in all I'd give it three stars out of five. The last section was the "meatiest" and held my attention the longest. If you're looking for ways to better understand and better cope with the speed at which life is flashing by then The Age of Speed by Vince Poscente is the book for you.

I've anticipated reading this latest book from Vince Poscente for some time now. He did not disappoint! His message of More, Faster, Now hits home not only for myself, but for every hard working, high energy, dynamic personality out there who feels they have to get it all done at break neck speed and yet still yearn to find some time for...well...a life! I loved the category mix of companies and identified the niche I want to be part of as I progress in my business and personal growth. I just want to do it all today. It's a great read. (What time is it?...NOW.)

I've been a Vince Poscente fan for years. His new book hits the mark on perhaps the most critical competitive issue in business today: speed. While there have been other treatments of the subject, Poscente's great advantage is that he engages the reader in a way that motivates action. This book makes you want to go beyond just reading and actually DO something about it. Poscente looks at the power of speed from many angles, and almost all of them struck a chord with me. I've said for years that being quicker and faster is one of the great advantages in business. Poscente just said it better. This book even FEELS fast. Great graphics and a unique layout make this book one that you should buy and, need I say it, buy it NOW.

I tried very hard to extract any value out of this book, but without any luck. the only good thing about it is the quality of paper and production. Its pages of boring text with no clear goal or target.

A fast and furious read, the AGE OF SPEED provides great insights and excellent tips throughout. Most of us will never be able to go down the ski slopes at amazing speeds, but we do approach our jobs and personal lives reaching for that goal of quickness and accuracy. Poscente shows reasons why faster and better are crucial in all facets of melting our professional and personal lives. We are all trying to squeeze as much as we possibly can in 24 hours. I want to be a "jet" so I can embrace speed and pursue it constantly. Highly recommend this book for anyone that wants to thrive in a World that just keeps getting faster and faster.

Not only does The Age of Speed deliver important ideas in palatable chapters, but the book is a fun read (my personal favorite chapter is the study about the bats). You can pick it up and put it down, reading when you have the time, and you never need to retrace your steps. It definitely made me rethink the way I do some things, and enlightened me about others.

I also had the pleasure of conducting an interview with Vince, and I must say that not only is he an excellent author, but a real pleasure to speak with. He told great stories and answered all of my questions with real gusto. I can't wait to see what he writes next!

This Book makes you think. Being in the publishing business for over 22 years, it is refreshing to come across a book with novel concepts. I love the statgies and lessons that help me deal with our present Age of Speed.