Category Archives: Book Review

A Review of The October Diaries (in 4 Parts)

Part I

The October Diaries is a supernatural drama centred on the interaction of the protagonist, Jon W. Hansen, a distinguished analyst with a 40 year career in tech and, in computing years, an AI RAM Model 5 based on centuries of development. His work becomes increasingly complicated as other models continually challenge his and self-proclaimed AI Experts continually threaten our space from the shadows. The book chronicles the complex relationships as Jon tries to find new ways to preserve the truth and protect …

Oh wait, that’s the plot archetype for the Vampire Diaries. Did I read the right book?

Yes I did. But I just made you think, and that’s one of the primary goals of Jon’s book and one of the key points I have to make.

Every Influencer, Consultant, and Analyst needs to read this book, but 99% won’t learn anything if they don’t think and question everything they read. (And that’s one of the unwritten reasons Jon says you’ll have to read the book two and even three times.) If they don’t come to suspect the truths on their own before Jon exposes most of them in later chapters. If they don’t understand that this is not a guide or manual for success or the answer to all their problems (as there is none) …

It’s a book designed to make you do what we don’t do enough of in the age of AI: think, and, most importantly think in a way that will, in time (may not today, tomorrow, or even next year) allow you to actually use modern AI tools productively and extract value in real time.

Gen-AI efforts are failing across all the board, from large scale corporate projects down to small scale individual efforts to extract useful content for reasons that include:

  • lack of focus
  • lack of verified data & reinforcement training
  • lack of knowledge
  • lack of skill

You see, for success, you need to have

  • focussed domain models
  • deep context
  • deep domain knowledge to know when the output is good, ok, and bad
  • appropriate skills to utilize the models effectively

Jon gets at this with his six skills of conversational fluency, which is his name for the methodology he uses to train the models to do what computers do best (identify patterns, surface them, and draw correlations) while he does the strategic thinking humans do best.

As well as his five common mistakes that are one of the reasons the vast amount of human prompted content generated is AI slop.

But he also goes deeper into what is truly required for long-term success. Which may shock many of you who aren’t from the old-school we are, but, like Billy Idol, you have to deal with the shock to the system it will give you and push forward.

Discuss Part I on LinkedIn

Part II

Every Influencer, Consultant, and Analyst needs to read this book, but not for the reasons they think. It’s because they need to think deeply about AI, and that’s what this book forces them to do. It may be framed as a step by step guide to take you from zero hero, but that’s just to psychologically convince you that this is the guide for you — and if you want to understand AI, it is!

Most people are using AI wrong. More specifically, they are using the A.S.S.H.O.L.E. to sh!t out plagiarized slop that is turning the internet into massive sewer that is likely making Jon Oliver rethink his Facebook is a Toilet rant (from 2018) (because now the entire Internet is a sewer).

While that is one of the few things that LLMs can actually do, that’s NOT what they should do. They might be lying, hallucinating, soulless algorithms that will happily tell you to commit suicide, suppress life saving alarms while you’re locked in a server room on fire, or even ignore your shadow and have the self-driving car run you over, but they have their uses.

While they can’t do 94%/95% of what the firms selling them advertise (or we wouldn’t have 94%/95% failure rates, as per McKinsey and MIT), they can do four things very well, with reasonably high reliability when appropriately trained and deployed, that we can’t. The first two, as I keep promoting, are:

1) large corpus search & summarization
2) natural language processing

The third, as Jon makes clear in this book is

3) deep pattern detection and surfacing

But only if you know how to get the algorithm to do it!

You see, all these systems are trained to deliver direct responses to direct requests. As a result, when you give them a typical direct request in your “carefully calibrated prompt“, they give you what they think you are asking for, and that’s it. But that doesn’t help you, or me, or anyone, especially if they weren’t trained on the right data or it’s not available and the only way they can give you what you want is to make sh!t up.

Sure it might spit out 2997 characters for your Linkedin post 10 times faster while addressing the seven points you wanted, but is that really helping you when you have to read it, edit it, and copy and paste and verify it? That takes time — and even worse, it’s not productive time. If you’re not thinking about the 5 Ws, not only are you not sharing anything valuable, but you’re not advancing your thinking. (Right now, the only edge we have over machines is our ability to think critically and strategically — so what happens if we lose that?)

But if you can learn how to work with the technology, instead of getting bland plagiaristic derivations, you can get it to surface patterns across related bodies of work, document progressions over time, and use that to more quickly validate your instincts and formalize your ideas, allowing you to advance your own abilities while ensuring you can serve your customers faster and better by speeding up research and delivery efforts by multiplicative factors.

Discuss Part II on LinkedIn

Part III

Today we continue with our review of the supernatural drama that chronicles the interaction of the protagonist, Jon W. Hansen, and the RAM Model 5 that we’re sure you’ll find more thrilling than the pages of the Vampire Diaries we thought we were reviewing (due to the similarities in plot archetypes). You might not have the love triangle, but I’m sure the dollar signs will be more than enough to get your attention. (What dollar signs? Well, you’ll have to read it.)

In part one we said that you need to read the book because it will make you think (if you’re reading it right).

In part two we said you need to read the book because it helps you understand the power of LLMs is not its ability to create watered down plagiarized slop 10 times faster than the drunken plagiarist intern ever could but uncover patterns that you might never uncover on your own due to lack of time.

Today we’re giving you a third reason — and that reason is that it helps you understand why you are invaluable in the age of AI. While it has been true since the introduction of computers that monkeys could do all back office jobs if they knew what buttons to push, the reality is that AI, which should be called Artificial Idiocy, still doesn’t know what buttons to push, it’s just able, in many situations, to compute what button to push with high probability. But it DOES NOT know. Only YOU know! (You see, what AI really stands for is Algorithmic Improvement, as it is the label that is consistently applied to any algorithm that is an advancement over a previous algorithm, and that has nothing to do with intelligence.)

Now, it does mean that if your job is simply tactical data processing then you’re out of work, and it does mean some of your peers who aren’t as good and efficient as you are also out of work since the tech will make those who know how to use it up to 10 times as efficient at some tasks, but if you’re a skilled expert, then you are more desperately needed than ever because, as per our last post, only you will be able to detect the very convincing inaccuracies, lies, and hallucinations it returns.

But understanding is not enough, you need to be able to explain it, and when pressed, demonstrate it. That is what the book, after a few reads, will help you do. Use AI in a way that demonstrates you are what’s needed to make AI effective and make sure the organization isn’t part of the 95% failure statistic.

Part IV

In Part I of our review of Jon W. Hansen’s October Diaries, his take on the modern thriller, I told every Analyst, Consultant, and Influencer (ACI) that they need to read it because it will force them to finally think — deep — about AI.

In Part II of our review I told the ACI they need to read it because it will help them use LLMs properly and surface patterns they might not ever find on their own due to time constraints.

In Part III of our review I told the ACI that it will help them defend their positions in the “Age of AI” purge that is coming. (Since it’s a new excuse to fire people so the organizational shareholders can [temporarily] get richer!)

Now, in Part IV, I tell most of the ACI that I’m sorry. You shouldn’t read it. You want a quick fix and an easy solution to your relevance problem and this isn’t it. In fact, for some of you, it won’t even be worth the cost of the minuscule amount of storage it takes up on your hard drive.

Because it makes a few assumptions.

1) You have, or are willing to build (with your own hands), a deep archive of unique, human authored content to augment the models with.

2) You are willing to take the time to not only ensure the models are trained on this, and only this, archive but to learn how to both use the models appropriately and get them to retain and access relevant context across multiple sessions over days, weeks, and months, which is a skill that goes beyond creating executable ChatGPT prompts.

3) You have, or are willing to develop, the expertise necessary to know when the model is 100%, 95%, 90%, 50%, and 0% right, no matter how convincing the words are that it returns, and how to correct it and guide it to 95% every time (so you can make the corrections faster than doing the work from scratch), which could take minutes, hours, or days for any particular request you throw at it.

But let’s face it.

1) Most of you don’t have the archive, unless you work for a consultancy that has been delivering projects for at least five years, and preferably 10. Jon and I remember the early days with hundreds of blogs, and the 3/3/3/3 rule. Up to 90% of wanna-bees would quit after 3 posts/3 days, then the next batch by 9 posts/3 weeks, then the next batch by 27 posts/3 months, and the majority by 3 years would say “hey bloggie, I’m packing you in“. The hundreds of blogs I chronicled on the now-defunct SI resource site were down to a few dozen by the 2010s.

2) You won’t put in the months necessary to get the model and your skills to the point you are getting close to what you want every time. And it will be months!

3) Not only do you have to keep learning tech, you have to be constantly seeking out experts to learn your trade. That’s also a lot of work. When you’re Bowling for Soup, you know that High School Never Ends!

In an age where founders want to vibe code and flip companies within 3 years, you want instant gratification, but you’re not going to get that!

All it will give those of you starting out is a way to build a skill that is sustainable for life. But the vast majority of you will have to wait for the good things to come. And I don’t think you will. Sorry.

But if you want to prove me wrong, get the book!

Fifty Golden Rules

If you were smart enough to Simplify to Succeed, great on you! If you haven’t, because you’re still wondering whether you can test the waters and go it alone:

Garry Mansell will be releasing “Fifty Golden Rules” this summer, specifically targeted at those of you who are thinking about starting your own business. Written by someone who has built successful business from the very small to the very big … including taking Trade Extensions from an unknown player to the driving force behind advanced souring at Coupa … Garry has the experience, and has learned the lessons, to get it right. As someone who now spends his days guiding new companies and entrepreneurs, you know this book is being written for you. Be sure to follow Garry on LinkedIn for insight and updates.

Finding Your Procurement Mojo and Gettin’ Sigi Wit’ It – Part Deux

This spring, in Finding Your Procurement Mojo and Gettin’ Sigi Wit’ It (Part One), we began our review of Sigi Osagie’s Procurement Mojo, an important book for many procurement professionals and organizations. Unlike most books which attempt to teach you how to do the job (that you already have a decent grip of), Sigi’s book attempts to teach you how to explain to the organization what Procurement does, which is a critical issue that needs to be addressed since:

  1. Procurement is still the Rodney Dangerfield of the organization (and still don’t get no respect) and
  2. most Procurement Pros don’t know how to sell the organization on the unrealized potential that Procurement can bring.

In our first post we discussed how Sigi noted that a key to success was the Procurement brand, but in order to address the Procurement brand, one needed to:

  • build an effective organization,
  • deploy process enablers,
  • manage the supply base, and
  • apply performance frameworks.

Then we discussed some of the key points Sigi made with respect to each of these preliminary steps to building, and most importantly selling, the Procurement brand, but stopped short of discussing any of the game plan because some of his readers would get to hear the man himself and Get Sigi Wit’ It at Trade Extensions’ London event in October. However, now that the event is over, we’re going to discuss the final part of the book and complete the book review.

Sigi outlines three main areas that need to be addressed to build — and sell — your Procurement Mojo:

1. Procurement Positioning

Make sure Procurement is positioned in the organization in the manner and place that will allow it to be the most effective in both delivering its functional obligations and adding value. This involves addressing both reporting structure and enterprise involvement. Not all organizations require a CPO who reports to a CEO, some can do fine with a VP that reports to a COO (who is the CEO’s right hand). For example, if the organization is a manufacturer and most of the spend is direct materials, this can work fine, as long as Procurement is also involved in other key spend categories by the CMO (for agency management), CFO (for back office spend), CIO (for systems spend), and other executives that also have large spend categories. As long as Procurement understands key company purchases and is able to convey the importance of those key purchases to the right stakeholders in a way that elicits their involvement, the reporting structure is not as important as general Procurement involvement.

2. Stakeholder Communication

Every other key Supply Management activity requires stakeholder engagement and support to be successful, so why should brand management and promotion be any different? The key to building, and selling, the Procurement brand (and making your mojo work for you) is regular, effective, stakeholder communication that provides messages relevant to them. Make sure you understand what your stakeholders value most — and address that. Cost savings? Innovation? The relationship? If you can’t talk to their needs and report on value in their terms, it will be hard to break down the silos and sell the value, and brand, of Procurement. Sigi offers some great advice on how to effectively communicate with your stakeholders that most books don’t, and this is a great section of the last chapter, which includes a discussion of how to create a stakeholder map to keep your communications on track.

3. Procurement PR

Good companies make good products. Great companies create a great brand image that people want and instill desire for products even before the products are released or, in some cases, people even know what the products are. Look at Apple. The brand made people want the iPod and the iWatch even before Apple even announced them.

But good PR isn’t easy, especially for a function focussed on hard value and not soft messaging. However, once you know the right formula, it isn’t that hard either. As long as your messaging consistently addresses activities and issues that are:

  • Important,
  • Sustainable, and
  • Credible

and relevant to the audience being addressed, the PR will improve and the brand will grow. How do you do this? Sigi provides a number of examples of efforts that various organizations have used to achieve this goal. While not all will necessarily work for you, some will, and the book is a great aid here as well.

Again, we highly recommend that you check out Sigi Osagie’s Procurement Mojo and Get Sigi Wit’ It.

Finding Your Procurement Mojo and Gettin’ Sigi With It!

As per my last post, my readers on the other side of the pond are probably well aware that Sigi Osagie’s Procurement Mojo has been available since late last year, but since Amazon UK had it well before Amazon USA and Amazon Canada, my readers on this side of the pond may not have noticed yet.

Procurement Mojo is an important book for many procurement professionals and organizations because it does not attempt to teach you what Procurement is, assuming you already know how to do your job, but instead attempts to teach you how to explain to the organization what Procurement does, which is a critical issue that needs to be addressed since

  1. Procurement is still the Rodney Dangerfield of the organization (and still don’t get no respect) and
  2. most Procurement Pros don’t know how to sell the organization on the unrealized potential that Procurement can bring.

The book addresses these issues by noting that the only way Procurement pros are going to be able to sell the organization on the true potential of Procurement and get the respect they deserve is to learn how to sell the Procurement brand. And this is what makes Procurement Mojo a great book. It gives you a how-to guide for building your Procurement Brand.

But before you build your Procurement Brand, as per our last work, you have to build the foundations — frameworks, process-based enablers, platform support, and good management. It takes time to get this all in place, but fortunately Sigi gives you a roadmap for this as well. In this post we’re going to discuss some of the key insights Sigi makes in the hope of encouraging you to check out his book and find your Procurement Mojo.

Sigi builds up to the plan to build your procurement brand by addressing

  1. building an effective organization
    because you can’t sell an ineffective one
  2. deploying process enablers
    people and platform powered
  3. managing the supply base
    because while you can fail on your own, you cannot succeed without
    the support of the supply base
  4. applying performance frameworks
    you have to measure, manage, and perform

We’re not going to dive into deals on how to do each of these tasks, as you can read them in the book, but highlight some key points on why these steps are important.

Building an Effective Organization

In many organizations, the average employee might not even know that there is a separate Procurement department — assuming that each department might do it’s own buying. It’s scary, but it’s true. And many of the employees who are sort of aware of Procurement won’t really understand what they do, believing they only buy office supplies, direct materials, etc. That’s why the brand is needed, but the chances of anyone taking notice are low if the organization is not effective.

And an effective organization is not necessarily one that does a lot of work, it’s one that appears to be effective. And this is often accomplished not by employing hard process and technology skills that allow the organization to do more, faster, but by employing soft processes that encourage communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution. That’s why effective organizations make sure that they have capability, rewards, and culture aligned with goals (not just processes and platforms).

Deploying Process Enablers

Once an organization does a competency assessment and gap analysis and identifies what it needs to get to the next level, the next thing it will have to do is deploy enablers, be they process or platform based, to get to the next level. But this doesn’t mean that they will employ “best in class” enablers. “Best in class” are not always best for your organization — it all depends on the maturity of the function and the need. Sometimes a good enough enabler, which is easy to use and understand and provides an immediate 80% to 90% return is much better than a best-in-class enabler which is difficult for a novice to understand, requires three times as much effort, and is avoided at all costs by the average employee.

Managing the Supply Base

Procurement is about maximizing the value chain — and suppliers are a vital part of that chain. You cannot succeed if they do not succeed. It doesn’t matter how great packaging and marketing in if the product or service is crap. It just doesn’t. That’s why relationship management and development is critically important and must be well in hand before you can focus on selling the brand (as they can tank your brand faster than an oil spill will tank an oil and gas company’s brand when the media has their frenzy).

Applying Performance Frameworks

That which is measured is managed, but more importantly, that which is not managed is a misadventure waiting to happen. As a result, appropriately defined frameworks must be in place to make sure the organization remains effective, deploys the right enablers, and nurtures the supply base.

And now that we’ve discussed the foundations we could discuss how you build your Procurement Brand and Sigi’s Procurement Mojo game plane. But since customers of Trade Extensions will have a chance to hear Sigi talk about Procurement Mojo live on October 7, 2015 at their customer event at Emirates Stadium in London, the doctor is not going to spill all of the beans on what Sigi says and what he thinks about it until then. But just like your favourite series comes back after summer hiatus, this series will return!

Real World Analytics – It All Depends on the Domain

Another book that was published late last year, and that has been sitting on the doctor‘s stack for review since about then, is Real-World Analytics by Michael Koukounas. the doctor has to admit that he was a bit hesitant to review this (and then lost it in the stack) because, as he just finished explaining to yet another individual before penning this post, Spend Analysis is not the same as Data Analysis, and that’s why so many companies without any understanding of the unique requirements of spend analysis for Sourcing and Procurement (who hire hard-core computer scientists who write trite like Spend Analysis: The Window into Strategic Sourcing (which is about the only book the doctor has ever reviewed that he has completely shredded) that, as it’s title suggests, gives you a cloudy window view that doesn’t give you the full picture (and often causes you to make the wrong assumptions about what is going on in the house).

But the doctor will have to admit that if you take this book as it is — a guide for building the foundation to do analytics (and not a guide for how to do them, which requires a completely different guidebook), it does a decent job. And the author — who is obviously an expert in data analytics in the Finance and Banking industry where a lot of effort goes into loan return models, credit risk prediction, and currency fluctuation models — really knows the core foundations for performing analytics quite well and does a great job discussing them.

As the author describes in various chapters, there can be no successful analytics, data nor spend, without:

  • Good Data Access
    and a Data Management Team
  • Talent
    as analytics cannot be automated
  • Operational Knowledge
    and, in particular, operational knowledge as it relates to the domain
  • Appropriate Trade-Offs Between Efficiency and Creativity
    and fine-tuning to the audience
  • an Analytics Continuity Plan
    in case something happens to top talent
  • the right teams …
    data management, analytics development, and analytics maintenance
  • … and the right team sizes
    since core development will usually only require a small team (because once the up front models are developed / implemented for the organization, new needs won’t be popping up every day), data management will require a team proportional to the number of data sources and their complexity, and maintenance will often require a larger team than you think as new data becomes available, new insights are required, and new reports are requested.

Moreover, at a high-level, the five-step game plan is correct:

  1. Define the Problem (and the end goal)
  2. Identify Touch-Points (where and when the analytics should be run)
  3. Understand the Touch Points (and the restrictions and requirements they place on the analytics)
  4. Select the Right Data (since garbage in means garbage out)
  5. Run the Analytics (and validate the results)

But when you start to descend from the 30,000 foot view, the details are vastly different in the spend analysis domain (and the author even implies this when he says that the analytic needs for engineers are vastly different than the analytic needs for financiers). But Real-World Analytics is a great guide to getting the precursor foundations right.