Blue Ocean Strategy

This is a great book with some useful tools to help construct a growth strategy for a business that maximises the chances of creating a new market space (the blue ocean of the title) whilst minimising the risks.
It covers formulating blue ocean ideas (going beyond existing market boundaries, looking at how customers use, or try to use, your product or service)
And then how to improve the chances of success in executing a strategy.
Of particular interest to me was the concept of thinking about non-customers rather than existing customers, commonalities before differences and de-segmentation (p103).
The concept of a strategy canvas gives a visual way to depict your strategy, that of the competition and the desires of the market (p84 gives the process to follow)
The concept of engaging the whole team in strategy is not new but the description of what the authors call 'fair process' gives insights into why it sometimes doesn't work.

The Case for Working with your hands

The language is a little heavy in the book but I completely support the idea of craft or technical education alongside academic subject in our education.  It then goes onto give examples (through motorcycle repair) of why such skills should be valued in the wider world too.

p158 inverse correlation between giving praise to a child and subsequent persistence at a task
p194 rewards produce reduced engagement with tasks
p204 the need for failure in education and the current vogue to remove all chances of this for every child.