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Book reviews are important for readers and authors. On this page you will find independent reviews prepared by The US Review of Books, readers on Amazon, and others. If you like any of my books, I invite you to add your review on Amazon. Potential readers and I will appreciate it.
Reflection Attitude is a comprehensive review of the blog articles of Dr. John Patrick. It is organized into twelve chapters, with each chapter containing multiple articles. At the end of the subset of each chapter, his personal and current reflections are highlighted. He speaks on current happenings and the possible future implications.
The author reviews various technological inventions, issues, and possible solutions to current and future issues in this book. He recognizes that the world has become a global village thanks to new inventions and evolving technology in various dimensions. The book has lots of advice for business owners and organizations that will aid in more effective management. He also uses his life experiences to portray different messages for easier comprehension. His reflections serve as food for thought. In each of the twelve chapters, different issues and future challenges are critically addressed, and he opines his solution to each problem.
I enjoyed the reading because the book contained a substantial amount of information. Each chapter has a lesson and exposes the reader to certain challenges that are unknown and ways of curbing them. It also grants the reader access to the various occurrences in the technological world and the ongoing inventions to make consumer life more enjoyable and less tedious. The book had zero errors, indicating that it was properly proofread and edited. I must acknowledge the versatility of the author. I admired his ability to think, participate in music concerts, carry out his hobby, and still seek ways to improve technology. Throughout the book, he wrote with extreme confidence and optimism about the future. I learned a lot from the part of this book where he wrote about hackers. The tips to curb the menace are priceless. The book is well-detailed and carefully arranged.
I wasn’t impressed with the size of the book, although the information it contains is massive. It could become less interesting at some point, and one could miss out on the main point. Sometimes he also recalled too many events and inventions that happened long ago, and those who aren’t really into historical events will find that cumbersome. The book also gave an insight into cryptocurrency.
This book deserves three out of four stars and is highly recommended for business managers seeking to improve their organizations. I also encourage any smartphone or computer user to read this book. So many tips on how to address internet issues can be learned, such as securing servers from hackers. Technology is improving daily, and we must be ready to adapt to those changes.
Home Attitude Reviews
US Review has a cadre of experienced independent reviews. They do not guarantee a review will result in a recommendation but, thankfully, Net Attitude, Health Attitude, Election Attitude, and Home Attitude were all recommended. Following is their review of Home Attitude.
Election Attitude Reviews
US Review has a cadre of experienced independent reviews. They do not guarantee a review will result in a recommendation but, thankfully, Net Attitude, Health Attitude, Election Attitude, and Home Attitude were all recommended. Following is their review of Election Attitude.
Net Attitude V2 Reviews
US Review has a cadre of experienced independent reviews. They do not guarantee a review will result in a recommendation but, thankfully, Net Attitude, Health Attitude, Election Attitude, and Home Attitude were all recommended. Following is their review of Net Attitude V2.
Health Attitude Reviews
Book reviews are important for readers and authors. On this page you will find independent reviews prepared by The US Review of Books and by readers on Amazon. If you like any of my books, I invite you to add your review. Potential readers and I will appreciate it.
The following is a review of Health Attitude by the late Bill Machrone, former editor-in-chief of PC Magazine. There are quite a few other reviews on Amazon.
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2015
Health Attitude is easily the most comprehensive and comprehensible book on health care in the USA. While technical and political texts abound, when other books look to one or two aspects of health care, John R. Patrick has written an amazing work. It combines aspects of research, scholarly dissertation, current statistics, rigorous analysis, and intensely personal experience. His personal experiences are for me highly compelling, as he talks in an unbiased manner about himself and his family.
Patrick’s devotion to his topic is obvious as you read the table of contents. It’s meticulous, detailed, and well organized. Some of the topic items are only a couple of paragraphs long, others go for many pages. The short ones are typically self-evident and the longer passages present issues, problems, and solutions. For instance, Patrick has little patience for an industry so wedded to fax and pagers. Far more importantly, he devotes significant space to topics such as patient safety, including hospital-acquired conditions and medical devices. Electronic health records show up several times, and Patrick continually builds the case for their widespread use.
Patrick is balanced on the ins and outs of medical practice, but comes down firmly on the progressive side in sections such as “Healthcare: A Right or a Privilege?” The thread running through the entire book has been about the potential for inequality, and this is where he brings up the big guns. As he says, “I advocate the principle, everybody pays something according to their means.” But no one goes uninsured. He shows that a country may have just one payer or as many as 200, with meaty discussion and deep thinking about this and related funding topics.
Every politician, regardless of party or position, should read this book with I hope, an open mind. This is an important book that can help improve healthcare in the US, whether the reader agrees with Patrick’s conclusions or not. Health Attitude is also vital to insurance and corporate executives, as well as physicians, hospital administrators, and concerned citizens.
Note: John Patrick and I had business dealings when he was in charge of IBM’s ThinkPad line and other responsibilities, and I was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine and subsequent operations. We have not seen one another in roughly 20 years, although we have conversed occasionally. He invited me to review Health Attitude.
US Review has a cadre of experienced independent reviews. They do not guarantee a review will result in a recommendation but, thankfully, Net Attitude, Health Attitude, Election Attitude, and Home Attitude were all recommended. Following is their review of Health Attitude.
Net Attitude V1 Reviews
Net Attitude: What It Is, How to Get It, and Why Your Company Can’t Survive Without It was my first book. It was published during the fourth quarter of 2001. Following the 9/11 attack on America was not the ideal time to release a book about technology. Nevertheless, the book did get a lot of reviews. This was one advantage of publishing the now old-fashioned way: hard cover, a major publisher (Perseus), an editor, and some advertising. Here is the first review on Amazon. Additional Amazon reviews are here. On the Reviews and News page are links to numerous writings about Net Attitude V1.
Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2002
Release date: October 16, 2001
We have the technology. So why do so many businesses crash and burn when it comes to launching successful e-business strategies? Why do flashy web sites send customers to a 1800 number that can be accessed only during “normal” business hours? Why do executives who market toys and games refuse to listen to their own children? According to IBM’s Internet guru, John Patrick, it’s all about attitude. Our inability to harness the full power of the Internet has much less to do with the technology itself than with the cultural and psychological barriers that straitjacket our thinking about it. In Net Attitude he reveals the strategies, and more important, the mindset, that will allow you and your company to flourish in the age of connectivity. Drawing from a wide range of examples from the worlds of business, technology, politics, education, and popular culture, Patrick explores the profound implications of adopting an Internet attitude and how it will transform you and your business.Net Attitude emanates from the grassroots thinking that was part of the evolution of the Internet itself. It is hard to describe but you will know it when you see it. Young people tend to have it but it is not really an age thing. An increasing number of seniors have it too. The masses of people in the middle layers of large organizations often don’t have it. It is not that there is something wrong with them as people; it is just that the bureaucracies of large organizations have shielded them from the new way of thinking and in some cases Darwinian instincts have caused them to bring up their own shields.”
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
For any e-business strategy to succeed these days, says John Patrick, those behind it must take an informed and confident stance on the Internet and all it can accomplish. Such an attitude is probably more important now, in fact, than it was at the opening of the online revolution. And Patrick ought to know: as vice president of Internet Technology at IBM and a founding member of the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT, he’s been involved in the cyberworld throughout its brief but heady existence. Net Attitude lays out his vision for the future of the medium, and offers suggestions for preparing “your organization and the people who are part of it, as well as all its systems and processes, to take advantage of everything the Internet has to offer.” He attributes those vast possibilities to the emergence of seven characteristics (Fast, Always On, Everywhere, Natural, Intelligent, Easy, and Trusted), elaborates on them individually, and ties them to developments ranging from high-quality video transmission to vending-machine purchases initiated by cell phone. Some may find Patrick’s unabashed optimism a bit much for even an avowed proselytizer, but maybe that’s part of what net attitude is all about. —Howard Rothman
From Library Journal
IBM’s vice president of Internet technology, Patrick adds to the proliferation of Internet books but offers a different spin. His is about “attitude.” Net attitude is abstract and hard to describe, but, according to Patrick, you will know it when you see it. If people in middle management in large organizations tend not to have it, the fault lies not with the individuals but with the organization’s bureaucracy, which has not readily accepted this new mindset. Having a net attitude in business is about preparing your organization, as well as its systems and processes, to take advantage of everything the Internet has to offer. Patrick’s optimism is evident throughout, despite the failures of dot-coms during 2000, which he attributes to businesses not being able to segment their markets. Patrick’s breezy style makes his recommendations and ideas sound simple perhaps too simple. The title may appeal to the curious and small business owners who have not yet embraced Internet technology, but this is not a necessary purchase. — Bellinda Wise
Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, NY. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Review
Net Attitude: What It Is, How to Get It, and Why Your Company Can’t Survive Without It
By John R. Patrick
Preface by Stewart Alsop
Perseus Publishing, 2001.
Reviewed by Lise Hansen
Design Management Review – Volume 14, Number 1, Winter 2003
A recent cartoon in The New Yorker by the aptly named Tom Tomorrow laments that owners of cars with alarms are never within earshot when the alarms go off, leaving hapless neighbors to lie awake and curse the darkness. Tomorrow acidly suggests that alarm owners should be obliged to wear a padlocked electronic collar that delivers a series of “extremely painful and prolonged electric shocks” from the time their alarms open up until they are shut off.
The Internet technology scenario John Patrick dishes up for Net Attitude is not as dark, but it’s just as appealing. Patrick, who wrote this book when he was vice president of Internet technology at IBM, is the maverick executive who, in 1994, dragged the company, kicking and screaming, into involvement with the Web, and became a sort of official enfant terrible for Big Blue as it punched its way toward its transformation into e-business.
Patrick’s book throbs with impatience. He can see how things could be—indeed, how they ought to be. He describes in detail the dumb things that still go wrong when you try to use the Web, and the dumb excuses businesses use to explain why they can’t be fixed. How come? he asks. We have the technology. We know how to do this. What’s lacking is Net Attitude—strong leadership from businesses and institutions to, in essence, think outside-in—the way their customers think.
Contrary to those who claim the Internet is stalled or even washed up completely, Patrick claims that we’re in the very early stages of the impact the Internet will have on our business, professional, and personal lives. (His first chapter is called “We Haven’t Seen Anything Yet.”) The next generation of the Internet, Patrick says, will embody seven key characteristics, explained in detail: fast, always on, everywhere, natural (intuitive), intelligent, easy, and trusted. He’s especially strong on the security issues that, handled correctly, lead to trust.
The visions come thick and fast: an online voting system that activates your digital signature after you enter your pin number. An MRI apparatus that lets a physician far away see and diagnose your knee problem in real time. A mobile phone application that closes the garage door from 300 miles away and turns up the heat before you come home, via the server on your home LAN. E-diplomas made relevant not by the issuing university, but by, say, the 10 experts with whom the student studied online.
Good bonuses are the book’s acute and readable summaries of individual technologies (Linux, XML, peer-to-peer networking) and developments (the evolution of Internet standards and the Internet Engineering Task Force, anyone?), as well as the first and only analysis I’ve seen on the term “skunk works.” The latter is fitting: One of Patrick’s biggest contributions to IBM was his ability to attract the best and brightest Internet technologists and turn them loose, protected from the bureaucracy, in small, dynamic labs.
That said, Patrick doesn’t make much of a case for the part of his title that promises to tell you why your company can’t survive without “net attitude,” beyond warning that future generations of consumers and business-to-business customers increasingly will live online. CEOs and boards hungry for ROI need more than that; chart-and-graph wonks would like to see just one proof point. But while giving a token nod to the business disciplines involved in institutionalizing the Internet, Patrick isn’t much interested in issues far from the barricades. His term for those who have to cope with stuff like process reengineering or measurement? White corpuscles.
But many a white corpuscle has been convinced by Patrick’s vision to look outside the organization and work from a customer’s perspective. “Outside is where the people are,” Patrick writes. “Net Attitude will help you walk in their shoes.”