Book Review in the Star

Yesterday saw the publication of my first book review in the Star newspaper. This was on "Steve Jobs - The Man Who Thought Different" by Karen Blumenthal.

The Star newspaper is Malaysia's largest circulation English daily newspaper. Recently, they invited me to write book reviews for them. The review of this Steve Jobs biography is the first fruit of that.

Originally, I wrote a review of about 1,400 words, in which I said fully what I thought. This had to be cut down to 999 words. However, this was further cut before publication, to 856 words. Tellingly, my most critical passages were cut from the piece - the parts in which I was most blunt about Steve Jobs' true character and less flattering side. It seems that the Star didn't want me to express those thoughts so clearly. What remains hints at what has been removed. From my point of view, it is a pity that I wasn't allowed to say what I really thought, because what I had wished to say, needs to be said about Steve Jobs. He wasn't what many people think - although I must say he was very good at personal PR and creating a positive image. The underlying truth was rather different, however.

Please read my review here:

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2012/7/27/lifebookshelf/11686256&sec=lifebookshelf

Let me know, below what you think of it. I will post the full unedited version soon, to allow you to read my analysis of Steve Jobs' character in full.

Happy reading!

Thank you.

Posted by Valentine Cawley


(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. 

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

The true value of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is marketed as a social network for professionals. It is also one of the ways people use to look up old friends, perhaps from University, school, or previous jobs.

Most people think of the value of LinkedIn, to be in the networks it allows you to form. However, I personally don’t think this is its most valuable attribute. That value lies in something more subtle than a network. LinkedIn’s true value is not in who joins your network, but in who doesn’t.

I have recently become active on LinkedIn, although I have supposedly been a member for a couple of years. I say “supposedly” because in all that time I never logged in and never did anything on LinkedIn, at all. Now, my recent activity has involved a lot of checking for the presence of old friends on the database and sending them an invitation. The responses have been instructive. There have been two types of response: the quick acceptance, either without notice, or with an accompanying note – and the complete failure to respond. In my case, of 19 invitations sent, 14 have resulted in acceptance and 5 have responded only with silence. I find these ones the most interesting. Of these two of them are people I have worked with and the rest are people I had considered old friends. That these people, whom I had lost contact with, but still considered warmly, should ignore my request to join me on LinkedIn, is very instructive indeed. It says that, perhaps, my memories of them are undeserved, that the lingering warmth I feel for their inner image, within me, is inappropriate. It prompts me to re-evaluate my personal history.

Further examination of those who ignore my request is even more instructive. One of them was once considered my “best friend”. Yet, he has ignored my request now, for over a week and a half. Why has he not accepted? There is, perhaps, a clue in the number of his connections. He has HUNDREDS. He may actually begrudge me the advantage that would accrue upon accessing his network, given that mine is new and much smaller. There might be some selfishness at work here. Either that, or there are things I just don’t know about my former best friend, at all.

Then again, there is another LinkedIn member who has ignored my request. In this case I cannot be entirely certain that I have the right person, but it is extremely likely that I do, since he is in the same industry and has the same rare name. He is a writer, or as he puts it: “Independent Publishing Professional”. He is actually a best selling literary writer, whom I first met about 17 years ago, unbelievable as that is to write, now. Those 17 years seem awfully brief. I met him regularly, over the space of about six years in the 1990s, then a couple of times in the last decade (since I had left the country). However, it should be noted that I met him many times, and we had many conversations. I considered him a good friend. He, too, has ignored my request. In his case, I do wonder if he is, again, guarding his contacts, most of which are in publishing/writing. He knows that I am a writer. Perhaps he feels competitive.

LinkedIn is a test of the solidity of one’s relationships and friendships. If an overture to an old friend is ignored, then it allows one to reconsider whether that “old friend” was much of a friend at all – or whether they are too shallow to remember one, over the intervening years.

In a way, therefore, though disappointed, I am as grateful to those who refuse my LinkedIn request, as to those who accept. Those who refuse to join me on LinkedIn are letting me know the true nature of their feelings and thoughts towards me. They are letting me understand how little, perhaps, I really knew them at all.

So, here is a big thank you to all those who have joined me on LinkedIn – and just as big a thank you to all those who have refused to do so. You have spared me much time, in my future life, from considering you. Thanks.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)