Mark Cuban on Being an Information Junkie

If you haven't subscribed yet you should be reading Mark Cuban's blog. His series on "Success and Motivation" has been great stuff. Part 4, posted today, was pretty timely for me since I had a conversation over lunch with a former report about the value of being an information junkie and indiscriminatingly reading everything you can to help you better understand your customers. I would also apply this to the technology industry or business in general as Mark has. It's a big reason why I read from over 1400 individual rss feeds daily and encourage others to start. Here are some great snippets from his latest post:

"... I read every book and magazine I could. Heck, 3 bucks for a magazine, 20 bucks for a book. One good idea that lead to a customer or solution and it paid for itself many times over. Some of the ideas i read were good, some not. In doing all the reading I learned a valuable lesson.

Everything I read was public. Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didnt want it. I remember going into customers or talking to people in the industry and tossing out tidbits about software or hardware. Features that worked , bugs in the sofware. All things I had read. I expected the ongoing response of "oh yeah, i read that too in such and such". Thats not what happened. They hadnt read it then, and they havent started reading yet. Most people wont put in the time to get a knowledge advantage. Sure , there were folks that worked hard at picking up every bit of information that they could, but we were few and far between. To this day, I feel like if I put in enough time consuming all the information available, particularly with the net making it so readily available, I can get an advantage in any technology business. Of course my wife hates that I read more than 3 hours almost every day, but it gives me a level of comfort and confidence in my businesses....

...I learned from magazines and books, but I also learned from watching what some of the up and coming technology companies of the day were doing. Its funny how the companies that I thought were brilliant then, are still racking it up today...

Bill G also taught me a few things about business. Put aside how he killed IBM at their own game by licensing PC DOS to anyone that wanted it. What MicroSoft did to knock  Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect off their thrones was literally business at its best...."

[Via Blog Maverick]