a cornucopia about to flow

we're starting to have HP writers... hooray.

For some reason, for the first seventy years of HP's history, no HP executive ever published a book about the company, or even their own experiences. Sure, there was Barbara Waugh's personal saga which is a wonderful tale from an HR and humanistic perspective. And Dave Kirby and Karen Lewis helped ghost Packard's autobiography.

John Minck continues to update his essay about HP roots and personalities, first published almost twenty years ago now. Gosh, does that seem possible?

Now, there are new encouraging signs. John Stedman, who provided significant help for Ray Price and me on our book re the peripherals history, has published his memoirs, a 400 page extended essay that HP buffs will find interesting. He includes much about HP's move into Bristol England as well as the Boise, Idaho experiences.

More significantly, Webb McKinney is engaged in writing 'the story' of the last twenty years, from his vantage point on Lew Platt's and Carly Fiorina's staffs. Webb managed the integration of Compaq and HP, one of the alltime best large-company "mergers" He has been working with Robert Burgelman at Stanford's Business School on this project. They have a singularly effective article about HP's failure to seize the network hub business that I heartily endorse. This could be one of the best business books about a large company in search of keeping its excellence. I can hardly wait. Burgelman is well known for his close association with Andy Grove and the Intel story; his involvement will doubtless help the sales by giving the book credibility at the major business schools, something that we managed to avoid by taking our own approach rather than the Harvard Biz Press model.