What is the invention that you are grateful of the most?

For me, it is not about high-tech even I am contributing a bit in making our world, a better place with high-tech. It is about the invention of Book Documentation. Who was the inventor and which book was the first published?

• Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (/ˈɡuːtənbɜːrɡ/;[1] c. 1400 [2] — February 3, 1468) was a Germanblacksmith, goldsmith, printer, and publisher who introduced printing to Europe with the printing press.
• 1377: Jikji is known to be the first printed book using movable metal print technology by Koryo (Korea). Jikji is abbreviated title of a Korean Buddhist document, Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters.

This article is not about book invention but about a book that I recently have read (I read a few times, again and again at different places on traveling); and I feel very grateful of great leaders in the world who put their heart, passion and life stories in pieces-of-papers so that we all get benefits from it, almost for free. Heads off for them!

Who knows Richard Branson and his Virgin Group?

These are the best (for me) paragraphs in the book:

• Starting a business takes huge amounts of hard work and time so you had better enjoy doing it. If you don’t enjoy it then don’t do it.
• I simply wanted to create something people would enjoy using, have fun doing it and at the end of the day prayed that it would make enough to pay the bills.
• When my friends and I were building Virgin, we had to approach things very differently, because our vision was founded not so much on a product, but on a service. Our culture arose from our constant engagement with our customers and each other. This led us to build a company devoted to customer service and staff engagement; to providing great value and maintaining a sense of fun in everything we do — our company has gone on to open hundreds of businesses in many different industries.
• Are you someone who brings out the best in people? Great managers seldom criticize their team members. Just as plants need water, people need encouragement so that they can grow and flourish.
• When Virgin starts any new business, we always hire a core team of smart people who already know the industry and its inherent risks. Take full advantage of the knowledge pool you’ve created; when a problem comes up, remember that nobody has all the answers, including you. Hire the people you need, not the people you like.
• A great entrepreneur knows when the time has come to leave the CEO role. It’s seldom easy, but it has to be done: very few entrepreneurs make great managers.
• If I see something that I don’t like I’m not all shy about making my thoughts known and asking some very pointed questions.
• A successful business must never lose its focus on its customers and maintaining its standards. A service culture starts at the top so management must be constantly on guard and ready to respond quickly a the first hint of a problem.
• I pursue only those things about which I can be passionate, whether that will make money or not. I find that if you are really fervent and committed, you can only do better — and have a better chance of making the venture pay the bills. Money has enabled me to start up and support a number of causes.
• Finding investors to provide the capital you need for launch can be a long and often daunting process. So keep tweaking the pitch and move on to the next meetings. If you are preparing for a short meeting, pick 3 key points that will stick with potential investors. These should be things like: what makes your product or service different? Will it improve your customers’ lives? Why would people buy it? Make sure you keep your message focused.
• Listen carefully and find ways to empower each person to do a great job. Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions!
• The quality of business communications has become poorer in recent years as people avoid phone calls and face-to-face meetings, I can only assume, in some misguided quest for efficiency.
• Whatever you and your team decide that your new brand will stand for, you will have to deliver on that promise. So when you’re having these discussions, be honest about what it is you’re offering. It is far better to underpromise, and overdeliver than vice versa.
• Businesses are nothing more than a group of people, and they are by far and away your biggest assets. In fact in probably the majority of businesses your people are your product!
• and many more tips written in the book, especially on the first difficult days when he started his first business… very tough and inspiring!

Which book am I heading to?