2008 Collingswood Book Festival

Yesterday I attended the Collingswood Book Festival as an author. I did not know what to expect but I have to confess it was a very nice time. The location was beautiful. We were located outside the lawn of a church with a great tree and beautiful courtyard.

There were not as many people at this show as in previous years, but I had many people stop buy to ask about the book and eventually get my signature. The people fell into 3 categories: the retired, those in college or fresh out of college, and those in between.

I was completely surprised to see the retired stop by and tell me about their work experiences at SDC, RAND, Hughes on the west coast then RCA, NAFEC, and other places on the east coast. I did not expect this in a small town outside Philadelphia. We talked and they knew people that were my first managers and mentors on systems that my generation was supposed to replace. To my complete surprise and delight they immediately knew what the book was about and they could clearly see the connection to what they did in their time - System Engineering. There was no selling on my part at all; instead they started to educate me on the merits of the themes inherent in the title. This was totally shocking to me.

I was happy to see people in college and fresh out of college very interested in the book. Like the retired they were excited about the topic, but unlike the retired they did not understand it. They just felt it was something they needed to know. They intently listened to me talk about system engineering and why we need to practice it in this new century.

The in between age group were really disinterested in the book. They would walk by or quickly shift their gaze away from the table and the literature. Three people in this group actually stopped and they were a very hard sell. Yes I did eventually sell them a book but the level of effort was incredible. Two of them were city planners in the local county. The third was a person from the financial sector who was in the middle of the current mortgage crisis. He was obviously very upset at the current state of affairs. He said he tried to warn his peers but no one would listen to him. He said he even wrote a book on the topic. Using the miracle of the Internet and linkedin.com I actually verified that he did write a book for internal consumption at one of these companies. The book was written 2 years ago; they did not listen. In any case his final comment was that I was a very good salesman and he bought the book. Obviously the general theme of the book is something that he knows could have helped avert disaster in his industry.