Regis McKenna was a featured speaker in our Competitive Advantage Business Breakfast series. He was kind enough to give us some information about himself and his newest book, Real Time, as well as his opinion on other business publications.

(HBS) Why did you write the book?

(RM) I live in two worlds--the one, high tech and the other marketing. Working with the many innovations in technology over the years and also on the diffusion or acceptance of those technologies by the market let me to "see" that the technology changes us (consumers) more than we the technology.

Technology is increasingly transparent. I have a lot of experience investing in and working with the microcontroller--a microprocessor derivative. These chips are everywhere. They are in toys, ovens, refrigerators, car doors, keyboards, thermostats, lighting switches--everywhere. No one sees them but we have come to expect the results of what they do. Designing the end use products with these new things takes a real understanding of human interface.

So my experiences and observations have led me to tie the essence of technology--increasing speed, with consumer behavior (marketing).

(HBS) What books would you recommend to readers?

(RM) I don't read many business books. Many are pure fiction or this week's business fad. I am much more into understanding why things happen so they can be put into perspective and adapted to with imagination rather than by rote process. If you live and work in the new technologies, you quickly come to understand that the future is not an extrapolation of past business practices.

So I think it is important to read books that make one think. I read a lot of history and science. Michael Porter's books really get into the infrastructure of how business works and how social change occurs. After all, the workplace and the market are both social environments. Here's my list:

Infinite in All Directions, Freeman Dyson
The Rise of Network Societies, Manuel Castells
The New Realities, Peter Drucker
About Time, Paul Davies
Tube, The Invention of Television, David Fischer and Marshall Fisher

I like to read books about the American period from the 1880s to the 1920s. This was a period of innovation and change that set in motion most of the conventions and institutions we still live with and try to remake in the 1990s.

The Reckless Decade, America in the 1980s
Pivotal Decades, The United States 1900-1920, John Milton Cooper, Jr.

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Regis McKenna is the chairman of The McKenna Group in Palo Alto, California. He lectures and conducts seminars on technology marketing and competitiveness throughout the world and has worked with over 300 start-ups, including Intel, Apple, Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, and Genentech. He authored Relationship Marketing and The Regis Touch, and his newest book, , promises to continue earning the respectful attention of the business community world wide.

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