Category: Design

Latest Read: Skin in the Game

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date July 5, 2022

Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Nassim is a mathematical statistician, and risk analyst. Today he is a Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University.

He is a co-editor-in-chief of the academic journal Risk and Decision Analysis since September 2014. Nassim has also been a practitioner of mathematical finance, a hedge fund manager, and a derivatives trader.

His previous book The Black Swan is via The Sunday Times (London) one of the 12 most influential books since World War II. Simply cannot believe it has been 14 years since I read this book. In addition, it would appear that having The Black Swan under your belt helps keep his messaging here accurate.

He has written a five volume set regarding uncertainty called Incerto. In Skin in the Game, Talib mixes a series of ancient fables and maps them to modern subjects. In the age of iPhones and COVID however, these stories seem out of the ordinary in standing up a fable from 2,500 years ago.

However, attempts to apply Wall Street commissions seems like a phish out of water today. As an example, Robert Rubin, the former US Secretary of the Treasury accepted $120 million in compensation from Citibank as the bank was trading at $0.97/share. Rubin’s position was declaring a ‘Black Swan’ event.

Tags black swan, nassim nicholas taleb, risk management, Skin in the Game

Design Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Hit Makers

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date January 24, 2022

Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction
by Derek Thompson. Derek is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Hit Makers is the winner of the American Marketing Association’s Marketing Book Award for 2018. Derek launched the Plain English podcast and is now producing the Crazy/Genius podcast.

So, why do specific songs, movies, books, and even mobile apps became popular? Hit Makers is addressing how popularity increases sales or cultural status.

However, for a technology-driven focus, including a book cover with Facebook icons, Derek’s initial story about the most famous song in history is very ancient.

Brahms’s lullaby “Guten Abend, gute Nacht” known to Americans as “Lullaby and good night” is indeed a historical interesting story. However, it would be better to address Hit Makers in the post-iPhone era alone.

It am not convinced however that Generation Alpha will understand these ancient ‘hits’ regardless of how they were developed.

However, these hits will resonate with Gen X and Millennials. Then, Derek quickly jumps into the 1950s addressing the introduction and impact of television. This provides a certainly compelling story of ESPN and the market popularity this creates for Disney.

Yet, even his story about European painters with a famous collection is again from an era so long ago. This also lacks widespread availability at the time (beyond early museums) so the impact is not really addressed from a colonial era of pop culture, as it was fixed within specific circles and classes.

Tags Derek Thompson, Distraction, facebook, Hit Makers, Popularity

Cloud Design Education Google Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: Coders

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date July 12, 2021

Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World by Clive Thompson. Clive writes for the New York Times Magazine, Wired, and The Smithsonian. This book is in fact, a very comprehensive review of computer programming.

In addition to tracing historical developments, Clive is addressing the origins of computer programming, artificial intelligence, and college computer science programs, and concludes with new coding companies that have entered the market including the Flatiron School.

However, Clive provides an honest and deep analysis about how programmers live, including the evolving demands required to succeed long term. Coding is not an easy career choice.

For this reason, it is challenging for women and minorities to land full time coder jobs. At the same time, everyone not attending a handful of elite universities to study computer engineering (Stanford, MIT, or Harvard) career opportunities at top flight companies remain challenging.

Yet for today’s gig economy worker, this book is an especially worthy read. Parents working will gain a better understanding of potential career paths for their children. Above all, if you have a daughter, Coders is mandatory reading. While his opening chapters reinforced the key role woman held in the launch of computing machines, it is now an uphill battle.

The Software Update That Changed Reality

Clive begins Chapter 1 The Software Update That Changed Reality with Facebook’s Ruchi Sanghvi authoring their initial newsfeed feature. There is a good view of how Ruchi faced challenges as a woman at Facebook. She then left to start Cove, later acquired by Dropbox.

Many will also appreciate the origin of ‘Hello World’ and to learn exactly what is a “bug” in software and the precision required that makes software execute flawlessly. This is a good chapter for any non-programmer parent.

Tags Clive Thompson, Coders, coding, software programming

Design Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: The Art of Gathering

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date December 29, 2020

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker. In the year of COVID why would anyone consider reading a book about gathering? Admittedly it crossed my mind when I received notification from my library. On the contrary this book taught me how to make gatherings a great memorable experience.

Priya is a professional meeting facilitator and certainly has been accumulating a deep understanding how creating meaningful gatherings creates an amazing impact. Yet this is an area we have been overlooking since office meetings began with Powerpoints.

Subsequently I never realized how much we have all lacked advice for making others feel comfortable, engaged, and authentic in social and business gatherings.

As you can see, one may view this book as simply focusing on gatherings. Yet Priya is delivering a solid book on leadership.

Constructing meaningful gatherings is revealed to be a core leadership skill. Priya shares meaningful examples she has facilitated. For all those reasons she breaks down the “how and why” gatherings can work so well.

Decide Why You’re Really Gathering

Her journey to create memorable events begins with a simple challenge. For this purpose many of us are unaware of what is actually required to fully commit to gatherings.

For business meetings this is why defining a clear purpose and an agenda is critical. This includes prepping your guests prior to the event, and establishing meeting rituals from start to finish.

Tags leadership, management, Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering

Design Education Reading Technology

Latest Read: Storytelling with Data

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date November 30, 2020

Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. Above all, Cole explores a basic understanding of visualizing data. Based upon excel spreadsheet data Cole makes an honest attempt to teach how communicating visually is important. That is to say, this book is aimed at users exploring visual data models for the first time.

While Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic succeeds in this delivery, the storytelling component is not as convincing. Storytelling is certainly no easy task. The challenge is even more important today as many tools provide visually appealing toolsets. Data visualization tools are misused unintentionally and results create confusing data patterns. I would leave the storytelling component to others.

Cole certainly references Nancy Duarte and I would lean heavily to Nancy to learn how to tell stories. Storylines do not require charts as a default rule. The best outcome for Cole’s work is to actually spin the lessons as a what not to do.

Storytelling with Data delivers the following key points. Certainly understanding context about your audience is the top priority. Secondly choose a visual data type that works for the data as Cole repeated avoiding pie graphs, multiple y-axis labels, and 3D at all costs. As a result, eliminating clutter, as suggested by Cole is a solid reference for removing everything that may hurt your story.

Tags Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, data visualization, excel, pie charts, Storytelling with Data