Category: Innovation

Latest Read: Leadership Moments

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date April 9, 2022

Leadership Moments from NASA: Achieving the Impossible
by Dr. Dave Williams and Elizabeth Howell. Only with true leadership could NASA thrive in the face of certainly immense challenges, budget cuts, the loss of public interest and fatal accidents. Look no further than how NASA’s leadership proved over and over how they could reengineer their organizational mission and thrive.

Dr. Dave Williams is an astronaut, pilot, ER doctor, scientist, and CEO. Dave has flown in space twice and is the former Director of Space & Life Sciences at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. In addition, he has received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and the Langley Research Center Superior Accomplishment Award.

Elizabeth Howell, PhD teaches at Algonquin College and in addition, at the Professional Development Institute at The University of Ottawa.

Accordingly, Leadership Moments from NASA dives into the leadership culture of this internationally famous organization. In addition, they examine the leadership styles and insights of NASA senior executives spanning five decades of human spaceflight result in lessons learned from critical moments.

Certainly the most unique aspect in this book is the entire world watched NASA birth and initial projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo culminating in landing on the moon and returning astronauts safely to earth.

Talk about global competition. Lessons from Sputnik truly changed America overnight. Honestly, overnight due to the impact of the cold war era. Their goal of racing to the moon is just extraordinary. NASA’s space mission is as much a story of leadership and teamwork as it is a story of exploration and discovery.

Tags Dave Williams, Elizabeth Howell, Leadership Moments, nasa

Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Decisive

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 27, 2022

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Brothers Chip and Dan share their experiences and research insights to communicate ideas. Chip is professor of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Dan is a consultant to Duke University’s Corporate Education program.

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip Heath, Dan Heath

Hard to believe that I read Made to Stick, their first book over 15 years ago. And it has been 12 years since reading Switch, their excellent follow up book. I am considering re-reading both since they are still powerful reminders of what we can be, even today.

Decisive was wonderful reading. Chip and Dan are delivering deep insights into bias. More importantly, they tackle the long held belief that Ben Franklin’s “weigh up the pros and cons and go with the winner” actually fails our decision making repeatedly.

Chip and Dan share their approach, known as the “Four Villains of Decision Making” that is much more effective. This is accomplished by framing choices in very narrow terms.

Many simply seek information or individuals who support an existing bias. This results in short term emotions, which leads to overconfidence. This can be easily identified with confirmation bias or perhaps implicit bias.

Chip and Dan move this forward by decision making methods broken down into four Decisive sections: Widen Your Options. Reality-Test Assumptions, Attain Distance before deciding, and Prepare to be Wrong. Many will find greater insights within their four methods.

Tags Bias, chip heath, Dan Heath, decision making, Decisive

Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: LikeWar

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 26, 2022

LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media by P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking. LikeWar explores how social media has certainly forever changed war and politics. LikeWar was named an Amazon and Foreign Affairs book of the year and “new and notable” by the New York Times.

Peter Warren Singer is Strategist at New America, a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University, and Founder & Managing Partner at Useful Fiction LLC. He previously was Director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution.

He has consulted for the US Military, Defense Intelligence Agency, and FBI, as well as advised a range of entertainment programs, including for Warner Brothers, Dreamworks, Universal, HBO, Discovery, History Channel, and the video game series Call of Duty. Peter has previously Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Children at War, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, and finally Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know and LikeWar.

Accordingly, Emerson is an analyst of national security policy and a Research Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, he has served as an adviser on information warfare to the National Security Council, Joint Staff, and U.S. intelligence community.

2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine

It is remarkable to read LikeWar at this time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. The introduction of how both propaganda and advertising, including the downstream impact of fake news and misinformation) are now more powerful and more abundant via the lack of identity across social media.

Tags Heidi Montag, LikeWar, Peter Singer, Russia, Social Media, Taylor Swift, Ukraine

Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: The Power of Regret

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 13, 2022

The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward
by Daniel H. Pink. This was indeed an interesting learning experience. I have previously read his bestsellers A Whole New Mind, Drive, and When. Daniel is truly a great writer.

For this book Daniel actually launched two research projects, The American Regret Project and The World Regret Survey that collected the regrets of more than 20,000 people from the US and around the world. Pink then categorized these regrets into four core areas—foundation, boldness, moral, and connection regrets—and in the process has shown us what a life well-lived looks like by comparison.

Daniel is certainly establishes why regret is so misunderstood. He writes how how we can learn to use regret to our advantage. In addition, he shares the most common regrets people have. Finally, he teaches us how to become productive when confronting regret.

So, should you regret saying “I have no regrets” to family, friends, and co-workers? Instead, Daniel begins the book with people from across the globe sharing their stories of getting a “no regrets” tattoo for everyone to see. Yet maybe we should think twice about that tattoo as he reveals the tattoo removal industry is a very lucrative profession since the removal costs as much as ten times more than getting inked in the first place.

However, Daniel also addresses issues we confront when we do not handle regret correctly. These misfirings can certainly end up contributing to poor decision making.

Tags Daniel Pink, Regret

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Latest Read: The Future Is Faster Than You Think

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 6, 2022

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler.

Peter is an engineer, physician, and entrepreneur. He founded The X Prize Foundation, and executive chairman of Singularity University. Steven is an American author and entrepreneur. He has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angles Times, Wired, Time magazine, GQ, Discover, and Popular Science.

Together they have published a series of books Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World. The Future Is Faster Than You Think is the third and last of this series.

As usual, whenever predictions of the future are written, they are never accurate. It is somewhat difficult to believe it has been thirteen years since reading The Next 100 Years by George Friedman.We all know, somehow the future gets in the way of….their future. Peter and Steven’s book is not an exception.

So, reading this during the hopefully fading months of the COVID pandemic reveals so much of their hype (including dates) never materialized. It is a shame the published date of their book was less than 60 days before our country went on lockdown.

Tags forecasting, Peter Diamandis, Steven Kotler, Technology, The Future Is Faster Than You Think