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Design Education Innovation Maker Milwaukee OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest Read: Making Makers

Making Makers is a wonderful book for parents and educators who are interested about how to guide their children to become “makers” to improve their live and chase their dreams and childhood curiosity.

Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of InnovationBy reading stories of noted inventors and creators you learn how important it is for children to become makers as the world is changing rapidly with advanced, personal, affordable technologies and why it is crucial to encourage today’s youth to be makers.

Lifelong creativity is a learned skill. The role of online learning communities today including eduX and Coursera have helped develop and establish tools to foster interests in topics explored in childhood. I believe this is a book every parent of a child should be reading today regardless of their age.

The role Makers will play in the immediate future are already being established. Again this is an opportunity for parents and educators to give their children a step up in developing new skills not only for school but also for their interests and developing new talents with friends or groups.

Maybe the most important aspect of the book is really all about how a parent can identify and foster the Maker inside their child. For many parents who have also become part of the content mindset and may have lost their way to reviving their own Maker experiences from childhood this serves as a guide to help further their own personal growth and redevelopment of their interests.

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Design Education Innovation Reading

Latest read: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman summarizes research that covers three phases of his career: cognitive biases, prospect theory and happiness. This is certainly a deep dive touching research subjects including regression to the mean. Yes, it is a very rewarding statistical dive. I find this to be one of the more important books that I have read since college.
Thinking, Fast and SlowIn addition, I find this book so applicable to not only professional fields but more importantly to our personal lives.

Very impressed how Kahneman even places the benefits of of this research into PowerPoint presentations. This was a very revealing look at how we present by carefully placing words onto a given slide and how you tell your story.

I also greatly enjoyed his references to several books that I have also read, realizing I am somewhat on track to deeper understanding his teaching how our brains are acting as the book title suggests within our daily lives. This applies at home, at work and at school. We humans are a strange beast. Kahneman is certainly revealing how we are wired to think. More often however, we fail to apply seemingly common logic to easy questions.

This book is certainly filled with examples of how easy we all can misinterpret personal scenarios of logic simply based upon human emotion and conditioning.

While short in review this is simply a book everyone should be reading to gain a fuller understanding of approaching critical thinking.

Talks at Google | Thinking, Fast and Slow | Daniel Kahneman
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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: What It Is Like To Go To War

The insights within What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes will take the reader inside the mind of any veteran who faced death in combat. His highly recognized Vietnam war novel Matterhorn based upon his service leading a Marine unit in 1969. This is a harrowing read.
There can be no doubt veterans would agree Marlantes documents the true impact of war across a series of insightful chapter topics including: killing, guilt, lying, loyalty and heroism to name a few.
What It Is Like To Go To WarWithout a doubt that What It Is Like To Go To War addresses a missed topic taught in basic training. And Marlantes does address suicides by veterans in Vietnam and the Gulf War. It becomes very compelling to assist those vets returning home from battle.

He addresses the most important issue from a distinguished military career: you are taught to kill but not how to react to killing.

Marlantes provides extremely deep insights, while not unique to Vietnam does address the 1969 timeframe in which he led men into battle.

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Cloud Cyberinfrastructure Education Globalization Innovation Network Reading Technology

Latest read: The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Tim Wu’s second book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires is wonderful examination how American information empires were established and stifled innovation at the same time. This is my second book by Wu following his brilliant Who Controls the Internet.
The Master SwitchWu identifies long business cycles surrounding the birth of information systems. While they begin open over time they were consolidated and driven by the market to become closed.

We displays how they become open again following amazing innovations force a business change in order to survive in the new marketplace.

The Master Switch opens with the birth of the Bell AT&T telephone monopoly. This is a facinating story when held against the garage startups of Apple and Google.

There is an amazing look at how countries and cultures also view information empires differently. The case for Wu is the capitalist, independent market approach to radio vs the UK’s BBC dominated by the royal family.

The Master Switch reveals how four key markets actually hold government infrastructure: telecommunications, banking, energy and transportation. These four and their capitalist owners for generations established control over any citizen’s attempt at challenging their monopolies. The lesson Wu establishes is corporate control by closed technologies. Yet one cannot help but understand they magically protected the country from the devastating affects of revolution leading up to and more importantly the horrific aftermath of World War I that forever removed Paris as the hub for film entertainment.

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Education Reading

Latest read: Navigating the Health Data Ecosystem

The unique data issues explored in Navigating the Health Data Ecosystem by O’Reilly prove to be accurate regarding today’s modern, fast moving data environments. Health care has the unique demand regarding datasets that do not sync when compared to retail or corporate enterprises.
Navigating the Health Data EcosystemThe most perplexing issue surround support for human physiology is computing standards and compliance requirements. I recall working directly on large datasets for clinical trials that confirm the challenges outlined.

Navigating the Health Data Ecosystem indeed has “Six C’s”: Understanding the Health Data Terrain in the Era of Precision Medicine. Honestly at times it felt like 6 dozen C’s in O’Reilly’s guide from 2014.

Clearly the biggest “C” challenge is complexity. From the outside it may seem like an uphill battle but from within the health care data marketplace its like climbing Mount Everest…over twenty times. Many views navigating the Health Data ecosystem are a direct result of the Affordable Care Act.

However we should not ignore the opportunities facing the health care industry. It is still surprising to fully understand that electronic medical records (EMR) is still hand coded, data can be accurately labeled in multiple ways (including fax) while legacy data systems are still in operation. This causes a tremendous burden for effective change management systems to be effective given the unrealistic demands the public has regarding Health care data.