Category: Reading

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Design Education Reading

Latest read: The Lost Symbol

Just finished Dan Brown’s latest The Lost Symbol and was amused at the placement of Twitter in the book.  I wonder if Robert Langdon is finally tweeting? It was a nice quick departure from my usual reading habits.

The Lost SymbolAs usual Langdon finds himself wrapped in another mystery now focusing on the symbols of the Freemasons.

Never dull and boring Langdon sheds light on the role of religion in the U.S. Capital, George Washington portrayed as a God, the impact of Freemasons and more importantly Noetic Sciences.

I have enjoyed all of Browns novels revolving around Langdon and feel the books are much better than Ron Howard’s movie interpretations.

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Design Education Globalization Innovation Network Reading Technology

Latest read: The Age of Turbulance

I finished Alan Greenspan‘s book The Age of Turbulence Adventures in a New World and learned it was more than I expected from the former Chairman of The Federal Reserve.  And with the recession still in high gear it was also good timing.
The Age of TurbulanceBeyond his sheer volume of knowledge regarding the economy, global markets and international finance I was most impressed with Greenspan’s simple yet immense observation: America needs an overhauled K12 educational system for our country to have a strong economy in 2030.

The impact of Technology, Globalization & Innovation as he outlines should not be overlooked regarding educational reform.  I must admit the real interest for most readers would be to jump the chapter that addresses the recession.  Its worth taking the time to read the book in full.

Greenspan’s impact in Washington, the economy and Republican politics spans Presidential administrations from Nixon to W. Bush.  Greenspan has enjoyed a pretty interesting life.  I was most struck not by his interest in music but rather his high school music partner Stan Getz.  His comments about his role in Y2K for the government and financial markets and the impact of fiber optic networks were welcoming for any geek or fanboy.

There is just a huge amount of economic learning you can pickup from his 25 chapters.  My favorite chapters surprisingly fall in a row:

19. Globalization and Regulation
20. The “Conundrum”
21. Education and Income Inequality
22. The world retires. But can it afford to?

There are some amazing things you can learn from an economist.  His view of W. Bush’s administration and their loss of focus on the economy was eye opening.  Bush never changed any economic plans beyond what he promised during his election campaign.  W. Bush repeatedly ignored The Fed’s view of the sliding economy and needed changes over the close of his Presidency and handed his successor an economy with financial, housing and automotive markets in crisis.

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Education Globalization Reading

Latest read: The Assault on Reason

Must admit the timing at first seemed strange. I was reading Al Gore’s book The Assault on Reason when Michael Jackson died. Gore has written a book about what has gone wrong in our country. Yet I was able to watch it simply unfold right in front of me. The non-stop media coverage of Jackson’s death will not be forgotten.
Ultimately Gore’s book addresses the change in American values and repeated failures of the Bush Administration yet outlines an opportunity for our country to correct the ship.  The impact of the environment to no surprise is also a strong part of his book.  Gore sets the “mood” right from page one – where he addresses loss of conversation regarding our government’s role to launch the war in Iraq:

Not long before our nation launched the invasion of Iraq, our longest-serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor and said: “This Chamber is, for the most part, silent – ominously, dreadfully silent.  There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war.  There is nothing.  We stand passively mute in the United States Senate.

Gore is right on the mark when he wrote “Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?”  In some ways this book is a case study in the loss of reason, the foundation of our political democracy.  He has modeled this from Thomas Paine‘s The Age of Reason written in 1793. Ultimately Gore wants to bring back core values of our democracy to our fellow countrymen.

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Design Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest read: Switch

Dan and Chip Heath made a splash with their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (my 2007 review) and now the Heath brothers are up to it again.

Their follow up book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard is expected in early 2010.

If Switch is anything like Made to Stick, we’ll have our hands full of more great lessons about change.

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Design Education Globalization Google Innovation Network OpenSource Reading Smartphone Technology

Latest read: Free The future of a radical price

Just finished reading Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson.  I very much enjoyed his previous book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. (review here)  The first time I read about this idea was an article he wrote in his 2008 Wired article.  Have to admit I was skeptical.  Free invites you to learn about new “radical sales techniques” that have actually been around for some time, but could not take off without the influence of the global internet economy.

And YES you can read his book for free online at Scribd and at Google Books.  You can also download a full unabridged 6 hour audiobook for free — or purchase a 3 hour abridged copy.  Get it?

Like me, if you have not been paying close attention to the Free Economy, there is much to learn from this book.

Anderson traces the history of “free” products (Gillette razor blades in 1895 and even Jello) and services and intelligently outlines how “free” is driving sales in our culture today.  Even in our current economic recession.

He introduces the idea by recalling a famous announcement from Monty Python, who’s pirated movies were already on YouTube.  They decided to establish their own YouTube channel, place higher quality clips online with links to their DVD products….and placed a hilarious insult letter to all their fans.

Even though they were placing movies online for free, fans purchased their DVDs at Amazon, driving them to the #2 sales rank with an increased sales volume of 23,000%.  That’s no typo: a 23,000% sales jump!  Clearly Free can work.

Anderson has done great research to help explain (he calls them “sidebars” in the book) to help you see where you have already run across “free” in your daily life including radical ideas including air travel, cars, silverware, textbooks and even a university education.

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