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Education Reading

Latest Read: Empire of Pain

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
by Patrick Radden Keefe. Patrick is a writer and an investigative journalist. He is published in The New Yorker, Slate, and The New York Times Magazine. Patrick is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Empire of Pain is certainly an unbelievable and immense work. This brings full circle the Sacklers, Purdue Pharma, and the opioid crisis.

This is the first book of five that I chose to read to understand the crisis. As a result, this serves as the best way to cross over to additional valuable books addressing the opioid crisis.

In fact, the Sacklers via Purdue Pharma, led to millions into addiction. Hundreds of thousands were killed by OxyContin.

In fact, Patrick’s effort is overwhelming to begin with and this makes it the best choice in my opinion. Accordingly, this book is difficult to put down as the stories gain momentum as the crisis is beginning.

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Education Reading

An Opioid Quintet

My dive into five insightful books which certainly provide a foundational understanding regarding our ongoing (and horrific) opioid crisis. They are all extremely compelling to read and will certainly make a very strong impression if you have been somewhat standing on the sideline regarding this crisis.

Above all, as a sign of the modern world we live in today the ability to order opioids from a trusted dealer via the internet on mobile devices with delivery scheduled just like ordering pizza is a glaring example of the difficulties America faces to control this crisis.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy
Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic by Ben Westhoff
Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones
American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts by Chris McGreal

Each author in their unique writing are certainly providing greater insights into our opioid crisis. This is necessary since any collection of online news articles cannot dive deep enough in order for readers to understand the bigger picture.

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Design Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Sapiens

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Yuval holds a PhD from the University of Oxford. He is a professor at the Department of History in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

This is an amazing book about the history of humans that should be in every K12 school. The topics he is documenting is certainly stunning. In fact, Yuval is addressing the entire evolution of human kind.

At first glance anyone would not consider that an entire history of anthropology, geography, psychology, religion, ideologies, and even how sapiens will evolve with robotic parts. This is a compliment to Yuval’s efforts.

In fact, by retracing human history, some key lessons emerge regarding historical folklore. On example is both chimps and sapiens can only organize into groups at a maximum of 150. So, humans have long believed in many myths that have ultimately sidelined the truth.

By documenting sapien migrations from eastern Asia moving into Alaska, Yuval obviously reveals movement south through Canada and down the west coast of America into Mexico culminating into South America’s southern tip roughly 150,000 years ago.

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Design Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Subtract

Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz. Leidy is a professor of engineering and architecture at the University of Virginia. He is published in the scientific journals Nature and Science. Leidy is also published in The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company.

Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz

Leidy is providing interesting lessons addressing the idea that subtraction, or the science of less is actually beneficial, especially in the COVID era. There are multiple ideas that will strike readers as important. You can certainly address the efficiency of your organizations today by removing the extra junk no longer needed to operate.

In fact, there are many efficiencies that my own organization can benefit from by adopting his less is more message.

Organizations are obviously recognized for adding incentives for good behavior, yet do not remove the obstacles that continue to exist for other employees. Especially in the COVID era, we are presented with new ideas and challenges.

However we cannot seem to be brave enough to subtract those dead ideas, policies, or procedures. Ultimately organizations continue the ‘pile it on’ approach. I am reminded of similar goals from two books by Daniel Pink: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing and last year’s popular The Power of Regret. If by chance you have read either book, then you will know how Dan and Leidy are thinking.

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Design Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Upstream

Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen by Dan Heath. Today Dan is a consultant to Duke University’s Corporate Education program. Along with his brother Chip, the Heath brothers have been writing impactful books for over 20 years.

Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen by Dan Heath

Dan is providing great thinking to modern problems. This is even more valuable in the age we live in today regarding opioids and COVID. Perhaps the idea of instilling his lessons of ‘Preventing Problems Rather Than Reacting to Them’ is the ground floor many organizations need today.

Upstream is certainly an excellent book that talks about the value of thinking in systems and finding/fixing the root cause of problems. In fact, our world today is simply more difficult and demanding. The daily ‘grind’ often forces groups to overlook their ability to see upstream.

So, here is a book addressing how we can begin understanding a process needed to mitigate the problem versus just putting out fires. There is certainly a lot of research across this book showing how how Dan certainly understands how colleges operate.

Secondly, Dan Heath has obviously done a lot of research on this topic and has come up with the gotchas that hit many organizations.

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