Tag: Innovation

Latest Read: The Code Breaker

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 12, 2023

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson. This is a truly amazing book and perhaps (in a crowded field) the most important book I have read this year.

Jennifer is an American biochemist. Today she is Chair Professor in the department of chemistry and the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley and is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School.

Jennifer is also the President and Chair of the board at the Innovative Genomics Institute, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, and an adjunct professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Jennifer Doudna is a rock star. Well Noble Prize winner rock star. And this book serves as inspiration for my daughter. No better example for any daughter to see that begin told what a girl cannot accomplish than to see how Jennifer literally hit it out of the park.

As this story reveals, Jennifer was in sixth grade when her father gave her a copy of James Watson’s book The Double Helix. This was her inspiration that would trigger her discoveries to understand DNA codes as a scientist.

Tags CRISPR, Gene Editing, Innovation, Jennifer Doudna, Technology, The Code Breaker, tipping point

Education Reading

Latest Read: How the World Really Works

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date December 30, 2022

How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future by Vaclav Smil. Vaclav a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg Canada.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the 2000 recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

In addition, Vaclav was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its 2010 list of FP Top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2013, he was appointed by the Governor General to the Order of Canada. Finally, he was the 2013 EADS Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin.

So, What really makes our modern world work? Vaclav proposes the answers in four grand transitions of civilization: populations, agriculture, energy, and economics. In fact, he outlines how each transition has greatly transformed our world and how our global society functions.

Vaclav is relying upon today’s computing ability to tap into vast amounts of data to tell powerful stories and he succeeds. This book has become a world wide bestseller and certainly is addressing the impact future climate change will have upon our world and global societies. Furthermore, Vaclav is delivering somewhat startling statistics throughout the book.

Tags culture, How the World Really Works, Innovation, statistics, tipping point, Vaclav Smil

Design Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Upstream

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date November 1, 2022

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.

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.

Tags change, culture, Dan Heath, Innovation, Upstream

Design Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Making Numbers Count

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date October 25, 2022

Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers by Chip Heath and Karla Starr. Chip is professor of organizational behavior at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers by Chip Heath, Karla Starr

Much to my surprise I looked up my first review of Made to Stick, Dan and Chip’s debut book. I read that book over 15 years ago. That book made such an impression that I have read their books without disappointment. However they recently published independent books and I will share Dan’s book Upstream shortly. His brother Dan is a consultant to Duke University’s Corporate Education program.

Chip presents multiple lessons to make numbers more meaningful to any group you are sharing data with in order to make an impression. This book is really one that should be not only on your shelf but also sharing with colleagues.

An interesting point is Chip’s message that nobody is really a “numbers person” as our brains cannot easily understand the analysis of very large number sets.

The focus is numbers in the billions. However, Chip documents how to understand and communicate the difference between one million and one billion that makes an impact within your organization:

You and a friend each enter a lottery with several large prizes. But there’s a catch: If you win, you must spend $50,000 of your prize money each day until it runs out. You win a million dollars. Your friend wins a billion. How long does it take each of you to spend your lottery windfall? As a millionaire….you go bust after a mere 20 days. If you win on Thanksgiving, you’re out of money more than a week before Christmas. For your billionaire friend….He or she would have a full-time job spending $50,000 a day for 55 years.
pg. 10

This example makes perfect sense in helping many users understand how to begin learning how to communicate their data sets.

Tags change, chip heath, culture, Innovation, Making Numbers Count

Artificial Intelligence Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Artificial Intelligence HBR Insights

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date November 5, 2021

Artificial Intelligence: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review by Thomas H. Davenport, Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee, and H. James Wilson. This HBR series is certainly a very good collection of essays from leading AI experts.

Thomas H. Davenport is a Distinguished Professor in Management and Information Technology at Babson College, a research fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser at Deloitte Analytics. Erik Brynjolfsson is the director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, Professor of Management Science at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a research associate at NBER. H. James Wilson is a managing director of information technology and business research at Accenture Research. Andrew McAfee is a principal research scientist at MIT, studies how digital technologies are changing business, the economy, and society.

Indeed, this is not a general introduction to AI for business. At the same time, this does present readers with business advantages and challenges. There is no coding and the book is not full of technical jargon.

The messaging across this book is direct and startling for some: if your organization is not using AI you will soon be obsolete. This should not be a surprise since AI was ‘born’ in 1956. Yes, the last decade’s computing performance both on-prem and in the cloud have pushed AI further into markets. Yet the competitive lessons are valuable.

Tags Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Data management, Innovation, Organizational learning