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Latest Read: The Drunkard’s Walk

The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. Leonard is an American theoretical physicist and mathematician, screenwriter and author.

The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

There is no doubt you can learn many lessons from talented people. Leonard is indeed one of those authors you need to consider. Seriously. This 2008 book became a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times notable book, and Leonard received the Robert P. Balles Prize for Critical Thinking for this book. In 2010 Leonard was named the Liber Press Award for the Popularization of Science.

He holds a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Actually, his dissertation demonstrated a new type of perturbation theory for nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, based upon solving the problem in infinite dimensions then correcting for the fact that we live in three.

Leonard is definitely an author you want to read. Why? Well he joined the faculty at Caltech in 1981 and was then named an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and worked at the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Munich, Germany. However (as amazing as it seems) in 1986, he left his position as a full-time professor and researcher to begin writing. He indeed wrote episodes for Star Trek: The Next Generation and MacGyver. To further illustrate his talent, he created computer games with Steven Spielberg and Robin Williams. In 2009 he wrote a screenplay for the movie Beyond the Horizon. Above all, Leonard is continuing to working in theoretical physics.

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Design Education Globalization Reading Technology

Latest read: The Black Swan

There are interesting lessons in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Learn to look for trends, events and all the gems in life that seem hidden, out of place, under the table and around corners?
the black swanAt 400 pages its no quick read but Taleb has presented his research by sharing stories and analysis about randomness in his own life. Taleb has suggested that technology and history is primarily driven by Black Swans.

There are many lessons for IT leaders when it comes to Black Swans.  The BBC wrote an interesting article about how black swans in the area of information technology enterprise systems.  One in six big IT projects go over-budget by an average of 200% Why?  Once you see his point of view it will be much easier to notice black swans within your organization.  His book’s takeaway?  Unexpected and rare events and even novel ideas have a huge impact on the world.