Tag: trends

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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.

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Design Education Globalization Milwaukee Network OpenSource Reading Technology TED

Latest read: The Starfish and the Spider

Rod Beckstrom’s The Starfish and the Spider reminded me of his very insightful presentation at the 2007 The Next Web Conference about organizations. Two types will define or break you in a Web2.0 world.
the starfish and the spiderAn enjoyable, easy read that further suggests leaderless organizations can fuel dramatic change within organization large and small.

Beckstrom, who just spoke at the 2008 TED conference presents content supporting how organizations can flourish when tightly controlled groups embrace the starfish effect.

He notes how Al-qaeda has embraced this type of leaderless organization and it becomes very obvious to any reader the last five years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This book actually complimented my previous read, The Wisdom of Crowds (review here).

The Starfish and the Spider follows the successful work of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything because both draw upon the power in today’s globalized world to share knowledge — via OpenSource to engage Web2.0 enterprise solutions and corporate blogs to think and more importantly, act independently.

Book website Link

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Design Education Globalization Milwaukee Reading

Latest read: The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds proves useful in understanding the impact (both positive and negative) regarding knowledge of isolated individuals vs. collective intelligence that shapes business, economies, societies and nations.

Surowiecki opens the book with a great example of the surprising “wisdom” possessed by groups of people. The book is a easy, enjoyable read.

As much as I enjoyed the learning I was somewhat more interested in learning the faults of crowds…specifically his analysis of NASA and the Columbia tragedy. To some extent the exact same lessons can be lifted from NASA and applied to Watergate, the highly intelligent crowd in the White House of Nixon’s inner circle.

The NASA “crowd” knew the danger yet did not as a group act to save the lives of their astronauts. In this lesson, I’m not convinced of the blanket approach to the wisdom of crowds. But Surowiecki is able to relay a number of cases in which this applies in business and societies.

The ability of crowds to outsmart a individual experts on any given topic ultimately supports the strength of communities, but as noted above even groups of specialists with graduate degrees have the ability to ignore their collective wisdom.

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Design Education Globalization Reading TED

Latest read: The Paradox of Choice

I watched a TED video of Barry Schwartz and was interested to learn more about his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less and learn the downside (and unhappiness) of abundance.  Have you noticed as of late that almost everything is available…in too many overwhelming choices?

As Schwartz points out consider the types of choice in your local grocery store: 285 cookie options, 85 types of crackers, 95 types of chips, 75 iced teas, 29 chicken soups, 175 salad dressings and 275 boxes of cereal. Welcome to The Paradox of Choice. Try shopping for a new pair of jeans as he described in his TED presentation and the introduction to this book.

In my childhood things seemed simple. There were just three television channels…plus a PBS station. When the new school started I would receive two or three pairs of stiff denim jeans. Every kid in my school would wear the same dark blue demin and would not feel comfortable until the third week of school. By then our clothes were finally broken in via the wash cycle.

Don’t consider this book the opposite of Chris Anderson‘s The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. It would be more accurate to describe the book as what happens to individuals overwhelmed by choice.

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Education Network Reading Technology

Latest read: Linked

The internet and the global economy are tied together by a series of network hubs, or links as explained by Albert-Lasziò Barabàsi’s book Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means.
Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life by Albert-laszlo Barabasi

The knowledge economy is really the network economy and his book is a good read to understand how networks, both physical and human are connecting everything – everyday – everywhere….in just 15 links (his reference for chapters) and how business, education, government and society can benefit by taking a closer look at how our linked world is really connected.

Ever play the game six degrees of Kevin Bacon? On the internet, links to every document are just nineteen links as noted by Lasziò Barabàsi, a Professor of Physics at the University of Notre Dame.

You can view this book as a more technical, networked version of Malcolm Gladwell‘s outstanding book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Gladwell explains how small events can transform people, trends and events. Its a great read for anyone looking to expand their understanding of how our linked world is tied together in unique ways.

I was interested to learn how Laszio Barabasi’s approach to power grids (Miami power failure) and the scale approach to al Qaeda all focus on networks and power hubs as true, real-world approaches to solving global problems. This book will make you look at your organization, mission and networking opportunities (social) in a new more focused perspective.