Recent posts – Page 13

Run your IT department like it is a factory

The well-established template of ‘The Goal‘ applied to IT.

Thanks to technology, it becomes ever easier for fringe movements to topple the establishment

the book, written pre-Trump, pre-Brexit and pre-Cambridge Analytics, underemphasizes the risk of large-scale orchestration of fringe groups to undermine nation states; thereby making the author’s call for stronger institutions feels a bit besides the point.

The MBTI type indicator helps corporates to contain the impact of individuality in the workplace

Merve Emre-The personality brokers

MBTI is more fascinating than expected, from its amateurish origins and its lack of scientific underpinning to its unlikely longevity and commercial success.

Nine out of ten times, what seems to be a human error is actually caused by a faulty design

Don Norman – The design of everyday things

Elegant book full of fascinating examples of design thinking.

It requires concentration to complete complex, intelligent tasks

Cal Newport – Deep work

The need for concentration for though-intensive tasks is not disputed, but somehow the author (a university professor himself) structurally over-values academic work versus non-academic endeavours.

To disprove ‘Intelligent Design’, just note that one can very well exhibit intelligent behavior without actual intelligence

Daniel Dennett – From bacteria to Bach and back

Caleidoscopic overview of Dennett’s ideas, but it would benefit from an more thorough justification of its antropocentric perspective (compare: Frans de Waal).

Recognize Resistance, and fight it like a pro

Steven Pressfield – The war of art

Well written plea for taking ownership – and action.

Increasing inequality and lack of immigration are the two big crises facing the US

Jared Diamond – Upheaval

the set-up in which interesting historical facts serve to make a political argument makes the author prone to the narrative fallacy.

Even at tech companies where intentions are good, women fight an uphill battle

Emily Chang – Brotopia

The book fits neatly in the trend to call out gender inequality, but unfortunately it has limited practical solutions to offer.

Arguing by analogy, one has to conclude that animals have emotions

Frans de Waal – Mama’s last hug

Especially interesting are the behavioral experiments, reminiscent of the line of argument in Moral Tribes

Forget about stopping climate change, but don´t let that stop you fighting it

David Wallace-Wells – The uninhabitable earth

The book clearly illustrates that climate change is the prisoner’s dilemma ‘par excellence’

The combination of vested interests in theoretical physics and experimental energy limits leads to bad science

Sabine Hossenfelder – Lost in math

The author stresses that following negative results of experiments, theories are typically watered-down just to the extent that they are untestable – reminiscent of Bruno Latour’s “social constructionof scientific facts”

To succeed, do something that you like so much that you are willing to put in the required effort

Angela Duckworth – Grit

The book starts as more-or-less scientific research into drivers of success, but ends as motivational self-help literature.

The rise of hard discounters has made grocers and CPG companies adjust their strategies

Jan-Benedict Steenkamp and Laurens Sloot – Retail disruptors

Generally solid overview of retail business economics using hard discounter in grocery as case examples, but the authors could not risist the urge to make overly general assertions.

Cyber crime is a cost-effective way for other nations to retalliate against the US, without risking all-out war

John Carlin – Dawn of the code war

Overly chauvinistic and politically correct story of how intelligence and cyber crime are convering, written boringly – I eagerly await the Michael Lewis version…

The concepts comfort and privacy were first introduced in Western society at the court of Louis XIV and Louis XV of France

Joan DeJean – The age of comfort

Contains fascinating details on the construction of early water closets.