Innovation – Page 3

Deborah Blum – The poisoner’s handbook

Following development in chemistry and society, forensic toxicology experienced fascinating progress in the early 20th century.

Treasure trove of slightly lugubrious annecdotes on crimes, accidents and government schemes.

Ben Horowitz – The hard thing about hard things

In the end no-one but the founder-CEO really cares how difficult it is to do the right thing for your start-up.

Comfortingly desillusional perspective on entrepreneurship, with reassuring insights like: “No one cares.”

Michael Smith – Streaming, Sharing, Stealing

For the first time in decades, the simulaneous developments in distribution and production of media give traditional ‘majors’ something to worry about.

Recent move of Disney to boycot Netflixs proves that incumbents are starting to realize the new reality.

Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens

The rise of Homo Sapiens to the top of the food chain has been the result of its remarkable ability to construct a collective imagination of things like God, nations, money, and corporations.

Refreshing evolutionary perspective, emphasizing the cognitive, agricultural, and industrial revolutions as turning points in human development.

Pedro Domingos – The master algorithm

The author’s invention (“Markov logic networks”) may unify the symbolist, connectionist, evolutionary, Baysian, and analogizing approaches to machine learning.

The brave attempt to cover an inherently deep subject in a non-technical way.

Richard Evans – The pursuit of power

The 19th century saw the birth of many aspects that still define our world today; from the end of feudalism to the birth of modern democracy and from the death of god to the emergance of Medicine as a scientific discipline.

Masterful balance between major developments and impact on human scale.

Ashlee Vance – Elon Musk

With the cash you get from selling PayPal you can stay solvant longer than the market can stay irrational.

Do not read the Dutch translation: Henk Popken did a crappy job.

Clayton M. Christensen – Competing against luck

When working on innovation, always ask yourself: “What job does my product/service do for its user?” as a first test.

Good thought starter and a great tool to point out failures afterwards, but usually hard to get “the job” right before launch

Kevin Ashton – How to fly a horse

Creativity ( = ‘logical thinking’ + ‘trial-and-error’ ) does not fit well with most organizational cultures.

Unfortunately, the book contains too many anecdotes that feature Woody Allen.

Robert Gordon – The rise and fall of American growth

High growth is a thing of the past: all great major inventions have been made and can only be made once.

OK… exponential decrease of discomfort may imply decreasing marginal gains, but that does not imply that the future will not see consumer surplus stemming from future inventions.

Elmira Bayrasli – From the other side of the world

Success factors for tech start-ups in emerging economies differ greatly from those in developed countries.

Some well chosen case studies; but with too little explanation on ‘what’ they did and too many stories about how they did it.

Leander Kahney – Jony Ive

The designer behind Steve Jobs has greatly contributed to Apple’s successful revival.

Still surprising how many Apple products were flawed (overpriced, transparent, with wheel navigation, monitorless, …)

Adam Grant – Originals

If you want to change the world, apply creative, unconventional thinking in a strategic way.

Surprisingly practical advise on how to drive change (make it safe for others, build coalitions, pick the right moment, be courageous yet receptive).

Jill Dyche – The new IT

Align your IT department with your corporate objectives.

It seems to be impossible to write a book about IT without referring to ‘frameworks’ (= a solution a little bit more specific than a thought, but far less concrete than a plan).

Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths – Algorithms to live by

Computer science provides self-help wisdom: optimal choices for some real-world dilemma’s can be defined as algorithms.

Essential concepts from computer sciences intuitively explained for non-techies.

Salim Ismail et. al. – Exponential organizations

Prioritize long term accelerating growth over short-term gains.

Diamandis’ Abundance concept applied to companies. The book peaks early on: the howto guide is not sufficiently specific.

Mark Hatch – The maker manifesto

Access to means of production is no longer constraint by capital, which empowers a whole new army of innovators.

En contagiously enthusiastic account of all you can do with laser cutters,milling machines, 3D printers, AutoCAD software, and the like – and how cheap it is.

Martin Ford – Rise of the Robots

In just a few decades most jobs will be automated and only a basic income guarantee for everyone can prevent social unrest.

Interesting thought experiment by an author who underestimates human ingenuity (I sincerely hope).

Brian Burke – Gamify

Triggering authentic engagement aligned to corporate goals is what will make points, badges, and leader boards work.

The book focuses on engagement, accomplishment, and competition as performance drivers; whereas ‘hard benefits’ such as shorter feedback loops and more targeted content get less attention.

Don Tapscott et. al. – Blockchain revolution

The technology behind Bitcoin will disrupt trust-based industries and interactions, from Banking to Voting

The writers’ enthusiasm seems at some points somewhat naive, considering the scope of vested interests in target markets.