Tony Fadell assumes that the reader knew of his career by virtue of picking up this book. That was not the case with me. I develop software and implement technology solutions for a living and found the title intriguing. Fadell led iPod and iPhone hardware teams at Apple and pioneered the Nest “connected home” technology company (now Google Nest). So as an author, he brings some “street cred” to the topic of building technology companies.…
This book is hard to categorize or to compare to other books. It is comprised of interviews with authors spanning several distinct subjects: the civil rights movement, literature, music, sports, and presidential histories. Because the interviewer John Seigenthaler read these books in detail, he asks smart questions and drew out deep answers. And because the interviewees wrote the books, you have expressive, informative answers. When added is the fact that these are the best of…
Christian and Islamic mysticisms make as their goal to achieve greater union with God. These forms of spirituality tend towards an individualistic interpretation of this goal. An individual privately seeks a mystic union with God. In contrast, African mysticism has traditionally been rooted in benefiting the community. Union with God is seen as benefitting the entire group. Contemporary African-American religion combines both of these approaches in an approach Therese Taylor-Stinson calls “public mysticism.” She explores…
My adopted home state of Tennessee has made itself a new front in the ongoing struggle for civil, human rights. Historically, like the weather that passes through, it’s been a home to many crosswinds. Slavery was legal in Tennessee. In the era of the Civil War, east Tennessee was significantly anti-slavery and pro-Union, and Tennessee was one of the first states to be reincorporated into the Union. Yet Tennessee was also the birthplace of Nathan…
UX is shorthand in the software industry for “user experience.” It’s often used in conjunction with UI, or “user interface.” In the world of the web, good user interfaces and user experiences can lead to successful, profitable websites – regardless of their function. Likewise, bad UIUX almost always leads to a website’s failure. Thus, specialists are often paid well to design and implement these aspects with skill. But in a world of ever-changing designs, how…
Simple, popular, “arm chair” psychology says that life is full of “rational” choices that guide our lives. However, reasoning from human experience and psychological research, we’ve learned that habits guide most of our lives and prevent us from “choice fatigue.” How are we then to make use of habitual practices? In this book, Charles Duhigg analyzes how this impacts our business lives, our personal lives, and our society. He seeks to identify specific ways that…
Siddhartha Mukherjee, one of our age’s most brilliant medical writers, is a cancer doctor with research interests in the basic sciences of cell biology and genetics. He is also an engaging writer with a deep knowledge of the history of science. His books, one of which has won a Pulitzer Prize, combine all these crosscurrents to convey a compelling narrative. He’s done it for both genetics and cancer, and here, he hits another home run…
I write this review a full decade after this book was published. Further, I am a software developer in a large organization and, though quite happy, will likely never become a CIO at that company. Therefore, I don’t reside in the intended audience in this book. However, I notice many of these paradoxes in my work. I have to master the technical aspects of my job yet be adept enough to communicate to end-users. I…
It would be hard for me to be critical of this book, but fortunately, I do not need to be. I listened to it in audiobook form and progressed through it quickly. It reads like a series of sermons – jeremiads of sorts – admonishing us to value human life in every form. As alluded to in the title, they focus on concerns about race. As an American white man, I am systemically complicit and…
Regret, a common human experience, seems to be not well understood by contemporary society. When the word is used, as Daniel Pink points out in his introduction, it’s often used in the context of extolling the virtues of “no regrets.” However, longstanding research (for the past 50+ years) shows that the act of regretting actually has a positive impact on human life. Indeed, Pink tries to contend that, with a proper understanding (as he offers…