Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic on today’s news pages. Some fear that AI will take over the world and replace it in some dystopian society. Others take its evolution in stride. What’s becoming clear is that life will change in a revolutionary way. Ethan Mollick agrees and also points to opportunities individuals can take to use AI to create a better life and a better workplace. Mollick has used AI to teach business…
I liked this book a lot. It’s labeled as a part of a “CIO Series,” but that’s really a mislabel. It’s for anyone working with software developers who has to navigate a distinct company culture. It’s especially geared for those who want to mold that culture for good. Software development is a tricky industry. Good people are hard to find, and they often don’t have a stereotypical personality – especially if they’re really talented. Yet…
We live in an era, the so-called Information Age, where data collection has become incredibly easy. The term “Big Data” gets thrown around casually as computers collect more information on us than we know how to process. Yet wise interpretation of those data is often elusive. We’re overwhelmed with it. Effective visualizations and charts can help us interpret it better, whether to present and persuade or to monitor and manage. Stephen Few, an eloquent minister-turned-data…
Engineering management books can sometimes be a bit technical, like the field of engineering itself. Of course, it’s no surprise that engineers often view the task as one of exacting competence – like their work. Yet management can, in truth, be its own thing because it deals with people. Humans pose their own set of challenges, and few can speak authoritatively about both realms. Thus, few good books exist in this domain. Unfortunately, many engineers…
Engineering presents unique challenges to managers. Not only are engineering managers usually picked from those who work primarily with objects, but they also receive little training in the discipline. Having little training reinforces a dynamic where little training material is also available to the next generation. To fill this void, Will Larson provides a succinct introduction to the field. His perspective aims to inform from a systems perspective – that is, by observing how managerial…
As Michael Kahn states in this book’s introduction, there exist many guides to giving interviews generally along with guides to being interviewed about software development, but there are few guides to giving interviews specifically to developers. This 2006 book tries to fill that niche. It is short and certainly not comprehensive – as if that were even possible. But it advances wisdom that people like me need in finding a software developer, especially for the…
As technological development has increasingly driven the world economy, many observe that it causes a disruptive economic effect. New technology can humble big players and lift new players to leading positions. These effects often happen despite managers doing all the “right things.” We now have enough data to begin to analyze how technological disruptions happen across many industries. More importantly, we have data about how to manage innovation’s turbulence. In this classic text, Clayton Christensen…
Managing software engineering efforts is a difficult task. One needs a thorough knowledge of authoring software, which itself is a rare, time-consuming accomplishment. Almost all general managers do not have an in-depth knowledge of programming (though many assume they do!). A few of the best software developers are promoted into a managerial role and have to figure out what to do on the job. Much literature on general management topics exists, but few writings center…
Artificial Intelligence (AI) finds its place all over newspapers and magazines these days. It’s seen as a field ripe for economic impact. Few, however, have followed this field over prior decades when progress quite wasn’t so quick. Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li is one of the researchers who helped lay the foundation for modern AI. Here, she tells her personal story alongside the story of this field. She reminds us that human considerations should never voyage…
Engineering is a vocation that usually doesn’t get the deep treatment in modern literature. Popular portrayals often play off an inventor’s brilliance and introversion, but don’t poke around in depth about what made an innovation successful. Instead of one distinct epiphany to an individual, inventions often follow a series of efforts by a community. These efforts often include many failures and halted efforts. Society has less tolerance for these difficulties and prefers a story of…