technology - Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

By Scott J. Pearson | February 4, 2024February 4, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

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…

Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

By Scott J. Pearson | October 15, 2023October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Since computers and digital technology have become so ubiquitous in contemporary life, creating good software and technology products has become an important business function. Many (exceeding 50%) technology products fail, despite significant design, engineering, and financial efforts. How can we make this process more efficient and profitable? That’s the job of a relatively new job title: the product manager. In this book, Marty Cagan discusses how to fulfill this role in an organization so that…

Management-Business Software-Technology

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause & New Solution for Cybersecurity

By Scott J. Pearson | October 1, 2023October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

A career in technology requires acumen in a specific domain. However, as one’s career builds, people skills (so-called “soft skills”) come more to the fore. Suddenly, being the “smartest person in the room” is of limited benefit. Indeed, it can be a handicap because that means that you don’t have anyone to counterbalance your ideas and to collaborate with. Cybersecurity CEO Christian Espinosa tries to guide those in technology how to transition from someone proficient…

Management-Business Software-Technology

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing & Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

By Scott J. Pearson | July 14, 2023July 14, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Most technology products begin with technologists playing in their environments. They then pick up steam when early visionaries figure out how to use it to expand their individual platforms and gain a competitive edge. However, many, if not most, products die there and never find their way to mainstream use. In this classic book, Geoffrey Moore explains why. The motives that drive these first two groups are different than the motives of mainstream customers, whom…

Management-Business Software-Technology

Product Management In Practice: A Real-World Guide to the Key Connective Role of the 21st Century

By Scott J. Pearson | June 24, 2023June 24, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Product management is a new role in the world of business. Mainly centered around building and deploying technology, product managers began to spring up in early-21st-century corporations. They have been pioneered by organizations around computer technologies, like Intel, Google, or Microsoft. As common with most new roles, figuring out how to meet the challenge on day one can be daunting. To fill that need, Matt LeMay provides a book filled with sage advice from somewhere…

Biography-Memoir Management-Business Software-Technology

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

By Scott J. Pearson | March 19, 2023March 19, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

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.…

Management-Business Software-Technology

Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Personal Life & Unlock Your Creative Potential

By Scott J. Pearson | April 9, 2022April 9, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

In the last few decades, computers and the Internet have provided humans with new access to untold masses of information. Humans are just now catching up on how to use this information for our own good. The technology needs to make our lives easier and more productive, not less so. Fortunately, first-time author Tiago Forte points the way to use these tools to aid creativity. In book form, he teaches a method that he’s shared…

Society Software-Technology

The Hidden History of Big Brother in America

By Scott J. Pearson | January 30, 2022January 30, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

As a professional software developer and researcher, I have mixed reactions towards this book. On the one hand, it points out very valid concerns and complaints about how Internet technologies intersect with contemporary society, particularly with the political classes. On the other, I found myself repeating over and over to myself, “But that’s just how technology works!” As such, this book is a good conversation starter for an issue that needs broad discussion in America.…

Management-Business Psychology Software-Technology

No More Teams! Mastering the Dynamics of Creative Collaboration

By Scott J. Pearson | November 21, 2021November 21, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

I wanted to read this book because I frequently saw it cited in contemporary business and management books. It talks at length about how to foster creative collaboration through the use of technology. It presaged a vision of a workplace with abundant computerized interactions. More impressively, it did so without foreseeing most of the impact of the Internet. Of course, the technologies described in this book are dated. Indeed, most of them are now in…

Religion-Philosophy Software-Technology

The Question Concerning Technology by Martin Heidegger

By Scott J. Pearson | September 26, 2021October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Technology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries can be as much of a problem as a help. As an instrument, it can make mass killing much easier. Indeed, nuclear bombs enable the world to potentially destroy itself in less than an hour. Yet technology can enable human flourishing as well. For instance, I develop software professionally that I hope will help my domain (medical research) advance. How are we to understand technology, a concept as…