January 2010 Entries
Game Theory fascinates me even though I am not nearly a good enough mathematician to claim to be any good at the subject. Even so when I saw this book, Decision Making Using Game Theory, by Anthony Kelly, I decided to dive in and enjoy! While it is a bit technical at times, for the most part Dr. Kelly keeps the topic on a very practical level with all of his examples pulled from the business world. Even though the examples are simplified, they are not contrived. This is a great book for anyo
Ram Charan is an interesting character that intrigues me with his view of strategic management. I will confess that much of what I read in this realm is way above my head in terms of usefulness. I simply read his work as sort of a guilty pleasure because strategic management is fascinating to me. In Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty, Ram talks specifically about what companies need to do in light of the recent turmoil in the world's capital markets. The book dates itself but is
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability is the result of Steve Krug sharing his expertise in a very controversial field. If you count up all the web designers in the world, that number would come close to the number of opinions on the One Right Way to design a web site. Krug addresses how to resolve these "religious debates" as well as how to take a common sense approach to web usability. He also details a great way to do some usability testing which he insists is an abs
In The Non-Designer's Design Book, Robin Williams presents a succinct primer on how to get started doing good design. The thoughts laid out in the book are simple enough for someone with little formal training to compehend and yet sophisticated enough to launch a novice down the path of excellence.
Edward Tufte lays out a very comprehensive study of how to effectively display information in a visual format. Charts and graphs are a huge part of today's corporate communication medium and yet they are often malformed and fail to convey information properly. This is a great book for laying down some principles that can apply across technologies and medium and help to formulate high quality information communication. Due to the nature of this book, my notes here will be a very brief summary
Dan Ariely tells a fascinating story of pain at the beginning of his book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. As a youth he was involved in an accident that left 70% of his body badly burned. During his recovery he explains that he began to view the ordinary and everyday experiences that he used to experience as though he were an outside observer. He began to analyze the "why" behind daily decision making. This led him to an interest in the field of behaviora