Stopped in the bookstore to browse the shelves and see if anything inspired me. I’d already stopped and bought Clay Shirky’s new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations and it continues to be the most important book of 2008 IMHO.(If you’re looking for a pleasure read, pick up a copy of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, this book is Orwell’s 1984 for the Digital Generation, I found it worth the sleepless night).
I’m intrigued about the discussion of more in Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More. How people make decisions around needs and desires in North America is interesting. This is the basic studies of economics. For a long time, I had a hard time understanding the connection that Herb Simon made between economics, psychology, computer science and design. But this connection has lead to startups both successful ones and failures, but they have all been around understanding how people make decisions, assign value, and trying to design products and services to enable these decisions. I had a quick read of The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas which did a great job explaining real-world perceptions and misperceptions of the world based on human behaviours.
Toronto is now my home. Having settled in Toronto, I’ve been frustrated by the lack of community. I’m looking forward to reading Small is Possible: Life in the Local Economy, if only to better set a plan for events like DemoCamp and Founders & Funders to better enable our Local Software Economy in Toronto.
Is it me, or does Wired feel relevant again? Wired 16.07 had a couple of articles that were just inspiring to read. The Petabyte Age: Because More Isn’t Just More – More Is Different contains articles about the secondary effects and analysis of data that becomes possible one you embrace big data. Feeding the Masses: Data In, Crop Predictions Out shows the power of GIS and agricultural data developed by Lanworth, it provides the power to enable market predictions. Makes me think I need to find time to read Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart. Need proof that there’s power in numbers look at the processing by the Idee folks for TinEye or at the relational models of pixels in images for PhotoSynth.
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The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Robert Frank |
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Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart by Ian Ayres |
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Small is Possible: Life in a Local Economy by Lyle Estill |
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Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright |
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The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Demographic Storm by Kenneth W. Gronbach |
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Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads by Joel Best |
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Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block |
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Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple) by Jeffrey Kluger |
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Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More by John Naish |
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The Empire of Mind: Digital Piracy and the Anti-Capitalist Movement (Digital Futures) (Digital Futures) by Michael Strangelove |
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Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky |
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Communities Dominate Brands by Tomi T. Ahonen, Alan Moore |
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Generation Blend: Managing Across the Technology Age Gap (Microsoft Executive Leadership Series) by R. Salkowitz |