Oh boy I buy a lot of books on Kindle. Here's 2017's method of mass consumption in order of purchase... Pre-suasion Robert Cialdini's long-awaited follow up to the seminal book Influence, in which he looks at the ways in which we can seed people and situations to make influence more likely. City of Fortune I … Continue reading Bookshelf 2017
Category: Bookshelf
Books I’ve read/am reading/have bought but not necessarily gotten around to actually reading yet.
Here's the stuff currently being read, been read or on the "to read" list... Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration Pixar's Ed Catmull explores how the animation studio explores and creates ideas. (To read) Dark Money: how a secretive group of billionaires is trying to buy political … Continue reading Spring 2017 bookshelf…
It's that reflective time of the year. And a few weeks back my old chum Sean Mills asked me if I'd pulled together a list of recent reading. So here you go, Sean (and the rest of ya). Listed below, in reverse chronological order, are all the books I bought in 2016. Can't say I've … Continue reading The 2016 Bookshelf
There's an awful lot of technological Utopian bullshit spoken at the moment about how we are at the cusp of a massive revolution in the hands of technology. On the one hand I think there's a strong argument that this has always been the case, at least since the first industrial revolution. There's a chronocentricity that … Continue reading The Money Siphon
Had a wonderfully mind-stretching time this morning chairing a session for the Winmark L&D network with Nick Shackleton-Jones leading a discussion about Gamification. The session spurred a number of thoughts for me - here are a few of the related links: My own blogging 0n the subject: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/2012/02/13/motivating-through-games/ (includes photo of the marvellous Perspex box) https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/2012/02/14/skinner-the-art-of-motivation/ … Continue reading Gamification – links
Over the past few years I've toyed with the idea of writing a book. I'm writing pretty much constantly, so pulling together some focus on the themes to produce a coherent tome couldn't be that hard, could it? And a book would give me credibility that a mere blog doesn't have. Would give me something to talk … Continue reading What is a book?
I'm currently about 2/3rds of the way through Walter Isaacson's latest book, The Innovators, an ambitious project to chart the history of what I guess one would call the world of "digital" - computing, programming and devices. From Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage coming up with the ideas of a multiple-purpose reprogrammable computing device, to … Continue reading Innovation is a team sport
I've developed a new approach to finding new books to read. In one of my more progressive acts of parenting, I tend to take the boys to the local library once a week. Whilst there, I'm also looking out for something to pick up myself. No longer am I relying on Amazon recommendations - I'm … Continue reading Inside the box
Here's an interesting little connection for you... Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google, both went through Montessori education. The Montessori method has, at its core, a belief that children are natural learners and that learning therefore should be more child- rather than knowledge-centric than traditional approaches. Google appears to want to make rote … Continue reading Book review: Curious
There is a school of scientific thought prevalent in psychology and behavioural economics that sees fact emerging from rigorous, controlled experimentation. As a result much of what we understand about the way in which we think is derived from the observation of undergraduates performing laboratory tasks. Whilst there is much that can be learned from … Continue reading Book review: Seeing what others don’t
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