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Book Reviews

works well

Works Well with Others – Ross McCammon

Are you in the mood for a self-help book that is amusing, hilarious, and has real takeaways to be used in everyday life? Then Works Well with Others is definitely worth checking out. Ross McCammon is an editor with Esquire and admits that he has a difficult time as an introvert. This book dishes out tips that he has learned from his career meeting high profile individuals and feeling like he is an imposter.

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One Small Step Can Change Your Life – Robert Maurer

The Kaizen Way

Toyota was known in the 80’s for its continuous improvement methods and the empowerment of employees to identify deficits and provide suggestions. Although Deming and the US manufacturing complex during the 40’s for support of WWII invented continuous improvement we soon forgot after the war. One small step is the thought behind Kaizen and Maurer applies continuous improvement to solving our own life problems.Read More »One Small Step Can Change Your Life – Robert Maurer

hard thing about hard things

The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz

Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

If you have followed entrepreneurship or venture capital for any time over the past decade then you are familiar with how unique Andreessen Horowitz is in their investing style. A VC that places more focus on the ‘X-factor’ than financials or models that are wrong 1 month into the 36 month projection. What I did not know is the journey Ben Horowitz – the rap quoting blogger – made to reach the top, The Hard Thing About Hard Things chronicles his story and then provides advice.

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The Phoenix Project – Kim, Behr, Spafford

A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

Your project is over budget and overdue, your business sponsor is growing impatient, and IT departments are blaming each other. Worse yet, you have just been promoted and have been given 90 days or the organization fails. Does this sound familiar? While many organizations do not face this extreme situation, The Phoenix Project guides us through the adventures of Bill as he learns about DevOps and Lean principles. If you ever read The Goal, then the story may sound familiar.

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Rework – Jason Fried

I have always been a fan of 37Signals’ (now Basecamp) products, whether it is Basecamp or the now infamous Ruby on Rails platform. When I found out that Jason Fried released a book based on his approach, I had to check out Rework.Read More »Rework – Jason Fried

decisive

Decisive – Dan Heath, Chip Heath

How to Make Better Decisions in Life and Work

Think about how many decisions you have to make on a daily or weekly basis, some are easy and some are absolutely agonizing. It is amazing how much we struggle on being decisive, and sometimes over something as easy as whether you should go to graduate school – tip reframe the question. Another book by the Heath brothers that delivers a knowledge bomb.

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master switch

The Master Switch – Tim Wu

The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

The Internet has taken the primary spot for information exchange in the twenty-first century, and for good reason. Several technologies that revolutionized information exchange came before: telegraph, telephone, radio, and television. All of these technologies changed the world and were supposed to be the ultimate platform, but will the Internet be different? The Master Switch chronicles the history of information empires and whether the Internet is different.

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