Recent readings
August 24th, 2008
First off, I am beginning to hate flash. It happens too often that my beta flash player completely crashes my browser. This is very conflicting because I think Flash brings so much to the web…
Anyway, I was halfway writing this story when it crashed right from under me… Boring…
As I was saying, A few books i recently “read”. Reading in quotes because I am addicted to audio books. I commute quite a lot. Almost always an hour or more. Sometimes its too early to bother friends, colleagues or clients and then it is nice and productive to listen to an audio book.
As I am a readaholic this is perfect.
7 Habits
The first book i ploughed through is the unabridged twelve hour “The seven habits of highly effective people”. I didn’t think I would like this book as the author is very religious, and this does not sit well with me.
But as it turns out, I got a lot out of the book. Be proactive, Start with the end in mind, Put first things first, Think win-win, Try to understand first then to be understood, Synergize and Sharpen the saw. They are actually helpful and form a good basis to organise your life.
The best tidbit I got out of the book: “Love is a verb, not an emotion”. Love the emotion is the result of Love the verb.. This makes a lot of sense to me. I am married to my lovely wife Veronique for over ten years. And we are together for 18 years. That means that almost half of my entire life I have been with this woman. Next year it will be exactly half, and after that we will have been together longer in our life then apart. We are still very much in love, and love each other very much. But it is not always the emotion of butterflies. The butterflies can be caused by other things and people. But Love the verb is always there. But I digress..
A whole new mind
This book is a bit over the top. It claims we are entering a new era, the conceptual age that follows up the information age. Caused by outsourcing, automation and abundance. It’s over the top because I think abundance is maybe not really true. With the rising prices of raw materials, the Peak-oil phenomenon etc. etc. What is interesting is the emphasis on whole mind (left and right directed) thinking. Critical for innovation and very much the substance of my companies iSchool offering. The six senses: Design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning. It makes much sense to me and is nice to hear examples and stories about it.
From good to great
This was given to many employees at a company I coached on user experience, Exact Software. I borrowed a copy and I am in the middle of it. I really liked what I read so far. I will give a full update soon.