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Archive for the ‘book reviews’ Category

A couple of quick book reviews

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

Here are a couple of quick book reviews, based on stuff that I’ve received from the kind people at O’Reilly Media:

 

Hackers:  Heroes of the Computer Revolution – 25th Anniversary edition by Steven Levy

This is a great read.  I read the original edition of this book a number of years ago.  It’s about the rise of the hacker movement and the open source concept, back when open source meant keeping printouts of programming code in unlocked drawers for other amateur programmers to use.  This started back in the day when you had to enter programs by punch card, flipping switches or, rarely, typing the code in machine language or assembler using an actual keyboard.  Those days seem like a distant memory now.

This is not a book about programming techniques.  It’s a book about people who loved the idea of democratizing the use of computers, their quirky personalities and how the personal computer eventually came to life.  It also talks about entrepreneurship, including the good and the bad.  Still relevant today and a recommended read.  Rating 8/10  Affiliate link: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution – 25th Anniversary Edition

Create Stunning HTML Email That Just Works by Matthew Patterson

I am not a programmer, although I do have some knowledge of how HTML works, so some of the stuff in this book goes over my head.  Basically, it’s about creating E-Mails using HTML techniques that make them look attractive.  So, honestly, I don’t know how well these techniques work.  They aren’t beginners techniques.  I will say, however, that this book is well organized and well written so it looks good.  I’m not including an affiliate link because I’m out of my depth here but it looks like it could be a good resource if you’re into this sort of thing.  Here’s a non-affiliate link to the book, since I’m not so knowledgeable about this stuff – it could still turn out to be quite good.

 

Until next time!

Book Review – Making Ideas Happen – Scott Belsky

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

This is a review of Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming The Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky.

I used a review copy that was sent to me (thanks for that).

Background

Scott Belsky is a speaker, a writer, and an entrepreneur with a focus on the creative industries. He oversees three major initiatives as founder and CEO of Behance:

  • The Behance Network/Platform
  • The 99%
  • Action Method

Making Ideas Happen is a book that describes a method to execute creative projects. It challenges the notion that creative work must be chaotic, disorganized and subject to the whims and temperament of the artist. It also attempts to dispel the notion of the solitary, solo creator by emphasizing the benefits of collaboration.

The book is divided into three main sections:

Organization and Execution – this section spends time Behance’s Action Method of doing projects, by presenting a project execution methodology that is stripped down to the essentials and provides a lighter alterative to more complex project management methodologies. It also looks at personal work habits and other keys to success.

The Forces of Community – the section describes how you really can’t do it alone and how you can work better with other people to achieve great things.

Leadership Capability – projects and organizations need leaders (yes, even those in creative realms) – fine out more here, including rewards, team chemistry and management, and self-leadership.

My thoughts:

I looked forward to getting this book because I thought it would hold all of the answers that I was looking for within my own creative projects. I was initially disappointed with the book because, quite frankly, I didn’t read the title and description carefully enough before getting my review copy.

Here’s the thing: this book is designed for those people who know, at least in general terms, what they want to do, whether it is:

  • Writing a book
  • Recording music
  • Putting on a play
  • Creating a small organization to do good work
  • And so on.

However, if you haven’t figured that part out yet, this book isn’t any good to you because you’ve got no way to apply it.

After I processed this information and reset my expectations, I came to the conclusion that this book is really quite good. It does all the usual things:

  • Describes ideas and the justification behind them
  • Provides examples and anecdotes from experts and key practitioners
  • Maintains readability so that it doesn’t feel like a textbook

However, the biggest benefit of this book is that it makes project management, project execution and leadership less scary to people who are intimidated by those things. It provides enough structure to prevent chaos while not feeling like a straightjacket.

I think that this is the kind of book that should be read multiple times and, most importantly, be used. There’s a lot of wisdom here.

Rating: 9/10

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Book Review Blitz – June 2 2010

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Here’s a couple of short book reviews for your consideration.

 

Do More Great Work by Michael Bungay Stanier: Michael Bungay Stanier (who I have interviewed) is the guy in charge at Box of Crayons.  He’s also done an informative and entertaining series of podcast interviews with a lot of interesting creative entrepreneurs.  Do More Great Work, a book that I bought a couple of months ago, is a revised and expanded version of his previous book Find Your Great Work.  In a nutshell, it’s a series of exercises and information to help you chart a new career course through a lot of introspection and planning.  He uses a series of “maps” to help you perform an inventory of what you want to do, your strengths and weaknesses, etc.

It’s a good little book.  The exercises are interesting and fun (I’m about one-third of the way through them at the time of writing) and they do provide some value.  The anecdotes and mini-essays in the book (I want to call them guest posts for some reason) are quite cool because Michael recruited some interesting people to write them.  Seth Godin, Penelope Trunk, Chris Guillebeau, Tim Hurson (who has written an awesome book that I’ll be reviewing in the near future) and Leo Babauta are among the folks added some additional meat to Do More Great Work.

Overall this is worth checking out.  A definite 8/10 (recommended) – here’s an affiliate link to purchase this book at Amazon.com: Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

 

Facebook: The Missing Manual (2nd edition) by E. A. Vander Veer:  I received a review copy of this book from O’Reilly Media a few weeks ago (thanks, guys).  First of all, anyone who writes a guide to Facebook has a stiff challenge in front of them since the company is continually tweaking and changing things.  For example, anything related to Facebook’s Privacy Controls is doomed to be out of date by the time a book rolls out of the print shop.  It’s like trying to describe something that sheds its skin every few months.

I haven’t read Facebook for Dummies, but The Missing Manual strikes me as a slightly less beginner-ish book.  The Missing Manual is decently written, has good diagrams and examples, and it even has an idea or two for using Facebook that I’ve never considered before.  It also has a few statements within it that made me raise an eyebrow or three (e.g.  some of the verbiage about privacy and security).  Let’s just say that I found the book to be significantly pro Facebook, which is natural in a way but it didn’t feel sufficiently neutral to me.

This book is at least a 7 of 10 but I can’t bring myself to recommend it to you.  Sorry guys.  You’re better off reading a trusted resource on the Web to stay up to date on Facebook.  It’s not O’Reilly Media’s fault that Facebook keeps changing.

Book Reviews (times two) – May 17 2010

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Two back to back reviews this time, from two review copies of new books that I received at the same time. I think it’s also appropriate to do both reviews at the same time because, in a way, I feel like both of these books build upon the ideas that were discussed a few years ago in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.

Here we go:

Click: The Magic of Instant Connections – Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman

The brothers Brafman, who previously published a book called Sway, are back again with a new book. The topic of this book is relationships. The writers discuss the concept of clicking, or instant connection between two people. They look at this phenomenon from the perspective of romantic and platonic relationships. They discuss five click accelerators, ways that you can follow to build strong relationships quickly. They also discuss how some people seem to quickly read other people upon meeting them with good accuracy.

Like most books of this type, the underlying material is not that difficult. It’s the anecdotes and stories that really make a book like this come to life. There are some good ones in this book.

Overall, this is a good book, a definite 8 out of 10. It doesn’t have quite the same charm or shine as Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, but it’s still solid.

 

The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us – Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons

These two authors won the Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology in 2004 with a fun little experiment that tests how well people can keep track of every happening in a short video (I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it or other videos like it, because they’re pretty cool.) Now they’ve written a book together. The Invisible Gorilla discusses ways in which our perceptions can fail us by examining six different failures of intuition.

This book feels (and is) longer and mentally heavier than Click. I think it’s a more important book than Click because it goes beyond relationships into situations where mistakes are costly to many people. However, it just isn’t a light read and it may turn off other readers. Despite these misgivings, it has the anecdotes and some good logic behind it, so it’s definitely worth checking out. This book is actually closer in spirit to Gladwell’s Blink than Click. This one gets 8 out of 10 as well.

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Bite-sized book reviews – April 18 2010

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

I’m going to depart from the normal format and give you three book reviews, each no more than one paragraph long.  I didn’t buy any of these books:  they were either given to me as review copies or else they were given to me as a gift.  Here’s what I think of them (disclosure:  any links to the books in question will be affiliate links to buy them at Amazon.com (unless otherwise stated)):

The Age of Persuasion – Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant

I interviewed Terry O’Reilly a few months ago.  I’m a fan of his Age of Persuasion radio program on CBC Radio.  His book, co-written with his producer Mike Tennant, sustains the same witty and slightly provocative tone of the radio show.  The book is an equally witty and incisive look at the advertising industry, from its start to its current status.  Subjects include:  the birth of advertising; how advertising and content grew up together on the radio and TV; celebrity brand empires; hucksters; subliminal advertising; guerilla marketing; product placement; telemarketing; popular music in advertising; and the origin of the term “snake oil salesman”.  This is not a book for scanning; it’s a book for reading and enjoying.  Highly recommended:  9/10.

Your Money: The Missing Manual – J.D. Roth

The author of the Get Rich Slowly blog has published a book on personal money management and its great.  It covers the full spectrum (budgeting, debt, income, investing) and has lots of great resources both in the book and with links printed inside the book that you can access on the Web.  The only minor quibble that I have with this book is the most of the investing/retirement/tax sections are oriented toward to US readers, so they will have to be supplemented by other resources.  Still, this is a solid 9/10 and recommended.

Building Web Reputation Systems – F. Randall Farmer and Bryce Glass

I’m not going to provide an affiliate link to this book because, to be honest, I don’t really know if it’s a good book or not. This book is a bit more technical than I’m used to. Having said that, it’s well written and well organized. It seems clear enough although there are a few parts that are over my head. If web reputation systems are important to you or your business, this book might be worth checking out. You should check for other reviews and make your own judgement. Here’s a non-affiliate link to the book. I’d say it’s at least 8/10, but I’ll defer to experts as to whether or not it’s the right book for you.

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Book Review – Switch – Chip and Dan Heath

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

This is a book review of Switch:  How To Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

How I got the book:

I received a review copy from the publisher.

Background:

Chip Heath and Dan Heath (yes, they are brothers) are a couple of smart and talented guys who have been successful in academia and in business. They received global attention and praise for their thought-provoking book Made To Stick, which described various ways to make content or messages memorable enough to “stick” in our minds.

Switch, in a nutshell, is about change:  how difficult it is and ways to successfully introduce change. The brothers Heath look at different aspects of making change and why it can be so difficult for people to embrace change. Their concepts of the Elephant, the Rider, and the Path seem to be “sticking” in the minds of many readers as a means to visualize how and why change works.

The strengths:

As chef Emeril would say, “BAM!” This is an excellent book on many levels. It’s easy to read, full of useful facts and examples, and it includes case studies (often based on real life examples) to illustrate how change was introduced into various situations. The Heath brothers also provide examples of situations where change was not successfully introduced.

This book is compelling and important. The authors do an excellent job of introducing concepts and then building upon them to help reinforce our understanding. They’ve applied the concepts from Made to Stick when writing this book to make it memorable.

The areas for improvement:

There is not a damn thing wrong with this book.  You need a copy.

Other points of interest:

Some of the change examples in the book seem shocking because they seem like such obvious changes that would be so beneficial to many, yet they were difficult to make, including several examples from the health care industry. It’s a sobering look at how organizations work.

Verdict (out of 10): 10 (you MUST read this book if you want to change yourself or to make changes in your world… basically, any human being should read this book)


My methodology for book reviews and affiliate links: I’ll provide an Amazon.com affiliate link (or other related affiliate link) for content if I think it’s worth buying and reading. If I don’t, I won’t provide an affiliate link. The affiliate link helps fund my content creation activities.

If you would like me to review YOUR eBook, book, or other content, please send me an E-Mail at markdykeman@gmail.com to get instructions on how to send your book or content to me. You’ll get my honest opinion about your book, either publically or privately.


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