Wow. I haven’t posted any fiction reviews in the past year. Then again, I haven’t been reading much new fiction in the past year – mostly I’ve been re-reading comfort books or watching TV instead of fiction reading. Anyway, I was going through my bookshelves, and figured I should do at least a capsule review […]
Whuffie and social capital
I’ve been meaning to get around to reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow for a while now, and finally got around to it recently after downloading it to my iPhone (thanks, Stanza!). The most recent trigger to read it was from Tara Hunt, who is writing a book called The […]
Personal branding
Yesterday’s post on branding actually started because I have been thinking extensively about personal branding throughout my just-completed job search. Looking for a job entails trying to find a plausible intersection between one’s background and skills, one’s interests and career aspirations, and what a company needs. For a generalist like me, this gets particularly interesting […]
Branding
I have been thinking about the topic of branding on and off since talking with Noah Brier a few months ago. Noah pointed out to me the dizzying concept that a company does not control its brand directly – the brand is whatever people think of the company. In other words, a company can claim […]
California, here I come
As is probably not a surprise (especially after my New York vs. the Bay Area post), I have decided to move back to the Bay Area next month. Taking a step back, at the beginning of the summer, I had just graduated from Columbia and was in need of some time off after the craziness […]
True Enough, by Farhad Manjoo
Amazon link Based on my previous thoughts about the decline of Absolute Truth , it’s not surprising that I wanted to read a book that is subtitled “Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society”. Manjoo observes that we, the body politic, used to agree on what was happening and the problems we were facing, but […]
Information Rules, by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian
Amazon link Google books link, which appears to have most of the book’s content available (not surprising as Hal Varian is Google’s Chief Economist). According to the preface, this book arose because these two economics professors were perplexed by complaints that “economics was not much use in today’s economy” even as they were getting hired […]
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Sounds crazy, no? Almost like…a fiddler on the roof. No, wait, that’s something else. I’d heard about this project a few months ago, but Xemu linked to the trailer a couple weeks ago, which got me fanboy-ing again. Dude, a musical written by Joss Whedon, following in the tradition of the […]
A Whole New Mind, by Daniel H. Pink
Amazon link Official book site My friend Wes recommended this book to me after my social capitalist post where I claimed that we were moving from a world defined by technology to one defined by social connections. Daniel Pink’s book describes a similar transition from an emphasis on left-brain thinking towards right-brain thinking. Pink starts […]
Vision, decisions and constraints
I have been thinking about the importance of having a vision recently, both in the context of companies and also my own life. The lessons of Built to Last continue to resonate with me, especially the message of “Preserve the core, but stimulate progress.” The companies that had long-term success were the ones that had […]
