A clear and intelligent treatment of an increasingly important subject for entrepreneurs.
In this business book, a series of fictional case studies highlights both the challenges and opportunities presented by digital disruption.
Jankovich, Voskes, and Hornsby thoroughly articulate seven fictional stories that exemplify the world of digital disruption. The opportunities promised by digital innovation have forever altered and continue to transform the commercial landscape with such rapidity that no successful entrepreneur can abide complacency—one must forever be testing and inventing, perpetually open to the new and careful to temper the pitfalls of a dogmatically “fixed mindset.” The authors cover a wide range of scenarios and industries, from food and drink to flooring, as well as a broad expanse of problems to solve. In the first tale, Magnus, the CEO of a ball bearings manufacturer, hires “digital guru” Lazlo Hout to reenergize the company in the face of new competitive threats. But Lazlo flounders since he focuses on the media angle, which produces little concrete success, instead of a technological one. The authors argue that an overarching vision is always necessary as well as the right “conceptual toolkit” in order to properly diagnose both threats and opportunities. Moreover, digital success is always ultimately about understanding and winning over people and is therefore more a personal than purely analytical affair: “In short, you need the love. Working with data is perceived as hard science-ey, but it all rests on people’s feelings.” Each story is meticulously limned—the authors even estimate the reading times—with the lessons learned spelled out with lucid accessibility. This volume isn’t designed to be an introduction to the issue for a novice—it simply isn’t systematic enough to qualify as that kind of reference book. But for someone a little more sophisticated who’s looking for a deeper—and completely practical—look into the ins and outs of digital disruption, this is a thoughtful work.
A clear and intelligent treatment of an increasingly important subject for entrepreneurs.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-90-828382-2-0
Page Count: 244
Publisher: SparkOptimus
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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