A lively, cleareyed assessment of the ways Covid has forever altered commerce.
A discussion of organizational transformation that goes beyond quick fixes.
In these pages, Hoque describes some of the mechanisms of the “ongoing pilgrimage” of corporate transformation in a “hyperdigital” era. As Hoque points out, e-commerce was growing by leaps and bounds even before the world changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, which turbocharged the process by hundreds of billions of dollars and, according to the author, fundamentally changed many aspects of commerce and society. These changes can lead to a “disconnect” in which sections of the workforce resist the new realities for a variety of reasons (Hoque cites a survey that indicated many people who’ve shifted to remote working miss the impromptu face-to-face time and social elements of the in-person workplace), and the book addresses this with suggestions like periodic unplugging, broadening networks to talk about things other than work, and interspersing remote work with in-person days. In these and other sections of the subject, Hoque advocates “digital maturity,” which involves “flexible, secure infrastructure,” “data, mastery,” and “intelligent workflows,” and must be embraced by both workforces and customers. In clear and fast-paced prose, the guide describes the seismic changes represented by things like digital transformation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning—always stressing that such developments are inevitable and potentially hugely valuable but also complex. Transforming business, he writes, “involves a great deal more than unplugging this and plugging in that.” Rather, it paradoxically has less to do with the technology than with the culture of the organization itself. “Leadership,” Hoque writes, “planning, thoughtful execution, and a commitment to a fresh mindset are every bit as critical to success as the right technology.” Hoque’s writing is briskly paced and includes plenty of inset lists and other graphics, which is perfect for beginners and experienced hands alike.
A lively, cleareyed assessment of the ways Covid has forever altered commerce.Pub Date: July 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781639080427
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Fast Company Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2023
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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