Archive for the 'Books' Category

Book Review: Rework

Published by Taylor on March 23, 2010 in Book Reviews, Books, Business, Careers, Culture, Entrepreneurship and Productivity. View Comments

The dream employee for a lot of companies is a twenty-something with as little of a life as possible outside of work–someone who’ll be fine working fourteen-hour days and sleeping under his desk.  But packing a room full of these burn-the-midnight-oil types isn’t as great as it seems. [. . .]  You don’t need more hours; you need better hours.  When people have something to do at home, they get down to business.  They get their work done because they have somewhere else to be.  They find ways to be more efficient because they have to.

-Rework (affiliate link)

The 37 Signals team behind the project management software I and thousands of others use daily (Basecamp) published a new book laying out some of the principles behind their success.  They call Rework a “by product” of their business; the equivalent of a cookbook written by a chef confident enough that their mastery will still trump any upstart competitors armed with detailed instructions.  One of the ideas promoted in Rework, after all, is to strengthen and promote your business by teaching–customers, other business owners, even competitors:

[E]mulate famous chefs.  They cook, so they write cookbooks.  What do you do?  What are your “recipes”?  What’s your “cookbook”?  What can you tell the world about how you operate that’s informative, educational, and promotional?  This book is our cookbook.

And it’s full of direct, combative, written-with-purpose recipes for running an un-apologetically small but thriving business.  The book is organized into a series of brief essays on a variety of work topics; read on for a few passages I found particularly compelling and a special video dialogue where Jarred and I discuss the book:

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Ideas About Ideas

Published by Jarred on December 20, 2009 in Advertising, Books, Business, Computing, Consumer Behavior, Copyright, Culture, Design, Environment, Google, Health, Legal Issues, Lifestyle, News, Politics, Privacy, Science, Social Networks, Space and Web 2.0. View Comments

The New York Times recently issued the ninth edition of its annual Ideas feature for its magazine.  I’ve read through most of the entries and found several really fascinating; others were also interesting but neglected to surface other important angles.  I thought I’d use this space to highlight both, seeing as Tropophilia is all about ideas that may bring about change in our world.

The Advertisement That Watches You - I’ll leave the details of this particular implementation to the article, but the essence of the technology is a billboard with a built-in camera that, through facial recognition technology, can tell when anyone within a certain radius of the advertisement is looking at it.  This one, interestingly, changes to its main message when people are not looking.  You can imagine, however, how this technology might develop over time: electronic ads could be powered off until it new there were passersby actually looking at the space.  Facial recognition could also be used to power an impressions-based ads payment system, much like exists on the web: advertisers would only have to pay per “view” or elapsed “eyeball time” on the ad.  Of course, such commercial use of facial recognition technology also raises enormous privacy concerns (How long are camera images kept?  Would the technology eventually be used to identify people and serve ads based on their personal interests, or  even the clothes they were wearing or the book they are reading at that moment?).  It will be interesting to see how this area grows, if at all.

Bicycle Highways - I thought this was a cool idea, but I’m not sure I see it gaining widespread adoption outside of cities that have significant numbers of bike commuters.  What I think is really clever is the possibilities raised with GPS and RFID technology that would allow for bikers to create on-the-fly pelotons, which in turn would be able to gain privileges for traffic lights and such: a mix between EZPass and carpool lanes.  Throw in a custom social network for the city so you could plan your departures in order to meet up with a regular riding group, and this could be really great for those cities with big biking cultures.

The Counterfeit Self - I think this research has implications for the Web.  There has long been a debate about authentication online: when writing a blog, posting comments, or joining a social network, is it “better” for users to have the ability to remain anonymous or pseudonymous, or should they be encouraged or required to use their real identity (obfuscated to whatever degree they prefer).  Many argue that encouraging or requiring authentication would, for example, solve the problem evidence by the (often hateful and troll-like) comments of any given YouTube video.  Opponents summon the right to free dom of speech as a defense of anonymous use of the web.  Some governments, like South Korea, actually require what is referred to as “real name verification” for websites in their jurisdiction that surpass a certain threshold of users; users are required to authenticate against a national registry before they can interact with the site.  Considering the idea of how behavior is influenced by fake identity could offer a fresh perspective in this debate.

Good Enough is the New Great - One aspect that this idea doesn’t cover (and I can’t remember anymore if the Wired article does or not) is information.  Just as consumers are turning to cheap cameras, low-fi music files, and YouTube videos, they are also turning to Twitter for their information fixes.  Many argue that in moving from mainstream to social media as our main source of information, we make a similar sacrifice of quality for convenience.  I think that may be true in the short-term, but I’m hopeful that just like companies are starting to fit better and better sensors into those tiny Flip cameras, so will Twitter eventually recapture some of the fidelity of the “news” that it carries.

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TED Talks: Dave Eggers

Published by Taylor on May 18, 2009 in Books, Education and TED Talks. View Comments

This is part of an ongoing series in which we highlight particularly fascinating talks from some of the world’s most innovative thinkers. These videos are featured courtesy of a Creative Commons license; for more on the TED conference (Technology, Entertainment, and Design), click here.

I’m a huge fan of Dave Eggers’ books.  While some folks thought A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was a bit indulgent, I loved (nearly) every word.  I enjoyed You Shall Know Our Velocity! even more, and found What Is the What to be heartbreaking and sincere.

What I find most  interesting about Eggers is how his commitment to the written word extends beyond his own works, or the magazine he publishes, to include a heartfelt and effective social enterprise geared toward helping young people find their voices and receive one-on-one tutelage in writing.  His nonprofits (the first of which was 826 Valencia in San Francisco) serve as a fun and unintimidating setting for after school tutoring and creative inspiration.  His deceptiely simple idea–that a network of writers and freelancers with flexible schedules could engage young students in an authentic and helpful way after school hours–is making a huge difference in the lives of kids in cities across the country.  I encourage you to watch the inspiring video below in which Eggers describes his philosophy and the quirky model of 826 Valencia.  It involves pirates and superheroes, but I won’t give any more away:

You can also download this video to iTunes (MP4 file) by clicking here (”Save Link As” on Windows).

Taking Stock of Books

Published by Jarred on August 4, 2008 in Books and Business. View Comments

this book makes a lot of cents

[Update: By posting this, I neither recommend nor endorse Tao Lin's stock proposal below.  Anyone considering this investment should independently research the viability and legality of the proposal, and should probably consult a financial advisor and/or a lawyer.  I endorse the theoretical exploration of the idea that Tao Lin has seized upon -- nothing more, nothing less.]

We seem to have some sort of obsession with the future of books here at Tropophilia.  Maybe because books are living examples of the way an entire industry part of the human experience is being challenged by the nascent digital era.  Whatever it is, we seem to cover books and reading fairly frequently on this blog.  Here’s another post to add to the list.

Taylor pointed me to this quick blurb on the Freakonomics blog yesterday:

When rogue author Tao Lin set out to write his second novel, he realized he would need to raise some capital to sustain himself. So he has decided to sell shares in 60 percent of the U.S. royalties for his forthcoming, as-yet-untitled book.

Not only will the scheme defray his financial risk if the book does poorly, but Lin hopes that shareholders will promote his book out of self-interest.

Hi-o!  What?!  Who does this 25 year old think he is?  Well, I’ll tell you what I think he is.  I think he’s a genius.

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Kindled

Published by Jarred on June 24, 2008 in Books, Gadgets and Reading. View Comments

My birthday was last week, though I unfortunately had to spend the majority of the day taking an evil standardized test.  How’s that for bad timing?  My parents were gracious and awesome enough to offer me an Amazon Kindle for my birthday, which we’ve written about some before.  Now, after about a week of fairly regular first-hand use, I’m ready to offer some more thoughts.

When I first turned it on and downloaded a free sample chapter, the thing that most struck me about the Kindle was that, man… this thing is slow.  Every button press is followed by at least a one second pause — a considerable delay in today’s high tech world.  For a device that promises to usher in the next evolution of reading, I was perplexed at first.  Where’s the gee-whiz slickness, the instant page-turns, the animation?  (Amazon’s explains the slight delays by pointing to the E-Ink display, which at its current stage of development requires a little longer to render).

Ironically enough, however, I’ve almost come to appreciate the delay.  Just as the E-Ink display mimics the ocular experience of the printed book, so do these delays mimic the time required to turn a page.  It’s a subtle reminder when you continue to the next page that it is just that — a new page.  You don’t scroll to the next screen on the Kindle; the scoll wheel is only used to access the menu and other features.  You have to take the time to hit a button and wait as the screen momentarily flashes dark, and then rekindles (ha) with the next segment of text.  That brief second gives you a chance to process the page you just read, to look out the window for a moment, to readjust the device in your hands.  Looking back at the past week, I’m not sure now that I’d want it any other way.

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