December 2011
17 posts
12 tags
Best of 111in2011
Yes, one of this content free summaries about previous read books - but I think it would be nice if you had a small reading lists with some great books.
Best of Marketing Ice to the Eskimos
Probably to most creative marketing ideas I’ve ever read about. Jon Spoelstra has excellent writing skills, it’s so much fun to read this book even if you’re not into basketball. He’s...
9 tags
#111/111: Anything You Want
Some will already know Derek Sivers from his blog sivers.org. Sivers started CDBaby, a CD distributor for independent musicians, in 1998. He sold it 2007 when the company had $100m in revenue. He tells his story of CDBaby in detail in this book and it’s quite interesting.
Sivers was a musician before starting CDBaby and he created a small online shop for his CDs and other musicians asked...
surreabral asked: Hey, not a question, just a thank you. I really appreciate you investing the time to share your project. I have enjoyed your reviews. And, congratulations on setting a stretch goal and meeting it! Best wishes for a Happy New Year!
13 tags
#110/111: Real Education
And an other book on education - mostly higher education but also K12. The book consists of two parts. In the first part he talks about the status of education in the US and in the second part he presents his recommendations.
A common dream of lots of American people is that everybody can be a superstar. They think that everybody should go to college and that schools are so bad that it’s...
6 tags
#109/111: The Principles of Scientific Management
One would expect that this classic from 1911 is a clear contrast to the last book but actually it isn’t so much different. I love reading classics especially in business classics because they most often contain better information that most of new business books. Frederick Taylor was probably the first one who observed production steps and optimized them. One of the most famous of his...
13 tags
#108/111: Punished by Rewards
This is one of the books where I just read the title and bought it. Recently, I talked with a friend about rewards and rules and we noticed that they often lead to out crawling from intrinsic motivations. He said “if I have to do something in 48 hours, I will take at least 48 hours - if I can choose my time freely, I probably will do it immediately.” You probably had similar...
10 tags
#107/111: Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar
By now, you probably have guessed that I think institutionalized education isn’t that great. Most of my marketable skills are self-learned, I pretty much started this at the age of 13 reading books about computer hardware. It’s just was and is natural curiosity.
I’m of course not alone. Lots of people, especially in the IT-sector, are self-learned and they are mostly better...
8 tags
#106/111: Future of Education
An other book by Kieran Egan where he talks about his different methods of approaching a topic and its implementation.
I talked a bit about these different methods and will now deepen it them a bit. His main idea is that knowledge should be deep and linked.
The first one is Mythic Understanding. This includes stories, metaphors, binary structures, rhymes, play, jokes and pattern. Stories are a...
5 tags
#105/111: change.edu
How does the future market of higher education looks like? Andrew Rosen, the CEO of Kaplan, presents his ideas and takes a look in the past of higher education in the USA. At the beginning there were colleges, like the Harvard College. Interestingly, there isn’t much known about John Harvard. The most important thing was that he donated his library and half of his money after his dead to...
4 tags
#104/111: Why don't Students like School?
The next title that talks about schooling. Daniel Willingham, cognitive scientist, took the interesting topic of students and school and asks Why don’t Students like School?
If you haven’t read the post of Dumbing Us Down this is probably a good time because Willingham talks about a lot of statements which were made by Gatto.
Do we have to force kids to learn? No. People are...
8 tags
#103/111: The Rational Optimist
A better title, but less appealing one, would probably be A history of markets. Matt Ridley tells us about the economic history from the beginning human kind till today. How does it come, that we build cities, have markets for food, internet services or books and can communicate easily over thousands of miles. How come that other creatures can’t do this? Ridley begins about 500,000 years...
6 tags
#102/111: Dumbing Us Down
At first, I had not read the book because of its sensationalist title which would have been a pity. John Gatto, former school teacher and winner of lots of teacher of the year awards, talks about what he taught in his year as a teacher. He taught in several different schools, public, privates, some in wealthy school districts, other in Brooklyn but he always saw the same. He taught: confusion,...
4 tags
#101/111: Learning in Depth
I continued to think a lot about education recently, mainly after watching a Google Talk with Salman Khan from the Khan Academy. Lots of people associate learning with grading and tests and I hear many adult persons say that they are happy that they don’t have to learn anymore. However, most of them learn everyday but they don’t have to write exams and they don’t have to sit in...
9 tags
#100/111: Talent Is Overrated
What is it about?
How did Mozart become to great at composing music? Why does Tiger Woods rock the GPA world tour? Are they more talented that you and me? Geoff Colvin explores if talent matters and how you can achieve extraordinary achievements.
What can I learn?
Talent is overrated: Colvin cited some studies which showed that learning is the critical factor in achieving great performance....
6 tags
#99/111: The Algorithm Design Manual
An other one of the technical books. After reading the introduction to comp sci, I wanted to deepen my knowledge a bit and I had stand this book in my shelve. I started working through it and highly enjoyed it. The Algorithm Design Manual got 9 chapters with about 30 exercises per chapter. Furthermore, its got a reference with different problems and applications for algorithms. There are...
9 tags
#98/111: The Passionate Programmer
What is it about?
Most people are mediocre at their job. Some are not like Chad Fowler how talks about being remarkable. This doesn’t only apply to programmers, it applies to every kind of occupation.
What can I learn?
Don’t be a jerk: This one is actually a pretty important thing to learn for programmers. I know a lot of them and many think that people who don’t understand...
8 tags
#97/111: The Last Lecture
What is it about?
If you haven’t heard about Randy Pausch, he was a computer science professor at the CMU and had pancreatic cancer. He hold his famous lecture about achieving one’s childhood dreams and told about his.
What can I learn?
You choose to be happy or sad: Although he was diagnosed with pancreas cancer he was still optimistic. He could just cried all day long and...