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One of the world's great designers shares his vision of "the fundamental principles of great and meaningful design", that's "even more relevant today than it was when first published" (Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO).   Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door.   The fault, argues this ingenious -- even liberating -- book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization.   The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time.   The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how -- and why -- some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.  

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs—in companies of all sizes—a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

Explaining Creativity is an accessible introduction to the latest scientific research on creativity. The book summarizes and integrates a broad range of research in psychology and related scientific fields. In the last 50 years, psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists have devoted increased attention to creativity; we now know more about creativity than at any point in history. Explaining Creativity examines research on thinking processes, personality, culture, mental health, groupwork, technology, self-beliefs, and more. It also reviews creativity across fields such as the arts, science, theater, music, and writing.This new edition maintains the broad and practical, yet still detailed approach of the previous editions, but it features updated coverage on the full landscape of creative cognition, creative practice, and social and cultural contexts for creativity. With three new chapters on Creativity and Technology, Creativity and Wellbeing, and Creativity and Self, this third edition provides a comprehensive understanding of creativity for anyone interested in the topic.

What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of the new and familiar is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not. Computers, like us, confront limited space and time, so computer scientists have been grappling with similar problems for decades. And the solutions they’ve found have much to teach us.In a dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths show how algorithms developed for computers also untangle very human questions. They explain how to have better hunches and when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices and how best to connect with others. From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one’s inbox to peering into the future, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.

In the launch pad, randall stross, author of eboys and planet google, takes a behind-the-scenes look at how tomorrow's hottest startups are being primed for greatness. Twice a year, in the heart of silicon valley, a small investment firm called y combinator selects an elite group of young entrepreneurs. Months of intense work culminates in demo day, when investors and venture capitalists flock to hear their pitches. Any one of them might turn out to be the next dropbox (class of 2007), or airbnb (class of 2009). Randall stross was granted unprecedented access to y combinator, enabling a unique inside tour of the world of software startups. He tells the full story of this ultra-exclusive institution, how it chooses the aspiring mark zuckerbergs, and how it teaches them to go from concept to profitability in record time. This is the definitive story of a seismic shift in the business world, in which coding skill beats job experience, pairs of undergraduates take on goliaths, and invest

“Absolutely brilliant. Clayton Christensen provides an insightful analysis of changing technology and its importance to a company’s future success.”—Michael R. Bloomberg“This book ought to chill any executive who feels bulletproof —and inspire entrepreneurs aiming their guns.”—ForbesThe Innovator’s Dilemma is the revolutionary business book that has forever changed corporate America. Based on a truly radical idea—that great companies can fail precisely because they do everything right—this Wall Street Journal, Business Week and New York Times Business bestseller is one of the most provocative and important business books ever written. Entrepreneurs, managers, and CEOs ignore its wisdom and its warnings at their great peril.

This completely updated volume presents the effective and practical tools you need to design great desktop applications, Web 2.0 sites, and mobile devices. You’ll learn the principles of good product behavior and gain an understanding of Cooper’s Goal-Directed Design method, which involves everything from conducting user research to defining your product using personas and scenarios. Ultimately, you’ll acquire the knowledge to design the best possible digital products and services.

From the cofounder of Square, an inspiring and entertaining account of what it means to be a true entrepreneur and what it takes to build a resilient, world-changing companyIn 2009, a St. Louis glassblowing artist and recovering computer scientist named Jim McKelvey lost a sale because he couldn't accept American Express cards. Frustrated by the high costs and difficulty of accepting credit card payments, McKelvey joined his friend Jack Dorsey (the cofounder of Twitter) to launch Square, a startup that would enable small merchants to accept credit card payments on their mobile phones. With no expertise or experience in the world of payments, they approached the problem of credit cards with a new perspective, questioning the industry's assumptions, experimenting and innovating their way through early challenges, and achieving widespread adoption from merchants small and large.But just as Square was taking off, Amazon launched a similar product, marketed it aggressively, and undercut Square on price. For most ordinary startups, this would have spelled the end. Instead, less than a year later, Amazon was in retreat and soon discontinued its service. How did Square beat the most dangerous company on the planet? Was it just luck? These questions motivated McKelvey to study what Square had done differently from all the other companies Amazon had killed. He eventually found the key: a strategy he calls the Innovation Stack.McKelvey's fascinating and humorous stories of Square's early days are blended with historical examples of other world-changing companies built on the Innovation Stack to reveal a pattern of ground-breaking, competition-proof entrepreneurship that is rare but repeatable.The Innovation Stack is a thrilling business narrative that's much bigger than the story of Square. It is an irreverent first-person look inside the world of entrepreneurship, and a call to action for all of us to find the entrepreneur within ourselves and identify and fix unsolved problems--one crazy idea at a time.

Skilled at puncturing financial bubbles and other delusions of the Wall Street crowd, Burton Malkiel shows why a broad portfolio of stocks selected at random will match the performance of one carefully chosen by experts. Taking a shrewd look at the high-tech boom and its aftermath, Malkiel shows how to maximize gains and minimize losses in this era of electronic brokers, virtual gurus, and flashy investment vehicles. Learn how to analyze the potential returns, not only for stocks and bonds, but for the full range of investment opportunities, from money market accounts and real estate investment trusts to insurance, home owning, and tangible assets like gold and collectibles. Decode the rating game for mutual funds and discover the unique advantages of index mutual funds over the wide range of riskier alternatives. Year in and year out the best investing guide money can buy, this enhanced edition includes an update of Malkiel's famous "Life-Cycle Guide to Investing," showing how to match an investment strategy to your stage in life.

Totally revised and expanded to cover the newest forms of wagering and the latest handicapping theories, with examples of how to apply them, this book proves that the key to winning at the track is not in one all-powerful secret, but involves using the right tools at the right time.