Recommendations based on "Automation and the Future of Work"

Since it was first published in 2000, hundreds of thousands of Web designers and developers have relied on usability guru Steve Krug's guide to understand the principles of intuitive navigation and information design. Witty, commonsensical, and eminently practical, it's one of the best loved and most recommended books on the subject. It's a core foundational book that every Web designer must internalise to make their designs truly effective. In this substantially revised edition, Steve returns with fresh perspective to reconsider the principles he originally laid out--commenting, amending, amplifying, and offering fresh new examples to underscore their importance. This edition adds an important new chapter on mobile as well as integrating coverage of mobile throughout. It's a complete re-imagining of the concepts that made this book an instant classic.

  Capturing a wealth of experience about the design of object-oriented software, four top-notch designers present a catalog of simple and succinct solutions to commonly occurring design problems. Previously undocumented, these 23 patterns allow designers to create more flexible, elegant, and ultimately reusable designs without having to rediscover the design solutions themselves. The authors begin by describing what patterns are and how they can help you design object-oriented software. They then go on to systematically name, explain, evaluate, and catalog recurring designs in object-oriented systems. With Design Patterns as your guide, you will learn how these important patterns fit into the software development process, and how you can leverage them to solve your own design problems most efficiently.  

Design your networks to successfully manage their growing complexityNetwork professionals have often been told that today’s modern control planes would simplify their networks. The opposite has happened: Technologies like SDN and NFV, although immensely valuable, are exacerbating complexity instead of solving it. Navigating Network Complexity is the first comprehensive guide to managing this complexity in both deployment and day-to-day operations.Russ White and Jeff Tantsura introduce modern complexity theory from the standpoint of the working network engineer, helping you apply it to the practical problems you face every day. Avoiding complex mathematical models, they show how to characterize network complexity, so you can understand it and control it.The authors examine specific techniques and technologies associated with network control planes, including SDNs, fast reroute, segment routing, service chaining, and cloud computing. They reveal how each of these affects network design and complexity and help you anticipate causes of failure in highly complex systems.Next, they turn to modern control planes, examining the fundamental operating principles of SDNs, such as OpenFlow and I2RS, network and other service function virtualization, content distribution networks, Layer 2 fabrics, and service chaining solutions. You’ll learn how each of these might both resolve and increase complexity in network design and operations and what you can do about it.Coverage includes:Defining complexity, understanding its components, and measuring it Mastering a straightforward “state, speed, and surface” model for analyzing complexity Controlling complexity in design, deployment, operations, protocols, and programmable networks Understanding how complex network systems begin to fail and how to prevent failure Recognizing complexity tradeoffs in service virtualization and service chaining Managing new challenges of complexity in virtualized and cloud environments Learning why constructs such as hierarchical design, aggregation, and protocol layering work and when they work best Choosing the right models to contain complexity as your network changesFrom start to finish, Navigating Network Complexity helps you assess the true impact of new network technologies, so they can capture more value with fewer problems.

"A rousing manifesto of mastery in a connected world." –GoogleThe Industrial Age has taught us how to break problems into parts, but not how to build parts into solutions. We’re baffled when we’re confronted with complex challenges like recession, political gridlock, climate change, childhood obesity, pollution, and failing schools. We see them as separate ills, each requiring a separate remedy—if we can imagine a remedy at all.Why are so many jobs disappearing? Why are a few people getting rich while the rest of us struggle? How can we pay for the costs of healthcare? Why can’t our trusted institutions behave ethically? What’s the cause of governmental gridlock? How can we afford to educate our children? How do we stop damaging the ecosystem? Why do we create ugliness?Author Marty Neumeier suggests that these problems are merely symptoms of a much larger problem–our inability to deal with interconnected, non-linear, and amorphous challenges. It’s not that our problems are too difficult, he argues, but that our skills are too basic. Success in the post-industrial era demands that we move our thinking from the static, the linear, and the step-by-step to the dynamic, the holistic, and the all-at-once.In this sweeping vision for personal mastery in a post-industrial era, Neumeier presents five metaskills–feeling, seeing, dreaming, making, and learning–that can help you reach your true potential. They’ll keep you two or three steps ahead of the machines, the algorithms, and the outsourcing forces of the “robot curve”. They’ll also bring you greater creativity, higher purpose, and a deeper sense of fulfillment.Metaskills is more than a manifesto. It’s a compass for visionary leaders, policymakers, educators, and planners. It’s a creative framework for designers, engineers, scientists, and artists. It’s a picture of the future that allows people from a wide range of disciplines, industries, and professions to envision new ways to create value together. Perhaps more important, it’s a long-overdue examination of what it means to be human in the 21st century.

Tracking the latest risks and rewards on Wall Street, here's the perennial bestseller offering the most reliable investment advice for the new century. This gimmick-free, irreverent, and vastly informative guide shows how to navigate the turbulence on Wall Street and beat the pros at their own game. 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 Professor Malkiel's famous "Life-Cycle Guide to Investing," showing how to match an investment strategy to your stage of life.

The Provocative and Practical Guide to Coaching Agile TeamsAs an agile coach, you can help project teams become outstanding at agile, creating products that make them proud and helping organizations reap the powerful benefits of teams that deliver both innovation and excellence.More and more frequently, ScrumMasters and project managers are being asked to coach agile teams. But it’s a challenging role. It requires new skills―as well as a subtle understanding of when to step in and when to step back. Migrating from “command and control” to agile coaching requires a whole new mind-set.In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins gives agile coaches the insights they need to adopt this new mind-set and to guide teams to extraordinary performance in a re-energized work environment. You’ll gain a deep view into the role of the agile coach, discover what works and what doesn’t, and learn how to adapt powerful skills from many allied disciplines, including the fields of professional coaching and mentoring.Coverage includes Understanding what it takes to be a great agile coach Mastering all of the agile coach’s roles: teacher, mentor, problem solver, conflict navigator, and performance coach Creating an environment where self-organized, high-performance teams can emerge Coaching teams past cooperation and into full collaboration Evolving your leadership style as your team grows and changes Staying actively engaged without dominating your team and stunting its growth Recognizing failure, recovery, and success modes in your coaching Getting the most out of your own personal agile coaching journeyWhether you’re an agile coach, leader, trainer, mentor, facilitator, ScrumMaster, project manager, product owner, or team member, this book will help you become skilled at helping others become truly great. What could possibly be more rewarding?

The definitive playbook by the pioneers of Growth Hacking, one of the hottest business methodologies in Silicon Valley and beyond.It seems hard to believe today, but there was a time when Airbnb was the best-kept secret of travel hackers and couch surfers, Pinterest was a niche web site frequented only by bakers and crafters, LinkedIn was an exclusive network for C-suite executives and top-level recruiters, Facebook was MySpace’s sorry step-brother, and Uber was a scrappy upstart that didn’t stand a chance against the Goliath that was New York City Yellow Cabs.So how did these companies grow from these humble beginnings into the powerhouses they are today? Contrary to popular belief, they didn’t explode to massive worldwide popularity simply by building a great product then crossing their fingers and hoping it would catch on. There was a studied, carefully implemented methodology behind these companies’ extraordinary rise. That methodology is called Growth Hacking, and it’s practitioners include not just today’s hottest start-ups, but also companies like IBM, Walmart, and Microsoft as well as the millions of entrepreneurs, marketers, managers and executives who make up the community of Growth Hackers.Think of the Growth Hacking methodology as doing for market-share growth what Lean Start-Up did for product development, and Scrum did for productivity. It involves cross-functional teams and rapid-tempo testing and iteration that focuses customers: attaining them, retaining them, engaging them, and motivating them to come back and buy more.An accessible and practical toolkit that teams and companies in all industries can use to increase their customer base and market share, this book walks readers through the process of creating and executing their own custom-made growth hacking strategy. It is a must read for any marketer, entrepreneur, innovator or manger looking to replace wasteful big bets and "spaghetti-on-the-wall" approaches with more consistent, replicable, cost-effective, and data-driven results.

Put into practice today's winning strategy for achieving success in high-end sales! The SPIN Selling Fieldbook is your guide to the method that has revolutionized big-ticket sales in the United States and globally. It's the method being used by one-half of all Fortune 500 companies to train their sales forces, and here's the interactive, hands-on field book that provides the practical tools you need to put this revolutionary method into action­­immediately. The SPIN Selling Fieldbook includes: Individual diagnostic exercises Illustrative case studies from leading companies Practical planning suggestions Provocative questionnaires Practice sessions to prepare you for dealing with challenging selling situations Written by the pioneering author of the original bestseller, SPIN Selling, this book is aimed at making implementation easy for companies that have not yet established SPIN techniques. It will also enable companies that are already using the method to reinforce SPIN methods in the field and in coaching sessions.

C# has matured over the past decade: It's now a rich language with generics, functional programming concepts, and support for both static and dynamic typing. This palette of techniques provides great tools for many different idioms, but there are also many ways to make mistakes. In Effective C#, Second Edition, respected .NET expert Bill Wagner identifies fifty ways you can leverage the full power of the C# 4.0 language to express your designs concisely and clearly. Effective C#, Second Edition, follows a clear format that makes it indispensable to hundreds of thousands of developers: clear, practical explanations, expert tips, and plenty of realistic code examples. Drawing on his unsurpassed C# experience, Wagner addresses everything from types to resource management to dynamic typing to multicore support in the C# language and the .NET framework. Along the way, he shows how to avoid common pitfalls in the C# language and the .NET environment. You'll learn how to Use both types of C# constants for efficiency and maintainability (see Item 2) Employ immutable data types to promote multicore processing (see Item 20) Minimize garbage collection, boxing, and unboxing (see Items 16 and 45) Take full advantage of interfaces and delegates (see Items 22 though 25) Make the most of the parallel framework (see Items 35 through 37) Use duck typing in C# (see Item 38) Spot the advantages of the dynamic and Expression types over reflection (see Items 42 and 43) Assess why query expressions are better than loops (see Item 8) Understand how generic covariance and contravariance affect your designs (see Item 29) See how optional parameters can minimize the number of method overloads (see Item 10) You're already a successful C# programmer-this book will help you become an outstanding one.

Protecting information, identifying undercover agents, and operating clandestinely—efforts known as counterintelligence—are the primary objectives of terrorist groups evading detection by intelligence and law enforcement officials. Some strategies work well, some fail, and those tasked with tracking these groups are deeply invested in the difference. Discussing the challenges terrorist groups face as they multiply and plot international attacks, while at the same time providing a framework for decoding the strengths and weaknesses of their counterintelligence, Blake W. Mobley provides an indispensable text for the intelligence, military, homeland security, and law enforcement fields. He outlines concrete steps for improving the monitoring, disruption, and elimination of terrorist cells, primarily by exploiting their mistakes in counterintelligence. A key component of Mobley's approach is to identify and keep close watch on areas that often exhibit weakness. While some counterintelligence pathologies occur more frequently among certain terrorist groups, destructive bureaucratic tendencies, such as mistrust and paranoia, pervade all organizations. Through detailed case studies, Mobley shows how to recognize and capitalize on these shortcomings within a group's organizational structure, popular support, and controlled territory, and he describes the tradeoffs terrorist leaders make to maintain cohesion and power. He ultimately shows that no group can achieve perfect secrecy while functioning effectively and that every adaptation or new advantage supposedly attained by these groups also produces new vulnerabilities.