標籤彙整：bookreview

Deep Living(book review of Digital Minimalism)

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Will spend more time on social media make us live a meaningful life?
If not, we should better off considering to use it seriously.

The best-selling author of “Deep Work” proposes a philosophy of digital minimalism. Simplicity gives us the ability to think clearly in a focused way and select activities we value most in a noisy world. This kind of living style is not a whole new concept which has existed for a long time.

There’re three core principles behind the idea of digital minimalism.

  1. More could be less.
  2. Effectiveness is imperative.
  3. To live deliberately.

In the 19th century, Henry Thoreau made an experiment of making a living by cultivating the farms. The research showed he could live what he wished with fewer desires even the earnings were below the average. However, Henry Thoreau observed that his neighbor farmers gained little profit that could not help them escape their poor condition.

The same situation occurs today. While we think we could acquire more values from using lovely mobile application, we waste more time and attention compared to the amount we receive. Could we select tools intentionally and optimize our digital life, you will reach more meaning life. This book contains much practical advice everyone could implement.

Tell a story like a script director, book review of “Storytelling with Data”

Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

Tell a story like a script director. Present a slide like a designer.

The author, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, uses simple examples and explains to every reader about how to communicate to audience using data.

You could implement these concepts by hand. Learning how to use PowerPoint well doesn’t mean you could give an excellent presentation to the audience. You must display your idea like a well-trained designer and tell a story like a Hollywood script director.

So, the author borrows some professional elements from design and script-writing such as affordance, acceptance and storyboarding. In the chapter of “case studies”, the author demonstrates how she would fix the not-so-good graphs by the concepts covering in this book.

Telling an emotional or persuasive story using data is a hard work. If we don’t consciously recognize that this takes time to do well. We run the risk of losing the potential opportunity to drive change and action.

This is the final step the audience will see. We should devote our time to storytelling with data.

The book note of “Hit Refresh”

Microsoft Hit Refresh Satya Nadella

It’s hard to believe that Microsoft reinvents itself after missing the mobile revolutions.

“Hit Refresh” written by Satya Nadella, C.E.O of Microsoft, contains the stories of how Microsoft tries to make a comeback, the future of technology and management of Microsoft.

Here are some of my favorite notes in this book

A leader must see the external opportunities and the internal capability and culture – and all of the connection among them – and respond to them before they become obvious parts of the conventional wisdom.

  • What is soul in this context of a company? I don’t mean soul in a religion sense. It’s the thing that comes most naturally. It is the inner voice. It’s what motivates and provides inner direction to apply your capability.
  • What is the unique sensibility that we as a company have?

Envy is negative and outer– directed, not driven from within, and so I knew that it wouldn’t carry us very far down the path to true renewal.

  • My approach is to lead with a sense of purpose and pride in what we do, not envy or combativeness.
  • It’s been said we tend to overestimate what we can achieve in the short run, but underestimate what can be achieved in the long run.
  • We’re betting that quantum computing will make artificial intelligence more intelligent and mixed reality an even more immersive experience.
  • The best way to predict the future is to invent it.