Andrew Ferrier

Every time I get sad about the illiberal attitudes of the public sector in the UK, at least I can reassure myself that I don’t live in France.

Just finished reading Mark Hurst‘s new book, Bit Literacy. Mark is a chap of many interests and the creative driver behind the excellent (and varied) euroGel conference I attended in Copenhagen last year.

The premise for the book is that the computer-using public are getting swamped by e-mails, web content, blogs, photos, files, and so on – something that most folk would probably agree with. Mark ranges over all of these topics, and gives recommendations for how to handle each. Some of the material borrows from elsewhere – for example, the chapter on email appears to be heavily influenced by David Allen’s now-infamous Getting Things Done method – but this is no bad thing: it’s obvious that Mark is trying to bring together a style guide for the technical world. The Elements of Style is mentioned at least once as a model from the world of the written word. Most of his recommendations are straightforward and backed up with a solid amount of reasoning.

I don’t entirely agree with all of Mark’s recommendations – I think he has a deliberate bias away from anything that removes one’s control over data. Whilst this is a noble and sensible aim within reason, there are other advantages to be wrought from keeping data on the network (and sometimes you have to just chill). He also advocates a degree of customisation – for example, changing one’s keyboard layout to Dvorak – again, something I’ve found to be unwise as you move from computer to computer. But maybe I just do that more than Mark, or maybe he’s more adaptable than me.

Irrespective, there’s a lot of sensible and useful material in the book. Some will be a little basic for some readers, but as The Elements of Style proved, sometimes the basic bears repeating. It’ll be a hard job, given the rapid pace of change in technology, but maybe this book will enter the annals of history in a similar way. I wish Mark the best of luck with the next edition

I’ve just finished reading Scott Berkun‘s new book The Myths of Innovation. Like his previous effort, The Art of Project Management, its main redeeming feature is its no-bullshit tone. Reading The Art of Project Management, it was easy to see the influence of Berkun’s experience working on Internet Explorer at Microsoft, but it nevertheless stretched into topics other than mere software or technology, giving a less dry alternative to traditional project management textbooks. The Myths of Innovation is similar, and Berkun’s objective seems to be to cut through the Harvard-inspired hype and discuss some of the untruths around innovation – my favourite subjects include ‘The best ideas win’ and ‘Your boss knows more about innovation than you’. He never denies innovation – indeed, he is clearly a major student of it. But if, like me, you’re tired of hearing innovation as a buzzword and want a book you can nod your head to and say ‘couldn’t agree more’, this is probably the one.