Books

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’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.