Why Design Matters
The Role of Design in Business
The Value of Design
The Value of Design to Startups

Make magazine is the key to lasting happiness. If you don’t subscribe, DO SO IMMEDIATELY.

I found the tone of this book unnecessarily haughty, and felt constantly that Mr. Hirshberg has something to prove in writing it. This is less a book on practical innovation itself than a self-congratulatory career retrospective on the part of the author. It is clear that Hirshberg is intelligent and creative, and not at all afraid to tell you so.

Despite it all, the book is full of interesting facts and stories from the inside of Nissan’s innovation design center in California. Not a must-read, but worth a skim.

My boss at Bose, Gustavo Fontana, recommended this book to me after delivering a somewhat stinging–but wholly justified–performance review. The title is telling: the strengths that have helped me to succeed thus far in my career will not carry me any further. It will not be my hand-skills or CAD know-how that will advance my career henseforth; it will have to be my people skills and political savvy. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have neither.

Much like Paco Underhill’s book, this is a very practical and helpful book, written in case-studies from the vantage point of a corporate executive “coach” working with Fortune 500 corporate leaders in various disciplines. It is definitely a shameless self-promotion on the part of Mr. Goldsmith, but a powerfully helpful one none-the-less.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and plan to read it again soon. I hope to go through it with my wife–the ultimate expert on all things “Adam”–in hopes that she can help me apply it in the real world. Highly recommended!

I grew up shopping at Wal-Mart, and during my time at Black & Decker, I witnessed the copany in action from a whole new perspective.

I was hesitant to read this book. I fully expected it to be a raving anti-capitalist memorandum on the “fat cats” in “big business” laying seige to decency itself. I was proved wrong. The beginning of the book is an insightful look into the humble beginnings of Wal-Mart, and it’s ernest and unwaivering efforts to live up to its mission: “Always low prices. Always.”

The picture becomes less rosy as the book wears on, though it is consistently emphasized that the “Wal-Mart Effect” is complex and nuanced, and not wholly negative.

I have a good friend who has done market research consulting work for Wal-Mart in recent months, and who has also read “The Wal-Mart Effect.” He believes that the book is already out of date, as many of the issues brought to bear in the book have changed significantly since its publishing. This may be the case, but the book speaks to an issue larger than Sam Walton’s retail machine. With only a handful of notable exceptions, Wal-Mart plays by the rules. And yet they seem to have somehow defeated the rules as they exist today. I am never an advocate of special restrictions on businesses of a certain size; I believe that all businesses, small and large, should play by the same rules. But that said, how can we ensure that the big-boxes, and Wally-World in particular, have enough competition to keep markets free and fair?

I highly recommend this book. It is eye-opening, and never one-dimensional. It is concisely written, and never presumptuous. This is not a book about the author or the author’s outlook, but on Wal-Mart and its many various implications for American capitalist society.

Chock-full of fascinating details about the behaviors of shoppers in situ. While clearly a book of shameless self-promotion for Mr. Underhill, he certainly does a good job of it! After reading this book, one is left with far more questions than answers, and an inexorable desire to sit in a shopping mall parking lot for hours on end. Paco Underhill is an academic researcher turned retail marketing guru, by painstakingly perusing through tens-of-thousands of hours of candid footage from in an attempt to glean every possible measurable characteristic about the actual behavior of shoppers. The result is astonishing.

In my opinion, the book does contain a bit too much in the way of opinion and conjecture. Though Underhill does an excellent job of convincing the reader that he is a credible source of information, the last three chapters of the book seem to reach further and further from actual analysis of behavior, and focus instead on his various ideas for practical applications in various industries. While these too are fascinating, they lack some of the impact of the more direct cause-effect relationships demonstrated by the research in earlier chapters of the book.

This book is a pleasure to read, and a quick one at that. Underhill is engaging and enthusiastic. He is a man who loves his job, and it shows. I’ve found it motivating and inspirational, and highly recommend it!

This book is difficult for me to rate. The writing style is somehow both densely packed and needlessly fluffy. Fishman works very hard at dropping long strings of metaphores into each sentence, making it difficult–and somewhat annoying–to follow. The content is simultaneously profoundly interesting, confusingly disconnected, and maddeningly biased. There is no question on which side of the China debate Mr. Fishman stands. The book clearly bashes America’s increasing co-dependency with China as a catastrophe, or at least a catastrophe wating to happen. I am not so pessimistic.

While the book was not a pleasure to read, I still recommend doing so. The sheer scale of American industrial relations with China is mind-blowing, and China Inc. does an excellent job of painting that picture. The facts and figures alone are worth browsing, and the analysis, while decidedly one-sided, is still a very valid interpretation. Not many people grasp the enormity of our trade-relations with China, nor its irreversable impact on the global economy. In order to debate ways of dealing with the white elephant in the living room, we must first recognize the elephant. To this end, China Inc. aught to be of help.

A smart, succinct, and empowering book covering various common-sense negotiation tactics. Full of practical and realistic case studies, and no-nonsense advice. A quick read; I read it in three easy evenings. Three thumbs up!

I remember sitting on a foot stool in the isle of the Columbus College of Art and Design library, perusing this book. I was in tears. The work moved me in a way that only Andrew Wyeth can, and this–his raw, unfinished studies and works–is some of his most visceral. Only the Helga Pictures come close to the level of impact he was able to achieve, but did so in a totally different way. These are Wyeth in his element, and one of my most well-thumbed books. Cliché as it may sound, for me it’s equal parts solace and inspiration.

I remember seeing Carly speak in one of her annual big-screen global conference meetings when I interned at HP in Houston. I was impressed with her. When the HP scandals erupted that resulted in her ousting, I was both disappointed and very curious about the circumstances of the firing. This book recalls her climb to fame and fortune as the “world’s most powerful woman,” and while self-glorifying in a somewhat overt way, it’s also candid and honest. It is an excellent–and likely accurate–representation of the upper-eschelons of the business world, and I highly recommend it. She is sharp, witty, and interesting, if a bit self-absorbed. I learned a lot about real leadership from this book.

My wife took a class at Harvard with one of the authors of this book, and subsequently had me read it. It’s full of wisdom for leaders and would-be leaders. It gets a bit frilly toward the end, but a useful read none-the-less.

A very fun collection of historical novelties. A fast read, with lots of interesting tid-bits. What it lacks in depth it makes up for in the sheer number of “aha!” factoids. I don’t get the impression that it’s very well researched, but worth a quick read.

This book has forever changed my preconceptions about cities and how they really work. The beginning is a bit of a rant, and the overall tone is annoyingly condescending, but the information and analysis is truly astonishing. As life in the twenty-first century increasingly means “city life,” it will be imperative that we and our leaders are aware of the principles set forth in this book. A must-read, as far as I’m concerned.

Chock-full of fascinating factoids about the origins of the Mongol empire that once stretched all across southern Eurasia, and arguably created the trade routes that created the modern world as we know it. The first three-quarters of the book are fantastic, though it trails off. The good parts are well worth it!

This book is fantastic. It created in me a totally new fascination with nineteenth-century America and the industrial economy of the era. The book alternates chapters between the story of the architects who created the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and one of the most prolific serial killers in US history. The former story is a must-read, the latter is gory, but intriguing as well. Easy, fast read. Highly recommended!