As with so many other folks, I’m trying to spend less time on my phone and computer reading the news obsessively. Yet there’s ever more great reading out there and accessible in ways we haven’t had before. But discovering, reading, assimilating and internalizing even a fraction of what we’d like is hard. Yes, technology like Pocket and GoodReads help, but it’s still a firehose.
Om Malik, tech journalist and blogger extraordinaire has always been a regular source of great readings as has Brad Feld, venture capitalist, and all-around inspiring human. Inspired by their example, I’ve resolved to share interesting things that I’m reading each month. Hopefully, you’ll find it interesting and useful. Share your own thoughts on what you’ve been reading and enjoying.
Practice learning from history Despite trying to maintain a reading diet low in politics, I found this piece I’m a law professor, and I teach my students how to destroy American democracy by Ozan Varol fascinating. Despite its click-bait title, Ozan’s premise draws from a business strategy formulation process at Merck. CEO Kenneth Frazier wanting to promote innovation asked his employees “to generate ideas to destroy Merck and figure out how to put Merck out of business. The executives then reversed their roles and crafted strategies to avert these threats.”
When Ozan had his class run a similar exercise, he states “The exercise made the urgency of action clear. In this century, the threat to democracy will come, not from military coups or openly repressive dictators, but from elected politicians in seemingly democratic countries who gradually roll out an authoritarian agenda. The students realized the importance of remaining vigilant against these strategies and actively resisting them through legal, political, and social means.” Read the full piece here.
“What privacy?” in the era of Alexa Om is the one who turned me on to this Gizmodo article The House That Spied on Me by Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu. On one hand, I was fascinated by how much a journalist is prepared to do and (over) share for a story and on the other scared witless by the amount of data that’s being gathered and shared shredding any last illusions I had about privacy. The scariest part for me personally is the sheer number of my friends, who seem to have made Alexa and her competitors an integral part of their lives. Read the full piece here.
Before the rest of us feel too comfortable read this bonus piece on how fitness trackers share information that you might not want them to.
Skilling ourselves One of the joys of working young people is that I learn a lot from them. In turn, you get to see them handling, sometimes better and at other times no worse, issues we’ve faced in our own lives. Of course, a common question that pops up from nearly everyone – from young adults to middle-aged folks, is the issue of what do I want in life? I found this article on Don’t Know What You Want? Improve These 7 Universal Skills by Darius Foroux quite useful. If like many others you’re still looking for your true purpose. Check out the complete article here.
In summary
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