Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Why Life Speeds Up as You Get Older - Douwe Draaisma

How Memory Shapes Our Past
Is it true, as the novelist Cees Nooteboom once wrote, that 'Memory is like a dog that lies down where it pleases'?
Where do the long, lazy summers of our childhood go? 
Why is it that as we grow older  time seem to condense, speed up, elude us, while in old age, significant events from our distant past can seem as vivid and real as what happened yesterday?
 In this enchanting and thoughtful book, Douwe Draaisma, author of the internationally acclaimed Metaphors of Memory, explores the nature of autobiographical memory. 
Applying a unique blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility, and keen observation, he tackles such extraordinary phenomena as deja-vu, near-death experiences, the memory feats of idiot savants, and the effects of extreme trauma on memory recall. 
Raising almost as many questions as it answers, this fascinating book will not fail to affect you at the same time as it educates and entertains.
[The above book description is as per the one on the book cover]


Goodreads Rating - 3.70 out of 5 (124 Ratings; 7 Reviews)

My Comments:
Certainly this book has essays on lots of interesting topics on memory. And that's the reason I picked up this book from the library after reading the above description on the book cover.
While the content is good , the book did not meet my expectation probably because the translation from the original book in Dutch language was not up to the mark.
There may be better books than this on this subject.Need to hunt around.


Links:





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Readers in India

 

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Readers in Other Countries 
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Sunday, October 12, 2014

From Complexity to Simplicity by Simon Collinson & Melvin Jay

Unleash Your Organization's Potential
Complexity is one of the biggest challenges facing modern business. 
It is slowing companies down, costing them over 10% of their profits and harming employee morale.
Yet very few people are offering practical advice on how to solve this problem.

From Complexity to Simplicity will equip you and your business with the understanding, tools and inspiration you need to identify and eradicate harmful complexity from your company or organisation. 

Based on cutting-edge research, it takes you through real business case-studies and offers a practical 'how to' approach to tackling this growing problem. 

  • What is complexity? What is simplicity? 
  • The true financial costs of complexity
  • The impact of complexity on managers,employees and different parts of the business
  • How to change the behaviors that create business complexity
  • How to identify where complexity is hurting you most
  • Clear guidance on how to remove harmful complexity from processes, organization design, strategy, product and service portfolios
  • How to reduce the everyday complexity of work life
From Complexity to Simplicity will show you how to start your own simplicity revolution and achieve business success. 
[Source: As per the description on the book cover]

Goodreads Rating - 3.75 out of 5 ( 4 Ratings; 1 Review)

My Comments:
The first two chapters of this book explore the causes and consequences of complexity and provide guidelines to diagnose complexity and to develop a generic simplification strategy.
The subsequent six chapters are dealing with how to simplify -
 i) People Complexity
ii) Organization
iii) Strategy
iv) Processes
v) Product and Services
vi) Everyday work
The appendix of the book has three case studies about complexity in the Pharmaceutical , Banking and Insurance sectors.

A useful book to understand and deal with complexities in our working life.
 

Links:
Visit  http://www.simplicity-consulting.com/ for more details on simplifying the complexity.





Buying Options 

Readers in India

 

Buy from Amazon.in  
Buy the Kindle book version
(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.) 


Readers in Other Countries 
Buy from Amazon.com

Buy the Kindlle book 
(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.)