andreweverett360 Book Review, Management, systems thinking

Team of Teams

team-of-teams


Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World
by General Stanley McChrystal with Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell

When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in 2003, he was fighting a 21st-century war with a 20th-century military. This engaging book is about the reconfiguration which led to faster decisions and greater results. McChrystal’s mission was to defeat Al Quaeda in Iraq (AQI), but his leadership insights are applicable to business as well.

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andreweverett360 Art, Book Review

A Painter’s Progress: A Portrait of Lucian Freud

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A Painter’s Progress: A Portrait of Lucian Freud
by David Dawson

A Painter’s Progress is a collection of 241 behind-the-scenes photographs taken by David Dawson, who was Lucian Freud’s assistant for nearly twenty years. Many of the photos taken in Freud’s studio include nude models, portrait sitters, and his whippets, Pluto and Eli. There are photos documenting several iterations of works in progress. Other photos include Freud viewing artwork in museums, meeting prominent people, having breakfast, and relaxing at home. There are also photos showing Freud’s posthumous exhibition being installed at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The messy walls are a quirky feature of Freud’s studio.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Career

Disrupt Yourself

disrupt-yourself



Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovative to Work
by Whitney Johnson

Clayton Christensen introduced the concept of disruptive innovation in The Innovator’s Dilemma, his seminal book which focused on the computer industry. His successive books applied the concept to health care and education. Now, Whitney Johnson writes about disrupting your own career.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Marketing

Marketing Above the Noise

marketing-above-the-noise


Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters
by Linda J. Popky

Grounded in fundamentals and guided by strategic objectives, Linda Popky puts the hype around social media and big data in perspective. “It’s time to move the discussion away from today’s latest hot marketing tools and tactics to what really counts: convincing customers to trust you with their business—not just once, but time and time again.”

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andreweverett360 Book Review, General

Einstein’s Dreams

einsteins-dreams


Einstein’s Dreams
by Alan P. Lightman

Einstein’s Dreams is historical fiction based on Albert Einstein’s study of the relativity of time, or time dilation.  The book is formatted like a journal of Einstein’s dreams about 30 imaginary worlds where time functions differently. The book was written by Alan Lightman, a physicist and humanities professor at MIT. The author embeds observations on human behavior in  these stories.

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andreweverett360 Art, Book Review

Art in the Age of Emergence

art-in-the-age-of-emergence


Art in the Age of Emergence
by Michael J. Pearce

Michael J. Pearce is an art professor who experienced a light bulb moment when he attended a talk in the philosophy department on the topic of emergence by guest speaker Philip Clayton. “Emergence, which describes the characteristics of forms that come out of complex systems, could apply especially well to how we experience art, how we understand aesthetics in relation to our evolving mind, and how we understand the creative process of making representational art… I suddenly realized that considering the relationship between emergence and consciousness could lead to a description of what distinguishes art objects from other things as we perceive them through our senses. Emergence allows us to define art!”

This book presents an interesting framework for thinking about art, although it is written in a dense academic style.

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andreweverett360 Art, Book Review

Drawing Is Thinking

drawing-is-thinking-milton-glaser


Drawing Is Thinking
by Milton Glaser

This book starts out with a 13-page interview with Milton Glaser by Peter Mayer followed by 188 pages of Glaser’s art.

A recurring theme in the short text is ambiguity. “I have always been aware of the need to provoke the mind when communicating ideas because that is the only way that you prod someone into understanding anything. That is why ambiguity is such a useful tool… Why are we unmoved by many of the skills of academic painting? Because their information is complete and unambiguous, so you have nothing to add. The philosophy of modernism suggests that the viewer completes the work.”

drawing-is-thinking-seated-woman
Seated Woman, 2000, Collage
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