I can’t believe that January is already over. I was able to read five of the six books but I haven’t written the reviews just yet. The book Homo Ludens slowed me down quite a bit but I made my way through it. It was a heavy academic text with a lot of technical references outside of my field of interest. In addition to the Modern Mrs. Darcy’s reading challenge, I also going to participate in a local library reading challenge. It can be found on Twitter under the hashtag #ccls20in20. Come and check out my reading list for February and read along with me.
My February reading list is pretty diverse. I have a couple of books focusing on higher education, a few related to business and productivity, and one work of fiction.
Here is what is on my reading list for February 2020:
Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education by Bryan Alexander
Bryan Alexander is a futurist who focuses on higher education. I heard him speak on the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast and knew that I need to read the book.
Via Amazon:
How will current trends transform American higher education over the course of the next twenty years?
The outlook for the future of colleges and universities is uncertain. Financial stresses, changing student populations, and rapidly developing technologies all pose significant challenges to the nation’s colleges and universities. In Academia Next, futurist and higher education expert Bryan Alexander addresses these evolving trends to better understand higher education’s next generation.
Alexander first examines current economic, demographic, political, international, and policy developments as they relate to higher education. He also explores internal developments within postsecondary schooling, including those related to enrollment, access, academic labor, alternative certification, sexual assault, and the changing library, paying particularly close attention to technological changes. Alexander then looks beyond these trends to offer a series of distinct scenarios and practical responses for institutions to consider when combating shrinking enrollments, reduced public support, and the proliferation of technological options.
Arguing that the forces he highlights are not speculative but are already in play, Alexander draws on a rich, extensive, and socially engaged body of research to best determine their likeliest outcomes. It is only by taking these trends seriously, he writes, that colleges and universities can improve their chances of survival. An unusually multifaceted approach to American higher education that views institutions as complex organisms, Academia Next offers a fresh perspective on the emerging colleges and universities of today and tomorrow.
What’s the Point of College?: Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform by Johann N. Neem
What’s the Point of College? is another book focusing on higher education that I heard being discussed on a recent podcast. Unfortunately, I cannot remember which one. Nonetheless, it sounded interesting enough to listen to.
Via Amazon:
Before we can improve college education, we need to know what it’s for.
In our current age of reform, there are countless ideas about how to “fix” higher education. But before we can reconceptualize the college experience, we need to remember why we have these institutions in the first place―and what we want from them.
In What’s the Point of College?, historian Johann N. Neem offers a new way to think about the major questions facing higher education today, from online education to disruptive innovation to how students really learn. As commentators, reformers, and policymakers call for dramatic change and new educational models, this collection of lucid essays asks us to pause and take stock. What is a college education supposed to be? What kinds of institutions and practices will best help us get there? And which virtues must colleges and universities cultivate to sustain their desired ends?
During this time of drift, Neem argues, we need to moor our colleges once again to their core purposes. By evaluating reformers’ goals in relation to the specific goods that a college should offer to students and society, What’s the Point of College? connects public policy to deeper ethical questions. Exploring how we can ensure that America’s colleges remain places for intellectual inquiry and reflection, Neem does not just provide answers to the big questions surrounding higher education―he offers readers a guide for how to think about them.
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
Don’t Make Me Think has been sitting on my to-read shelf for quite a while. The book focuses on web usability. Since I am on a committee to address accessibility, I thought it would be good to weave this insight into my findings.
Via Amazon:
Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it’s hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn’t read Steve Krug’s “instant classic” on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don’t be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design. With these three new chapters:
- Usability as common courtesy — Why people really leave Web sites
- Web Accessibility, CSS, and you — Making sites usable and accessible
- Help! My boss wants me to ______. — Surviving executive design whims
Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity by John Kao
This is another book that has been sitting on my shelf for quite a number of years. I am slowly working my way through the shelf. This just happened to be one of the choices that seemed interesting.
Via Amazon:
In today’s competitive environment, creativity is no longer an option. Companies that understand how to manage creativity in their people, organize for creative results and willingly implement good new ideas will triumph.
In Jamming, John Kao also offers an approach that demystifies a topic traditionally confounding to businesspeople everywhere. He begins by showing how creativity, like the musical discipline of jazz, has a vocabulary and a grammar. It is a process, and because of that it can be observed, analyzed, understood, replicated, taught and managed. He explains how creativity needs a particular environment in which to blossom and grow. Like musicians in a jam session, a group of businesspeople can take an idea, challenge one another’s imagination and produce an entirely new set of possibilities. Kao reveals how managers can stimulate creativity in their employees, explores the impact of information technology on creativity, looks at the globalization of creativity and shows how to ensure the loyalty of people who design, build and deliver today’s vital products and services.
Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t by Verne Harnish
I know nothing about the Rockefeller Habits but this book focuses on being able to scale initiatives. I am always interested in how to get more out of what I am doing. I suspect the most I will get out of the book is a mindset tweak.
Via Amazon:
It’s been over a decade since Verne Harnish’s best-selling book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits was first released. Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) is the first major revision of this business classic which details practical tools and techniques for building an industry-dominating business. This book is written so everyone — from frontline employees to senior executives — can get aligned in contributing to the growth of a firm. Scaling Up focuses on the four major decision areas every company must get right: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. The book includes a series of new one-page tools including the updated One-Page Strategic Plan and the Rockefeller Habits ChecklistTM, which more than 40,000 firms around the globe have used to scale their companies successfully — many to $10 million, $100 million, and $1 billion and beyond – while enjoying the climb!
Mekong Massacre (The Black Eagles) by John Lansing
This is nothing more than an exciting adventure.
That’s it for this month — I want to hear what good books YOU’VE read lately! Please share in the comments below.
If you missed other months in 2020, you can still check them out:
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
My Reviews for This Reading List
- Book Review: Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education
- Book Review: Mekong Massacre – Black Eagles
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