A passionate and comprehensive overview of business IT issues.
The owner of an information technology services firm offers a guide to mapping out an organization’s tech strategy.
Hiking enthusiast Whittacre, who runs Las Vegas based IT consulting firm Stimulus Technologies, envisions this book as a sort of technology “trail guide,” supporting his belief that “the business owner, CEO, and anyone involved in major business decisions should have a fundamental understanding of how technology works inside the business.” He kicks things off with an initial “digital self-assessment” to rate one’s current level of knowledge and implementation in six areas: infrastructure, cybersecurity, compliance, backup and disaster recovery, business strategy, and cloud computing and services. Whittacre then expands upon these topics in 11 subsequent chapters, explaining, for example, why it’s important for management teams to understand and agree on “recovery time objective” (“The maximum amount of time that service can be offline between a disruption of service and restoration”) and “recovery point objective” (“the amount of acceptable lost data”) when it comes to backup and disaster recovery. The author offers particularly urgent advice to undertake cybersecurity measures, sharing war stories and calling it a “big mistake” for small business owners to think they won’t be subject to attacks. He also touches on how to protect systems and use technology to handle an increasingly hybrid/remote work environment. In addition, the book includes glossaries and further “Checkup” assessment tools. Whittacre covers a wealth of technical topics in an accessible and engaging manner while also making a convincing case that having a working knowledge of IT “should be one of your core competencies.” The book is well organized and designed throughout, serving as a readable, sequential road map and a ready reference guide to consult as needed. Whittacre acknowledges the key role that internal and external experts play in managing and improving a business’s tech systems, and he offers practical tips for making progress, such as “Try to improve one or two questions over a three-month period.”
A passionate and comprehensive overview of business IT issues.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1642256307
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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