Erik on Software

New Book Review: "The Threshold"

New book review for The Threshold: Leading in the Age of AI, by Nick Chatrath, Diversion Books, 2023:

Copy provided by Amazon.

In the introductory pages of this book, Chatrath states that "this book functions as a first foray into exploring what good leadership looks like in the present and coming ages of AI. John McCarthy defined AI as the science and engineering of making intelligent machines. I hope to expand your concept of what it is to be a human leader in a time that challenges our former ways of being with technology. Where technologists start with the question 'What can we automate?' and ethicists start with the question 'Should we automate this?', I start with the leadership question 'How can leaders promote flourishing as technology advances?' This book therefore equips you to forge a new synthesis between machines and humanity in the face of future technology-related disruptions. This new synthesis, which I have termed 'threshold leadership', is the subject of this book."

The author later states that "Things that ideally should not happen unfortunately happen all the time in organizations. Is there an individual who thinks, 'Oh my, I should not have done this'? Sadly, I have found this ownership of error to be rare. Software product developers are often so removed from the consequences of their work that many don't even think of themselves as leaders who have a disproportionate impact on the world. As one senior leader in a large tech company recently told me, 'For all I know, I might have been in a situation where I contributed to an AI algorithm written wrongly,' Looking down she added quietly, 'Do I even know?' This is not about throwing software developers under the bus. The reality is that software developers don't have any say in, or any perspective about, what they are building. They often work on a very small slice of a bigger vision."

Chatrath mentions that threshold leadership is actually a fifth metaphore that follows the four discussed in a 2014 book by Frederick Laloux called "Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage in Human Consciousness": "wolf pack", "army", "machine", and "family". The wolf pack leadership approach is typified by executives who disregard others, disconnecting their thinking from their full humanity, and prioritizing short-term personal success and wealth. In contrast, leaders at the army stage of leadership often slump into superficial, derivative thinking who cling to norms too tightly, instead of bringing their whole selves to their thinking. The behavioral therapy that provided support for the army leadership approach also paved the way for the machine stage, in which leaders usually live in the future, hardly ever making it back to the present, pursuing growth just for the sake of growth. Interestingly, Laloux likened this pursuit, or condition, to be akin to, using medical terminology, a "cancer". The family leadership approach, however, views formal structure to be less important than values and inspirational purpose, with leaders comfortably drawing selectively on the benefits of earlier stages.

The author comments that "in the recent past fewer than 10 percent of leaders have progressed beyond machinelike approaches to leadership", and that "each step leaders take - from wolf pack to army to machine to family to threshold - moves them further from merely cognitively led leadership models and onward to embodied thinking, thinking-as-feeling, and thinking with all you have got." According to the author, "threshold leaders will contribute most and will be most satisfied in an era where distinctions between humans and machines disappear", and that "the new story is of connecting thinking and being via four pathways: cultivating stillness, thinking independently, embodying intelligence, and maturing consciousness", each topic of which is dedicated to a separate section of this book, with three chapters apiece. 

Based on the dog ears that I created over the course of reading through this book, I found the first two sections on cultivating stillness and thinking independently to be more interesting than the latter two sections, with the first chapter (entitled "Coding Error") in the second section (entitled "Thinking Independently") the most dog eared relative to all the other chapters. Chatrath summarizes this chapter by stating that it "investigates why human independent thinking matters as AI improves", considering "three interruptive thinking disrupters, before starting to explore what independent thinking looks like practically." It makes sense why this particular section chapter might stand out for me, considering my software engineering career which thrived working as a consultant for a wide variety of firms from startups to multi-billion dollar corporations. 

The three interruptive thinking disrupters that the author covers were taken from a group of fourteen identified by Nancy Kline and her colleagues. While Chatrath fails to mention where readers can find out more about the complete list, it appears that these interruptive thinking disrupters are covered in a book by Kline entitled "The Promise that Changes Everything: I Won't Interrupt You." In his discussion on persuasion, the author mentions in closing that threshold as profound truth means at least three things: (1) "being at ease with, even seeking out, the sometimes contradictory contribution of different disciplines, (2) inviting others into the conversation, regardless of how they currently relate to belief or faith, and (3) nurturing openness and provisionality as to what latest AI and other scientific experiments show. And in his discussion on this third aspect of threshold as profound truth, he states that "this provisionality is the heartbeat of science, as later discoveries frequently disprove or reshape earlier 'certainties.' "

A mantra many heard earlier this decade is to "just follow the science", but the mantra "just follow the scientists" is probably more accurate because research, and opinions based on research, varies over time, keeping in mind the challenges in determining whether research has really been performed and what this research looks like on the ground. Quite some time ago, I recall an article in The Economist magazine stating that computer science really lies at the base of all the other sciences. While I realize this may have been a controversial article, especially because most sciences came before computer science, and many would argue that computer science is not truly a science, I know as a software engineer that the application or data engineering code I write will process data, that the inputs and outputs are based on rules, and that tests can be written to determine whether these inputs and outputs meet expectations, but with use of AI (including all its subsets, such as ML), there aren't hard rules like those that exist with application or data engineering code, because models take the place of rules. 

While I've never watched the Black Mirror series before because I don't watch much television, Chatrath mentions that the Black Museum episode explored the assumption that a person's value is no more than what is reducible to equations. "This assumption is similar to the assumption that 'you are just your brain' - or, similarly, 'your value lies 'only' in your brain. In the context of advancing technology, these assumptions arise frequently and persuasively. The assumptions matter since, in the words of essayist and novelist Marilynne Robinson, 'whoever controls the definition of the mind controls the definition of humankind itself.' " The author later comments that "the assumption that you are just your brain often rests on a philosophical view known as materialism, which is the view that the observable physical world is all that exists. The word 'observable' is key. Materialism can also include the belief that science is the only way to truth, a belief known as scientism. A significant number of scientists and philosophers think that scientism omits vital parts of reality."

After covering the inevitable that "all scientists, whether neuroscientists or computer scientists, have belief or faith", and that "it is important to consider what is persuasion and what is established fact", Chatrath in his closing statements on persuasion that professor Frank Wilczek, recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, accepts the fact that no current AI research enables AI to get close to two "big advantages" that human have over AI (connectivity and interactive development), but unfortunately takes a leap of faith in the following sequence: (1) "human mind emerges from matter", (2) "matter is what physics says it is", (3) "therefore, the human mind emerges from physical processes we understand and can reproduce artificially", and (4) "therefore, natural intelligence is a special case of artificial intelligence." While the author explains that these first two statements are "beliefs or worldview statements, not testable scientific hypotheses", however, he doesn't explicitly address these second two statements. Perhaps this is the case because these first two are foundational to the other two, but it's important that people understand why Star Trek featured human transporters will never be built.

The author repeatedly argues for the "practicality" of what he seeks to lay out in this book, but unfortunately, I don't think he ever achieves this goal. The "threshold resources" sections he provides at the end of every chapter were written with good intentions, but I don't find these to be very inspirational, mainly because these are written very dryly: largely a series of bullet points, with no diagrams. I received this book from Amazon a week or so prior to publication date, and while ChatGPT had already become a short-lived phenomena by late-2022, the output of these sections feel at first glance to be generated by ChatGPT. But the assembly of words Chatrath has written is novel, not to be replicated by current day AI. As a takeaway for the author, perhaps he could expand on these end-of-chapter sections to form a companion guide to this book.

Helpful Votes: Part 10

Two weeks ago, I reached a milestone of 850 reviews at Amazon, and I noticed for the first time that reviewer rankings have disappeared.

About 6 months ago, I had commented that my ranking had been hovering around #3000 for quite some time, and that my ranking had continued to be relatively stable since that time period, so I'm not sure what to make of this development. Some light research in the community seems to indicate that rankings have disappeared in the past, albeit seemingly for specific individuals, but the Amazon ranking web page is no longer available, and I came across a Reddit post which seems to confirm that Amazon did away with their ranking system about 5 or 6 weeks ago.

Since the milestone when my reviews reached 3500 helpful votes about 6 months ago, Amazon merchants have provided a variety of free products that I've requested from them, but apart from an elliptical machine which I ordered and then canceled (due to target family member loss of interest) and an incredible 55-inch 4k smart TV from Samsung, most items I've ordered have been extremely practical consumables: as I mentioned in my last post, this largely consists of varied nootropics and whole food vitamins.

Last year was the first in which I permitted myself to surpass the $600 threshold of free product which requires income tax reporting, keeping in mind that the vast majority of consumables don't even contribute to total product amount received. Last year was an experiment to determine the impact of surpassing the $600 threshold, and because it was negligible I decided to permit myself to do so again this year, but only for products which are either practical or borderline practical. For example, the TV replaced a 32-inch TV that I purchased 11 years ago, but I mainly ordered it for family members since I don't really watch TV, and the old TV is good enough for my movie watching while running on my treadmill.

My top review, which resulted in my shooting up to a ranking of #1967 back in May 2012, was for Madeleine Albright's new memoir at the time entitled "Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948". At the time of that review, Amazon was still permitting downvoting in addition to upvoting, as well as commenting on reviews.

New Book Review: "Running with Purpose"

New book review for Running with Purpose: How Brooks Outpaced Goliath Competitors to Lead the Pack, by Jim Weber, HarperCollins Leadership, 2022:

Copy provided by Amazon.

One of the unique aspects of this book is the author's explanation of the history and purpose behind writing it in the first place. The push he needed to "commit, sit down, and write a book", in his words, came from Warren Buffett. The reason to write this book, was to tell the world about the Brooks story: "through focus, creativity, and hard work, the Brooks team has created an exceptional company, and I want more people - especially runners - to know about the brand." And from his perspective, the following are the most interesting angles about the Brooks story: (1) it's a great turnaround story, (2) it's a great David-and-Goliath, competitive strategy story, (3) it's a "purpose-driven" brand building story obsessed with runners, (4) it's a story about running with respect to the Brooks market and the author's "forty-year addiction to it", (5) it's a story about the Brooks dedication and commitment to helping managers develop into leaders, and (6) it's a story about the author's own personal journey, in which the reader might find useful lessons.

This book is broken down into 11 chapters to which Weber has interestingly associated a soundtrack, hearkening back to the music which filled his childhood home, as well as the playlists he has used during his many long runs over the years: (1) "Stumbling Out of the Blocks" - Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue" and Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir", (2) "Picking Up the Pace" - Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On", (3) "Pivot #1: Running Only" - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Running Down a Dream", (4) "Becoming an Authentic Leader" - Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages", (5) "Defining Moments: The Great Recession and an Earthquake in Running" - R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It", (6) "Meeting the Oracle of Omaha" - Bob Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" and Pink Floyd's "Money", (7) "Pivot #2: Performance is Timeless (We Zig When They Zag)" - R.E.M.'s "Stand", (8) "Finding Another Gear While Navigating Global Disruptions" - Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime", (9) "Hitting a Wall: Fighting Cancer" - John Mayer's "Say" and Gregory Alan Isakov's "Second Chances", (10) "Filling the 'White Space' with Trust" - Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" and Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'" and "Chimes of Freedom", and (11) "On Your Left! Running Fast in a New Decade" - Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "Can't Hold Us" and Jakob Dylan's "Something Good This Way Comes."

While as a lifelong runner I enjoyed reading the entire book, I especially liked the first five chapters comprising part 1, as well as chapter 9 and the 2-page conclusion ("Life's Short, Run Long"). After being a loyal ASICS customer for many years following a recommendation by my high school running coach, during which time I gravitated at an early point to the GEL-Nimbus shoe model, I became disappointed one year when ASICS decided to massively increase the toe box size of this model, resulting in my experimenting with a handful of brands in an attempt to find a substitute. Brooks was one of the brands I tried, and I tried several shoe models. However, after discovering Altra, a newcomer on the scene, I have been a loyal Altra customer ever since, due to its "footshape" toe box, zero drop from heel to forefoot, incredible fit, and superior traction that has met my needs as a trail runner. While I didn't particularly like any of the Brooks models I tried, one thing that has stuck with me is its "Run Happy" ethos: "when you finish your run in a happier place than when you started." I run every single morning for a reason, and this ethos sums it up quite nicely! This book caught and held my attention because it revolves around my favorite daily activity, sharing the story of one individual's journey, both personally and professionally.

Chapter 5 is an especially good read, due to the following series of sequential sections concluding the chapter: "Clinical Insight: Each Runner Has an Individual Run Signature", "Brooks's Battle Cry: Run Happy", "Bringing the Run Happy Ethos to Runners", "Performance Product + Run Happy = $1 Billion Idea", and "Running Is Too Big to Be Owned by Just One Brand." I personally wasn't aware of the paper that Brooks published on its "Run Signature" philosophy, based on years of scientific research. A biochemist studied the footfall of each of the 24 runners competing in the 10k finals of the 2012 Olympic Team Trials held at the University of Oregon. He made use of a high-speed camera on the side of the track to capture those footfalls, subsequently analyzing them side by side. What he showed is that each runner strikes the ground in a unique way, and each runner has their own personal stride, like a fingerprint. These findings informed Brooks's "Run Signature" philosophy that the only "right" way to run is the way one's body naturally wants to move. 

The two-page sidebar on what "Run Happy" is all about is in my opinion the climax of this book if a nonfiction book could have such a point. Here are a few snippets from the sidebar (numbers in this list are mine). Run Happy is (1) "a feeling, an attitude, a spirit that lives in the hearts and minds of all runners - young or old, fast or slow, male or female, master or newbie," (2) "feeling powerful, connected, passionate, energized, fast, peaceful, ecstatic, committed, free, and unstoppable," (3) passing the runner up ahead of you, in touch with something deep within, a high five with a complete stranger", "morning's first light on your favorite trail", and (4) "the best part of the runner's day, the part that understands that the worst day spent running is better than the best day at the office." With respect to this last snippet, I can personally attest that a good early morning trail run sets me up for my entire day, and enables a good night's sleep. My morning productivity getting work done at the office (whether at home or elsewhere) is extremely high for several hours following a run, as long as no unnecessary meetings get in the way.

In discussing his bout with cancer, the author surprised me by mentioning Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning", mainly because I've just recently read two other phenomenal books related to the topics addressed by this other author: Donald Miller's "Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life" and Joshua Coombes's "Do Something for Nothing: Seeing Beneath the Surface of Homelessness, through the Simple Act of a Haircut". Additionally, I mentioned in my review of Jack Perconte's "The Success Trail: Learn to Win with a Marathon Runner's Mindset" that several years ago, the author of "The Purpose Driven Economy" sent me a copy of the book for my review when it was first published, and in many ways, I think Perconte's book could be realistically titled "The Purpose Driven Run." Interesting suggestion for a book title, if I do so say myself, especially when considering that Weber's book is titled "Running with Purpose", and my review of Perconte's book was published in January 2022, which is 4 months before Weber's book was published. I tend to prefer my title because it follows the pattern initially established by "The Purpose Driven Life", although I also like the fact that Weber's publisher chose to use a verb rather than a noun, and as I concluded in my review of "Hero on a MIssion", the experience of meaning requires action.

Helpful Votes: Part 9

My ranking at Amazon continues to hover around #3000 as the 733 reviews I've written reached a milestone of 3500 helpful votes yesterday, an average of 4.775 helpful votes per review. 

Since the milestone when my reviews reached 3000 helpful votes in August 2021, Amazon merchants have provided a variety of free products that I've requested from them, with recent months including a whole house dehumidifier, large room air purifiers, and a kitchen faucet and reverse osmosis water filtration system I recently installed in my kitchen. 

While I still have this series of posts categorized under "book review", the vast majority of my reviews are no longer books, instead largely focused on practical products. Chief among these are daily supplements, the vast majority of which I now source freely from Amazon on an ongoing basis, including a variety of nootropics and whole food vitamins.

My top review, which resulted in my shooting up to a ranking of #1967 back in May 2012, was for Madeleine Albright's new memoir at the time entitled "Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948". At the time of that review, Amazon was still permitting downvoting in addition to upvoting, as well as commenting on reviews.

New Book Review: "Hero on a Mission"

New book review for Hero on a MIssion: A Path to a Meaningful Life, by Donald Miller, HarperCollins Leadership, 2022:

Copy provided by Amazon.

Just after I had first started reading through this book, someone commented to me that they had also started reading another book, entitled "Man's Search for Meaning", by Victor Frankl. In response, I remarked on a coincidence: Frankl's book is not only cited throughout "Hero on a Mission", the author of this other book is actually cited at the outset within the introductory pages. While I had heard about Frankl's book, I had also never felt any interest in reading it, because I've not only already read numerous war-themed autobiographies, I've also heard spoken accounts directly from victims of the second world war and immediate post-war period from my own family members, who suffered extreme hardships.

However, upon hearing about Frank's book again, I took a closer look to determine whether I might want to read it as a personal follow-up to "Hero on a Mission", and came to the same conclusion. In my view, the differentiator between these two works is the practicality that Miller seeks to provide to readers. Frankl's account of his experiences is provided in the first part of his book, and a paper on logotherapy is provided in the second part, but at this point I'm not interested in hearing more war stories or theories about a particular life philosophy, and am instead interested in hearing what logotherapy, the therapy created by Frankl, might look like from a practical perspective as applied to one's life.

Miller doesn't explain logotherapy in his introduction, but explains Frankl's pragmatic, threefold formula to experience a life of meaning in the third chapter: (1) "take action creating a work or performing a deed, (2) experience something or encounter someone that you find captivating and that pulls you out of yourself, and (3) "have an optimistic attitude toward the inevitable: challenges and suffering you will experience in life." And later in this chapter, the author makes these three elements more relatable as he discusses the life plan he has been using for the last ten years, a plan that continues to evolve, and a plan without which he feels his personal story would "devolve in entropy and ultimately a narrative void. The existential vacuum."

(1) "Life invites us to be important and necessary. If we wake up each day and have a task to accomplish, especially a task in which other people are involved or without which other people might somehow suffer, we become necessary in the world. We sense we have a purpose (because we do). By requiring a work or a deed, I think Frankl was saying: Get yourself a great reason to wake up and get out of bed in the morning. If you do, it will help you avoid the existential vacuum."

(2) "We should acknowledge that we are not alone in this world and in fact the world and the stories unfolding upon it inspire awe. We all know the greatest experiences we have in life are dramatically enhanced if they are shared with others. According to Frankl, to experience meaning, we should get involved with a small group of people we love and who love us, or we should find something that invites our focus beyond ourselves to the beauty of the world around us. A lone walk through the forest is good for the soul just as a trip to a gallery can offer inspiration and a sense of mental expansion. The point is this: encounter something that pulls you out of yourself so that you world becomes larger."

(3) "While I've found each of the three elements of Frankl's formula helpful, it's this last one that helped me transform the most. Essentially, Frankl argued there was no negative event that could happen to us that could not be somehow redeemed. "Redeemed" is my word, not his, but I think it's fitting. By redeemed I mean that, as humans, we are able to take the most painful of tragedies and turn them into something meaningful. Frankl believed that while tragedies should be acknowledged and grieved, they can also produce something beneficial. This doesn't mean tragedies are good. Nobody wants or should have to experience a tragedy. It only means that from the ashes of our tragedies we can create something beautiful, and by creating something meaningful with our pain we begin the process of healing our wounds."

Just recently, I mentioned in my review of "Do Something for Nothing: Seeing Beneath the Surface of Homelessness, through the Simple Act of a Haircut", by Joshua Coombes, that one of the author's passages reminded me of Romans 5:3-5: "...we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame...". Interestingly, these verses also correlate with the third part of Frankl's formula. The hardships my family has experienced have been extremely challenging, and in the midst of these experiences, seemingly unbearable. But what's this? Hardship is actually the first step in a sequence, if we permit the rest of this sequence to play out. 

The author's presentation is broken down into sixteen chapters across a story's three acts: (1) "how to create a life of meaning", (2) "create your life plan", and (3) "your life plan and daily planner." In the first act, the author discusses the four roles we play in life - the victim, the villain, the hero, and the guide - followed by a focus on the hero, who accepts their own agency, chooses a life of meaning, and knows what they want. In the second act, the author discusses the eulogy, short-term and long-term visions, and the daily planner, and in the third act lays out the templates for each of these tools.

One of the most impactful chapters for me is the fourteenth chapter. While the role of the guide is discussed earlier in the book, the focus up until this point is the role of the hero. "Life requires experts. We need people around us who know what they are doing and can save us from our own mistakes. In a way this book has been deceptive. It has taught you to become a hero on a mission even though the hero is not the most evolved role. The most aspirational role for any of us is the role of guide. So why spend so much time teaching people to live as heroes when the goal of life is to become the guide? The reason is, of course, that we cannot become guides unless we have lived as heroes on a mission."

The author later comments that "Victor Frankl's ideas do not ensure that life will go well for us. They simply ensure that we experience meaning whether or not life goes well. His theories, after all, were crystalized in a concentration camp. Mental, physical, and spiritual competence happens when we move into the challenges life offers us. Victims do not face these challenges because they cannot. Villains cause many of these challenges. Heroes walk into and through the challenges and are transformed in the process. Guides, then, teach heroes all they know about how to surmount the challenges. Guides teach us how to have courage because they have lived a life of courage themselves. The reason we want to live as heroes on a mission is, the more we do so, the sooner we will transform into guides."

Subsequently, Miller presents the four characteristics he believes are most critical to develop in order to help others: experience, wisdom, empathy, and sacrifice. I particularly appreciated his explanations of wisdom and sacrifice, perhaps because, while I personally feel as though I'm well on my way in all these areas, I also feel more developed in the other two areas. On wisdom, for example, the author comments that "we know a hero is going to have to gain strength in order to meet the villain as an equal. The hero will have to be strong and wise, and the only way to gain strength and wisdom is to fail and then succeed, over and over." While as a software developer and innovator the need for failure comes naturally for me in the workplace, I can't say the same for life in general.

In the closing paragraphs of the sixteenth chapter, as he wraps up his presentation, the author makes some especially profound statements. "Life can be very difficult, I know. There are tragedies all around us. There is darkness. But don't forget, there is also light. We get to participate in the making of that light. When the existential vacuum comes for you, and it will, remember there is a hope that is very real in the world. We can always make meaning." Interestingly, Frankl focuses on "meaning", and Miller periodically uses the term "purpose" somewhat interchangeably, but he clarifies his intent in the third chapter, something for readers to ponder: "meaning feels like purpose."

"When I experience meaning, my life feels as though it is playing an important role in an important story. I have never been able to prove that sense of purpose is justified, but it hardly matters. When I am experiencing meaning, it *feels* as though my life is a story that is interesting to myself and also good for the world." While I don't particularly care for this explanation, I also value Miller's further thoughts on the subject. "How many people sit in church pews hearing lectures about God only to return home and feel restless? And why? Perhaps it is because we do not experience meaning by studying meaning. Rather, we experience meaning by taking action. Even Jesus said *follow* Me rather than *figure Me out*. What if the experience of meaning requires action?"

New Book Review: "Do Something for Nothing"

New book review for Do Something for Nothing: Seeing Beneath the Surface of Homelessness, through the Simple Act of a Haircut, by Joshua Coombes, Akashic Books, 2021:

Copy provided by Amazon.

The subtitle to this book provides a great summary for what this book is all about, albeit from a limited perspective: "seeing beneath the surface of homelessness, through the simple act of a haircut." The introduction furthers this thought by stating that "this book isn't about homelessness, it's about humans and showing up for one another where we can." However, as a longtime consultant I also view this book as a phenomenal demonstration of the pro bono experience, which is distinct from traditional volunteerism: using one's professional skills to provide services to those who are unable to afford them.

I've personally performed both volunteer and pro bono services, but while I've served individuals in need as a volunteer, I've never served individuals in need as a pro bono consultant, instead serving mediators situated in-between myself and the end recipients. And my lack of experience in this area is why I especially appreciate what Coombes has to share in this book. Not only does the author actually carry out a professional service, cutting hair, but he spends time with individuals before, during, and after providing service to get to know each individual. And in my view, this is a great example of why transformational relationships are so much more powerful than transactional relationships.

In the world of consulting, I've often been advised that transactional relationships are inferior, but in the end it's always an expectations-filled, give-and-take business relationship. Not so with what the author demonstrates in this book, which puts to shame much of what I've seen during my lifetime, regardless of intent. Coombes spends some serious quality time with each individual, always trying to empathize with their circumstances and never outwardly judging. Some backstories provided by the author's "customers" are so especially moving that it has caused me to recount some of my own encounters with the homeless, and why I can't stand the imposters I've seen on city streets.

This book walks the reader through the author's meetings with 35 individuals on city streets across 14 global locations in the US, UK, France, Netherlands, Mexico, Australia, and India. It seems the fact that 40% of these individuals are located in the US speaks more to the interests of the author to visit from his base in the UK, partially because of his connections in the US, but this aspect of the book drives home the fact that homelessness exists everywhere, even amongst the affluent.

And as such, Coombes also surfaces the reality that homelessness can happen to anyone, even the affluent, by passing along the stories each individual has shared with him. David, for example, described his experience as "surreal". "There's no way I would have seen myself sitting here...no way at all. I've realized how we trick ourselves into believing that we're in total control of our lives, and we're really not. There's so much that can happen to a person that you ain't got no say, or no control over. It's frightening...it's really frightening. I see people walk past me and I get the odd person with a look of disgust on their face, but mostly I see fear on their faces, because they don't know how you got here, and they're scared they that could be here also."

In some cases, customers share glimpses of what their lives were like before homelessness. Emma, for example, doesn't ask for much. "Although sometimes I feel like saying, 'Forget this life, just end it,' I don't have the guts to do that, and I feel like that's basically the same thing as saying, 'Don't do it.' Because, all I need is a place or a room and I'll be happy. I could go in, close my door, and be back to normal life, doing normal things: waking up, having a coffee, taking the dog for a walk, coming home, doing some housework. I was doing embroidery before and getting really into gardening."

And in the midst of homelessness, there is also much optimism even whilst recounting past abuse. Two homeless individuals, Lavane and Nick, even found love for each other. "I'd been abused as a child at the hands of my dad...The last place I thought I'd find real love was on the streets, but then Nick came along...Before Nick, I was married for ten years and I had a really bad relationship. There was a lot of domestic violence. I left after he put me in a hospital for the second time. That's when I became homeless...I never met anyone who had loved me that way. He didn't care what people thought of him. He was unashamedly himself. I loved him for that - even when he smelled bad! He lived his life and had his flaws, like we all do, but his heart was good. He showed me a different way. He showed me how to live on the streets and how not to be frightened. It really gave me back my confidence. I really fell in love."

Before April 2020 when I first started cutting my hair due to salon closures, I had convinced myself that I enjoyed talking with those who cut my hair. While these weren't transactional relationships, money still exchanged hands and I don't recall ever hearing anything profound. In writing about his time with Tony, Coombes demonstrates a far different experience, and combined with the optimism so prevalent throughout, it provides a moving story. "Tony meant every word, I could feel it. They cut through more than any 'motivational speech' I've seen delivered onstage." As explained by Tony, "I've come a long way, man. My dad's an alcoholic. It wasn't pretty. My mom was everything to me. She died back in 2000. I know she's looking down on me and I take a lot of strength from that. I want to put out a message to inspire people that I'm a survivor. I'm living with cancer, on the street, and I'm still smiling. So be optimistic."

The story Dennis has to tell is perhaps especially moving. "It sounds crazy, but my thing is, even though I'm struggling, I think God put me here to help other people. You know, because everybody I've helped has got themselves together and moved on, and I'm good with that...I had seen everything - apartments, cars, and all that. So, I understand it's not easy to be out here every night. People with no money, getting high just to stop what's going on in your brain. I'm trying to learn to give without wanting - without wanting anything in return...Why is it so hard to want to see the next man do all right? If I see the next man down, I've gotta try and bring him up. Even if it's just a little bit. So he knows there's at least one person out there who's not just trying to get one over on him. That's where my heart is at. Maybe it's my age that's humbled me and brought me to that point. I dunno."

This reminds me of Romans 5:3-5: "...we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame...". In my 2015 presentation on how to use one's skills to benefit a non-profit for a consultancy's annual technology conference, I walked through 16 takeaways I gained from my pro bono consulting work for 5 different non-profits. My fourth takeaway: "Encountering beautiful clients with relatively low prestige jobs is common." I highly recommend this book if you're interested in starting your own journey to meet such clients.

New Book Review: "The Success Trail"

New book review for The Success Trail: Learn to Win with a Marathon Runner's Mindset, by Jack Perconte, Second Base Publishing, 2021:

Copy provided by author Jack Perconte (former professional baseball player).

As a lifelong runner, I've read many running books over the years, and this one differentiates from all the others due to its probably being one of the most down-to-earth. As a former professional baseball player and runner of 14 marathons and counting, Perconte noticeably maintains his humbleness throughout. He states plainly that his experience should not intimidate the reader, even going so far as to stating in the opening pages that he wasn't a great baseball player, and that he didn't even become a runner until he was middle-aged. That said, becoming a professional baseball player obviously means that someone has already reached elite status relative to the competition, and he writes from experience successfully finishing over a dozen marathons (even though he admittedly still ponders how someone can run a marathon in less than 2.5 hours, considering less than 5 hours a miraculous feat).

The fifteen chapters in this book revolve around mindset: (1) "The Forward Mindset", (2) "The Courageous Mindset", (3) "The Commitment Mindset", (4) "The Planning Mindset", (5) "The Health Mindset", (6) "The Beginner's Mindset", (7) "The Identity Mindset", (8) "The Athlete's Mindset", (9) "The Happy Mindset", (10) "The Winner's Mindset", (11) "The Acclimating Mindset", (12) "The 'In the Zone' Mindset", (13) "The Patient Mindset", (14) "The Hero's Mindset", and (15) "The Analytical Mindset". Each of these chapters follows a relatively consistent pattern that can be summarized as a dream sequence conjured by the author followed by a quote by a well-known individual, the author's experience, how the author's experience might relate to the reader's experience, and short stories about marathon legends and the author, concluding with important takeaways for the reader from each of these stories.

Beginning in the second chapter, Perconte starts laying out what he views as the "stairway to success" a few steps at a time. As the author mentions in the dream sequence at the outset of this chapter, "confusion and anxiety reign with no destination; goals are imperative for achievement and avoiding pointless wandering and wasting time...the success trail needs a solid foundation; laying pavement will smooth the road to the starting line." While the author doesn't explicitly state as such, the stairway to success essentially answers the question posed in the first chapter: "Do you ever wonder what it takes to do something noteworthy?" And I find it very clever that 26.2 steps are laid out across the remaining chapters, a bit reminiscent of the 26 chapters of Meb Keflezighi's "26 Marathons: What I Learned about Faith, Identity, Running, and Life from My Marathon Career", which symbolized that runner's 26 marathon competitions.

One of my favorite steps is probably the second-to-last: an honest analysis of performance. I've always, always been negatively impacted on my runs by negative thoughts. While I naturally work through and purge built-up negative thoughts during my runs (and so I need to actually reference my thoughts in order to do so), it is the persistent negative thoughts that always cause problems. Perconte offers retroactive solutions, although unlike his solutions many of my negative thoughts are admittedly unrelated to my actual running. "Even though one may have solid reasons for underperforming, excuses and negativity diminish the effort. When answers to 'why' come, it is valuable to frame them in ways that make you feel like you overcame them. Instead of saying, 'The weather slowed my time,' I say, 'I battled some horrible conditions and made it.' Instead of, 'Cramps kept me from the time I hoped for,' it is, 'I learned today I must hydrate better to prevent cramps.' Winners analyze in a positive tone."

In reading through this book, I can relate to much of what the author has to say. I've done my own informal mental "fact-checking" against my personal running experiences, and I can attest that I share many of the same conclusions as the author. For example, in the concluding pages of the third chapter the author comments about the inspiration that running has provided him, a phenomena I don't think non-runners will ever understand until they give running a real chance. "Research studies give many convincing reasons to run and be physically active. The one that motivates me the most is why I recommend people run - the mental stimulation it creates. Whenever I get into a mental rut and the fruitful ideas dry up, movement on foot makes my brain thrust into a higher gear. Exercise brings out my cerebral functioning, as it helps me think, imagine, create, love, pray, reminisce, hope, and feel alive."

The software engineer in me appreciates the "Employ a Start-up Scheme" at the outset of the fourth chapter. From my experience, even though the agile movement may have started in the software development community the key is incremental improvement over time for any of life's endeavors. Over the years, folks have commented to me that they had "tried" running in the past, and upon further discussion I've found that this usually meant they tried running for a very short time period, not really giving it a chance. While as an adult I personally get highs on a frequent basis while running, I never experienced these while I was competing as a student athlete. If I had given up running at an early age, I simply would never have experienced getting a runner's high. But now that I regularly experience these, I have another motivator to keep running. These experiences remind me of a presentation I gave several years ago about using one's skills to benefit non-profit organizations: in my conclusion, I stated my last tip: "Don't quit, but know when to move on." Seriously, don't simply quit for no good reason! You might very well be close to reaching your next milestone goal, but you'll sadly never know if you bow out too early.

The author briefly mentions his use of mantras in the concluding paragraph of the tenth chapter. As I mentioned in my review of "Still Running: The Art of Meditation in Motion", I personally use a mantra as the point of focus while running. I typically use even-numbered phrases that correspond to a sequence of strides, and in recent years often count, with the most recent being a mantra of "1, 2, 3, 4". However, when I do this I am actually doing so to zone out. In fact, I've often commented to others that time seemingly passes by much more quickly when I do this. Now, thinking back to my beginnings as a runner in grade school, I was explicitly coached to focus on my breathing. However, once I got this down I found it distracting to be consciously aware of my breathing, so over time removed this practice from my repertoire. It's interesting that Perconte's mantra examples, "Relax, Breath, Improve" (the acronym of which speaks to his professional baseball career) and "Pace, Focus, Confidence", both consist of odd-numbered phrases that are each multiple syllables, so I'm wondering how he breaks down these words in his head. Perhaps I'll reach out and ask him! After all, he did reach out to me to send a copy of this book for my review.

I'm in agreement with Perconte's philosophy that when one strives to go high and far, life is purposeful, the way it should be. And I personally believe that life is like running a race. I've often been asked about my races by those who didn't discover running until adulthood, and I'm always very clear that I no longer race due to burnout. But I continue to run every single morning throughout all four seasons of the Chicagoland area, usually on the trails-over-rails network that is literally only a block from my residence, or on my Precor treadmill when the weather is unbearable or I need a break from the much, much more rigorous outdoor run. However, races provide goals, bringing meaning to many runners. The marathon distance in particular to which this book caters is especially meaningful to many. Several years ago, the author of "The Purpose Driven Economy" sent me a copy for my review when it was first published, and in many ways, I think Perconte's book could be realistically titled "The Purpose Driven Run". I greatly enjoyed reading this book, and sincerely think that all runners (especially those interested in running a marathon for the first time), will find benefit reading this book.

New Book Review: "The First 90 Days"

New book review for The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, by Michael D. Watkins, Harvard Business Review Press, 2013:

Copy provided by Deloitte.

The introduction provided by Benton actually offers a realistic look at what is offered in the rest of the book, unlike many other business texts I've read over the years which initially entice and subsequently disappoint, offering only an article's worth of information watered down to fill hundreds of pages. And I personally have the dog ears I left behind over the course of reading this text as evidence that this is the case. That said, however, the introduction provides enough value that it could actually stand on its own as an article, briefly walking the reader through glimpses of several pertinent topics such as avoiding transition traps, creating momentum, assessing transition risk, mapping out one's first 90 days, and hitting the ground running.

"Even though a lot has been written and discussed about how to be a more effective leader in general, little research and writing addresses how to successfully accelerate through leadership and career transitions. People will go through these all-important career crucibles with little preparation and no reliable knowledge or tools to help them. That's what this book is designed to give you. Your goal in every transition is to get as rapidly as possible to the break-even point. This is the point at which you have contributed as much value to your new organization as you have consumed from it. New leaders are net consumers of value early on; as they learn and begin to take action, they begin to create value. From the break-even point onward, they are (one hopes) net contributors of value to their organizations."

"The root causes of transition failure always lie in a pernicious interaction between the new role, with its opportunities and pitfalls, and the individual, with his strengths and vulnerabilities. Failure is never only about the flaws of the new leader. Indeed, all the failed leaders I studied had achieved significant successes in the past. Nor is it only about a no-win situation in which not even a superhuman leader could have carried the day. The business situations facing leaders who derail are no tougher than those in which others succeed brilliantly. Transition failures happen because new leaders either misunderstand the essential demands of the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them."

"The good news is that there are systemic methods you can employ to both lessen the likelihood of failure and reach the break-even point faster. The specific business situations that confront transitioning leaders vary. But specific types of transition situations, such as start-ups and turnarounds, share certain features and imperatives. Further, there are fundamental principles - for example, securing early wins - that underpin success in all transitions at all levels. The key, then, is to match your strategy to the situation."

This book was actually gifted to me by a new manager of mine soon after accepting his offer to work as director and chief architect for the company. As I mentioned in my recent review of "Executive Presence for the Modern Leader: A Guide to Cultivating Success and Thriving in the Workplace", by D. A. Benton, I've spent the vast majority of my software delivery career in hands-on software architecture and development roles, increasingly working with executives over time. Unlike this other book, which likely would have been more beneficial to me at an early stage in my career, if I had wanted to focus on leadership rather than building software, what Watkins offers here is coverage of a much deeper topic that I've revisited time again throughout my career: tackling the first few months of a job, and for someone like me who doesn't have the tendency to job hop, tackling the first few months of a new project or product.

Because the last decade of my work experience has largely revolved around building new software products rather than being parachuted into ongoing projects as is the case with my current roles, I've been spending a lot of time revisiting how I approach my work, gathering together my thoughts on all of the software development and architecture efforts I've lead while working through the suggestions offered in this book. And now that I'm well past the hypothetical 90-day time period covered by the author, regardless of calculation, as I tend to view this as an 18-week time period of 5-day weeks rather than a 13-week time period of 7-day weeks, I've been revisiting what the author does and does not cover.

The biggest drawback of this book, from the perspective of an ongoing software development effort, is not recognizing the need for ramp-up time at the outset. In other words, the need to get up to speed from day 1 on how the product has been built, what development processes look like, and the culture and history of the product. The index to this book doesn't even include an entry for "product". While taking a product approach to both development and non-development efforts is relatively new, it's not like this was an unknown when this book was written in 2013. As a prolific book reviewer, Amazon had sent me a pre-publication uncorrected proof of "The Lean Startup" for my review in 2011, introducing me to the concept of the minimum viable product ("MVP"), but tackling work with a product approach had already started taking root in industry by this time. My experience taking this approach with colleagues, for example, started at least 5 years prior building a product for a healthcare client of mine.

The content of this book is broken down into ten chapters: (1) "Prepare Yourself", (2) "Accelerate Your Learning", (3) "Match Strategy to Situation", (4) "Negotiate Success", (5) "Secure Early Wins", (6) "Achieve Alignment", (7) "Build Your Team", (8) "Create Alliances", (9) "Manage Yourself", and (10) "Accelerate Everyone". Each of these chapters is only about 20 pages, but I found myself reading through the content much more slowly than usual because it is so dense. Unlike my reviews of other books in which I easily recount which chapters brought me the most benefit, I found this book to be actually pretty consistent throughout, especially surprising for a book from Harvard Business Review Press. 

That said, I especially appreciated chapters 3, 5, and 8. The third chapter covers the start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, sustaining success ("STARS") model, which explains the five common business situations leaders may find themselves moving into, outlining the characteristics and challenges of, respectively, (1) launching a venture, (2) getting one back on track, (3) dealing with rapid expansion, (4) reenergizing a once-leading business that's now facing serious problems, and (5) inheriting an organization that is performing well and then taking it to the next level.

After this explanation, the author walks through data from the Harvard Business Review transition survey, in which participants were asked which of the STARS situations they thought were most challenging and in which they would most prefer to be. The most challenging situation was assessed to be the fourth type of business situation, the realignment, followed by the fifth and second, respectively, sustaining success and turnaround. As I've thought through my current roles, I think a hybrid of the turnaround and accelerated growth situations is the closest match. While respondents said that accelerated growth was the least challenging, both it and turnaround are in the middle of the pack with respect to respondent preference.

The bulk of my career has been spent on start-up situations, followed by turnaround. Interestingly, respondents rated the start-up the second-to-least challenging, but overwhelmingly the most preferred situation. From a software development perspective specifically, I definitely view the start-up as preferred, but relatively less challenging? I don't think so. While the STARS model helped put things into perspective for me with respect to considering opportunities related to the five types of business situation, I'm not sure it takes a holistic view.

For example, cited opportunities for the start-up are (1) "you can do things right from the beginning", (2) "people are energized by the possibilities", and (3) "there are no rigid preconceptions". However, note a couple key words here: "can" and "possibilities". These words are very optimistic, but as I've been known to say to my clients in the past, everything is possible, but not everything is probable, so saying that something is possible doesn't really provide value. Additionally, individuals far removed from the tasks being discussed tend to think in the realm of their own definitions of possibility rather than probability, so when this term gets brought up by someone it makes sense to explore what they are really trying to say. One important question to ask about the start-up is whether the work has been done well, and whether the overall product has been successful. Respondent preference and perception of challenge don't really speak to either of these aspects of the work. Just take a look at the track history of industry successes and failures. And again, from the perspective of software development, I know from experience that start-up work is an especially challenging endeavor. 

The fifth chapter discusses the fact that executives in transition plan and implement change in distinct waves: (1) transition, (2) immersion, (3) reshaping, and (4) consolidation. As such, the author explains the implications as to how one should manage transition, keeping one's ends clearly in mind when planning to secure early wins. Following an early period of focused learning, an early wave of changes then commences, involving a slower pace to permit consolidation and deeper learning about one's organization. Implementation of deeper waves of change is enabled by the additional insight gained, followed by a less extreme wave that focuses on fine-tuning to maximize performance, by which time leaders are ready to move on.

This chapter later provides the "early wins evaluation tool", which is intended to help assess the potential of candidate focal points for securing early wins. The four questions asked are the following: (1) "does the focal point offer an opportunity to make a substantial improvement in the performance of your unit?", (2) "is this improvement achievable in a reasonably short time with available resources?", (3) "would success also help lay the foundation for achieving agreed-to business goals?", and (4) "will the process used to achieve the win help you make needed changes in behavior in the organization?"

The eight chapter provides a simple checklist for framing the types of arguments one needs to convince people as a leader, in the form of categories and questions: (1) logos: data and reasoned arguments, (2) ethos: principles, policies, and other "rules", and (3) pathos: emotions and meaning. For example, this first type asks whether there "are there biases to which they are falling prey and, if so, how might you demonstrate this?", the second asks "if you are asking them to act counter to a principle or policy, can you help them justify making an exception?", and the third asks "if they are reacting too emotionally, can you help them step back and get perspective?" In a similar vein to this last question, while I appreciate many aspects of this book I think the author should consider working on an updated version that addresses software as a core business function, and provides coverage of products, not just projects.

Past Book Review (December 30, 2020): "Still Running"

New book review for Still Running: The Art of Meditation in Motion, by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, Shambhala, 2020:

Copy provided by Amazon.

In her introduction to this book, Goddard discusses the concept of "zazen", seated meditation, as the main path to liberation in Buddhism, and then quickly follows up by explaining that zazen isn't about being quiet, or just about focusing or even gaining insight on the meditation cushion, as it should function in our everyday lives. She is also quick to explain that what she presents here is not limited to running, as walking, swimming, and bicycling are also excellent forms of moving zazen because of their repetitive, meditative nature. She comments that running has been her main form of exercise for thirty-five years, and as a longtime runner myself who began by running competitively in school for ten years and often meditates while running as an adult, I think I might be able to provide some perspective.

She subsequently explains the transition between stillness and movement, being and doing. "First we need to learn to move into stillness to make contact with our basic clarity and wisdom. Then, from that stillness, we must move out into activity, letting that clarity inform the way we live day to day. This is the functioning of compassion. And while I wouldn't claim that jogging a few miles a day will lead to enlightenment or compassion, I do see running meditation as an excellent entry point into the deep exploration of the nature of body and mind within daily life. Running zazen - which I call still running - can show us that fundamentally there is no difference between stillness and movement, body and mind, self and other. And this, the Buddha said, is the realization that leads to the end of suffering."

This book is broken down into 14 chapters: (1) "practice", (2) "intent", (3) "commitment, (4) "discipline", (5) "body", (6) "effort", (7) "breath", (8) "mind", (9) "pain", (10) "creation", (11) "stillness", (12) "movement", (13) "silence", and (14) "credo". At the conclusion of each chapter, Goddard provides a sidebar on how to practice what is presented, and explains her intent prior to the practice provided in the first chapter. "Zazen is the heart of the path of self-exploration. Without some form of meditative practice, it is very difficult to see ourselves clearly. So let's start by paring things down to the bare essentials - body, breath, and mind - and on this stable ground build the foundation for a strong running zazen practice."

The author furthers her thoughts on "practice" in the first chapter. "To practice means to perform an activity or skill repeatedly in order to improve our proficiency in it. Spiritual practice is the constant and deliberate turning of our attention toward the fundamental questions of a human life. Who am I? What is life? What is death? What is reality? What is truth? In Buddhism, these questions are addressed primarily through the practice of zazen. But we can also apply this concept of practice to other areas of our lives. To practice an activity means to do it with focused attention and a deep desire to be awake to and within it. It's a desire to understand what is happening, not just on the surface of things but at a fundamental level - the level of ultimate reality. So to be awake means to see that reality clearly. It means not taking our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, or our actions for granted. Not assuming that we know and understand what we haven't carefully studied and deeply pondered."

While I can relate to much of what Goddard shares because of my many years as a runner, I also often found our views diverging as I read what she has to say here. For example, in her practice at the end of chapter 11, entitled "moving into stillness: move into stillness by focusing on a mantra as you run", I can relate to her suggestion to use a mantra as the point of focus while running. I typically use even-numbered phrases that correspond to a sequence of strides, and in recent years often count, with the most recent being a mantra of "1, 2, 3, 4". However, when I do this I am actually doing so to zone out. In fact, I've often commented to others that time seemingly passes by much more quickly when I do this. Now, thinking back to my beginnings as a runner in grade school, I was explicitly coached to focus on my breathing. However, once I got this down I found it distracting to be consciously aware of my breathing, so over time removed this practice from my repertoire.

The author comments that a mantra is intended to keep focus, but quickly follows up by explaining that you shouldn't lose track of what you're saying, or repeat them automatically without much awareness. I personally see no value in being aware of one's mantra, but I suppose one's view will differ based on objective. When I count, it is to focus on my running and to block out my surroundings, but apparently, Goddard is instructing the reader to focus on the mantra itself. Interestingly, she closes her explanation of this practice by sharing that Gandhi used to say that repeating the name of God has more power in it than an atomic bomb. However, I would instead say that the name of God itself has the power, not the repetition of it. In-between repetitions of my current mantra, I choose instead to pray. The author mentions body, breath, and mind, but doesn't mention soul. It's not clear how the author is able to answer the question "What is truth?", but somebody else once said "I am the truth", "the truth shall set you free", and to "be still and know that I am God".

Past Book Review (November 28, 2020): "Running with Joy"

New book review for Running with Joy: My Daily Journey to the Marathon, by Ryan Hall, Harvest House Publishers, 2011:

This memoir by Ryan Hall (American half-marathon record holder, fastest American-born marathoner, and fastest Boston Marathon runner as of 2011) provides a fascinating, daily running log that as a lifelong runner I consider my favorite (and I've read a lot). Contrary to some of the other reviews here, I do not consider the content of this book to be preachy at all, because he relates everything that he says to himself rather than pushing his worldview on the reader. Every memoir that I've read, whether about running or not, always delves deeply into the personalities and worldviews of the protagonist, and this one is no exception. While I agree that Ryan shares his worldview throughout, I disagree with another reviewer here that "God is on pretty much every page", as this is a gross exaggeration: the vast majority of what he has to share here is a daily running log that might be better described as a running journal because he relates his daily training in context with the rest of his daily life, which includes joy but also includes personal struggle, challenge, and doubt.

For many of us, I think the fact that he shares these things with the reader is invaluable, bringing realism to running. While I've never been a world-class runner, I did compete in school for 10 years and continue to hit the trail every morning to run many years later, and I can personally relate to much of what Ryan writes about in his introduction and his notes from 14 weeks of training for the 2010 Boston marathon. From the very first page in his introduction, you will notice the difference relative to other books of this genre. In thinking back to his training for this marathon, he comments that he "had certainly experienced moments of joy before this and throughout my career, but they were almost always based on accomplishments, such as drastically improving my times, winning races, and setting records. All of these were tremendous experiences, but the problem was this: To experience joy, I had to win or set a record. If I didn't, joy was hard to find. I have been blessed with a very successful career, but I have also been a slave to performance. In fact, most of my athletic career at Stanford was a long, joyless dry spell."

The introduction to this book could likely be spun off and expanded into an entirely separate book, and in some sense I consider Ryan's later book "Run the Mile You're In: Finding God in Every Step" a fulfillment of this possibility because it does not end up revolving around a specific running competition. In his introduction, Ryan discusses his training with the elite, 18-member Mammoth Track Club which includes his wife Sara, two coaches, an assistant coach and physiologist, and Scott Bauhs, Josh Cox, Alistair Cragg, Amy Hastings, Deena Kastor, Meb Keflezighi, Rita Klabacha, Dennis Kline, Bob Larsen, Terrence Mahon, Michael McKeeman, Anna Pierce, Jonathan Pierce, Jen Rhines, Patrick Smythe, and Morgan Uceny. For the remainder of his introduction, he discusses life as a runner ("repeat, repeat, and repeat"), how a little extra weight goes a long way, the "nitty-gritty" of training, finding joy, and the Hall Steps Foundation he founded with Sara which is intended to take small steps toward the marathon goal of ending global poverty.

Arguably, it is the last section of his introduction that carries the most weight. "The journal entries that follow record my day-to-day journey to running with joy in any circumstances, including both victory and in defeat. The words of the apostle Paul have taken on new meaning for me: 'I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.' Paul's secret is not that God can take him out of difficult situations, but rather that he can be content in the middle of them. People often ask me about the message I want to bring to the running community and the world. My message is not that if you dream, live a focused life, and completely devout yourself to becoming the best runner in the world, it will happen. That message is simply not true. Or rather, it can only be true for one person at a time - the best runner in the world. "

"Let me assure you, I would never want to discourage you from going after your goals with all your heart. I am all about going after whatever God has called you to do with everything in you. But my heart broke when I looked down the starting line at the Olympic games and realized that nearly all of us would be disappointed with our performance, because only three guys could make it on the podium. But all of us, fast and slow alike, can experience something that is just as sweet as winning. My message is that even if you don't land on the podium or run a personal best, even if you have a bad workout or are struggling with an injury, you can experience joy to the fullest. I have been a slave for 14 years - a slave to my running times and race results. On April 19, 2010, I found freedom in the truth that joy is always available to us. The question is, will we let it in?"

Alongside notes on his daily workouts which stretch for 14 weeks, his advice to other runners, and his serious self reflection, I've delightfully found quite a bit of humor here. I personally find his use of scientific terms such as "gnarly", "jacked up", "Jell-O", and "gummed up" throughout to be refreshingly funny, for example. He also provides quite a few sidebars on such subjects as heart rate monitors and aerobic threshold, alternating fast and slow days, hills and flats, short and long runs, training at altitude, trails, tracks, and pavement, training in all seasons, weekly mileage, rest, tapering training into races, recovering after races, stretching, cross training, injuries, blisters, shoes, clothing, energy food, electrolyte replacement drinks, hydration systems, equipment, running in groups and running alone, running logs, inspiring running books and movies, and favorite runners and inspiring heroes.

Yes, Ryan shares dozens of his daily workouts en route to Boston, but I think much of the value that he provides here is in-between his descriptions of these. For example, in "Week Four: Eleven Weeks to Boston", he shares his unnerving thoughts watching other men run a fast 5k. "Again, this just shows that I get too much of my self-worth from my performances. I still let the clock tell me how good I am. I still let the splits determine how hopeful I am for the future. I still compare myself to others. But I am getting closer. This is not what running should be all about at its fullest. Running should be a pure flood of joy. Comparing myself to someone else is empty and vain. I rob myself of the goodness and joy of running every time I do it." And in "Week Eight: Seven Weeks to Boston", he shares over 9 pages a great email interview that he did for Running Times. It's very challenging to review a book like this, but it was especially great to read Ryan's play-by-play of his marathon run in the final pages, which overlaps with Meb's coverage of this same race in his "26 Marathons: What I Learned about Faith, Identity, Running, and Life from My Marathon Career".

Past Book Review (November 26, 2020): "26 Marathons"

New book review for 26 Marathons: What I Learned about Faith, Identity, Running, and Life from My Marathon Career, by Meb Keflezighi and Scott Douglas, Rodale Books, 2020:

Great read about all the marathons Meb ran during his 2002-2017 career, which just happen to equal 26! Almost half of these, 11, were for the New York City marathon, 5 were for the Boston marathon, 4 for the Olympic trials, 3 for the Olympics, 2 for the London marathon (one of which he did not finish), and 1 for the Chicago marathon. The appendix provides a table listing the dates of all these running events alongside his finishing place and time. And while very short, the introduction and epilogue provide some additional context, with the epilogue in agreement with my philosophy that "the run never ends"!

At the outset in the introduction, Meb discusses what this book is all about. "The undercurrent running throughout this book is my 'run to win' philosophy. 'Run to win' doesn't mean always trying to finish first. Even for elite runners, finishing first is the exception, not the rule. I broke the tape at only three of my twenty-six marathons. Sure, I hoped to and tried to win most of them, but when I placed something other than first, I was content as long as I had 'run to win' in the broader sense. What do I mean? Simply that 'run to win' isn't about finishing first, but about getting the best out of yourself. I started using this philosophy long before I became a marathoner."

Meb mentions during high school that the parents of his academic tutors would ask him about his goals for upcoming competitions. "Thinking about my races that way helped me broaden my definition of success. I realized that it could be just as satisfying to finish fifth instead of first if I could honestly say I'd given my best. Setting personal records took on new meaning, because they were indisputable evidence that I had done better than I ever had at a particular distance. With [their] help, I learned how to evaluate my performance in less-objective situations than a timed race on the track, including ones outside running." And later, "I carried that mind-set into every marathon I ran. It was key to the many successes I had in my career, and it helped me through some very rough times. I hope that this book inspires you to 'run to win' on your terms, in running and in life."

In evaluating the subtitle to this book, what Meb has to share here obviously is about running, and his identity as a runner and thoughts about running with respect to his life are also very evident. Unfortunately, after reading Ryan Hall's "Running with Joy: My Daily Journey to the Marathon" and "Run the Mile You're In: Finding God in Every Step", including what he wrote about his friendship with Meb, I expected to hear more about Meb's faith, especially considering the fact that it is listed first in the subtitle to "26 Marathons: What I learned about Faith, Identity, Running, and Life from My Marathon Career." This aspect of his life, while it may be important to him, just seems misplaced, and would have likely been better left out of the subtitle, or moved to a different position in it.

While I may have missed something, I didn't notice anything that might allude to faith until the end of chapter 8 when he mentions the serenity prayer about accepting what you can't change, working on what you can change, and having the wisdom to know the difference, but when he revisits this prayer in chapter 20 he explains that it is about self-control. Some thirty pages later in the latter half of chapter 12, en route to discussing his New York City marathon win, he mentions in passing that he prayed "give me your strength, this is for both of us", but the object of "your" was Ryan Shay who unfortunately passed away at the same marathon two years earlier. Meb finally mentions his "God-given talent" at the beginning of chapter 15, he later comments in chapter 19 that "I strongly believe there was a higher purpose at play that day, that the stars were all aligned for me", subsequently writing that an opportunity to move ahead at around mile five of the Boston marathon "was the moment I had prayed for" and that he "relied on the cheering crowds and the victim's angels to give me strength" a year after the bombings.

One of the things I like best about this book are the "key lessons" that start each chapter, each of which covers a separate marathon event. Some of my favorites are as follows. For the 2003 marathon (Chicago): "You don't have to swing for the fences in everything you do. Cruise control can be an effective, low-stress way not only to run your fastest but to reach your full potential in many areas of life." For the 2004 marathon (New York City): "Celebrate your accomplishments but don't rest on your laurels. Use the momentum from one success to work toward others." For the 2005 marathon (Boston): "The marathon is a metaphor for life in how it rewards patience." For the 2010 marathon (Boston): "It is better to be 90 percent ready and make it to the start line than to panic and become either overtrained or unable to start the race." For the 2013 marathon (New York City): "You never know who you're going to touch and what you're going to learn about yourself when faced with adversity."

Of all the chapters, I enjoyed the last aforementioned one the most. Meb comments that he stopped at least seven times during this marathon, and with about 5k to go a Staten Island resident named Mike, whom he had just met before the race, caught up with him and agreed to finish the race together even though Meb admittedly was having a rough time, writing that Mike could have easily pulled away from him. In representing New York City and Boston, they ended up finishing the race holding hands raised high. In closing this chapter, Meb discusses the camaraderie of competition, and comments how one can inspire others even on days that aren't their best. As a lifelong runner, I've always enjoyed the waves, smiles, and hellos every time I encounter other runners on the trail.

Helpful Votes: Part 8

Exactly two months ago, midway into my five-month hiatus writing for this blog, the 508 reviews I had written for Amazon up to that point in time hit the milestone of 3000 helpful votes, with my ranking standing at #7,764 in a list containing many millions of reviewers.

My ranking has since shot up to #2,959, albeit admittedly likely because of the unwarranted attention a December 2020 review of mine has received in recent months, in contrast to my breaking the top-2000 ranking (#1967) for the first time in May 2012, due to the realistic attention my review of Madeleine Albright's new memoir from two months prior had received.

New Book Review: "Executive Presence for the Modern Leader"

New book review for Executive Presence for the Modern Leader: A Guide to Cultivating Success and Thriving in the Workplace, by D. A. Benton, Rockridge Press, 2021:

Copy provided by Amazon.

The author mentions in her introduction that in conjunction with a new business venture she had started, she took on a personal research project to ask every CEO she met the following question: "If two people start in their careers with similar experience, intelligence, and ambition, why, over time, does one get to this level and one only get to that?" Her research was later published in an article which called this ability "executive charisma", something she came to call "executive presence". According to the author, "this book will work for you whether you are an aspiring or current leader, whether you are hoping to land a great job, thrive in your current role, or secure a promotion. It will help you build the career you dream of. This is the most up-to-date, accessible, and practical guide to developing your own executive presence to thrive in the ever-changing workplace. The lessons I've learned have given me a very good life, and I hope they provide the same to you."

This 150-page book is broken down into 7 chapters: (1) "Executive Presence", (2) "Leadership Styles", (3) "Emotional Intelligence", (4) "Communication", (5) "Comportment", (6) "Appearances", and (7) "Authenticity". While the author doesn't define "executive presence" in her introduction, she argues at the beginning of the first chapter that "there is an unwritten code of behavior among successful executives. They don't admit it. It's almost as if they don't want to talk about it for fear of jinxing it. They may even deny that a code of behavior exists. But it's there. It's executive presence. It doesn't matter how you feel about it; what matters is how your colleagues perceive you. The good news is that it can be learned." In later chapters, she discusses a variety of leadership styles, emotional intelligence as the trademark of a good leader, why communication is more than the words one verbalizes or writes, not leaving to chance what others see about oneself, the power of appearances, and identifying roadblocks and adjusting approach as situations change.

It wasn't until I was asked by a Chief Architect to take on the work of a recently departed Director of Architecture several years ago that I heard the term "executive presence", and it so happens that one of my colleagues at the time used this expression to describe a quality she saw in me. Admittedly, I wasn't quite sure what she meant. I had spent the bulk of my software delivery career in hands-on software architecture and development roles, increasingly working with executives over time, but nobody had explicitly commented on this topic. In retrospect, however, it makes more sense why my roles continued to evolve. While I arguably continued to remain a top technologist throughout my career, my relatively stronger communication skills, discussed in chapter 4, were often cited as one of the core attributes which helped set me apart, with the attributes and behaviors described in the following three chapters also periodically mentioned in passing along the way.

A book such as this would have been more beneficial to me at an early stage of my career, if I had wanted to focus on leadership rather than building software. But what does "leadership" actually mean? At some point in my career, I started hearing clients call their managers "leaders", but these are two different concepts: managing isn't the same thing as leading. As a longtime consultant, it was interesting to witness many clients in leadership positions who had little to no software development backgrounds, which is ironic because unless one is able to relate to the work that is being done it is almost impossible to be an effective leader in the field. A mantra that I've heard in the field over the years is that "leaders lead, others do". What does this really mean? A better mantra that I've heard is "lead by example", implying that in order to be a leader one not only needs to be able to do the work, but actually do it. Fortunately, in the consulting world I had enough people around me who understood all of this. Something to think about if you are early in your career exploring possible paths ahead of you.

All of this said, the two chapters of this book I most benefited from are chapter 2 ("Leadership Styles") and chapter 3 ("Emotional Intelligence"). I think many of the situations I recounted earlier are probably due at least in part to emotional intelligence, something everyone (including myself) can continue to improve, and I always appreciate learning about how different approaches can end up being effective, having learned over time to be careful not to view any particular method as "the" way but simply "a" way. If anything, Benton has provided me with these reminders. The author presents several leadership styles ("visionary", "coaching", "affiliative", "democratic", "pace-setting", and "commanding"), and I enjoyed the included self-assessment along with her recognition that it can be most helpful for people such as myself to possess some traits exhibited by every style. However, to speak to a traditionally introverted ambivert such as myself, the author should arguably weave personality into her next presentation to better speak to a wider audience of readers.

New Book Review: "Python Programming for Beginners"

New book review for Python Programming for Beginners: A Kid's Guide to Coding Fundamentals, by Patricia Foster, Rockridge Press, 2020:

Copy provided by Amazon.

In her one-page "How to Use this Book" introduction, Foster states that "this book will teach you the basics of Python programming", and "it's going to teach you how to think like a coder!" The material is broken down into the following ten chapters, followed by half a dozen pages comprising debugging tips, a glossary, and a list of suggested web resources: (1) "Welcome to Programming!", (2) "Python: The Basics", (3) "Variables", (4) "Data Types", (5) "Data Structures", (6) "Conditionals", (7) "Loops", (8) "Functions", (9) "Turtle Module", and (10) "Game On: Putting it All Together". 

The author's presentation is organized well, introducing topics which build upon each other along the way, and the illustrations at the beginning of each chapter are colorful, catering to pre-teen children interested in programming fundamentals. Unfortunately, there are also many issues along the way. While I initially made an effort to ignore these issues, I started taking notes after finding myself losing track. Children working through this book, and those guiding them, will likely not notice these issues unless acquainted with programming themselves, in which case they also will likely not be in the target market for this book.

Foster comments at the outset in chapter 1 that "a program is a bunch of code designed to solve a human problem". While she follows this statement with a decent conceptual explanation of programs, which have goals carried out by a sequence of step-by-step instructions, as a longtime developer and architect I know that many programs are definitely not about human problems: many programs simply do not have end user humans in mind. The author also tackles some tricky words (e.g. for "algorithm" and "compile") at much too early a stage, and it would have likely been better to leave these out of her presentation.

Discussing integrated development environments (IDEs) in chapter 2 is also arguably covered much too soon, because this topic doesn't teach the basics of Python programming, not does it teach how to think like a coder, the two primary goals laid out in the introduction. For the pre-teen beginner, it makes sense to initially use what is provided out-of-the-box when downloading and installing Python for the first time, rather than getting too sidetracked on available options. I'm in agreement with the author's two primary goals. Understand the basic programming process first, and then use your experiences to help guide you.

During the author's explanation of variables in chapter 3, the f-string is introduced. Essentially, f-strings are a way to format strings, and the author demonstrates how to use these to keep track of variable values by printing them during program execution. Interestingly, however, the "How to Install Python" section in chapter 2 specifically comments about all the different Python releases currently made available, going so far as to state that the specific release used by the reader to execute the code presented in this book doesn't matter as long as you "make sure the first number after the word  'Python' is a 3". Not so: the f-string was not introduced until Python 3.6, so if a prior 3.x release of Python is used, this functionality simply won't work.

In chapter 3, during the presentation on the order in which Python math operations are carried out, the author mentions that the BEDMAS acronym can help figure this out, that "B" stands for "brackets", and that brackets are evaluated first. But the example used during this discussion is "n = ( 3 + 2 ) * 4". So where are the brackets in this example? In revisiting the text which led to this discussion, I saw that in a sidebar 15 pages earlier a distinction was made between "round brackets" and "square brackets". In my many years of professional experience, I've never heard anyone refer to parentheses (i.e. "parens") as "round brackets"!

The "Alien Socks" example just three pages later that uses the equation "num_socks = num_martians * martian_legs / 2" doesn't make use of any parentheses. In this case, it doesn't technically matter how the math operations are grouped, but it's advised for new programmers to get in the habit of making code more readable, in this case making use of the equation "num_socks = num_martians * ( martians_legs / 2 )" because the emphasis is on pairs of legs in the story problem. Perhaps not coincidentally, the final calculated value in this story problem is an integer, but new programmers should understand the difference between floating point and decimal numeric data types, and the subsequent two-page discussion on numbers in chapter 4 doesn't discuss this topic.

While I didn't come across any book examples that are wrong, per se, some are likely to be awkward or confusing. For example, in chapter 6, during the discussion of "if-elif-else" statements, three variables are presented: "is_winter", "is_fall", and "is_summer". While I appreciate the variable naming convention that makes use of an "is" prefix to indicate a boolean data type, why isn't "is_spring" defined? One can argue that the program example assumes possibility of the Spring season, and indeed the explanation for this example mentions all four seasons, and that the season of Spring is assumed if not Summer, Fall, or Winter, but what's this? The branching logic only explicitly checks for Winter and Fall, and if not Winter or Fall, Summer is assumed. A perfect example of a bug for chapter 2.

Another confusing example is "Find the Buried Treasure" in chapter 7. The story problem leading up to the code that is presented states that buried treasure can be found in a beach that a crew of pirates has separated into 100 sections assigned the numbers "1" to "100". However, the code permits values of "0" to "100" as guesses. Why? Neither the story problem nor the code provides an explanation. While I've made some guesses as to why a value of "0" can be guessed, it would have been helpful for the author to either explain why this is the case, or simply remove the ability to choose "0" as a guess.

This book periodically makes use of built-in Python functions, but only haphazardly makes use of these in the code that is presented. I found it surprising, for example, that in the "Anagram Checker" example of chapter 8 neither the functions "upper()" or "lower()" are used. The code is simple, comparing two string variable values to each other to determine whether both are comprised of the same letters. At the end of this example, the author states that "to a computer, uppercase and lowercase matter a lot", so "keep this in mind when comparing anagrams!" A perfect time to introduce these two functions!

While chapters 9 and 10 introduce some important concepts, and are likely intended to provide some fun, I personally think these chapters should either have been left out or reworked to provide more substance. In reading through the book to this point, I noticed that objects had not yet been introduced, and unfortunately, the beginning of chapter 9 provides full disclosure: "this book won't show you how to define your own objects". Likewise, the "Spaceships and Aliens" game in chapter 10 might be entertaining, but players choose 4 digits (i.e. single integers), but these are stored as strings that aren't evaluated by the code to ensure that integer values are chosen. Another perfect example of a bug for chapter 2.

This book is the third introductory programming book that I've reviewed in recent months, joining "Tanmay Teaches Julia for Beginners: A Springboard to Machine Learning for All Ages", and "Coding Concepts for Kids". Of these three, I view "Coding Concepts for Kids" as the best, but it doesn't teach a programming language, instead opting to teach how to think like a coder. Interestingly, this is the second stated goal of "Python Programming for Beginners", but it is very simplistic, targeted at younger readers. The book reviewed here is a good attempt, but in my opinion doesn't meet either of its two goals.

New Book Review: "Learning Spark (Second Edition)"

New book review for Learning Spark (Second Edition), by Jules S. Damji, Brooke Wenig, Tathagata Das, and Denny Lee, O'Reilly, 2020, reposted here:

Copy provided by Databricks at Spark + AI Summit 2020.

The foreword and preface to this book comment that an update to the first edition, published in 2015, was long overdue. After all, the first edition makes use of Apache Spark 1.3.0, whereas this update makes use of Apache Spark 3.0.0-preview2 (the latest version available at the time of writing). For the most part, I successfully ran all notebook code out of the box using Databricks Runtime 7.6 ML (includes Apache Spark 3.0.1, Scala 2.12), albeit minor issues are explained later in this review alongside my resolutions to these. I was, however, able to successfully run all standalone PySpark applications from chapters #2 and #3 out of the box using Apache Spark 3.0.1 and Python 3.7.9. As explained, the approach used here is intended to be conductive to hands-on learning, but with a focus on Spark's Structured APIs, so there are a few topics that aren't covered, such as the following: the older low-level Resilient Distributed Dataset (RDD) APIs, GraphX (Spark's API for graphs and graph-parallel computation), how to extend Spark's Catalyst optimizer, how to implement your own catalog, and how to write your own DataSource V2 data sinks and sources.

Content is broken down into 12 chapters: (1) "Introduction to Apache Spark: A Unified Analytics Engine", (2) "Downloading Apache Spark and Getting Started", (3) "Apache Spark's Structured APIs", (4) "Spark SQL and DataFrames: Introduction to Built-in Data Sources", (5) "Spark SQL and DataFrames: Interacting with External Data Sources", (6) "Spark SL and Datasets", (7) "Optimizing and Tuning Spark Applications", (8) "Structured Streaming", (9) "Building Reliable Data Lakes with Apache Spark", (10) "Machine Learning with MLlib", (11) "Managing, Deploying, and Scaling Machine Learning Pipelines with Apache Spark", and (12) "Epilogue: Apache Spark 3.0". The longest chapter is chapter #8, followed closely behind by chapters #3, #4, #5, and #10, and the most notebooks are provided for chapters #10 and #11, although this is largely due to individual notebooks dedicated to a variety of topics. 

This book is the fourth of four related books I've worked through, a couple years after the earlier three: "Spark: The Definitive Guide" (2018), "High Performance Spark: Best Practices for Scaling and Optimizing Apache Spark" (2017), and "Practical Hive: A Guide to Hadoop's Data Warehouse System" (2016). As I mentioned in an earlier review, if you are new to Apache Spark, these four texts will help enable your going in the right direction, although keep in mind that the related tech stack is evolving and you will obviously need to supplement this material with web documentation and developer forums, as well as to get hands-on with the tooling. Reading the earlier three books in opposite order of publication date enabled exposure to more current material sooner rather than later, but this was largely just a coincidence. Now that this new book is available, I recommend working through this one first. While I wouldn't discount "Spark: The Definitive Guide", because it provides content not in this new book and I personally think it flows better, use it very judiciously because it was created using the Spark 2.0.1 APIs.

The only notebooks I wasn't able to successfully run out of the box are constrained to chapter #11. In notebook 11-3 ("Distributed Inference"), 11-5 ("Joblib"), and 11-7 ("Koalas"), FileNotFoundErrors were generated when attempting to use Pandas to read from CSV or Parquet files using "read_csv()" and "read_parquet()", respectively. In taking a look at what the community had to say, I discovered that this is a known issue, so I replaced these Pandas statements with "spark.read.option(...).csv("...") and "spark.read.option(...).parquet("...") instead, respectively, subsequently converting to Pandas using "toPandas()". In looking at the documentation, Pandas 1.0.1 is installed on both the CPU and GPU clusters for the aforementioned Databricks Runtime (the latest non-beta currently available). In notebook 11-3 ("Distributed Inference"), the following PythonException was generated when attempting to execute a "mapInPandas()" statement that uses a mix of numeric data types in the schema argument: "pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: Could not convert 3.0 with type str: tried to convert to double". In the absence of decent community guidance, and because this statement is solely used for display purposes, I simply converted all of these data types to "STRING". According to the documentation, Pyarrow 1.0.1 is installed on both the CPU and GPU clusters for the aforementioned Databricks Runtime. 

I personally got the most value out of chapters #7 and #8. Chapter #7 covers optimizing and tuning Spark for efficiency, caching and persistence of data, Spark joins, and inspecting the Spark UI. Chapter #8 covers evolution of the Apache Spark stream processing engine, the programming model of Structured Streaming, the fundamentals of a Structured Streaming query, streaming data sources and sinks, data transformations, stateful streaming aggregations, streaming joins, arbitrary stateful computations, and performance tuning. In particular, I especially appreciated the sections on the two most common Spark join strategies (the broadcast hash join and shuffle sort merge join), the Spark UI, stateful streaming aggregations, and streaming joins. Well recommended for anyone making use of Spark.

New Book Review: "Coding Concepts for Kids"

New book review for Coding Concepts for Kids: Learn to Code without a Computer, by Randy Lynn, Rockridge Press, 2020, reposted here:

Copy provided by Amazon.

I'm in the midst of reviewing a few programming minded books targeted specifically at children at middle school (intermediate school, junior high school, lower secondary school) age or younger, with this text by Lynn at the lower end of this range, explicitly stated to be ages 5 to 7. I think this is an accurate age range for the average child, as the author illustrates several basic programming principles using a very light amount of abstraction that never gets into actual code or pseudocode. 

The content is broken down into several chapters: (1) "Hello, Coders!", (2) "Awesome Algorithms", (3) "Lots of Loops", (4) "Creative Conditionals", (5) "A+ Optimization", (6), "Delightful Debugging", and (7) "Very Valuable Variables", followed by a 4-page answer key to all problems presented throughout the book, and single pages dedicated to a glossary and additional resources that essentially point to ScratchJr and Scratch (scratch dot mit dot edu), code dot org, and raspberrypi dot org. 

As a long time technologist, I was first exposed to programming a few years into grade school as resources such as this simply weren't available at an earlier point in time. I think the author presents their material in a very fun manner that very gently introduces the concepts of algorithms, loops, conditionals, optimization, debugging, and variables along the way. The illustrations are very well done, always relating to the material being presented so as not to confuse young learners. 

Lynn makes some great statements in their introductory chapter. "Learning to code is a little like learning how to write. You can't write a book before you've learned your ABCs, right? You can learn how to code on a computer, of course. But it's smart to begin learning without a computer. That's because being a great coder starts with being a great thinker." That said, there are some subtle issues with what the author presents, and while these likely shouldn't prevent using this book, some new in this field may wish to reference my list as they work with their children.

First, the author makes a misstatement at the outset. "Computers can be a lot of fun, and you know what's even more fun? Using your creativity to invent something totally new! That's what coding is all about." While developing new software is a lot of fun for many technologists such as myself, and much can be learned doing so, in reality most coding taking place in the workplace is not associated with developing new software, but maintaining or evolving existing software.

Second, the "Codeo Rodeo" problem in the second chapter might confuse some children (and those guiding children through this book). I came up with at least three solutions, and the answer key only lists one. The number of possible solutions is even greater than three if not restricted to the shortest possible route, and the problem statement doesn't explicitly state whether there are any obstacles across which Al (one of five "Coding Crew" characters in this book) cannot traverse to get to their goal.

Third, the "Laugh-a-Loop" problem in the third chapter is also problematic. After explaining why steps of instructions might need to repeat, the author presents a simple "Run the Code" example and then progressively adds more complexity. A good pattern that repeats throughout the text. However, after just explaining what a "loop" is intended to mean in this simple example, the definition of it changes for the "Laugh-a-Loop" problem, with no explanation given, based on the answer given in the answer key. Not good. 

Fourth, the "Hidden Toys" problem in the third chapter has a similar problem to the second aforementioned issue. The problem statement doesn't explicitly state whether Spot the Bot is to find their toys one at a time, or all in one swoop. Based on the way the problem is presented, it appears as though the bone, ball, and teddy bear are to be retrieved separately, starting from the same spot on the lawn. At least, this is one interpretation of what needs to be done. It's clear from the answer key that Spot the Bot is to find their toys all in one swoop.

Note that this isn't an exhaustive list, so similar problems have similar issues. Again, these issues are very subtle, and shouldn't prevent using this book. However, for what it's worth these issues demonstrate the reality of problem solving in the real world: there almost always exists more than one possible solution for a given problem, and problem statements typically need to be reworked or reimagined so that the solution which ends up being followed actually solves the intended problem. Despite these issues, well recommended for the stated target audience.

New Book Review: "The Software Architect Elevator"

New book review for The Software Architect Elevator: Redefining the Architect's Role in the Digital Enterprise, by Gregor Hohpe, O'Reilly, 2020, reposted here:

Copy provided by Amazon.

While the title of this book makes use of the term "software architect", connotations will likely arise for many potential readers. Hohpe starts discussing the term "architect" at the outset, but it isn't until the end of chapter 4 ("Enterprise Architect or Architect in the Enterprise?") where he makes an attempt to simplify what he means with respect to this book, following his discourse on "enterprise architect(ure)". "My definition of EA also implies that some IT architects, who aren't enterprise architects, work at enterprise scope. These are largely the folks I refer to in this book. Because they are the technical folks who have learned to ride the elevator (chapter 1) to the upper floors to engage with management and business architecture, they are a critical element in any IT transformation."

"How is being an 'enterprise-scale architect' different from a 'normal' IT architect? First, everything is bigger. Many large enterprises are conglomerates of different business units and divisions, each of which can be a multibillion-dollar business and can be engaged in a different business model. As things get bigger, you will also find more legacy: businesses grow over time or through acquisitions, both of which breed legacy. This legacy isn't constrained to systems, but also to people's mindsets and ways of working. Enterprise-scale architects must therefore be able to navigate organizations (chapter 34) and complex political situations. Performing true EA is as complex and as valuable as fixing a Java concurrency bug. There's enormous complexity at all levels, but the good news is that you can use similar patterns of thinking at the different levels."

"For example, software architects need to balance their system's granularity and interdependencies: a giant monolith is rather inflexible, whereas a thousand tiny services will be difficult to manage and can incur significant communication overhead. The exact same considerations apply to business architecture when considering the size of divisions and product lines. Lastly, EA also faces the same trade-offs when having to decide which systems should be centralized, which simplifies governance but can also stifle local flexibility. Architecture, if taken seriously, provides significant value at all levels."

While I largely agree with what the author presents here, it's interesting that he includes "senior developer" in the list defining what architects are _not_ in his introduction to part 1 ("Architects"). "Developers often feel they need to become an architect as the next step in their career (and their pay grade). However, becoming an architect and a superstar engineer are two different career paths, with neither being superior to the other. Architects tend to have a broader scope, including organizational and strategic aspects, whereas engineers tend to specialize and deliver running software. Mature IT organizations understand this and offer parallel career paths." As a longtime engineer and architect who has seen and experienced a lot, I find it immensely beneficial for architects to not only have significant development experience, but have these skills close at hand.

Startups often have "senior engineers" but not "architects". During my career, I've been told by quite a few startups that they don't need architects. When I've asked them who chooses the tooling and technologies, who builds proofs of concept and prototypes, who designs their software and systems alongside other stakeholders, and who provides governance, they often draw a blank. In exploring their responses to me, it becomes clear that either (1) their senior engineers act as architects, or (2) their software and systems are already in production, and they are in maintenance or some other mode. The challenge with the former is that senior engineers often don't see the big picture, and the challenge with the latter is that software and systems should arguably be built as products, which means continued evolution should be expected to take place over time.

This book is presented in 6 parts: part 1 ("Architects"), part 2 ("Architecture"), part 3 ("Communication"), part 4 ("Organizations"), part 5 ("Transformation"), and part 6 ("Epilogue: Architecting IT Transformation"). Despite my prior comments, I think the ongoing industry discussion on the role of architects is desperately needed. I've read and written a lot on this topic over the years, so I especially appreciate the subtitle to this book: "Redefining the Architect's Role in the Digital Enterprise". As with software and systems products, architects should also evolve. The challenge here is that there simply aren't any industry standard definitions for many terms commonly used in industry, and this text provides a great effort at attempting to sort everything out. Much like the term "strategy", which I've also read and written a lot about, the second part on architecture follows closely behind the discussion on architects. And in my view, the topics discussed in the third part are the bulk of what tends to shy away some senior engineers from identifying as architects, as I have personally seen a lot of paper pushing architects in the past. As the book progresses into the last two parts, the chapters increasingly resemble disjointed, separately publishable articles, although the author makes a good attempt at tying everything together.

Hohpe actually mentioned when this book was headed to the printer that it is admittedly an evolution of the "37 Things One Architect Knows About IT Transformation: A Chief Architect's Journey". At the time, he also stated that the term "software" snuck into the title because he edited the book to appeal to a broader audience of not just enterprise architects, but software architects looking for their next career step. All of this said, this work helps fill a large gap that has existed for many years, and I highly recommend it. While much of what this book presents will be common knowledge to longtime architects, especially those who have worked as consultants in both senior engineer and other leadership roles, what has largely been tribal knowledge is now arguably under one roof. Of course, not to be forgotten is that Hohpe brings his personal experience along for the ride, and as with any great book of this genre, execution eats strategy for lunch.

New Book Review: "Burn-In"

New book review for Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution, by P. W. Singer and August Cole, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020, reposted here:

Promotional pre-publication advance reading copy provided by Amazon.

The back cover of this novel provides the following synopsis: "America is on the brink of a revolution. AI and robotics have realized science fiction's dreams, but have also taken millions of jobs and made many citizens fear that the future has left them behind. After narrowly averting a bombing at Washington's Union Station, FBI Special Agent Lara Keegan receives a new assignment: to field-test the first police robot. In the wake of a series of shocking catastrophes, the two find themselves investigating a conspiracy whose mastermind is using cutting-edge tech to rip the nation apart. To stop this new breed of terrorist, Keegan's only hope is to forge a new kind of partnership. With every tech, trend, and scene drawn from the real world, 'Burn-In' blends a technothriller's excitement with nonfiction's insight to illuminate the darkest corners of our chilling tomorrow." 

It appears, however, that the real robotic revolution is actually boring. While this novel is well-written, it likely won't engage readers unless they are completely unaware of recent advancements in the tech fields it seeks to cover. The idea to marry extensive nonfiction footnotes (about 25 pages in the promotional pre-publication advance reading copy that I was provided) with this fictional text is a good one, but in my opinion the content in most of these footnotes will likely be viewed as fairly commonplace to many. Character development is fairly week, and the politics exhibited by some characters increasingly tends to distract as the storyline progresses. Perhaps the content of this novel is better suited for a major motion picture, as the author tends to overdescribe the simplistic, and underdescribe the complex, and visuals might be the cure for what ails the writing. 

All of this said, the masses need more accurate depictions of technology, and this novel is a good attempt at moving in what very well could be the right direction. For example, as the authors mention early in this book while the robot (named "TAMS") is in the process of being introduced, "burn-in is defined as 'the continuous operation of a device, such as a computer, as a test for defects or failure prior to putting it to use'". Quite simply, however, the reason I don't typically review works of fiction is because evaluation can tend to be very subjective. I made an exception in this case because the authors here explicitly sought to blend their storytelling with the real world. At least, the real world from the perspective they aim to tell it, but they at least provide the hopeful statement (regardless of accuracy) that "technology is not destiny: AI's impact on the American worker will be decided not by AI, but by us...by the policies that we vote on and the organizations we choose to build".

New Book Review: "Julia for Beginners"

New book review for Tanmay Teaches Julia for Beginners: A Springboard to Machine Learning for All Ages, by Tanmay Bakshi, McGraw-Hill, 2019, reposted here:

Copy provided by Amazon.

As the author mentions in the preface to this book, the content he provides here is intended to work towards his goal of reaching out to and helping at least 100 thousand aspiring coders and to help them innovate along their journey of learning to code. He furthers his explanation by writing that this book is special because it specifically covers the Julia programming language, which was designed to solve a problem few languages today have the ability to solve: dealing with huge amounts of unstructured data. As he explains, the vast majority of programming languages were developed with goals not fundamentally aligned with ML (machine learning). In contrast, he argues that Julia is the first programming language to mesh together a number of individual technologies and techniques supporting the future of computing together in a performant, elegant, and easy way.

After walking the reader through an introduction and the steps associated with setting up a local Julia development environment, he presents various Julia constructs such as variables and input, conditions and iterations, arrays and dictionaries, functions, handling errors and exceptions, and reading and writing files, followed by a machine learning discussion and suggest next steps and reader resources to continue their programming journey. Most readers will likely be able to work through this book over a weekend, as it is less than 200 pages in length and provides all code inline with the text. Interestingly, the author does not provide the code in a downloadable repository, but the amount of code is minimal and I would expect young developers to likely learn more typing from scratch.

The author gently walks the reader through fundamental concepts at the outset, introducing simple code in the first chapter through a single statement program and use of the REPL (read-evaluate-print loop) interface provided by Julia much like other programming languages. Over the course of the first few chapters, the author introduces programs consisting of several statements, with chapter 4 ("Arrays and Dictionaries") introducing the first multi-page Julia program, and chapter 5 ("Functions") containing the longest multi-page Julia program, with its code snippets discussed along the way. And chapter 7 ("Package Management") presents introductions of several more advanced topics such as installing and usage of packages, multiprocessing, and calling code from other languages.

For someone completely new to programming, I think the author did a decent job introducing the Julia programming language. However, in my view this book exhibits at least two key issues. The first is that the book subtitle "a springboard to machine learning for all ages" seems to imply that readers will be taught ML. Unfortunately, ML is not introduced until chapter 9 ("How Machines Learn"), essentially the last chapter because chapter 10 ("Next Steps and Resources") is only 2 pages long and doesn't teach anything. As someone with a longtime software development career who has read many technology texts, I'm fairly certain this aspect of the book will disappoint many because it borderline misrepresents what this book is about.

Additionally, I think that many readers will feel this chapter is too disjointed from the rest of the book. The author starts by discussing evolutionary theory, which is largely irrelevant, and then states multiple times while choppily walking through several snippets of code that readers should not need to worry about whether they understand any of it yet. However, the author really never ends up providing any substantial explanations before the chapter ends, and then the book ends. If readers wish to learn Julia as their first programming language, this is the book that will help enable them to do so. However, an ML text it is not, and because this book provides such a gentle introduction, readers will quickly need to consult other resources.

The second key issue is the fact that new programmers are being targeted to learn the Julia programming language. In my view, Julia is absolutely not appropriate for new programmers because its adoption rate in industry is extremely low, and because it is largely not a general purpose programming language. I first learned of Julia back in 2014 when attending an annual software developer conference in St Louis, Missouri called "Strange Loop", and its adoption rate has arguably barely budged in the 6 years since. Sure its adoption rate has increased, but the adoption rate of the Python programming language has also increased, albeit in contrast with Julia exponentially increased, and is widely considered a friendly language that most new to development will benefit from picking up. Python is also considered a general purpose language that will help readers springboard into a wide variety of practical applications, including ML.

New Book Review: Disruptive Analytics

New book review for Disruptive Analytics: Charting Your Strategy for Next-Generation Business Analytics, by Thomas W. Dinsmore, Apress, 2016:

The author mentions at the outset that analytics industry leaders have been struggling, for reasons apparently not associated with product quality, but with disruption. Powerful forces are rearranging the industry: rapidly declining storage costs, an exploding number of data sources, decentralized data ownership, the open source software business model, the elastic business model made possible by cloud computing, widely available and inexpensive computing power, and displacement of conventional data warehousing and commercial analytic software by the Hadoop ecosystem, Python and R.

This book discusses two types of disruption: disruptive innovation within the analytics value chain, and industry disruption by innovations in analytics. From the perspective of startups and analytics practitioners, success is enabled by disrupting their industries, because using analytics to differentiate a product is a way to create a disruptive business model or to create new markets. From the perspective of investing in analytics technology for their organizations, taking a wait-and-see approach might make sense because technologies at risk of disruption are risky investments due to abbreviated useful lifespans.

After an initial walk-through of disruptive analytics innovation, and the analytics value chain, Dinsmore takes a step back to present a short history of the last 50 years of innovation in analytics, followed by discussions on the open source business model, the Hadoop ecosystem, the rapidly declining cost of computer memory and the corresponding rise of large-scale in-memory computing, a survey of streaming analytics, cloud computing and the elastic business model, recent innovations in machine learning (ML), self-service analytics, and a self-described "manager's handbook for disruptive analytics".

Chapters 2 and 3 on the history of analytics and open source analytics are especially well done, and key for anyone not familiar with these areas. As a consultant in this space who began their programming career with SPSS, I recall a diagram that someone posted this past year, a bit of a spin on the theoretical evolutionary chain of humans, albeit beginning with SPSS, with subsequent stages of SAS, R, and Python. In a similar manner, the author walks through the themes characterizing analytics in the years prior to the introduction of the first data warehouse in 1984, the data warehouse era, and key trends today.

As explained in the summary to chapter 2, much is to be learned from a review of the history of modern analytics. "Statistics, machine learning, and data mining technologies developed separately from data warehousing and business intelligence technology. While data warehousing theorists argued that data mining 'belonged' in the data warehouse, and leading database vendors delivered 'in-database' data mining, actual users disagreed with the theorists. On the whole, they preferred separate tools based on servers or desktops, which had much richer functionality than the 'in-database' data mining tools."

"The vision of the enterprise data warehouse as the single source of truth was never realized, even at the peak of the hype cycle. No large organization ever successfully integrated all of its data into a single centralized repository. If the vision of a unified enterprise data warehouse was unattainable in the 1990s, it is certainly unattainable today. There is simply too much data, the data is too diverse, and it moves too fast. The enterprise data warehouse idea may be dead, but the data warehouses themselves will survive, like cathedrals in modern cities."

"Organizations that built them will not decommission them, and some may build anew. Every organization needs to measure its performance, and data warehouses are very good at providing broad access to consistent transactional metrics. But performance measurement isn't disruptive, and it isn't strategic. It is simply a cost of doing business, like pencils and office space. Consequently, the executives who manage data warehouses will be under constant pressure to deliver metrics at the lowest possible cost." And "meanwhile, the most interesting, strategic, and disruptive analytics will be built outside the scope of the data warehouse."

While this book itself could be considered disruptive from the perspective of the field of available texts on this subject matter, as very few exist, it is also important to consider the fact that this book was published in 2016, and the field continues to evolve quickly, demanding a desperately needed update when it comes to specific technologies covered in chapters 3 through 9, keeping in mind there are only 10 chapters. Experienced consultants in this space will not have a hard time finding numerous examples of where this is the case, but as this book arguably targets managers it is important that this aspect be pointed out.

In addition to refreshing this text from the perspective of cited technologies, I would also like to see the author spin off an entirely separate book from the last chapter, labeled "handbook for managers: how to profit from disruption". As someone who just built a data analytics platform with his team this past year, I know how challenging it can be to hire data professionals, so I would especially like to see Dinsmore expand on his "hire the right people" section of this chapter. And as a longtime agile practitioner and open source advocate, I would like to see expansions of the "develop a lean data strategy" and "build an open source stack" sections.