Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned

Author: Kenneth O. Stanley
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319155245
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
Why does modern life revolve around objectives? From how science is funded, to improving how children are educated -- and nearly everything in-between -- our society has become obsessed with a seductive illusion: that greatness results from doggedly measuring improvement in the relentless pursuit of an ambitious goal. In Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, Stanley and Lehman begin with a surprising scientific discovery in artificial intelligence that leads ultimately to the conclusion that the objective obsession has gone too far. They make the case that great achievement can't be bottled up into mechanical metrics; that innovation is not driven by narrowly focused heroic effort; and that we would be wiser (and the outcomes better) if instead we whole-heartedly embraced serendipitous discovery and playful creativity. Controversial at its heart, yet refreshingly provocative, this book challenges readers to consider life without a destination and discovery without a compass.

Ordinary Greatness

Author: Pamela Bilbrey
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470524855
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Book Description
How to leverage ordinary greatness to create a competitive advantage for any organization Enabling readers to maximize leadership skills, no matter the venue, Ordinary Greatness helps those who are in leadership positions to optimize their organizational results by improving their ability to recognize and create greatness in those who they lead. Featuring real-world stories, this practical guide helps readers relate to both famous and everyday heroes and shows leaders how to improve their immediate environment. In addition, actionable tips and insights are included to equip business leaders to remove the blinders that keep them from seeing their organization's ordinary greatness. Pamela Bilbrey and Brian Jones are organizational consultants, executive coaches, and international speakers and workshop facilitators

Sparse Distributed Memory

Author: Pentti Kanerva
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262111324
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
Motivated by the remarkable fluidity of memory the way in which items are pulled spontaneously and effortlessly from our memory by vague similarities to what is currently occupying our attention "Sparse Distributed Memory "presents a mathematically elegant theory of human long term memory.The book, which is self contained, begins with background material from mathematics, computers, and neurophysiology; this is followed by a step by step development of the memory model. The concluding chapter describes an autonomous system that builds from experience an internal model of the world and bases its operation on that internal model. Close attention is paid to the engineering of the memory, including comparisons to ordinary computer memories."Sparse Distributed Memory "provides an overall perspective on neural systems. The model it describes can aid in understanding human memory and learning, and a system based on it sheds light on outstanding problems in philosophy and artificial intelligence. Applications of the memory are expected to be found in the creation of adaptive systems for signal processing, speech, vision, motor control, and (in general) robots. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the memory, in its implications for research in neural networks, is that its realization with neuronlike components resembles the cortex of the cerebellum.Pentti Kanerva is a scientist at the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science at the NASA Ames Research Center and a visiting scholar at the Stanford Center for the Study of Language and Information. A Bradford Book.

The Click Moment

Author: Frans Johansson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110160140X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Book Description
In the story of every great company and career, there is one defining moment when luck and skill collide. This book is about making that moment happen. According to Frans Johansson’s research, successful people and organizations show a common theme. A lucky moment occurs and they take advantage of it to change their fate. Consider how Diane von Furstenberg saw Julie Nixon Eisenhower on TV wearing a matching skirt and top, and created the timeless, elegant wrap-dress. That was a “click moment” of unexpected opportunity. Johansson uses stories from throughout history to illustrate the specific actions we can take to create more click moments, place lots of high-potential bets, open ourselves up to chance encounters, and harness the complex forces of success that follow.

The 12 Week Year

Author: Brian P. Moran
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118616421
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
The guide to shortening your execution cycle down from one year to twelve weeks Most organizations and individuals work in the context of annual goals and plans; a twelve-month execution cycle. Instead, The 12 Week Year avoids the pitfalls and low productivity of annualized thinking. This book redefines your "year" to be 12 weeks long. In 12 weeks, there just isn't enough time to get complacent, and urgency increases and intensifies. The 12 Week Year creates focus and clarity on what matters most and a sense of urgency to do it now. In the end more of the important stuff gets done and the impact on results is profound. Explains how to leverage the power of a 12 week year to drive improved results in any area of your life Offers a how-to book for both individuals and organizations seeking to improve their execution effectiveness Authors are leading experts on execution and implementation Turn your organization's idea of a year on its head, and speed your journey to success.

Why I Write

Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Renard Press Ltd
ISBN: 1913724263
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 15

Book Description
George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition)

Author: Ed Catmull
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679644504
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Book Description
The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

Atomic Habits

Author: James Clear
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735211299
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
The #1 New York Times bestseller. Over 20 million copies sold! Translated into 60+ languages! Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights. Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field. Learn how to: make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy); overcome a lack of motivation and willpower; design your environment to make success easier; get back on track when you fall off course; ...and much more. Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.

There's No Plan B for Your A-Game

Author: Bo Eason
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250210844
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
Washington Post Bestseller Wall Street Journal Bestseller USA Today Bestseller Publishers Weekly Bestseller Do you want to change the course of your life? Do you want to be the best? The best manager, the best athlete, the best artist, the best speaker, the best parent? In There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game, former pro athlete, playwright, and acclaimed leadership coach Bo Eason shows you exactly what it takes to be the best. His proven tools and training have worked for Olympic medalists, military leaders, bestselling authors, professional athletes, and business executives and their teams. There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game explains how to develop the character, integrity, and commitment it takes to become the best. Bo Eason focuses on a winning four-step process that helps you attain the skill, maintain the effort, and persist through challenges: Declaration: What do you want to achieve? Preparation: How can you make it happen? Acceleration: Where will you find the stamina to reach your goal? Domination: Why do you take others with you? With inspiring, specific, real-word guidance, There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game teaches the best practices that lead to the best results, in every walk of life.

Active Inference

Author: Thomas Parr
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262362287
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
The first comprehensive treatment of active inference, an integrative perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior used across multiple disciplines. Active inference is a way of understanding sentient behavior—a theory that characterizes perception, planning, and action in terms of probabilistic inference. Developed by theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston over years of groundbreaking research, active inference provides an integrated perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior that is increasingly used across multiple disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. Active inference puts the action into perception. This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of active inference, covering theory, applications, and cognitive domains. Active inference is a “first principles” approach to understanding behavior and the brain, framed in terms of a single imperative to minimize free energy. The book emphasizes the implications of the free energy principle for understanding how the brain works. It first introduces active inference both conceptually and formally, contextualizing it within current theories of cognition. It then provides specific examples of computational models that use active inference to explain such cognitive phenomena as perception, attention, memory, and planning.