William Hurley

Robert Burton: On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not
I just picked this up and have only read about 50 pages so far. The premise is that human neurological functions prohibit one's ability to actually be certain about a fact or objective state of affairs but also that the same factors drive people to assume certainty due to purely emotional, and frequently inaccurate, understanding. The author published an excellent essay in support of the book's publishing about one month ago on Salon. More to come.

Stephen Breyer: Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution
Breyer's is an outstanding and compelling riposte to the all too common and conservative notions of law, liberty and livelihood. Breyer's work is easy to sink into, as it is even in tone and friendly in style. Unfortunately, the vigor of Breyer's critique of conservative rhetoric pales as the language and prose style rob the tome of a natural energy, fire and ferment in service of Liberty that disappointed the radical in me that was provoked by the premise. Still, its a must read as this mode of alternative views of Liberty and Constitutionalism will, I suspect, continue to flow from Breyer and other left-of-center legal scholars and jurists. (****)

Mark C. Taylor: The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture
Taylor's work is difficult to approach as its more about the changing nature of how information accessibility and sharing has created an inherent world of complexity that we are not always aware we live within, The difficulty arises due to the range of arenas and incorporate metaphors Taylor visits in weaving this narrative. In the end, its a fascinating work that recedes in its power as it moves toward conclusion. I suspect a second reading will enhance my ability to pen a more thorough commentary. (***)

Rafi Mohammed: The Art of Pricing: How to Find the Hidden Profits to Grow Your Business
No much to say here. Mohammed's work is concise, direct and informative. Basic, elementary and a great refresher for those enmeshed in the exercise of defining the assumed value of your product or service. (***)

Benoit Mandelbrot: The Misbehavior of Markets
I'll not dive into a bio of Mandelbrot as his area of expertise if wide of mine. But suffice it to say that Mandelbrot is an eclectic, energetic and compelling thinker who can, with a co-author in this case, convey some very complex concepts and mathematics for the lay reader. As a non-trader and non-mathematician, I found myself fascinated by Mandelbrot's overarching theme. His theme, a caveat implicitly conveyed, pertains to the requirement to but skepticism of the efficacy of using models to determine the behavior of objects; be they prices or people. I strongly recommend this book as its provides a fresh view on the notions of trending, behaviors and assumptions. My caveat is that its does take a few pages to get past Mandelbrot's need to congratulate himself for some of his truly amazing accomplishments. (****)

Jacques Ellul: Propaganda
Ellul's work is deep, detailed, comprehensive and to a degree boring. The book was written in the 1950s in France, and carries the air of an engineering project applied to articulating a methodology that is incorporate in every post-enlightenment ideology. In short, its a tad archaic but very informative. I found it improved mu comprehension of the intimate relationships between ideological metaphors and rhetoric and the sly infusion of everyday language with these components. Its a wonderful, the difficult book to entertain when working in and around marketing materials as an everyday occurrence. (***)

Malcolm Gladwell: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Gladwell's work is attractive for a couple of reasons. First, the premise of this book, Blink, is that we're all in a way situational geniuses. Given that premise, and Gladwell's desire to sell books, who doesn't like to be complimented? Or called, directly or indirectly, a genius? The result of Gladwell's style, another strong suit for the book as its reads with remarkable fluidity, is that its essentially marketing light for some rather complex philosophical concepts. In some ways, and I don't think I'm alone in seeing this, Blink has a Zen-like element to it. However, Zennist do not privilege no-knowledge over knowledge. The orientation of the Zen way, middle-way, is to maintain an intimate association with one's context in a way that allows current and past experience to blend seamlessly together. That way new learning and old learning can fuse as knowledge in context. There is also the possibility that I read this book too quickly, glossing over some deeper elements as I consumed the text, beginning to end, in just over an hour. (***)

Chris Anderson: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
Anderson's is an interesting tome, yet much of it seems quite elementary to me. I also found the repetitious use of the same example sources to erode the power of Anderson's thesis, being that there's a mass and natural movement toward "long tail" market and customer segmentation. It certainly seems true that many consumers, be they individuals or businesses, will self-segment based on rarefied needs, but the equally powerful truth is that the providers of "long tail" services succeed due to an above average reliance on commonly used and/or standards-based technologies. Economies of scale and differentiated customer satisfaction are artifacts of better information management, which is to me the big take-away from this text. (***)

Thomas H. Davenport: Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning
The authors provide an in-depth, but approachable review of the growing importance and pervasiveness of actionable, quantifiable data in business large & small. What's refreshing is that the book goes beyond others on this subject in surfacing the importance of understanding the value of the analytics process and of adopting a holistic approach to uncovering gems or critical data points hidden within the vast unwashed data that every organization maintains. (****)