Things I’m reading
I’ve been mainly having my head down in to two books over the last couple of weeks.
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
Eliyahu Goldratt
This is a parable that explains the concepts of production flow through the story of Alex who runs a manufacturing plant. I found it a very interesting read and didn’t feel like most books I read. In fact, it felt like I was reading a fiction book, something I generally only do on holiday; so felt like a guilty pleasure, while learning new things at the same time.
I think that if you’ve not done any other reading or thinking about flow, you might miss some of the lessons in the book. In a way, this is because they are presented by the nature of it being a story quite subtly.
While the story is in a manufacturing plant, you can take the essence of the concepts in to knowledge work too. I’d recommend reading this if you are seriously trying to understand more about flow.
Digital Adaptation
Paul Boag
I started reading this book as one of my clients had the author, Paul Boag, in to do a all-hands talk to aid their understanding on what digital meant to them. This is a pretty quick and easy book to read with a good all-round view of what being digital means.
I’d suggest this is a beginner’s book, as the topics are touched on and not dwelled upon and if you’ve done much reading in this space before you won’t find it terribly radical.
Having said that, as we are kicking off a refresh of this website, the part on creating a digital strategy I found useful to solidify my thinking and help convey that to the digital agency we’ve employed to do the work.
About Creativity
I read with conviction last year the book Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, which if you’ve not read, I highly suggest you do. Not only is it fascinating, but also provides lots of proven techniques you can use or adapt for your business. This blog plays to my cognitive biases and covers some of the key quotes and ideas in a summary form, so it was a lovely refresh or if you’re new to Ed Catmull, take a look.
https://getlighthouse.com/blog/ed-catmull-quotes-leadership-creativity-inc/
Dealing with more demand than there is supply
We all have to accept that there will always be things that drop off the bottom of our lists of things to do and worrying about this is not productive. Neither is saying yes and trying to start all of them. This refresher article from Forbes looks at why saying yes all the time isn’t helpful and how to set some expectations in this space.
