The creative juices come from life. To be mindful of all the surroundings and engage with the world in a more proactive way one pumps us with ideas.
Continue readingPost Category → Books
Book Notes: Becoming Steve Jobs — A Growth Story
“Becoming Steve Jobs” is a great book. As the authors Rick Tetzeli and Brent Schlender say, this is a growth story about Steve Jobs — how he grew from a two-person team to managing a company that has thousands of employees. There are a lot of books and articles depicting him as a complete genius and at the same time, a complete jerk. From this book, I saw his soft side, his care about his employees, friends, as well as his and others’ families.
Continue readingWhen You Come Across a Book That’s Not Worth Reading…
I wish I could get my hour back… but I can’t.
Continue readingBook Notes: Nickels and Dimes
I just finished this book written by Barbara Ehrenreich. It was about her research project how what lives were like for low wage workers in the US. I appreciate her observations and evaluations, and I think many of her evaluations are still valid even in 2015. I found how to improve people living on minimum wage is a practically complicated issue, it’s not as simple as raising minimum wage and force rent to be lower (which could potentially crash the economy), and I’m not even knowledgeable to make valid comments on it, but I believe this has to be addressed. So I’d like to share her book with you, to provoke thoughts and spark new ideas. Discussions are welcomed.
Continue readingBook Notes: Articulating Design Decisions — How to Become a Great Designer
Today, I wrapped up last bit of the great book “Articulate Design Decisions“, written by Tom Greever . It’s a great guidebook for designers, leading them to become great. Highly recommend it to any designer. It will help you push yourself to the next level.
I doodled and took notes as I read this book, read more in my article.
Continue readingBook Notes: Web And Mobile Trends 2013
If you’re interested in web and mobile trends, this is a nice quick read (by awwwards.com, free).
Continue readingBook Notes: How Pictures Work
Have you every struggled to tell a story effectively using pictures?
Think about the picture books we read when we were kids: how those vivid pictures got us involved, making us laugh or cry together with the characters. How do they make the stories so powerful?
Continue readingBook Notes: The Power of Why
I simply cannot say enough how much I love this book. I read it three times and listened to its audio version at least twice. Lots of inspiring and exciting stories. Most importantly, it reminds me to keep the root causes of my actions in mind – not just what to do or how to do something, but also why I do what I do.
Continue readingBook Notes: The Fred Factor
Indeed, everyone can be a Fred. If we live with a very positive manner, genuine to others, proud of ourselves and our work, then we can have the drive to add value to our work and lives, and this can cause a ripple-effect in the lives of people that we come into contact.
Continue readingBook Notes: REWORK
I think this is a great book to help a start-up-size company to be more creative, efficient and productive. I like the positive attitude towards product and services throughout the book – keep products simple and be speedy and genuine in business. A big portion of the book are pages of illustrations, some of them are really cute ~ They match the book style really well. Of course, although this book is great, it’s not perfect. This is a book that works for 37Signals (or maybe similar start-up style companies) but not every company. Some chapters have weak substances and so the theories look somewhat empty; And there’s a little arrogant in tone when they talk about ignoring customer’s advice or the conventional wisdom. I would say, well, this is just a collection of experience and advice from a particular company, and as always, we need to wisely filter what we learn.