Category Archives: book review

How bad design led to a lost decade

First, I’m away on vacation (hence the scarce number of posts) and am consumed writing a few chapters for a couple of books that I’m contributing to – more on those in the near future I hope.
In the interim, I became profoundly depressed this morning after reading the passage below. I’m certain that history will [...]

How the Mighty Fall vs. The Black Swan

I’ve almost finished listening to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan, a book about how large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. At the same time, Tim O’Reilly caused me to stumble upon this article previewing Jim Collins’ (author of Good to Great and Built to Last) new book “How the [...]

Why Canada’s public services need faith

As I mentioned the otherday, I recently finished Thomas S. Kuhn’s classic 1962 book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” For those unfamiliar with the text, it is the book that gave us the important and oft over-used term, “paradigm shift.”
Here, in this book about how progress is made in the sciences I was completely floored [...]

Structure of Scientific Revolutions vs. The Black Swan (Journalism remix)

I’ve just finished Thomas S. Kuhn’s classic 1962 book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” For those unfamiliar with the title, it is the book that gave us the important and oft over-used term: “paradigm shift.”
I won’t pretend it was an easy to read. Written in a classic academic style, what is a fascinating topic and [...]

Reforming Government on the Globe & Mail’s Wiki

A few months ago John Ibbitson – the Globe and Mail columnist who used to cover Ottawa and now covers Washington, DC – asked me if I’d help edit the 3rd chapter of his new book, Open & Shut.
The chapter, entitled Yes, Mr. President; No, Prime Minister asks why is it that after 8 years [...]

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