Robots can’t do networking (yet). 12 takeaways on how to create and manage interpersonal relationships in the digital era


Book Description

“What counts is what’s written on your curriculum vitae, what you’ve done.” Until yesterday this was the rule that governed rising to the top in the professional world. The current job market, on the other hand, seems to be increasingly interested in the so-called soft skills, the aptitude skills that make one profile more suitable than another. The “queen” of these soft skills, the one that will allow both young people and their elders to face the exponential social and technological changes that await us, is the ability to create and maintain interpersonal and professional relationships over time. In other words: networking. The book tells a personal story in a simple, passionate and detailed way so that readers can understand the dynamics that regulate the creation of an effective network of contacts. Real cases are dissected in clear, methodological takeaways and summed up by quotes that show how the fruits of forty years can be replicated and are within the reader’s reach through training and good techniques.




Ask a Manager


Book Description

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together




Autonomous Horizons


Book Description

Dr. Greg Zacharias, former Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force (2015-18), explores next steps in autonomous systems (AS) development, fielding, and training. Rapid advances in AS development and artificial intelligence (AI) research will change how we think about machines, whether they are individual vehicle platforms or networked enterprises. The payoff will be considerable, affording the US military significant protection for aviators, greater effectiveness in employment, and unlimited opportunities for novel and disruptive concepts of operations. Autonomous Horizons: The Way Forward identifies issues and makes recommendations for the Air Force to take full advantage of this transformational technology.




Alone Together


Book Description

A groundbreaking book by one of the most important thinkers of our time shows how technology is warping our social lives and our inner ones Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends, and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But this relentless connection leads to a deep solitude. MIT professor Sherry Turkle argues that as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. Based on hundreds of interviews and with a new introduction taking us to the present day, Alone Together describes changing, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, and families.




How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age


Book Description

This new edition is an up-to-date adaptation of Carnegie's timeless prescriptions for the digital age. This book is a must-have guide for anyone who wants to find success on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and any social media format today and in the future.




Social Excellence: We Dare You


Book Description

Social Excellence is a philosophy--a lifestyle. Characterized by handshakes, deep, meaningful conversations, and heart-to-heart connections, people who choose Social Excellence understand that human connection is the key to changing the world. This book, overflowing with real-life examples of Social Excellence in action, is not a book to be read in quiet solitude. It is a book that dares the reader to engage with the people and society around them. The authors describe how to build masterful social skills, tell stories of how people have changed the world through interpersonal connection, and challenge readers to push their social comfort zones to the max through edgy Social Dares. Social Excellence: We Dare You is written to inspire community leaders, organizational members, non-profit volunteers, religious congregations, business leaders, political advocates, high-performing students, and anyone who is seeking a way to truly matter in the world.




Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World


Book Description

“Bruce Schneier’s amazing book is the best overview of privacy and security ever written.”—Clay Shirky Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who’s with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you're unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you’re thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it. The powers that surveil us do more than simply store this information. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we’re offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cybercriminals in huge data breaches. Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we’ve gained? In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He brings his bestseller up-to-date with a new preface covering the latest developments, and then shows us exactly what we can do to reform government surveillance programs, shake up surveillance-based business models, and protect our individual privacy. You'll never look at your phone, your computer, your credit cards, or even your car in the same way again.




Principles of Management


Book Description

Black & white print. Principles of Management is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the introductory course on management. This is a traditional approach to management using the leading, planning, organizing, and controlling approach. Management is a broad business discipline, and the Principles of Management course covers many management areas such as human resource management and strategic management, as well as behavioral areas such as motivation. No one individual can be an expert in all areas of management, so an additional benefit of this text is that specialists in a variety of areas have authored individual chapters.




7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change


Book Description

Change is difficult but essential—Esther Derby offers seven guidelines for change by attraction, an approach that draws people into the process so that instead of resisting change, they embrace it. Even if you don't have change management in your job description, your job involves change. Change is a given as modern organizations respond to market and technology advances, make improvements, and evolve practices to meet new challenges. This is not a simple process on any level. Often, there is no indisputable right answer, and responding requires trial and error, learning and unlearning. Whatever you choose to do, it will interact with existing policies and structures in unpredictable ways. And there is, quite simply, a natural human resistance to being told to change. Rather than creating more rigorous preconceived plans or imposing change by decree, agile software developer turned organizational change expert Esther Derby offers change by attraction, an approach that is adaptive and responsive and engages people in learning, evolving, and owning the new way. She presents a set of seven heuristics—guides to problem-solving—that empower people to achieve outcomes within broad constraints using their personal ingenuity and creativity. When you work by attraction, you give space and support for people to feel the loss that comes with change and help them see what is valuable about the future you propose. Resistance fades because people feel there is nothing to push against—only something they want to move toward. Derby's approach clears the fog to provide a new way forward that honors people and creates safety for change.




Digital Activism Decoded


Book Description

"The media has recently been abuzz with cases of citizens around the world using digital technologies to push for social and political change: from the use of Twitter to amplify protests in Iran and Moldova to the thousands of American non-profits creating Facebook accounts in the hopes of luring supporters. These stories have been published, discussed, extolled, and derided, but have not yet been viewed holistically as a new field of human endeavor. We call this field "digital activism" and its dynamics, practices, misconceptions, and possible futures are presented together for the first time in this book."--Pub. desc.