Digital Visual Literacy

A conversation with David Winkelman about, what we call “Digital Visual Literacy” —  the skill of supporting conversation and remote calls with visuals to enable people to work more productively together. 

Together with David we discussed: 

  • our innate need for clarity
  • impact of visuals in communication
  • trust and rapport among meeting participants 
  • Importance of humour 
  • our online course: Visual Supercharge on Digital Visual Literacy

Listen to the conversation:

Watch the conversation:


Transcript

Bart
Welcome to the Core Concept podcast and welcome to the conversation with David Winkelman about what we call digital visual literacy, which is the skill of supporting conversations and remote calls with visuals. David has an established change manager and meeting facilitator who shares with me some of his magic that he uses to get people to work productively together.

I know David for years now, during COVID, we both recognise that all our remote conversations could be better supported with visuals. So we design an online course to help people out. We talk about that course during our conversation, among other topics such as eel recognise impact of visuals in communication, our human need for clarity, building trust among participants in meetings, and importance of humour. Together with David, I share a deep passion for tools and methods that empower people. I hope that our conversation proves that. By the way, we have used explain everything whiteboards to collaboratively exchange visuals during our talk. Therefore, for those only listening to this episode, I strongly suggest watching it instead on YouTube or another platform.

And now, I bring your mind discussion with David.

Bart:
Hi, I’m here with David Winkelman. Welcome to the podcast. Good evening, Bart. It’s always excellent to be with you. Although I should say it’s not a regular podcast, because as an expert in visual communication, and visual facilitation, you might probably want to show us a thing or two.

Yeah, yeah. David, there are few things I’d like to discuss today with you. Well, first of all, we’d like to learn from you how communication can be enhanced with the use of visuals. And this cause How can this be done remotely remote calls like this one. And that the and perhaps we could speak some more about what we have created together. But why don’t we begin from you introducing yourself, together with your background, shall we?

David:
I have been a management consultant to change management consultants in particular, and a visual facilitator for a number of years. And visual facilitation means that I can on a board or a surface of some kind, I can capture what people are saying what’s coming out of their mouth, and I can make it visual, I can create a visual tapestry in real time, so they can instantly see that I’m hearing and if we’re doing it in a group setting, everybody can see that whatever the thoughts and ideas are being captured, with nothing being lost, and then we can all work with those elements on a neutral shared a surface. So we can greatly accelerate and enhance almost any conversation or discussion. Because we have visual elements and to maintain a visual focus. I need to step back and unpack something for people because it’s not something that we normally discuss. And that is the very nature of being human beings and being thinking, conscious, often unconsciously operating creatures. So if we take a look at all the tools are that are available to us as modern human beings, tools, they’re inside us, and everything that we’ve created outside us. I would say what we start with is our mind, right? That’s like the basic tool. And so we are blessed to have two minds. One is a conscious mind. Okay, consciously pour things into. And the other one is our unconscious mind. That’s just filling up that we’re drawing from and it’s really the unconscious mind is, as most of us know, that does most of the heavy lifting. There’s so much in life that we don’t have to think about because we have unconscious minds. It’s it’s trained, you know, it’s all of our automatic, habitual functioning, all of our conditioned responses that’s automatic. You don’t have to think when we’re riding a bicycle. Our bodies just know what to do. So take the idea of these two minds and how they’re wired, how they’re set up. What we see is that our whole reality is based on being clear about what health what and how things are we and we are taking in most of our information visually, right? When we go to school, we don’t ever have to be taught how to see, or how to interpret a filter that just comes naturally. On the other hand, everything else, even speaking, certainly reading and writing, we go to school for for 15 years. So there’s a giant difference between this mechanism of seeing and the other forms of knowing, right. And so as part of being clarity seeking creatures, I think we have basically three ways of seeing things. Well, one is we see through the mechanism of our eyeballs in our sight. And, you know, light photon images are portrayed on the back of our eyes, and then we, we create meaning. The second way, is that we can visualise with things like this. We have symbols, we have words, and we have the ability to interact, and people suggest things and we design and we draw, so visualisation via representation is a huge way that we see in form reality. And then the third thing that has we have going for us as visual creatures, is that we have imagination, so we can create a thin air, there’s been a tremendous amount of research on the fact that we are clarity seeking creatures, and we need, we need those visuals, they’re essential, they’re critical to our operation. There’s some research that suggests that 75% of our reality comes in through our eyes, and is then, you know, interpreted categorised put into classifications, and our ability to see patterns which we’ve been cultivating since we opened our eyes and started looking at facial expressions. We have incredible ability to see patterns, to see details to pick out key details and to notice anomalies, for instance.

Bart
I think, that research finds is that we find things more memorable if we if we take them in through our eyes. There’s the just, it’s beyond comparison, even if you take verbal input, right, or any other in comparison to what you can pick in through your own eyes.

David
Absolutely. And there’s been further research done that suggests that when we see things, as well as when we use things, we literally have what’s called a forgetting curve, that if that if that image isn’t reinforced in some way, or we haven’t seen it, we’ll forget things in a matter of minutes.

And so you were talking about complexity earlier. And part of complexity is that we start with things that are general and conceptual and nonspecific, often invisible. And we cover a lot of this in our course. And it’s and because they’re nonspecific, or they’re invisible, or they’re conceptual, it makes it harder to visualise, if not impossible, so we have, we can attach a verbal label. But if we’re not spinning that around, and applying specific pictures to it, that conceptualization can break down in a matter of minutes. 

Bart
Was that the trick you’ve been using during those large meetings you were facilitating in the past? 

David
Absolutely. And when you say large meetings, I’m going to show you a picture, okay? Because these meetings featured a variety of methodologies and techniques with large groups of people that made it possible for these teams of people from one company. And typically they were from Fortune 100 or 500 companies to come in with the aim of developing or designing a strategic plan over a three day period, and I’m talking 50 6080 people coming together. So their time together had to be enormously valuable and have a big result. These these design sessions, as we used to call them, were very, very expensive, and sometimes they were betting the company on this group of people being able to accomplish their mission. And so the promise was that these techniques and this is

asembly could effectively accomplish six to nine months worth of work in a week’s time, or even less than a week’s time. And probably the key to that was making everything as visual as possible. So that people were always on the same page, they always have the ability to, to zoom in or out to look at the big picture, and focus in on details as well. 

Bart
I see a lot of clarity seeking creatures on that on that photo. But it gets me wonder what you mentioned before,  that your role was to lay those ideas on the board as pictures, right? Did it happen often that you asked participants to come to the board and represent something by themselves without them being scared of, you know, putting a picture on the board by themselves without your support.

David
After a while it happened. But initially, people were reticent. And that’s why they had a set of people who were skilled, so that our team of visualizers could be there on hand to do what was needed proficiently. But after a while, people got up and did it by themselves. And it was, of course, very empowering. And I think people will always remember that their first experience inside what we call an Accelerated Solutions Environment. 

Bart
Yeah, because I can imagine that’s scary to many, you know, to come to the board, just recreate something with a simple drawing. How do you deal with this? anxiety and fear?

David
Well, if you’re if you’ve got the spark of motivation in you, then you realise that it’s really critical to see this question as an empowering question. How do you see this right? Or what does this look like to you? And it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a pretty drawing, and, and or beautiful. What, what matters is that you represent something authentically for another person.

Bart
Right. But then again, people can push back and I can imagine them saying: no, I don’t do drawings!

David 
Anybody can do this. And we all know that anybody can do that. And the magic of that visual brain that I was describing earlier, is that that visual brain instantly. And of course, recognises that as a human being. So we can either leave it at that, or we can start to you know, embellish it. Yeah, it represents it symbolises a person. But again, it’s not about being an artist, right? Not at all. No, not at all. It’s about coming from here to hear that other people can share it, and interact with it, and then modify it or ask questions about it. That’s the important thing is that we’re looking at something. And that is that becomes a shared common experience. 

Bart
What is important is that this community gets created during a workshop or a meeting, where people want to share and want to participate contribute to the board, right.

David
Yeah, I think that, that requires a certain safety zone, right, that requires a certain experience or expectation that people feel safe doing that.

Bart
And so let’s talk about that, that safety factor for a moment now. Because eventually what I’d like us to do is to arrive at conditions that are essential for creating this, you know, engagement and meaningful interaction between participants.

David
It’s really psychological and emotional safety, which is social. Right? Right. So if we, if we, if we break that down and look at what makes that possible, I think sort of three things make that possible.

The first thing is that who’s  at the table? (Draws on the whiteboard) that’s very sloppy. I’m sorry.

Bart
That’s fine, we have talked about this,  it’s just-in-time drawing, that’s fine. Yes. We’re not artists here, that’s not about it. Right? 

David
Right, we have a certain amount of rapport, or things in common, we may be from the same place, or we have the same aims or goals or intended outcomes, that we share the same overall context, we’ll come back to that later. So that’s, that’s one really important thing is that we have enough rapport between us. And the second thing I would say is that is do we have a certain amount of respect for each other, okay. Which means that we mutually think, well, that person has a right to be here, or I know why that person is here. Maybe I respect your skills, and you respect my skills, or respect each other’s time, there has to be that mutuality. Because that’s going to lead moment by moment by moment, layer by layer, action by action to the third, the third piece, which is trust, which is as, as we know, it’s a very delicate, fragile condition, trust, we, we do build that moment, by moment, and it can be erased in moments. And so I think the thing that we want to be aware of is the thing that erases trust or that undermines trust, is something we could call judgement, or specifically negative judgement. Which is, you know, criticising, making something wrong, dismissing it, not not being accepting of it. And when it comes to people representing things on the board, on a common space, or in a common Canvas, we need to be very open and very fluid and very non judgmental and accepting of whatever people do to encourage that trust, and therefore, that social and psychological safety. And there’s a lot of ways to do that. I have to laugh at myself a lot. That also is an element of creating trust and psychological safety is that we’re willing to be human, and make mistakes, and laugh at ourselves and be spontaneous, and not be constrained and rigid, because that’s not going to help you at all. But she uses humour a lot, right? During those meetings, also to help yourself building this safety. 

Bart
Tell us some more how you do that? 

David
Well, I think it’s sometimes humour but not necessarily making a joke. It’s being light. It’s being spontaneous. It’s being in the moment, you know, fluid with people so that you can grab a moment when it occurs. And Lighten up, you know, who doesn’t appreciate laughter?

We even have a diagram. Yes, that comes out of a book. And you know that diagram by heart? 

Bart
I can try to recreate it quickly. So it’s that you have an I’m going to do that with just my finger. Right? On the opposite side, you have the anchor, which represents the forces of gravity, and on the other side, you have a balloon, which represents what we call lightness, lightness, the levity. So you can offset the weight of the world, and what have you, with a bit of sense of humour that we call levity. And it’s actually a diagram that we took from the book “Humor, seriously”. . It’s a good one, isn’t it? Yes.

David
And I love how you got the movement in here as well. It shows how phenomenal these these tools are. 

Bart

Let’s talk about it. Because so far, we spoke about the importance of visuals during regular meetings. But what about those remote conversations like the one we have now? 

David
I think it’s always appropriate to start with a big picture or to seven context. Make this big picture. more clear. Yeah. When we start with a big picture, particularly because everybody understands a map, we understand the destination. And if we start using the tools right away, and we get into the visualisation, then it leaves less to wonder about because we know where people are going, and where they’re coming from. We don’t have to do such a huge job of interpreting and wondering, why is this meaningful to me? Why how is this relevant? How am I going to use this? We can get to those key questions faster when we show people the big picture, and we show them what our destination is in that big picture. 

Bart
So in a way, you’re creating a map for a conversation, right?

David
Yeah, because we, we all understand maps, they’re part of the toolset, right? As clarity seeking creatures. And whether it’s a map, or a spreadsheet, or a diagram, we can make sense of something faster. Because of our pattern recognition rock and make sense of something faster, we can retain it more meaningfully, we can classify we can do so much more, when things are in visual form. Right. And that isn’t to exclude anything verbal. I mean, I always need somebody to tell me, you know, here we are over here. Because it could take a while to find out. But if somebody says we’re over here, or that’s our destination, and here’s where we’re coming from, then I can zoom right in. I mean, sometimes figuratively, sometimes, literally. And I could see all the detail in between. And that builds credibility and trust. And it helps people move, get forward faster. Well, a lot more momentum can be built that way. 

Bart
Being devil’s advocate, I’d say you know, you’re a pro, and you know how to use those tools, and you’re very proficient, creating or recreating something on the board during a call like this, but others might not be so good with their computers or tablets they’re using during the conversation, and how do you engage them? So they’re not only passively taking in information during the call, but also contribute to the board?

David
Well, if we start with, you know, we start with that, that question of what does that look like to you? Right? That encourages people to either represent something for themselves, even if it’s simple as as, as writing a word. Because we all can do that, right? And we can all create a circle, right? We can all create a triangle, when we put these things together, we can all draw a line.

With these basics, we continue to ask the question, what does that look like to you? Okay, what’s your big picture? What are the elements that make up what you think of are the conditions for this journey, let’s say, right, you know, part of what makes us human going back to clarity seeking creatures that we are, we’d love to tell stories, we love to make things up, we love to provide ourselves with explanations. And to that degree, we need those stories. They help explain our, our world and our behaviour and what’s happening when we can’t always see what’s happening. So we can fill a board very, very fast once we operate on the basis of I want to hear from everybody, we need to hear from everybody, even if all you’re doing is highlighting a word and saying yeah, I agree with that. It’s easier to do.

Bart
So when you are with someone in the same room and you’re using a napkin it’s easier than using computers or tablets. With them it’s a little bit more difficult. So how those skills can be learned telling me, Davi?

David
I think you’re hinting at the course that we created, called, called Visual Supercharge

Bart
Yes, yes, we did. So tell us about it? 

David
Well, this course is only four and a half hours long, roughly in length. It’s divided into 17 really easy to watch episodes. And it’s a it’s a demonstration and exploration, something like what people saw here today, of all these concepts and the tools and the skills and various situations that we suggest the tools and skills can be applied to because really it’s all about application. You know, the tools by themselves won’t do anything for you. The skills have to be applied to real world challenging situations like how can our meetings be more engaging, more productive, more, more fun, more creative. Those are real challenges, because we’re all annoyed, frustrated by a meeting or a conversation, even that is unproductive, and doesn’t really allow a deeper authentic connection, where we’re just maybe going through the motions and throwing out a lot of terminology and a lot of concepts. And we’re not fully tracking with each other. And that, you know, that that ability to follow along and get somewhere is really important.

And if we don’t feel that at the end of a conversation, we say to ourselves, Well, that was a waste of time. Yeah. And when we do start someplace and end up in a different place, and we feel like we’ve made progress, we think, and we feel that was great.

Bart
What I like about the course is that it was created remotely. The entire course we it’s, it’s something we recorded over the course of a few months, without even meet each other. 

David
We certainly didn’t share our geography. We clearly aren’t the same age, you speak three languages I speak one. There were a lot of things that were fortunately we shared English. And I appreciate the fact that English is your third round 

Bart
And we share language of visuals. 

David
That’s what we shared, we share this deep passion for for using visuals, but I think was I think it’s also a deep passion for and I’m just gonna write that word. Uh huh. For empowering people. We can look at the visuals but  I think it’s the empowerment that comes to people when they use this ability that we have — our ability to see to visualise and to imagine amounts to almost a superpower. It is under utilised. And I think we both feel that. 

Bart
And  I think you’re right, and that the report is the key word here. So yes, we just decided at some point that we need to do this, we need to share what we know about the techniques, the tools, the ways methods and record that for others to use. So here’s the address — dvl.expert

If you’d like if you’re interested in the course that DVL dot expert for you the courses. That’s the title visual supercharge online course. Because as you just said, we think of using visuals as a form of super power. 

David 
Yeah. So join us, share a canvas, let that spark come into you. Because that spark, when you’re empowered, will probably change your ability to become even more effective influencer. 

Bart
Right, David, thanks for sharing your thoughts on that topic. And it was great not only to listen to you, but also to see your thoughts laid out on this board. So thank you one more time. 

David
Well, you’re welcome 

Bart 
It was great to work with you on that course. 

David 
For us it’s play. And that’s really what we want. Everyone listening to feel like this power is meant to be explored and experimented with and, and, and use as much as possible. 

Bart
But shouldn’t conversation really be more playful? It’s easier to convey your points that way don’t you to think. Yeah, so we encourage you trying that and let us know what you think. But for the time being. Thanks, David, for sharing your thoughts with us. 

David
You’re entirely welcome

Resources

Here are the resources we discussed during our conversation:

  • A Thousand Brains
    Jeff Hawkins and his team discovered that the brain uses maplike structures to build a model of the world-not just one model, but hundreds of thousands of models of everything we know, and the origin of high-level thought
  • Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life
    “The ultimate guide to using the magical power of funny as a tool for leadership and a force for good.”—Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author
  • The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
    How computer scientists and philosophers are defining the biggest question of our time - how will we create intelligent machines that will improve our lives rather than complicate or even destroy them?
  • Data teams
    How to integrate data teams into organization in an effective way, enabling executive data science practices.
  • Promiscuous Knowledge: Information, Image, and Other Truth Games in History
    An account of the cultural and intellectual history of how Americans have lived with image and information since XXI century. It blends historical synthesis with insightful orienting narratives of eras, analyzing particular dimensions of them.
  • The Evolution of Knowledge: Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene
    A grand narrative of human history in which knowledge with is multiple facets serves as a critical factor of cultural evolution.
  • How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now
    An illuminating dive into the latest science on our brain's remarkable learning abilities and the potential of the machines we program to imitate them
  • The Next Enlightenment
    The Next Enlightenment argues that most of humanity’s problems are the result of a limited level of consciousness. It is both a political manifesto and a practical manual on how to create social conditions that will allow each of us to achieve our true purpose
  • The Study of Language
    Introduction to the study of language, its origins along with linguistic relativity, cognitive and social categories.
  • Zero to One
    In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things. Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1.
  • The Creative Thinking Handbook: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Problem Solving in Business
    Based on long-term research and testing of the creative thinking process, The Creative Thinking Handbook helps to generate more ideas and find brilliant solutions for any professional challenge.
  • Strategic Intuition
    William Duggan has conducted pioneering research on strategic intuition and for the past three years has taught a popular course at Columbia Business School on the subject. He now gives us this eye-opening book that shows how strategic intuition lies at the heart of great achievements throughout human history.
  • Make Yourself Clear
    Make Yourself Clear explains the many parallels between teaching and business and offer companies, both large and small, concrete advice for building the teaching capacity of their salespeople, leaders, service professionals, and trainers.
  • Skin in the Game
    "Skin in the Game” provides a meta guide to risk exposure and how the fragility works. It’s not so much exploration of strategies for dealing with uncertainty, it’s more of a deep intellectual dive into origins of thinking about risks and its impact on politics, businesses, belief systems - across different magnitudes of scale.
  • The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation
    An insightful exploration of the relationship between technological advances and work, from preindustrial society through the Computer Revolution.
  • Data Politics: Worlds, Subjects, Rights
    The book explores how data has acquired such an important capacity . Expert international contributors consider political questions about data and the ways it provokes subjects to govern themselves by making rights claims.
  • Theory of the Image
    The image has been understood in many ways, but it is rarely understood to be fundamentally in motion. The current „Age of Image” author calls a „Copernican revolution in our time”. Theory of the Image offers the first kinetic history of the Western art tradition.
  • Superminds
    Superminds shows that instead of fearing the rise of artificial intelligence we should be focusing on what we can achieve by working with computers – because together we will change the world.
  • The Oxford Handbook of Group Creativity and Innovation
    The book covers recent theoretical, empirical, and practical developments that provide a solid basis for the practice of collaborative innovation
  • The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity
    The handbook introduces creativity scholarship by summarising its history, major theories and assessments, how creativity develops across the lifespan, and suggestions for improving creativity.
  • Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
    How our genes affect not only our bodies and behaviors, but also the ways in which we make societies, ones that are surprisingly similar worldwide. A synthesis of history, philosophy, anthropology, genetics, sociology, economics, epidemiology, statistics, and more
  • The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
    Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues that the left brain makes for a wonderful servant, while the right side takes the position of the more reliable and insightful master.
  • Possible Minds on AI
    Intellectual impresario, John Brockman, assembles twenty-five of the most important scientific minds, for an unparalleled round-table examination about the mind, thinking, intelligence and what it means to be human.
  • Surveillance Capitalism
    The book delivers an abundance of information, insights, and counsel on, what Shoshana calls, the darkening of the digital age. It is about the challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, and un unprecedented new form of power.
  • Humanomics
    Smith and Wilson show how Adam Smith's model of sociality can re-humanize twenty-first century economics by undergirding it with sentiments, fellow feeling, and a sense of propriety - the stuff of which human relationships are built.
  • Team Human
    Douglas Rushkoff wrote this book to help as many people as possible who now struggle in the world of today. It feels as if civilization itself were on the brink, and that we lack the collective willpower and coordination necessary to address issues of the very survival of our species." He then asserts, "It doesn't have to be this way."
  • When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures
    A set of practical strategies to embrace differences and work successfully across increasingly diverse business cultures. Publication coming from a chairman of an international institute of cross-cultural training with offices in over 30 countries and founder of the quarterly magazine Cross Culture
  • AI superpowers
    On how China caught AI fever and implemented government goals (with benchmarks) for 2020, 2025 in an attempt to become the world center of AI innovation by 2030.
  • Living in a Real-Time World: 6 Capabilities to Prepare Us for an Unimaginable Future
    We have less and less time to think, less and less time to get in sync with what's happening. We cannot trust conventional wisdom to guide us. The book explores explores six conversational capabilities that we can cultivate to navigate uncertainty
  • Visual Consulting
    Visual Consulting: Designing & Leading Change shows how visual practice can combine with dialogue and change methods to get more creative and sustainable results. The practices can be applied to organizational and diverse, cross-boundary consulting projects.
  • Postmodern Theory and Progressive Politics
    the postmodern moment was a necessary one, or will have been if we rise to the occasion to arrive at a new and more textured humanism.
  • The book of Why
    The subject of causation has preoccupied philosophers at least since Aristotle. The absence, however, of an accepted scientific approach to analyzing cause and effect is not merely of historical or theoretical interest. The book covers how understanding causality has revolutionized science so far and will revolutionize AI.
  • The Meaning Revolution
    Bringing together economics and conflict resolution, counselling and mindfulness, Kofman provides a leadership framework that is counterintuitive to the regular MBA practices but based on a very firm foundation - the meaning.
  • Applied Artificial Intelligence: A Handbook For Business Leaders
    A practical guide for business leaders looking to get value from the adoption of machine learning technology.
  • Measure What Matters: OKRs
    One of the best books on management, tasks, goals and their measurement. Full of stories from successful companies (like Google).
  • Data Science
    Data science primer explaining its evolution, relation to machine learning, current uses, data infrastructure issues, and ethical challenges.
  • Cultural Evolution People’s Motivations are Changing, and Reshaping the World
    Regarded as one of the most important works in the social sciences in decades, Cultural Evolution argues that people's values and behavior are shaped by the degree to which survival is secure.
  • Reinventing Capitalism in the age of Big Data
    Data is replacing money as the driver of market behavior. Big finance and big companies will be replaced by small groups and individual actors who make markets instead of making things
  • Enlightenment Now
    Steven Pinker argues that humanism (a reasoned commitment to maximizing human flourishing), science, and democracy have resulted in substantial, measurable human progress over the last 500 years.
  • Human-in-the-loop Cyber-Physical Systems
    An essential primer on a rapidly emerging Internet-of-Things concept, focusing on human-centric applications. An indispensable resource for researchers and app developers eager to explore HiTL concepts and include them in their designs.
  • The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life
    The Qualified Self offers a new perspective on how social media users construct and distribute 'self-portraits' through media technologies. A truly original revision of 'mediated memories' and a much-needed update to the age of connectivity.
  • The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
    The book brings together research on various topics of limited reach that, when combined, speak to the outrageous gall of the mind in recreating reality to its own liking, and then covering its tracks.
  • The Quantified Self in Precarity: Work, Technology and What Counts
    Scientific management asked us to be efficient. Now, we are asked to be agile. But what does this mean for the everyday lives we lead?
  • Verbal and Visual Communication in Early English Texts
    The book investigate how visual and material features of early English books, documents, and other artefacts support - or potentially contradict - the linguistic features
  • No ego
    The book challenges the traditional beliefs on employee engagement and traditionalist leadership. It explains why it is time to move on and take on alternative takes on employee engagement.
  • Visual Thinking: Empowering People and Organisations through Visual Collaboration
    The book provides an informative, easy to follow and fun introduction into the basics of visual thinking and drawing. It is unique by applying these visual thinking and drawing techniques to everyday business settings.
  • The Cultural Dimension of Global Business
    The book provide an essential foundation for understanding the impact of culture on global business and global business on culture.
  • The Art of Philosophy: Visual Thinking in Europe from the Late Renaissance to the Early Enlightenment
    Delving into the intersections between artistic images and philosophical knowledge in Europe from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, The Art of Philosophy shows that the making and study of visual art functioned as important methods of philosophical thinking and instruction.
  • How to Take Smart Notes
    The Take Smart Notes principle is based on established psychological insight and draws from a tried and tested note-taking-technique.
  • From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
    In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett builds on recent discoveries from biology and computer science to show, step by step, how a comprehending mind could, in fact, have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection.
  • Cross-Cultural Dialogues: 74 Brief Encounters with Cultural Difference
    A collection of dialogues on interpreting conversations from the founder of intercultural communication training and consulting firm. 1998 text revised as second edition
  • The Real Internet of Things
    The book provides a view into our future reality. The amount of data we have today and will have in the future will be leveraged to augment our daily lives.
  • Whiteboard: Business Models that Inspire Action
    Hand-drawn by the author, this creative collection of illustrations, inspirational quotes, and savvy business models shares one purpose: to spark conversations and evolve companie
  • Utopia for Realists
    The book provides set of new utopian ideas, like the elimination of poverty and the creation of the fifteen-hour workweek, can become a reality in our lifetime. Being unrealistic and unreasonable can in fact make the impossible inevitable
  • Forgetting Machines: Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe
    The book investigates the evolution of scholarly practices and the transformation of cognitive habits in the early modern age with the use of technology
  • Small Giants
    Wonderful book about belief systems and how bringing in personal beliefs and values into a business can positively affect the success and impact of businesses.
  • Self-tracking
    What happens when people turn their everyday experience into data: an introduction to the essential ideas and key challenges of self-tracking.
  • Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation
    An illustrated version that conveys the main ideas of the original book "Reinventing Organizations" that shares many of its real-life stories in a lively, engaging way.
  • The Qualified Self
    The Qualified Self offers an excellent overview of the breadth and depth of issues related to self-tracking cultures.
  • Introducing Multimodality
    An accessible introduction to multimodality. Illuminates the potential of multimodal research for understanding the ways in which people communicate. Key concepts and methods in various domains while learning how to engage critically with the notion of multimodality.
  • e-Learning and the Science of Instruction
    4th edition of essential reference for evidence-based guidelines for designing, developing and evaluating asynchronous and synchronous e-Learning for workforce training and educational courseware.
  • The Master Algorithm
    A comprehensive overview of the entire field of Machine Learning that is better than most of the book on the topic. Author also explores an idea, related to his scientific research, of a master algorithm which could explain everything given enough data.
  • Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy
  • Nonviolent Communication
    If "violent" means acting in ways that result in hurt or harm, then judging others, bullying could indeed be called "violent communication." Nonviolent Communication is the integration of four things: Consciousness, Language, Communication, Means of influence, Empathic Connection and Sharing of resources so everyone is able to benefit
  • Data-ism: The Revolution Transforming Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, and Almost Everything Else
    Data-ism is about this next phase, in which vast, Internet-scale data sets are used for discovery and prediction in virtually every field
  • Unflattening
    Nick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge. A dissertation in a form of a comic book.
  • The Oxford Handbook of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
    The publication integrate three interrelated literatures on Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. Chapters were provided by the leading scholars in these research areas.
  • The Nonhuman Turn (21st Century Studies)
    The first book to name, characterize and consolidate a wide array of current critical, theoretical, and philosophical approaches in decentering the human in favor of a concert for the nonhuman in the humanities and social sciences.
  • Spatial Semiotics and Spatial Mental Models: Figure-Ground Asymmetries in Language
    The interplay between culture through language and practices presents new insights in the importance of combining cognitive semantics with cognitive anthropology
  • Seeing Ourselves Through Technology
    A goldmine of historical and contemporary case studies with which readers are invited to visualise the complexity of self-representation practices and artefacts.
  • The Cambridge Handbook of Cultural-Historical Psychology
    The volume systematically presents cultural-historical psychology as an integrative/holistic developmental science of mind, brain, and culture.
  • The Philosophy of Perception: Phenomenology and Image Theory
    If perception is real - what this reality means for a subject? Wiesing's methods chart a markedly new path in contemporary perception theory. As part of the argument, he provides a succinct but comprehensive survey of the philosophy of images.
  • The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning
    A comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of research and theory in the field, with a focus on computer-based learning.
  • Superintelligence
    In the longer run biological human brains might cease to be the predominant nexus of Earthly intelligence. It is possible that one day we may be able to create ʺsuperintelligenceʺ: a general intelligence that vastly outperforms the best human brains in every significant cognitive domain.
  • The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business
    A book that illustrates the misunderstandings that can arise from clashing cultural assumptions
  • The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge
    A timeline of capsule biographies on key figures in the development of the tree diagram containing more that two hundred tree diagrams
  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
    Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup
  • Reinventing Organizations
    Probably the most influential management book of this decade, inspiring to take a radical leap and adopt a whole different set of management principles and practices.
  • Crossing the Chasm
    Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers. The book illustrates existence of a vast chasm between the early adopters and the early majority in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle
  • The Second Machine Age
    The explanation of the technolgy revolution that is overturning the world’s economies.
  • The Sketchnote Handbook: the illustrated guide to visual note taking
    On how to incorporate sketchnoting techniques into your note-taking process--regardless of your artistic abilities--to help you better process the information that you are hearing and seeing through drawing, and to actually have fun taking notes.
  • Mapping Scientific Frontiers
    An interdisciplinary examination of the history and the state of the art of the quest for visualizing scientific knowledge and the dynamics of its development.
  • Managing Information Quality: Increasing the Value of Information in Knowledge-intensive Products and Processes
    The book examines ways in which the quality of information can be improved in knowledge-intensive processes (such as on-line communication, strategy, product development, or consulting
  • Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs
    Using a list of more than 2,000 successful innovations the book explores these insights to diagnose patterns of innovation, and to evaluate how firms are performing against competitors. The framework has proven to be one of the most enduring and useful ways to start process of transformation.
  • Who Owns the Future?
    How the concentration of data and distribution of risk by those who own the data creates a significant risk to our capitalist based economy and over the long term to the very companies that create the situation.
  • Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think
    Big data is about predictions. Academic Mayer-Schönberger and editor Cukier consider big data the new ability to crunch vast collections of information and draw conclusions from it.
  • Turing’s Cathedral
    On how the digital universe exploded in the aftermath of the WWII, the nature of digital computers, an how code took over the world by storm.
  • Outliers
    An intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?
  • Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners
    Visible Thinking is a research-based approach to teaching thinking, begun at Harvard's Project Zero, that develops students' thinking dispositions, while at the same time deepening their understanding of the topics they study.
  • Student Successes With Thinking Maps
    The research, experiences from the field, vignettes, and work. A book that links research and practice and shows the true impact of a specific instructional approach on student learning
  • Imagery and Text: A Dual Coding Theory of Reading and Writing
    The first book to take a systematic theoretical approach to all of the central issues of literacy, including decoding, comprehension, and memory
  • Your Life, Uploaded
    The book explains authors' thinking on Mincrosoft MyLifeBits project predating the "Quantified Self" and "Internet of Things" movements
  • New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics
    Collection of essays on new thinking about matter and processes of materialization centered around reworking older materialist traditions, contemporary theoretical debates, and advances in scientific knowledge to address pressing ethical and political challenges.
  • The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization
    The introduction to Senge's carefully integrated corporate framework, which is structured around "personal mastery," "mental models," "shared vision," and "team learning."
  • The Race between Education and Technology
    A masterful work by two leading economists on some of the biggest issues in economics: economic growth, human capital, and inequality. There are fundamental insights in the book, not just about our past but also our future.
  • Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Economic Growth
    A comprehensive perspective on the micro- and macroeconomics of innovation. The book breaks new ground in identifying and analyzing the key ingredients driving economic growth.
  • Universal Principles of Design
    The Universal Principles of Design is a resource to increase cross-disciplinary knowledge and understanding of design. The concepts broadly referred to as “principles,” consist of laws, guidelines, human biases, and general design considerations.
  • Artificial Presence: Philosophical Studies in Image Theory
    A collection of studies on the image offers both a case for the importance of image studies and a broad introduction to this area of philosophical enquiry in which author implies that "the image opens up a view on reality liberated from the constraints of physics"
  • Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge
    The book recognizes that the future of economic well being in today's knowledge and information society rests upon the effectiveness of schools and corporations to empower their people to be more effective learners and knowledge creators.
  • The Ego Tunnel
    The Ego Tunnel provides a stunningly original take on the conscious self, explaining it as the content of a model created by our brain.


< Back to conversations

XV MBA International @WAB

Materials for XV MBA International students

Thank you for participating in my lecture on International Business. It was great to spend time with you and exchange!

Here are materials from our meetings, recommended books we spoke about during the lecture:

  • A Thousand Brains
    Jeff Hawkins and his team discovered that the brain uses maplike structures to build a model of the world-not just one model, but hundreds of thousands of models of everything we know, and the origin of high-level thought
  • Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life
    “The ultimate guide to using the magical power of funny as a tool for leadership and a force for good.”—Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author
  • The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
    How computer scientists and philosophers are defining the biggest question of our time - how will we create intelligent machines that will improve our lives rather than complicate or even destroy them?
  • Data teams
    How to integrate data teams into organization in an effective way, enabling executive data science practices.
  • Promiscuous Knowledge: Information, Image, and Other Truth Games in History
    An account of the cultural and intellectual history of how Americans have lived with image and information since XXI century. It blends historical synthesis with insightful orienting narratives of eras, analyzing particular dimensions of them.
  • The Evolution of Knowledge: Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene
    A grand narrative of human history in which knowledge with is multiple facets serves as a critical factor of cultural evolution.
  • How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now
    An illuminating dive into the latest science on our brain's remarkable learning abilities and the potential of the machines we program to imitate them
  • The Next Enlightenment
    The Next Enlightenment argues that most of humanity’s problems are the result of a limited level of consciousness. It is both a political manifesto and a practical manual on how to create social conditions that will allow each of us to achieve our true purpose
  • The Study of Language
    Introduction to the study of language, its origins along with linguistic relativity, cognitive and social categories.
  • Zero to One
    In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things. Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1.
  • The Creative Thinking Handbook: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Problem Solving in Business
    Based on long-term research and testing of the creative thinking process, The Creative Thinking Handbook helps to generate more ideas and find brilliant solutions for any professional challenge.
  • Strategic Intuition
    William Duggan has conducted pioneering research on strategic intuition and for the past three years has taught a popular course at Columbia Business School on the subject. He now gives us this eye-opening book that shows how strategic intuition lies at the heart of great achievements throughout human history.
  • Make Yourself Clear
    Make Yourself Clear explains the many parallels between teaching and business and offer companies, both large and small, concrete advice for building the teaching capacity of their salespeople, leaders, service professionals, and trainers.
  • Skin in the Game
    "Skin in the Game” provides a meta guide to risk exposure and how the fragility works. It’s not so much exploration of strategies for dealing with uncertainty, it’s more of a deep intellectual dive into origins of thinking about risks and its impact on politics, businesses, belief systems - across different magnitudes of scale.
  • The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation
    An insightful exploration of the relationship between technological advances and work, from preindustrial society through the Computer Revolution.
  • Data Politics: Worlds, Subjects, Rights
    The book explores how data has acquired such an important capacity . Expert international contributors consider political questions about data and the ways it provokes subjects to govern themselves by making rights claims.
  • Theory of the Image
    The image has been understood in many ways, but it is rarely understood to be fundamentally in motion. The current „Age of Image” author calls a „Copernican revolution in our time”. Theory of the Image offers the first kinetic history of the Western art tradition.
  • Superminds
    Superminds shows that instead of fearing the rise of artificial intelligence we should be focusing on what we can achieve by working with computers – because together we will change the world.
  • The Oxford Handbook of Group Creativity and Innovation
    The book covers recent theoretical, empirical, and practical developments that provide a solid basis for the practice of collaborative innovation
  • The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity
    The handbook introduces creativity scholarship by summarising its history, major theories and assessments, how creativity develops across the lifespan, and suggestions for improving creativity.
  • Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
    How our genes affect not only our bodies and behaviors, but also the ways in which we make societies, ones that are surprisingly similar worldwide. A synthesis of history, philosophy, anthropology, genetics, sociology, economics, epidemiology, statistics, and more
  • The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
    Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues that the left brain makes for a wonderful servant, while the right side takes the position of the more reliable and insightful master.
  • Possible Minds on AI
    Intellectual impresario, John Brockman, assembles twenty-five of the most important scientific minds, for an unparalleled round-table examination about the mind, thinking, intelligence and what it means to be human.
  • Surveillance Capitalism
    The book delivers an abundance of information, insights, and counsel on, what Shoshana calls, the darkening of the digital age. It is about the challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, and un unprecedented new form of power.
  • Humanomics
    Smith and Wilson show how Adam Smith's model of sociality can re-humanize twenty-first century economics by undergirding it with sentiments, fellow feeling, and a sense of propriety - the stuff of which human relationships are built.
  • Team Human
    Douglas Rushkoff wrote this book to help as many people as possible who now struggle in the world of today. It feels as if civilization itself were on the brink, and that we lack the collective willpower and coordination necessary to address issues of the very survival of our species." He then asserts, "It doesn't have to be this way."
  • When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures
    A set of practical strategies to embrace differences and work successfully across increasingly diverse business cultures. Publication coming from a chairman of an international institute of cross-cultural training with offices in over 30 countries and founder of the quarterly magazine Cross Culture
  • AI superpowers
    On how China caught AI fever and implemented government goals (with benchmarks) for 2020, 2025 in an attempt to become the world center of AI innovation by 2030.
  • Living in a Real-Time World: 6 Capabilities to Prepare Us for an Unimaginable Future
    We have less and less time to think, less and less time to get in sync with what's happening. We cannot trust conventional wisdom to guide us. The book explores explores six conversational capabilities that we can cultivate to navigate uncertainty
  • Visual Consulting
    Visual Consulting: Designing & Leading Change shows how visual practice can combine with dialogue and change methods to get more creative and sustainable results. The practices can be applied to organizational and diverse, cross-boundary consulting projects.
  • Postmodern Theory and Progressive Politics
    the postmodern moment was a necessary one, or will have been if we rise to the occasion to arrive at a new and more textured humanism.
  • The book of Why
    The subject of causation has preoccupied philosophers at least since Aristotle. The absence, however, of an accepted scientific approach to analyzing cause and effect is not merely of historical or theoretical interest. The book covers how understanding causality has revolutionized science so far and will revolutionize AI.
  • The Meaning Revolution
    Bringing together economics and conflict resolution, counselling and mindfulness, Kofman provides a leadership framework that is counterintuitive to the regular MBA practices but based on a very firm foundation - the meaning.
  • Applied Artificial Intelligence: A Handbook For Business Leaders
    A practical guide for business leaders looking to get value from the adoption of machine learning technology.
  • Measure What Matters: OKRs
    One of the best books on management, tasks, goals and their measurement. Full of stories from successful companies (like Google).
  • Data Science
    Data science primer explaining its evolution, relation to machine learning, current uses, data infrastructure issues, and ethical challenges.
  • Cultural Evolution People’s Motivations are Changing, and Reshaping the World
    Regarded as one of the most important works in the social sciences in decades, Cultural Evolution argues that people's values and behavior are shaped by the degree to which survival is secure.
  • Reinventing Capitalism in the age of Big Data
    Data is replacing money as the driver of market behavior. Big finance and big companies will be replaced by small groups and individual actors who make markets instead of making things
  • Enlightenment Now
    Steven Pinker argues that humanism (a reasoned commitment to maximizing human flourishing), science, and democracy have resulted in substantial, measurable human progress over the last 500 years.
  • Human-in-the-loop Cyber-Physical Systems
    An essential primer on a rapidly emerging Internet-of-Things concept, focusing on human-centric applications. An indispensable resource for researchers and app developers eager to explore HiTL concepts and include them in their designs.
  • The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life
    The Qualified Self offers a new perspective on how social media users construct and distribute 'self-portraits' through media technologies. A truly original revision of 'mediated memories' and a much-needed update to the age of connectivity.
  • The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
    The book brings together research on various topics of limited reach that, when combined, speak to the outrageous gall of the mind in recreating reality to its own liking, and then covering its tracks.
  • The Quantified Self in Precarity: Work, Technology and What Counts
    Scientific management asked us to be efficient. Now, we are asked to be agile. But what does this mean for the everyday lives we lead?
  • Verbal and Visual Communication in Early English Texts
    The book investigate how visual and material features of early English books, documents, and other artefacts support - or potentially contradict - the linguistic features
  • No ego
    The book challenges the traditional beliefs on employee engagement and traditionalist leadership. It explains why it is time to move on and take on alternative takes on employee engagement.
  • Visual Thinking: Empowering People and Organisations through Visual Collaboration
    The book provides an informative, easy to follow and fun introduction into the basics of visual thinking and drawing. It is unique by applying these visual thinking and drawing techniques to everyday business settings.
  • The Cultural Dimension of Global Business
    The book provide an essential foundation for understanding the impact of culture on global business and global business on culture.
  • The Art of Philosophy: Visual Thinking in Europe from the Late Renaissance to the Early Enlightenment
    Delving into the intersections between artistic images and philosophical knowledge in Europe from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, The Art of Philosophy shows that the making and study of visual art functioned as important methods of philosophical thinking and instruction.
  • How to Take Smart Notes
    The Take Smart Notes principle is based on established psychological insight and draws from a tried and tested note-taking-technique.
  • From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
    In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett builds on recent discoveries from biology and computer science to show, step by step, how a comprehending mind could, in fact, have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection.
  • Cross-Cultural Dialogues: 74 Brief Encounters with Cultural Difference
    A collection of dialogues on interpreting conversations from the founder of intercultural communication training and consulting firm. 1998 text revised as second edition
  • The Real Internet of Things
    The book provides a view into our future reality. The amount of data we have today and will have in the future will be leveraged to augment our daily lives.
  • Whiteboard: Business Models that Inspire Action
    Hand-drawn by the author, this creative collection of illustrations, inspirational quotes, and savvy business models shares one purpose: to spark conversations and evolve companie
  • Utopia for Realists
    The book provides set of new utopian ideas, like the elimination of poverty and the creation of the fifteen-hour workweek, can become a reality in our lifetime. Being unrealistic and unreasonable can in fact make the impossible inevitable
  • Forgetting Machines: Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe
    The book investigates the evolution of scholarly practices and the transformation of cognitive habits in the early modern age with the use of technology
  • Small Giants
    Wonderful book about belief systems and how bringing in personal beliefs and values into a business can positively affect the success and impact of businesses.
  • Self-tracking
    What happens when people turn their everyday experience into data: an introduction to the essential ideas and key challenges of self-tracking.
  • Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation
    An illustrated version that conveys the main ideas of the original book "Reinventing Organizations" that shares many of its real-life stories in a lively, engaging way.
  • The Qualified Self
    The Qualified Self offers an excellent overview of the breadth and depth of issues related to self-tracking cultures.
  • Introducing Multimodality
    An accessible introduction to multimodality. Illuminates the potential of multimodal research for understanding the ways in which people communicate. Key concepts and methods in various domains while learning how to engage critically with the notion of multimodality.
  • e-Learning and the Science of Instruction
    4th edition of essential reference for evidence-based guidelines for designing, developing and evaluating asynchronous and synchronous e-Learning for workforce training and educational courseware.
  • The Master Algorithm
    A comprehensive overview of the entire field of Machine Learning that is better than most of the book on the topic. Author also explores an idea, related to his scientific research, of a master algorithm which could explain everything given enough data.
  • Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy
  • Nonviolent Communication
    If "violent" means acting in ways that result in hurt or harm, then judging others, bullying could indeed be called "violent communication." Nonviolent Communication is the integration of four things: Consciousness, Language, Communication, Means of influence, Empathic Connection and Sharing of resources so everyone is able to benefit
  • Data-ism: The Revolution Transforming Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, and Almost Everything Else
    Data-ism is about this next phase, in which vast, Internet-scale data sets are used for discovery and prediction in virtually every field
  • Unflattening
    Nick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge. A dissertation in a form of a comic book.
  • The Oxford Handbook of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
    The publication integrate three interrelated literatures on Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. Chapters were provided by the leading scholars in these research areas.
  • The Nonhuman Turn (21st Century Studies)
    The first book to name, characterize and consolidate a wide array of current critical, theoretical, and philosophical approaches in decentering the human in favor of a concert for the nonhuman in the humanities and social sciences.
  • Spatial Semiotics and Spatial Mental Models: Figure-Ground Asymmetries in Language
    The interplay between culture through language and practices presents new insights in the importance of combining cognitive semantics with cognitive anthropology
  • Seeing Ourselves Through Technology
    A goldmine of historical and contemporary case studies with which readers are invited to visualise the complexity of self-representation practices and artefacts.
  • The Cambridge Handbook of Cultural-Historical Psychology
    The volume systematically presents cultural-historical psychology as an integrative/holistic developmental science of mind, brain, and culture.
  • The Philosophy of Perception: Phenomenology and Image Theory
    If perception is real - what this reality means for a subject? Wiesing's methods chart a markedly new path in contemporary perception theory. As part of the argument, he provides a succinct but comprehensive survey of the philosophy of images.
  • The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning
    A comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of research and theory in the field, with a focus on computer-based learning.
  • Superintelligence
    In the longer run biological human brains might cease to be the predominant nexus of Earthly intelligence. It is possible that one day we may be able to create ʺsuperintelligenceʺ: a general intelligence that vastly outperforms the best human brains in every significant cognitive domain.
  • The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business
    A book that illustrates the misunderstandings that can arise from clashing cultural assumptions
  • The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge
    A timeline of capsule biographies on key figures in the development of the tree diagram containing more that two hundred tree diagrams
  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
    Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup
  • Reinventing Organizations
    Probably the most influential management book of this decade, inspiring to take a radical leap and adopt a whole different set of management principles and practices.
  • Crossing the Chasm
    Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers. The book illustrates existence of a vast chasm between the early adopters and the early majority in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle
  • The Second Machine Age
    The explanation of the technolgy revolution that is overturning the world’s economies.
  • The Sketchnote Handbook: the illustrated guide to visual note taking
    On how to incorporate sketchnoting techniques into your note-taking process--regardless of your artistic abilities--to help you better process the information that you are hearing and seeing through drawing, and to actually have fun taking notes.
  • Mapping Scientific Frontiers
    An interdisciplinary examination of the history and the state of the art of the quest for visualizing scientific knowledge and the dynamics of its development.
  • Managing Information Quality: Increasing the Value of Information in Knowledge-intensive Products and Processes
    The book examines ways in which the quality of information can be improved in knowledge-intensive processes (such as on-line communication, strategy, product development, or consulting
  • Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs
    Using a list of more than 2,000 successful innovations the book explores these insights to diagnose patterns of innovation, and to evaluate how firms are performing against competitors. The framework has proven to be one of the most enduring and useful ways to start process of transformation.
  • Who Owns the Future?
    How the concentration of data and distribution of risk by those who own the data creates a significant risk to our capitalist based economy and over the long term to the very companies that create the situation.
  • Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think
    Big data is about predictions. Academic Mayer-Schönberger and editor Cukier consider big data the new ability to crunch vast collections of information and draw conclusions from it.
  • Turing’s Cathedral
    On how the digital universe exploded in the aftermath of the WWII, the nature of digital computers, an how code took over the world by storm.
  • Outliers
    An intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?
  • Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners
    Visible Thinking is a research-based approach to teaching thinking, begun at Harvard's Project Zero, that develops students' thinking dispositions, while at the same time deepening their understanding of the topics they study.
  • Student Successes With Thinking Maps
    The research, experiences from the field, vignettes, and work. A book that links research and practice and shows the true impact of a specific instructional approach on student learning
  • Imagery and Text: A Dual Coding Theory of Reading and Writing
    The first book to take a systematic theoretical approach to all of the central issues of literacy, including decoding, comprehension, and memory
  • Your Life, Uploaded
    The book explains authors' thinking on Mincrosoft MyLifeBits project predating the "Quantified Self" and "Internet of Things" movements
  • New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics
    Collection of essays on new thinking about matter and processes of materialization centered around reworking older materialist traditions, contemporary theoretical debates, and advances in scientific knowledge to address pressing ethical and political challenges.
  • The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization
    The introduction to Senge's carefully integrated corporate framework, which is structured around "personal mastery," "mental models," "shared vision," and "team learning."
  • The Race between Education and Technology
    A masterful work by two leading economists on some of the biggest issues in economics: economic growth, human capital, and inequality. There are fundamental insights in the book, not just about our past but also our future.
  • Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Economic Growth
    A comprehensive perspective on the micro- and macroeconomics of innovation. The book breaks new ground in identifying and analyzing the key ingredients driving economic growth.
  • Universal Principles of Design
    The Universal Principles of Design is a resource to increase cross-disciplinary knowledge and understanding of design. The concepts broadly referred to as “principles,” consist of laws, guidelines, human biases, and general design considerations.
  • Artificial Presence: Philosophical Studies in Image Theory
    A collection of studies on the image offers both a case for the importance of image studies and a broad introduction to this area of philosophical enquiry in which author implies that "the image opens up a view on reality liberated from the constraints of physics"
  • Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge
    The book recognizes that the future of economic well being in today's knowledge and information society rests upon the effectiveness of schools and corporations to empower their people to be more effective learners and knowledge creators.
  • The Ego Tunnel
    The Ego Tunnel provides a stunningly original take on the conscious self, explaining it as the content of a model created by our brain.

And, also, whiteboard canvas from our last group exercise with your notes/ideas/examples:

Wish you all the best of luck in advancing your careers! 🥇And, as promised, I will let you know when David will come to Poland so we can reunite and meet in-person.

Meanwhile, to stay in contact 👉 follow me on LinkedIn.

When we fail to educate . . . a global lesson

When we fail to educate . . . a global lesson

We are species of stark contrasts. Russia, a space-faring nation, has recently resorted to medieval brutality. Their young recruits, confronted with choices between civil and evil, are choosing evil. The recent outbreak of the war in Ukraine reminds us that although technology advances quickly, our cognitive advancement as a species lags behind with terrible consequences. 


What I’m tackling here is the deficit of self-authority and critical thinking exposed at a time of extreme circumstances. Although the recent crisis can be analyzed on multiple levels, my main focus is on the cognitive deficits. Every day, I continue to be astonished as I watch videos of captured aggressors on Twitter. Disoriented, these 18-20 years olds explain to the cameras that they were tricked into invading their neighboring country. Many had no idea where they were going. Caught in the middle of a battlefield, they defaulted to killing in what they saw as self-defense. Humanity ends up suppressed by one of our most primitive instincts: survival. 

These soldiers’ young age makes it easier  to believe that these confessions may indeed be true, which tells us that what we’re all witnessing is a terrifying display of wasted potential. The chaos and terror of the situation rendered both their victims’ and their own lives worthless. 

Given my experience working with top educators, I’m especially struck by the contrast between the world in which opportunities are created, and the one where they are stifled. 

Opportunities come when
educational institutions succeed
at instilling the importance
of independent thinking
and self-authority in their students. 

From primary school to university, top educational institutions the world over are making it a priority to nurture these skills. Once attained, they are young people’s immune system, protecting them against manipulation, deception, or unlawful orders if for those who become soldiers. But independent or critical thinking skills aren’t guaranteed by compulsory education. 

Cramming a child’s brain full of information doesn’t immediately lead to critical thinking – far from it. One cannot become objective about anything by simply being a passive recipient of it. In a world of information abundance, school is by no means the only place to learn. 
The skill that matters is the ability to distinguish between signal and noise, or between reason and insanity. Objectivity, or critical thinking, is the ability to form an informed opinion, backed by sources one can rely on. It is the audacity to reason and engage in a civilized exchange of opinions from different points of view. That’s what progressive education offers. 

Technology makes the contrasts between critical thinkers and their opposites even more pronounced. Tech can become lethal in the hands of the uneducated, manipulation-prone masses. The world is experiencing this now, during this onslaught of Russian aggression in Ukraine where the stated goals, orders, and motivations have all been subject to some form of manipulation. Add lethal weapons to this equation, and destruction and mayhem ensue.

The use of technology by conscious independent thinkers yields the exact opposite result. It is being used to do life-saving, humanity-enriching deeds which could eventually take us to the stars just as Elon Musk envisions. If we are to further advance with the goal of enhancing our human capabilities, it’s abundantly clear that where we start matters most – in the classroom. 

Education is where it all begins to go right or wrong. I’ve seen how brilliant teachers can turn their lessons into a captivating, transformative experience. From South Africa to South Texas, it’s possible to witness how underprivileged and underperforming students can improve their scores – and better yet, learn to enjoy learning. This can be done anywhere, including Russia, given the mindset and the willingness to invest time developing critical thinking skills.

It is harder, but not impossible, even in places where the teacher-to-student ratio is high. But there’s no way for a student to benefit from their teachers’ attention, practice reasoning or articulation of thoughts without the possibilities provided by digital technology. It just can’t be done on paper at this scale. 

Knowing how to adopt tech to encourage critical thinking isn’t necessarily easy. I personally witnessed situations where the change is unwelcome, and teaching remains based on old-fashioned lectures and fact memorization. Those seem easier to deliver to classes of more than 30 participants. In these places, both teachers and students seem to play the same game: teachers pretend to teach, and students pretend to learn just to pass their exams. In such places, it’s hard for students to practice reasoning and discernment. In the absence of critical thinking skills, dependence on others’ influence  or direction fills the void. This creates the tragic context for what we’re now seeing in Ukraine in the form of horrifying carnage inflicted by young recruits acting mindlessly. They may well not have a clue about the consequences or even realize that obeying unlawful order is a crime. Their cognitive abilities remain suppressed.

In the right educational environment,
competent, independent thinkers
are the most precious resource
any country could dream of. 

They are the people behind the Webb Telescope or SpaceX milestones. They are the ones who will deal with environmental, energy or you-name-it crises we will encounter. They are the strategic resources countries compete for. 

Our world is now facing a crisis whose roots run far deeper than many of us realize. Thinking habits are established early — in schools and an environment that supports the practices of pondering and reflection. If you observe how schools are adopting progressive teaching mindset, it’s very clear that the US and Scandinavia are leading in the pursuit of creating the right climate to foster the intrinsic motivation needed for students to think on their own. It’s where civic attitudes are grounded. Countries that escaped the gravity of eastern authoritarian regimes in the past, such as Poland, Lithuania or Latvia, were able to do so thanks to the combined brainpower of their independent thinkers.

It is never too late to reinvent the way students gain their skills. Germany is a recent example of a country with a historically traditional approach to teaching, where educators have begun to adopt best teaching practices and technologies at an impressive pace. Soon after the Covid-19 outbreak, they realized that they simply would not be able to handle the demand for hybrid learning, and promptly started a very ambitious transformation all throughout their country. Their example is, however, dwarfed by the global need to reinvent education.

If we fail to meet this moment,
we may never be able to put a stop
to the destructive processes
that end up devaluing human lives
and cutting them short
as a result of poverty or wars. 

Bounty receipt for two Russian soldiers in the Chernihiv
Their live’s value reduced to $300

Long ago, Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed a scale to measure the level of technological advancement. He suggested that at some point we might be able to use our technology to harness the power of our sun, or even colonize other planets. When he came up with those ideas, the technology of the time was far from being able to make any of that possible. Fast forward seventy years, and the world  is catching up. But increasingly effective solar panels or reusable Falcon rockets are not enough for us to truly advance if we don’t upgrade our “mindware” too.  But increasingly effective technology is not enough for us to truly advance if we don’t upgrade our “mindware” too.

Any update to our primitive nature can only be accomplished by a change in education that would bridge existing cognitive divides — between those that were thought to think independently and those that weren’t.

That’s where technology should be strategically deployed first, so we can get our own house in order before we even attempt to reach for the stars. Otherwise, it will always backfire, just as lethal instruments of war do in the hands of uneducated Russian soldiers with no ability to comprehend the consequences of their actions. 

Empowering students with technology

A conversation with Michelle Williams, the ignitED teacher about technology adoption in schools and how digital devices in the classroom are essential to close achievement gaps.

Core concepts we discussed:

  • Why technology is a necessity in the classroom
  • What the benefit of putting students into their teacher’s shoes are
  • How to succeed in getting the devices for students
  • suggestions for teachers who have so far avoided technology

Listen to the conversation:



< Back to conversations

CEE Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Welcome to my lecture on entrepreneurship and cultural differences! Join me during the session by actively participating in the engagement spaces that I listed below:

Space zero
A warm-up

A warm-up. Leave a mark on the board to celebrate your presence here with us today!

Space One
Challenges

Identify the challenges of organizing a startup. Move existing stickers or add new ones and let’s talk about your findings!

Space Two
Regional differences

Are regional differences reflected in business tactics? Let’s discuss!

Have fun!