New technologies are popping up every day. Convincing co-workers to adopt them is the hard part. Adobe software evangelist Ryan breaks down the patterns and types of resistance technologists face in many organizations.
This book takes a look at fully automated, autonomous vehicles and discusses many open questions: How can autonomous vehicles be integrated into the current transportation system with diverse users and human drivers? Where do automated vehicles fall under current legal frameworks? What risks are associated with automation and how will society respond to these risks? How will the marketplace react to automated vehicles and what changes may be necessary for companies? Experts from Germany and the United States define key societal, engineering, and mobility issues related to the automation of vehicles. They discuss the decisions programmers of automated vehicles must make to enable vehicles to perceive their environment, interact with other road users, and choose actions that may have ethical consequences. The authors further identify expectations and concerns that will form the basis for individual and societal acceptance of autonomous driving. While the safety benefits of such vehicles are tremendous, the authors demonstrate that these benefits will only be achieved if vehicles have an appropriate safety concept at the heart of their design. Realizing the potential of automated vehicles to reorganize traffic and transform mobility of people and goods requires similar care in the design of vehicles and networks. By covering all of these topics, the book aims to provide a current, comprehensive, and scientifically sound treatment of the emerging field of “autonomous driving".
Every organization makes plans for updating products, technologies, and business processes. But that’s not enough anymore for the twenty-first-century company. The race is now on for everyone to become a digital enterprise. For those individuals who have been charged with leading their company’s technology-driven change, the pressure is intense while the correct path forward unclear. Help has arrived! In Driving Digital, author Isaac Sacolick shares the lessons he’s learned over the years as he has successfully spearheaded multiple transformations and helped shape digital-business best practices. Readers no longer have to blindly trek through the mine field of their company’s digital transformation. In this thoroughly researched one-stop manual, learn how to: • Formulate a digital strategy • Transform business and IT practices • Align development and operations • Drive culture change • Bolster digital talent • Capture and track ROI • Develop innovative digital practices • Pilot emerging technologies • And more! Your company cannot avoid the digital disruption heading its way. The choice is yours: Will this mean the beginning of the end for your business, or will your digital practices be what catapults you into next-level success?
This book challenges some of the fundamental tenets of "free market" economics that have had a profound impact on public policy and the plight of the American worker. These include the beliefs that high wages inevitably mean low profits; that a "free" market will automatically reduce discrimination and pay inequality; that anti-trust legislation hinders competitive market forces; and that minimum wage laws and trade unions negatively impact the economy. Using both theoretical analysis and real-life examples, the author shows that these myths are a product of unrealistic behavioral assumptions on the part of "free market" economists about the typical worker. In fact, as the author makes clear, the level of workers' satisfaction with their jobs, as a reflection of how well they are paid and treated by their employers, has a direct impact on the quality level of the products they produce and, inevitably, the economic performance of the firms.
In The Software Craftsman, Sandro Mancuso explains what craftsmanship means to the developer and his or her organization, and shows how to live it every day in your real-world development environment. Mancuso shows how software craftsmanship fits with and helps students improve upon best-practice technical disciplines such as agile and lean, taking all development projects to the next level. Readers will learn how to change the disastrous perception that software developers are the same as factory workers, and that software projects can be run like factories.
Be an transformational leader during times of rapid organizational change The Art of Change Leadership represents a major milestone in the study of change leadership. An approachable yet thorough guide for leaders and team members that illustrates how to increase speed and agility during times of intense technological innovation and fast change, this resource focuses on the ways in which you, as an individual, can harness your unique abilities to lead cultural change and personal leadership in a positive and proactive way. Through eleven comprehensive chapters, explore the need for increased human brain speed, how to improve your focus, the body/mind connection, agility within a team setting, improving productivity, communication with your team, and more. Technology, globalization, evolving business models—these are just some of the variables impacting the competitive landscapes across virtually all industries. To keep up with the changes that these and other factors are creating, it is critical that you are able to understand what change leadership is, why it is important, and how you can leverage it in your workplace to positively impact your company. Explore research on change leadership vs. change management to improve business Leverage technology to improve productivity and adaptability to rapid change Evolutionary approaches to change leadership that include energy management and innovative mindset approaches Discover questionnaires, assessments and quizzes to assess your change leadership agilities The Art of Change Leadership is a (r)evolutionary text that prepares you to increase your team's speed and agility, and to thrive in today's continually evolving business environment.
This is the first book to comprehensibly describe how technology has shaped society and the environment over the last 200 years. It will be useful for researchers, as a textbook for graduate students, for people engaged in long-term policy planning in industry and government, for environmental activists, and for the wider public interested in history, technology, or environmental issues.
Take a look at the vehicle sitting in your driveway. It may be the last one you ever own. With an estimated 33 million fully autonomous cars and taxis projected to hit the road by 2040, an automotive renaissance is soon to be upon us. Personal car ownership currently costs the average medium-sized sedan owner $9,282 annually. But personal car ownership may soon be a thing of the past. The A.I.-powered machines of the future will be doing the driving for us. Autonomous vehicles will be the most disruptive technology ever deployed by mankind.
Some of the fundamental tenets of conventional economic wisdom, which have had a profound impact on public policy, are challenged in this book. These precepts include the affirmation that low wages are more beneficial that high wages to the process of growth and development; convergence in terms of output per person is just a matter of time; minimum wage laws and trade unions negatively impact on the economy as a whole; pay inequality due to labor market discrimination cannot persist over time; larger firms are typically more efficient than smaller firms; and culture is of little consequence to the course of economic development. Such predictions, the author argues, are a product of unrealistic behavioral assumptions about the economic agent. In this book, the author offers a more inclusive theoretical framework and a more reasonable modeling of the economic agent. This new approach is built upon conventional neoclassical theory while incorporating the most recent research in behavioral economics. The case is made that individuals have some choice over the quantity and quality of effort which they can supply in the process of production. Even under the constraints of severe product market competition and the assumption of `utility maximizing' individuals, effort need not be maximized, especially in firms characterized by antagonistic management-labor relations. This is especially true when relatively inefficient firms can remain competitive by keeping wages relatively low - low wages serve to protect such firms from more efficient firms. Alternatively, relatively high wage firms can remain competitive only if they become more productive. Under these assumptions, higher wages and factors contributing to higher wages can advance the performance of an economy while lower wages can have the opposite effect and cultural and institutional variables, by themselves, can affect the long run productivity and even the long run competitiveness of firms and economies. In summary, this book calls for a revised approach to the study of economics from a behavioral and socio-economic perspective, with significant consequences for public policy.
World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolution, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wearable sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manufacturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individuals. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frameworks that advance progress.