“A fascinating case for a more engaged government, transformed to meet the challenges and possibilities of the twenty-first century.” —President William J. Clinton A rallying cry for revolutionizing democracy in the digital age, Citizenville reveals how ordinary Americans can reshape their government for the better. Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California, argues that today’s government is stuck in the last century while—in both the private sector and our personal lives—absolutely everything else has changed. Drawing on wide-ranging interviews with thinkers and politicians, Newsom shows how Americans can transform their government, taking matters into their own hands to dissolve political gridlock even as they produce tangible changes in the real world. Citizenville is a timely road map for restoring American prosperity and for reinventing citizenship in today’s networked age.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed comes a brave, frank, and exquisitely written memoir that will change the way you see the world. Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the most important thinkers of our time. Educated as a scientist, she is an author, journalist, activist, and advocate for social justice. In Living With a Wild God, she recounts her quest-beginning in childhood-to find ""the Truth"" about the universe and everything else: What's really going on? Why are we here? In middle age, she rediscovered the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence, which records an event so strange, so cataclysmic, that she had never, in all the intervening years, written or spoken about it to anyone. It was the kind of event that people call a ""mystical experience""-and, to a steadfast atheist and rationalist, nothing less than shattering. In Living With a Wild God, Ehrenreich reconstructs her childhood mission, bringing an older woman's wry and erudite perspective to a young girl's impassioned obsession with the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. The result is both deeply personal and cosmically sweeping-a searing memoir and a profound reflection on science, religion, and the human condition. With her signature combination of intellectual rigor and uninhibited imagination, Ehrenreich offers a true literary achievement-a work that has the power not only to entertain but amaze.
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are major forces shaping our current age. ICT affects many areas of human existence and influences the both human wellbeing and human evil. The nonprofit sector is already heavily involved in technology both as a way to pursue its mission and as an influential factor in the evolution of the sector. This article examines how technology affects the sector and how the sector uses technology in its work. The article begins with a discussion of how the emerging information society will change the nonprofit sector. The sector that we know is grounded on our experience in the agrarian and industrial periods in the United States and Europe. We then explore how technology evolved in the sector. This is followed by an examination of technology and nonprofit organizational behavior. Technology changes the organizations that make use of its capacities. Next is a discussion of the types of technology that nonprofit organizations use. The final three sections deal with technology and social change, technology in nonprofit settings, and issues and trends. This article provides the reader with a current appreciation of the scholarly and professional literature on ICT in the nonprofit sector.
McSmith focuses on key individuals in the party whose careers cast a complex story into sharp relief. His choice of subjects is deliberately eclectic. It includes portraits of politicians like Peter Mandelson, Clare Short, David Blunkett, John Prescott and Tony Blair, who will play a leading role in any Labour government.
From California Governor Gavin Newsom comes an empowering picture book about a young boy with dyslexia who discovers a new way to look at reading. Ben loves baseball. He loves the lines of diamond-shaped field and the dome of the pitcher's mound. What Ben doesn't like is reading. Ben has dyslexia, which means letters and sounds get jumbled up in his brain, and then the words don't make sense. But when Ben starts looking at reading like he looks at baseball, he realizes that if he keeps trying, he can overcome any obstacle that comes his way. In this empowering story by California Governor Gavin Newsom, inspired by his own childhood diagnosis of dyslexia, readers will learn that kids with the determination to try (and try again) can do big things. *This book is set in a font specifically designed to be easier for people with dyslexia to read.
New York Times bestselling author and renowned linguist, John McWhorter, explores the complicated and fascinating world of languages. From Standard English to Black English; obscure tongues only spoken by a few thousand people in the world to the big ones like Mandarin - What Language Is celebrates the history and curiosities of languages around the world and smashes our assumptions about "correct" grammar. An eye-opening tour for all language lovers, What Language Is offers a fascinating new perspective on the way humans communicate. From vanishing languages spoken by a few hundred people to major tongues like Chinese, with copious revelations about the hodgepodge nature of English, John McWhorter shows readers how to see and hear languages as a linguist does. Packed with Big Ideas about language alongside wonderful trivia, What Language Is explains how languages across the globe (the Queen's English and Surinam creoles alike) originate, evolve, multiply, and divide. Raising provocative questions about what qualifies as a language (so-called slang does have structured grammar), McWhorter also takes readers on a marvelous journey through time and place-from Persian to the languages of Sri Lanka- to deliver a feast of facts about the wonders of human linguistic expression.
The rise of open data in the public sector has sparked innovation, driven efficiency, and fueled economic development. While still emerging, we are seeing evidence of the transformative potential of open data in shaping the future of our civic life, and the opportunity to use open data to reimagine the relationship between residents and government, especially at the local level. As we look ahead, what have we learned so far from open data in practice and how we can apply those lessons to realize a more promising future for America's cities and communities? Edited by Brett Goldstein, former Chief Data Officer for the City of Chicago, with Code for America, this book features essays from over twenty of the world's leading experts in a first-of-its-kind instructive anthology about how open data is changing the face of our public institutions. Contributors include: Michael Flowers, Chief Analytics Officer, New York City Beth Blauer, former director of Maryland StateStat Jonathan Feldman, CIO, City of Asheville Tim O'Reilly, founder & CEO, O'Reilly Media Eric Gordon, Director of Engagement Game Lab, Emerson College Beth Niblock, CIO, Louisville Metro Government Ryan & Mike Alfred, Co-Founders, Brightscope Emer Coleman, former director of the London Datastore Mark Headd, Chief Data Officer, City of Philadelphia "As an essential volume for anyone interested in the future of governance, urban policy, design, data-driven policymaking, journalism, or civic engagement, "Beyond Transparency" combines the inspirational glow and political grit of Profiles in Courage with the clarity of an engineer's calm explanation of how something technical actually works. Here are the detailed how-to stories of many members of the first generation of open government pioneers, written in a generous, accessible style; this compilation presents us with a great deal to admire, ample provocation, and wise guidance from a group of remarkable individuals." -Susan Crawford, author of Captive Audience "Just as he did during his time in my administration, Goldstein has brought together industry leaders to discuss issues of relevance in the open data movement and the practical implications of implementing these policies... This book will help continue the work to make open government a reality across the country." - Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City of Chicago "A must-read for anyone who is passionate about what open data can do to transform city living." - Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
In 1969, five young men from Montana set out to accomplish what no one had before: to scale the sheer north face of Mt. Cleveland, Glacier National Park's tallest mountain, in winter. Two days later tragedy struck: they were buried in an avalanche so deep that their bodies would not be discovered until the following June. The White Death is the riveting account of that fated climb and of the breathtakingly heroic rescue attempt that ensued. In the spirit of Peter Matthiessen and John McPhee, McKay Jenkins interweaves a harrowing narrative with an astonishing expanse of relevant knowledge ranging from the history of mountain climbing to the science of snow. Evocative and moving, this fascinating book is a humbling account of man at his most intrepid and nature at its most indomitable.
It is not between the Left and the Right, but between the past and the future. America is on the edge of a breakout. In fact, we are poised for one of the most spectacular leaps in human well-being in history. Pioneers of the future—innovators and entrepreneurs—are achieving breakthroughs in medicine, transportation, energy, education, and other fields that will make the world a dramatically different and better place. Unless the “prison guards” of the past stop them. Every American must choose a side. Will you be a champion of the future or a prisoner of the past? Every potential breakthrough has to get past a host of individuals and institutions whose power and comfort depend on the status quo. These prison guards of the past will strangle every innovation that threatens to change the way things have always been done—if we let them.
WANT A NON-CODING JOB AT A TECH COMPANY? Interested in product management, marketing, strategy, or business development? The tech industry is the place to be: nontechnical employees at tech companies outnumber their engineering counterparts almost 3 to 1 (Forbes, 2017). You might be worried that your lack of coding skills or tech industry knowledge will hold you back. But here's the secret: you don't need to learn how to code to break into the tech industry. Written by three former Microsoft PMs, Swipe to Unlock gives you a breakdown of the concepts you need to know to crush your interviews, like software development, big data, and internet security. We'll explain how Google's ad targeting algorithm works, but Google probably won't ask you how to explain it in a non-technical interview. But they might ask you how you could increase ad revenue from a particular market segment. And if you know how Google's ad platform works, you'll be in a far stronger position to come up with good growth strategies. We'll show you how Robinhood, an app that lets you trade stocks without commission, makes money by earning interest on the unspent money that users keep in their accounts. No one will ask you to explain this. But if someone asks you to come up with a new monetization strategy for Venmo (which lets you send and receive money without fees), you could pull out the Robinhood anecdote to propose that Venmo earn interest off the money sitting in users' accounts. We'll talk about some business cases like why Microsoft acquired LinkedIn. Microsoft interviewers probably won't ask you about the motive of the purchase, but they might ask you for ideas to improve Microsoft Outlook. From our case study, you'll learn how the Microsoft and LinkedIn ecosystems could work together, which can help you craft creative, impactful answers. You could propose that Outlook use LinkedIn's social graph to give salespeople insights about clients before meeting them. Or you could suggest linking Outlook's organizational tree to LinkedIn to let HR managers analyze their company's hierarchy and figure out what kind of talent they need to add. (We'll further explore both ideas in the book.) Either way, you're sure to impress. Learn the must know concepts of tech from authors who have received job offers for Facebook's Rotational Product Manager, Google's Associate Product Marketing Manager, and Microsoft's Program Manager to get a competitive edge at your interviews!
