Books

{{post_terms.hashtags}}

An Introduction to Cybernetics

Cybernetics is here defined as “the science of control and communication, in the animal and the machine”-in a word, as the art of steersmanship; and this book will interest all who are interested in cybernetics, communication theory and methods for regulation and control. W. Ross Ashby (1903-1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of complex systems. His two books, “Design for a Brain” and “An Introduction to Cybernetics,” were landmark works. They introduced exact and logical thinking into the nascent discipline and were highly influential. Contents include: What is new — Change — The Determinate Machine — The Machine with Input — Stability — The Black Box — Quantity of Variety — Transmission of Variety — Incessant Transmission — Regulation in Biological Systems — Requisite Variety — The Error-controlled Regulator — Regulating the Very Large System — Amplifying Regulation

The Journey to Enterprise Agility: Systems Thinking and Organizational Legacy.

This is the first book to seriously address the disconnection between nimble Agile teams and other groups in the enterprise, including enterprise architecture, the program management office (PMO), human resources, and even business executives. When an enterprise experiments with practice improvements, software development teams often jump on board with excitement, while other groups are left to wonder how they will fit in. We address how these groups can adapt to Agile teams. More importantly, we show how many Agile teams cause their own problems, damaging scalability and sustainability, by requiring special treatment, and by failing to bridge the gaps between themselves and other groups. We call this phenomenon Agile illth. Adopting a set of best practices is not enough. All of us, Agile teams and the corporate groups, must change our intentions and worldviews to be more compatible with the success of the enterprise. Join us on the journey to enterprise agility. It is a crooked path, fraught with danger, confusion and complexity. It is the only way to reach the pinnacles we hope to experience in the form of better business value delivered faster for less cost.

Understand Your Organisation – Improve Your Business: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture Modelling

Written by an industry expert with over 20 years of experience, this bite-sized book will quickly introduce you to the concepts, terminology and management of Enterprise Architecture Modelling projects. It describes how to go about documenting processes, systems, people, locations, equipment, controls, risks and opportunities so that you have a reference of what makes the organization tick. There is also a chapter on how not to do it.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum on how the impending technological revolution will change our lives. We are on the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And this one will be unlike any other in human history. Characterized by new technologies fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will impact all disciplines, economies and industries – and it will do so at an unprecedented rate. World Economic Forum data predicts that by 2025 we will see: commercial use of nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than human hair; the first transplant of a 3D-printed liver; 10% of all cars on US roads being driverless; and much more besides. In The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Schwab outlines the key technologies driving this revolution, discusses the major impacts on governments, businesses, civil society and individuals, and offers bold ideas for what can be done to shape a better future for all.

Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact

Originally published in German in 1935, this monograph anticipated solutions to problems of scientific progress, the truth of scientific fact and the role of error in science now associated with the work of Thomas Kuhn and others. Arguing that every scientific concept and theory, including his own, is culturally conditioned, Fleck was appreciably ahead of his time. And as Kuhn observes in his foreword: Though much has occurred since its publication, it remains a brilliant and largely unexploited resource.

Surviving AI: The promise and peril of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is our most powerful technology, and in the coming decades it will change everything in our lives. If we get it right it will make humans almost godlike. If we get it wrong… well, extinction is not the worst possible outcome. Surviving AI is a concise, easy-to-read guide to what’s coming, taking you through technological unemployment (the economic singularity) and the possible creation of a superintelligence (the technological singularity).