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7 books on the digital transformation impact to read on vacation

Written by Nova SBE Executive Education | August 7, 2018 at 9:45 AM

In addition to sunscreen, there is an essential element that accompanies us to the terrace and the sun lounger on long summer afternoons: the book. A companion of all occasions, it has a confirmed reservation in the suitcase for many of us. If you haven't already prepared yours, here are the suggestions from Nova SBE Executive Education Professors focused on the digital transformation impact.

Author Nova SBE Executive Education | Reading time 5 minutes

 unsplash-logoAnna Hamilton

 

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

Recommended by Miguel Moreira
Scientific Coordinator of the Leading Digital Transformation Program

In an era of big data analytics, this book takes us to new dimensions of analysis of the world, society and the impact of technology. It is a warning for old problems, now amplified, such as the creation of prejudices based on realities that no longer exist, the world view based on averages that can be misleading and the lack of human and first-person contact with the reality we are in to analyze that it is so often determinant for the understanding of the numbers that represent it, regardless of the power of the technology we use.

This book is also a posthumous tribute to the Swedish doctor and data scientist, Hans Rosling, from his son and daughter-in-law who were co-authors of the book. Above all, Hans leaves us with an optimistic and hopeful view, trying to counter the pessimistic feeling widely shared in the Western world, where perceptions of reality are often wrong. Hope you like it!

 

 

Media in Focus: Marketing Effectiveness in the Digital Era by Les Binet and Peter Field

Recommended by Jorge Velosa
Scientific Coordinator of the Nova WPP Digital Week Program

The book details the most recent learnings, some of which are surprising, regarding the use of media in the digital age. Based on cases of IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising - UK) effectiveness awards, the most demanding communication campaign evaluation forum in Europe, the book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand today's media.

This is the first in a series of books on marketing efficiency in the digital age, created by Google in partnership with Thinkbox. Good reading!

 

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

Recommended by João Castro
Professor in the Leading Digital Transformation Program

When a cartoonist joins a scientist and is asked to explain the vanguard of technology, the result is a relaxed and irresistible reading that is not (only) an intellectual prop to show on the beach or the terraces. Soonish is a compendium of 10 technologies (and a few more) that are portrayed simultaneously in a serious and hilarious way. For the summer it will be a fertile companion to launch conversations with friends about the state-of-the-art of space elevators, fusion energy, augmented reality, synthetic biology, directed medicine, human-machine interfaces, among others. Never has the future of humanity looked so bright (from the side of those who are in a good mood!).

Note: this book came out by the end of 2017 and it should have been a recommendation for Christmas gifts for everyone who behaved well!

 

 

Life after Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy by George Gilder

Recommended by António Marinho Torres
Professor in the Nova WPP Digital Week Program

Big data has been the main factor in economic value creation. Progress in artificial intelligence further intensifies its impact, creating a consensus that the future will be an amplified version of the present. George Gilder, however, offers an alternative view of the future; an opposite opinion that produces interest precisely because it does not fit into this consensus.

The end of the internet as we know it today is imminent: this is the premise of the book.

 

Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance—and What We Can Do About It by Jeffrey Pfeffer

Recommended by Miguel Pina e Cunha
Scientific Coordinator of the General Management Postgraduate Program

Do you have your work email on your phone and do you always have your phone with you? Despite not being in the job description of the employment contract, this is a practice that is expected of an employee today. The reality is that technology has increased working hours to 24/7, which increases the level of stress and causes of burnout, but has the opposite effect on productivity.

Based on robust empirical work, the book reveals the costs of poor people management and the contemporary work culture for people themselves, for companies and society, while offering clues to address the problem. It is not a light book, but you can think about it. And who said that the best literature for the summer has to be light?

 

Great at Work: How Top Performers Work Less and Achieve More by Morten T. Hansen

Recommended by Nadim Habib
Professor in the Leading Digital Transformation Program

The topic is digital transformation, so my suggestion may seem strange. But the reality is that the technological revolution implies greater productivity and creates the need to continually reinvent ourselves to remain relevant in the automation era.

This book is one of the few that addresses personal productivity from a solid and empirical perspective, avoiding the clichés that surround the topic and hardly add value to the discussion. It is a reading that I recommend to anyone looking to focus on their productivity and professional success.

 

Mentes Digitais [Digital Minds] by Arlindo Oliveira

Recommended by José Crespo de Carvalho
Scientific Coordinator of the Supply Chain Management Postgraduate Program

Is the human brain, said to be intelligent, the only one capable of harboring this same intelligence? Will we be able to create digital minds that mimic human brains? And what digital minds are these? Partners, competitors? How will we evolve from here?

This book is a journey through technological expansion, Maxwell's laws of electromagnetic fields and the evolution of the number of transistors in microprocessors predicted by Moore, which culminates in the economy of the internet and the digital world. The computer, artificial intelligence, and the human brain are explained, giving rise to the parallel human brain-machine (will it be explained by Darwin's Origin of Species?). This is a reading in Portuguese that I recommend to everyone who reflects philosophically and empirically on the future of human beings and machines.