Weekly Hotlist: The Tech Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2015

 

January 12, 2015 The Tech Trends You Can't Ignore in 2015 By Amy Webb From deep learning to prioritizing privacy.

Managing yourself Mindfulness Can Literally Change Your Brain by Christina Congleton It's good for resilience and decision making. Managing people What Marissa Mayer Got Wrong (and Right) About Stack Ranking Employees by Chris Yeh A company isn't a college. Talent management Knowing When to Fire Someone by Allison Rimm Too many managers wait too long. Stress What Resilience Means, and Why It Matters by Andrea Ovans Five great reads on the art of bouncing back. Strategy The Strategic Value of APIs by Bala Iyer Even Walgreens is finding growth through software. Organizational culture When a Fancy Degree Scares Employers Away by Michael Staton At start-ups, credentials can be a liability. Entrepreneurship The Myth of the Tech Whiz Who Quits College to Start a Company by Michael Goodwin A study of New York's founders. Difficult conversations How to Handle Difficult Conversations at Work by Rebecca Knight Start by changing your mindset.

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FEATURED PRODUCT Well-Designed: How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love HBR Press Book In this refreshingly jargon-free and practical book, product design expert Jon Kolko maps out this process, demonstrating how it will help you and your team conceive and build successful, emotionally resonant products again and again. The key, says Kolko, is empathy. You need to deeply understand customer needs and feelings, and this understanding must be reflected in the product. In successive chapters of the book, we see how leading companies use a design process of storytelling and iteration that evokes positive emotions, changes behavior, and creates deep engagement. Here are the four key steps: (1) Determine a product-market fit by seeking signals from communities of users, (2) Identify behavioral insights by conducting ethnographic research, (3) Sketch a product strategy by synthesizing complex research data into simple insights, and (4) Polish the product details using visual representations to simplify complex ideas. Kolko walks the reader through each step, sharing insights from his fifteen-year career in product design along the way. Whether you're a designer, a product developer, or a marketer thinking about your company's next offering, this book will forever change the way you think about--and create--successful products. Buy It Now

FEATURED PRODUCT HBR Guide to Coaching Your Employees HBR Press Book When you're swamped with your own work, how can you make time to coach your employees—and do it well? If you don't help them build their skills, they'll keep coming to you for answers instead of finding their own solutions. Got a star on your team who's eager to advance? An underperformer who's dragging the group down? A steady contributor who feels bored and neglected? You'll need to agree on goals for growth, motivate your people to achieve them, support their efforts, and measure their progress. This guide gives you the tools to do that. You'll get better at (1) Matching people's skills with your organization's needs; (2) Creating realistic but inspiring plans for growth; (3) Customizing your approach; (4) Prompting with questions before you dispense advice; (5) Providing the support your employees need to achieve peak performance; (6) Giving them feedback they'll actually apply; (7) Tapping their learning styles to make greater progress; (8) Giving people room to grapple with problems and discover solutions; (9) Engaging your employees and fostering independence. Buy It Now

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