Brought to you by Penguin.
John Maeda is one of the world's preeminent thinkers on technology and design, and in How to Speak Machine, he offers a set of simple laws that govern not only the computers of today, but the unimaginable machines of the future.
Machines are already more powerful than we can comprehend, and getting more powerful at an exponential pace. Once set in motion, algorithms never tire. And when a program's size, speed and endlessness combine with its ability to learn and transform itself, the outcome can be unpredictable and dangerous. Take the seemingly instant transformation of Microsoft's chatbot into a hate-spewing racist, or how crime-predicting algorithms reinforce racial bias.
How To Speak Machine provides a coherent framework for today's product designers, business leaders and policymakers to grasp this brave new world. Drawing on his wide-ranging experience from engineering to computer science to design, Maeda shows how businesses and individuals can identify opportunities afforded by technology to make world-changing and inclusive products while avoiding the pitfalls inherent to the medium.
Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We're rebelling against technology that's too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte "read me" manuals. The iPod's clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves caught up in the simplicity paradox: we want something that's simple and easy to use, but also does all the complex things we might ever want it to do. In The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design - guidelines for needing less and actually getting more.
Maeda - a professor in MIT's Media Lab and a world-renowned graphic designer - explores the question of how we can redefine the notion of "improved" so that it doesn't always mean something more, something added on.
Maeda's first law of simplicity is reduce. It's not necessarily beneficial to add technology features just because we can. And the features that we do have must be organized (Law 2) in a sensible hierarchy so users aren't distracted by features and functions they don't need. But simplicity is not less just for the sake of less. Skip ahead to Law 9: "failure: Some things can never be made simple." Maeda's concise guide to simplicity in the digital age shows us how this idea can be a cornerstone of organizations and their products - how it can drive both business and technology. We can learn to simplify without sacrificing comfort and meaning, and we can achieve the balance described in Law 10. This law, which Maeda calls "the one," tells us: "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful."
When designer and computer scientist John Maeda was tapped to be president of the celebrated Rhode Island School of Design in 2008, he had to learn how to be a leader quickly. He had to transform himself from a tenured professor-with a love of argument for argument's sake and the freedom to experiment-into the head of a hierarchical organization. The professor is free to speak his mind against "the man." The college president is "the man." Maeda has had to teach himself, through trial and error, about leadership. In Redesigning Leadership, he shares his learning process. Maeda, writing as an artist and designer, a technologist, and a professor, discusses intuition and risk-taking, "transparency," and all the things that a conversation can do that an email can't. In his transition from MIT to RISD he finds that the most effective way to pull people together is not social networking but free food. Leading a team? The best way for a leader to leverage the collective power of a team is to reveal his or her own humanity. Asked if he has stopped designing, Maeda replied (via Twitter), "I'm designing how to talk about/with/for our #RISD community." Maeda's creative nature makes him a different sort of leader-one who prizes experimentation, honest critique, and learning as you go. With Redesigning Leadership, he uses his experience to reveal a new model of leadership for the next generation of leaders.
