Vinay Chavan

Creative Selection – Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs

Hundreds of millions of people use Apple products every day; several thousand work on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California; but only a handful sit at the drawing board. Creative Selection recounts the life of one of the few who worked behind the scenes, a highly-respected software engineer who worked in the final years of the Steve Jobs era―the Golden Age of Apple.

Ken Kocienda offers an inside look at Apple’s creative process. For fifteen years, he was on the ground floor of the company as a specialist, directly responsible for experimenting with novel user interface concepts and writing powerful, easy-to-use software for products including the iPhone, the iPad, and the Safari web browser. His stories explain the symbiotic relationship between software and product development for those who have never dreamed of programming a computer, and reveal what it was like to work on the cutting edge of technology at one of the world’s most admired companies.

Kocienda shares moments of struggle and success, crisis and collaboration, illuminating each with lessons learned over his Apple career. He introduces the essential elements of innovation―inspiration, collaboration, craft, diligence, decisiveness, taste, and empathy―and uses these as a lens through which to understand productive work culture.

An insider’s tale of creativity and innovation at Apple, Creative Selection shows readers how a small group of people developed an evolutionary design model, and how they used this methodology to make groundbreaking and intuitive software which countless millions use every day.

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Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager

Read hilarious stories with serious lessons that Michael Lopp extracts from his varied and sometimes bizarre experiences as a manager at Apple, Pinterest, Palantir, Netscape, Symantec, Slack, and Borland. Many of the stories first appeared in primitive form in Lopp’s perennially popular blog, Rands in Repose. The Third Edition of Managing Humans contains a whole new season of episodes from the ongoing saga of Lopp’s adventures in Silicon Valley, together with classic episodes remastered for high fidelity and freshness. Whether you’re an aspiring manager, a current manager, or just wondering what the heck a manager does all day, there is a story in this book that will speak to you-and help you survive and prosper amid the general craziness of dysfunctional bright people caught up in the chase of riches and power. Scattered in repose among these manic misfits are managers, an even stranger breed of people who, through a mystical organizational ritual, have been given power over the futures and the bank accounts of many others. Lopp’s straight-from-the-hip style is unlike that of any other writer on management and leadership. He pulls no punches and tells stories he probably shouldn’t. But they are magically instructive and yield Lopp’s trenchant insights on leadership that cut to the heart of the matter-whether it’s dealing with your boss, handling a slacker, hiring top guns, or seeing a knotty project through to completion. Writing code is easy. Managing humans is not. You need a book to help you do it, and this is it. What You’ll Learn Lead engineers Handle conflict Hire well Motivate employees Manage your boss Discover how to say no Understand different engineering personalities Build effective teams Run a meeting well Scale teams

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The Laws of Simplicity (Design, Technology, Business, Life)

The basic objective of the book, the Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) is to promote simplicity. The book has been authored by John Maeda and it equates simplicity with sanity.

We are living in an era which is heavily dependent on technology, which can be complicated. for example, DVD players come with many menus and options and softwares which are bundled with voluminous manuals which are often too tedious to go through. However, despite the technological advancements, we want things that are easy and simple to use and, at the same, time should be able to perform all the complex tasks according to our desire.

In this book, the author explains ten laws to balance the elements of complexity and simplicity in the business, design and technology. These principles are guidelines for getting more then what is needed. The book tries to give an answer to the question on how the notion of ‘improved’ can be redefined so that it doesn’t always refer to something additional.

The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) has been published by MIT Press in 2006. The book is available in hardcover edition. The author’s guide to simplicity is relevant in the digital age as it can drive both technology and business.

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