Grab A Book
How many professional books have you read this year? A real book. Not a blog posting (like this one). Not the complete Java 2 reference. A real book, with coherent, mind-opening ideas. A book that changed your perception, or at least added something new to your knowledge or understanding (hopefully something that lasts longer than the time it takes to read). Even a book which you didn’t see eye to eye with. A book that provoked you to think.
We are flooded with information. We are overwhelmed with work. And we try to make at least some time for other things as well. With all these constraints, it is easy to put off simple old-fashioned book reading for ever.
An article such as The Myth of “Keeping Up” from Creating Passionate Users, seems to have it all figured out. Judging from its popularity and from the number of responses, it seems like the world has just waited for the ultimate advice on how to survive this ever-growing amount of information: use a good aggregator and an online service that provides book summaries.
Of course, the tips in that article are all useful. They can really help reducing the information flood we are alll under. But the article fails to mention that every once in while we might benefit from reading an interesting book cover to cover.
Is it obvious? Sadly, the answer is no. In today’s environment, it is becoming less obvious as time passes.
I love reading blogs and short articles. As you can see, I even write some. But sometimes you just need more depth than this medium can offer. And since we are talking about professional literature, it is in the interests of a business organization to encourage its employees to grab a book every once in a while. That’s right: during working hours!
If you are running a team or a business, make time for people to read. Encourage them to do so.
Make a decision: everyone (a developer, tester, architect, team leader, technical writer, marketing person, or executive) can dedicate a certain amount of his working time for professional reading of his choice. Buy them the books they want. Encourage them to share their thoughts. The investment will soon pay off.
May 5th, 2006 at 5:34 am
Couldn’t agree more with the idea of buying books for your employees and helping them grow. One of the most pleasant surprises at my current position is I actually had a line item in my budget for books.
May 14th, 2006 at 3:51 am
Books not only provoke thought and support individual learning. They can also improve the effectiveness (and fun) of professional dialogue. A good book is “an application-specific language for conversations in the book’s field or topic.” For more, see:
http://talkaboutquality.wordpress.com/2006/05/09/books-as-a-means-of-communication/
July 14th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
good idea!
thanks