Review: Unstructured Data Analytics: How to Improve Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention, and Fraud Detection and Prevention

Unstructured Data Analytics: How to Improve Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention, and Fraud Detection and Prevention by Jean Paul Isson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I have a background working in unstructured content, including analytics. I hoped to learn something new from this book about content analytics. However, the book was more an overview of some of the technology used for analyzing unstructured content and industry use cases. To the good, the author included a number of interviews of managers from various companies using or selling content analytics software. What I didn’t find as useful were the large numbers of lists. The author includes hundreds of lists in this book. It seems the book combed a number of sources for lists and put them together, often covering unrelated aspects of a topic. I also noted that this was mostly about analytics in general, and much of what was covered was analytics of structured data, sometimes combined with analytics of unstructured data, sometimes not. The unstructured data that the author focused on were typical web form fields (think comment fields on surveys) and video analysis, but other sources were mentioned, often in long lists. I’d say this was a good book to introduce the concept to a business analyst in order to give ideas of usage, but the process and technology coverage might be confusing to that audience, and already dated.

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Review: The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well written current science history (if that’s a thing) of CRISPR technology and gene editing. Isaacson writes a very readable story about the development of gene editing technology, focusing on a handful of scientists that intersect the story at different times. What struck me was how current this “history” is – first history book I’ve read describing Skype calls early on. Isaacson’s descriptions of complex science was very understandable. He also ended the book with the use of CRISPR technology to find vaccines for COVID. I believe I know a bit more about the technology and the processes used to create the vaccine now coursing through my veins, so there’s a personal element to this as well.

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Review: Chief Of Staff: The Strategic Partner Who Will Revolutionize Your Organization

Chief Of Staff: The Strategic Partner Who Will Revolutionize Your Organization by Tyler Parris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Early in my so-called career, I was introduced to the executive floor of the company I worked for, in the top 15 of the Fortune 500. They had an opening for what I’d consider an IT gopher for the executives. I was also introduced to a older man who was a Chief of Staff of one of the company executives. His job sounded like a higher class version of the IT job, and something I thought I might be good at. I later worked with this individual on a major project, where he further explained how the Chief of Staff role worked in his case. I picked up this book for more detail on the position, and to help me determine if I should consider looking for this kind of job. This book did a good job of explaining the role in its different variations. While it was focused on helping executives determine if they could use a Chief of Staff, it also explained the different talents and roles the job entailed. Given the descriptions, I think I will opt out of considering this job for future endeavors – political fluency is not something I enjoy. Overall, I found the book met my needs learning about the various versions of Chiefs of Staff, and I believe it would work well for executives or HR professionals hoping to learn what the job can bring to a company and how it can be described. Short and useful.

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Review: Selected Shorts: Baseball

Selected Shorts: Baseball by Symphony Space
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m used to reading books about baseball. As an audio-only release of their “Selected Shorts” series, NPR has chosen a few shorter pieces on baseball. I found these mostly hits, in terms of content. The readers mostly were reporter types, and perhaps didn’t have the experience of fiction or poetry reading. Not that they were bad, just not polished. And this was a live recording in front of an audience, so no redo’s. Entertaining was the live banter with Bart Giamatti and Roger Angel, they were enjoying themselves and you could tell. My favorite stories were the two longer bits – both of which I had already read. I have John Updike’s article on Ted Williams in its Library of America hardcover. You really get the feel of the times. The other excellent short story was W.P. Kinsella’s “The Thrill of the Grass”, which I read a few decades ago. I’m glad I ran across this again as an older baseball fan, as the story revolves around how older fans feel about the game. Highly recommended here or in Kinsella’s short story collection of the same name.

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Review: Metadata Essentials: Proven Techniques for Book Marketing and Discovery

Metadata Essentials: Proven Techniques for Book Marketing and Discovery by Jake Handy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My career for many years focused on the use of document metadata, so I thought this book on “Metadata Essentials” might speak to me. It did, but more so from the way publishers and retailers tag books. I found this quite interesting (and if I didn’t find it interesting, I suspect no one would find it interesting) in the descriptions of the competing taxonomies used by different sources of books, especially internet retailers Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The book described the expected data for each metadata field required by retailers (as of when the book was written), followed by analysis of the different requirements between retailers and schemes. For those who search for a living, this provides insight into which book retailer might have more searchable and more useful details for searching, most often related to requirements or lack of requirements for topical information. A well put together book on the subject.

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Review: Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia

Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia by Adam Lerner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve been a Devo fan since I ran across their first album back in the late 70s and their videos on “Night Flight” on cable. But I wasn’t really a fanboy enough to learn much about the band. I learned quite a bit about Mothersbaugh from this volume. Two things surprised me. One is that Mothersbaugh is older than I expected. He was at Kent State during the troubles during the Vietnam War, making him about ten years older than I expected. Second, he’s an artist in a large variety of media. This book is about his art, in many varieties of media. And there is a lot of it - dozens, or hundreds of pieces. For a glimpse into his art, this was a very good book. There were multiple writeups, I believe by different authors roughly covering different times and topics. But you will notice quite a bit of overlap. Some details are mentioned many times. Nevertheless, for a good retrospective of a prolific artist of the last 4 decades or so with street/punk cred, this was quite interesting.

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