Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain Review

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Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain ReviewPerhaps I shouldn't have read this book. I am a neuroscientist, and clearly this is meant for a lay audience, however I often enjoy such books for their concise synthesis of research and the freedom they give the author to speculate. Unfortunately it became clear quickly that this would not be such a book - p.19 announces that the author is from the Malcolm Gladwell school of nonfiction "Why was Topsy the elephant electrocuted by Thomas Edison in 1919? ... is there a real Mel Gibson? ... why do strippers make more money at certain times of month?" Ask intriguing questions, link them with vague explanations, file them under a catchy one-word title, and voila NY Times bestseller. While I have little doubt that this book will do well commercially and be enjoyed by many, I cannot recommend it to anyone with a serious interest in neuroscience.
While chapter two is a solid introduction to perception as inference, it is downhill from there. It becomes clear that Eagleman is not interested in any systematic review of the unconscious factors that influence our decisions, but is merely interested in presenting flashy examples. This by itself wouldn't be so objectionable, if he had actually come up with interesting and novel examples, instead of simply reciting old standards and cribbing from other authors. Eagleman has borrowed so much of his material that V.S. Ramachandran should demand royalties. However, Eagleman apparently hasn't read Ramachandran carefully enough, as he references his paper "Why do gentlemen prefer blondes?", apparently unaware that the paper was satirical. How embarrassing.
Eagleman attempts to go beyond the flashy examples in Chapter 5, declaring that the brain is a "team of rivals." This reference to D.K. Goodwin's book about Lincoln is both unfortunate and vague. It is vague because Eagleman never makes it clear what the 'rivals' are. What neural circuits are competing? What are their respective computations? It is unfortunate because it just isn't a good analogy for the brain. If we stick with the simple rational-emotional dichotomy, the goal of 'rationality' is not to rival emotion. Emotion forms the basis for all rational computation - without emotion there is no goal. While it is cliche, Eagleman's second analogy to a corporation (with consciousness as CEO) seems a far better fit than a 'team of rivals'.
Chapter 6 is a rather sophomoric look at the legal implications of brain research. Forty self-important pages can be summarized by saying that Eagleman believes that the legal system should focus on rehabilitation. Eagleman speculates that future brain science will tell us how 'modifiable' a brain's circuits are, suggesting that 'prefrontal workout' could be used to rehabilitate certain transgressors - those who are hopeless would be 'warehoused'. Even with 'warehousing' of the incurable, Eagleman's view is fundamentally naive. He completely ignores the role of punishment as a deterrent. Stephen Pinker's take on this topic in 'The Blank Slate' is far more balanced and thoughtful.
The book ends with Eagleman offering the familiar refrain that consciousness is an unspecified emergent property, and then declaring himself agnostic on deeper questions. It's a disappointing ending to a disappointing book. Eagleman's material is for the most part derivative and cliched, and his attempts at synthesis are muddled and vague.Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain Overview

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The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Review

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The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses ReviewAs an experienced entrepreneur - inside of big companies in terms of the ubiquitous "change initiative," but also in new product or service development, and as a new subsidiary C-level executive - and now as a small business startup founder and owner - I really looked forward to reading this. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to like this book and see how I could apply Ries' learnings to better my entrepreneurship and my innovation, I was deeply disappointed. The book is repetitive, light on specifics, with many generalized insights (that are really not too insightful), and even includes a number of passages that lead the reader to second-guess whether the author's point is to share actual advice and steps to take, or to encourage people to use his "Lean Startup program" (which, coincidentally, entails hiring his firm - who knew?).
Six key strengths/pros of the book:
1. It's a very quick read; I finished it in two sessions
2. A great premise: "the application of lean thinking to the process of innovation"
3. An excellent threshold question that goes beyond the usual, Should this product be built? to: "Can we build a sustainable business around this set of products and services?" Definitely more would-be entrepreneurs should be able to definitely answer this question long before they go seek funding or decide to incorporate.
4. The suggestion to see customer requests/desires as the opportunity to run innovation experiments, not as the actual need for a new product or service (i.e., maybe you only need to tweak a current product or service, not invent new). For anyone who's followed Voice of the Customer new product innovation techniques over the past two decades, this is hardly news, but Ries does a good job of simplifying one of the core learnings of Voice of the Customer: stated customer feedback is not always an accurate reflection of actual need/desire.
5. The concept of the "engines of growth" (i.e., entrepreneurs have lots of ideas, it's really more a matter of selecting which ones will actually work and strongly grow the company).
6. The need to use metrics of customer churn rate versus customer retention versus new customer attraction to assess customer behavior associated with your product/service, and thus the likelihood for good business growth.Four frustrating cons of the book:
1. Mr. Ries must mention at least a dozen times throughout the book (and sometimes several times a chapter) something along the lines of "My experiences are now part of the entrepreneurship curriculum at several business schools, including Harvard Business School, where I serve as an entrepreneur in residence. I've also told these stories at countless workshops, lectures and conferences." It's one thing to tell stories in a book to demonstrate principles and tactics, it's another to constantly remind the reader about the great stories and advice he/she is getting by reading the book.
2. All of the strengths I noted above are just about how specific Mr. Ries actually gets. For instance, over pages 215-220, Ries discusses the metrics of customer churn, customer retention, and how, in order to get good growth, you have to have significantly more customer retention and more new customers than lost customers. At the end of those five pages, you'll have learned exactly what I just stated (and in the process read a bunch of stories and case studies taught in countless workshops, etc., illustrating that sentence).
3. A number of the mistakes that Mr. Ries talks about are related to his dot-bomb experiences, and do not, unfortunately, relate very well to innovators and entrepreneurs today. For instance, most of the venture capitalists that I know will not loan money or invest in startups that do not have rock-solid business plans stating specifically how the new product or service will make money, how quickly, the specific known hurdles, and so on. And the VCs will re-run their own numbers and do their own market analysis. Try getting a line of credit today, and you'll quickly see how different the financial investment in the startup landscape is today from back in the dot-bomb era.
4. Much of the book is written not for small business owners or those who'd strike out on their own and start a new company, but those who work within large companies (who, incidentally, will have the money to hire Mr. Ries as an entrepreneurship consultant) and want to start innovating better, being more creative, and being internal entrepreneurs.
While these pros and cons balance out any assessment of the book (and thus I give it 3 stars), I don't think they make for a satisfying - or even very helpful read. There's much better fare out there that is much more specific, including the Heath brothers' "Made to Stick" or their latest, "Switch."
If you must get "The Lean Startup," wait for it in the bargain bin.The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Overview

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