DPL Reading List – February 5, 2016
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week.
What Having A “Growth Mindset” Actually Means – “In the wake of these findings, “growth mindset” has become a buzzword in many major companies, even working its way into their mission statements. But when I probe, I often discover that people’s understanding of the idea is limited. Let’s take a look at three common misconceptions.”
To The Nine-Nine-Ninety-Nines (Thanks to Brian Zimmer for recommending this article) – “Availability is the ratio of uptime to downtime. It’s expressed in “nines.” You’ll hear someone say “We’ve got five nines uptime.” That means that the service is available 99.999% of the time (uptime), and only down 0.001% of the time (downtime).”
What RESTful Actually Means (Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for recommending this article) – “If you do web development, you’ve probably heard of REST. But if you’re like me, you usually just pretend to know what it is, and nod politely when someone asks you if what you’re making is RESTful. I use HTTP, err, that means it’s RESTful right? Recently, I decided to take the plunge and actually find out what this peaceful-sounding buzzword means.”
The Trickle-Down Effect of Good (And Bad) Leadership – “We already know that good leadership creates engaged employees and that leaders influence a variety of outcomes such as personnel turnover, customer satisfaction, sales, revenue, productivity, and so on. But if you’re a good leader, do you make the people around you more likely to become good leaders as well? And which behaviors are most readily “caught”?”
How Company Culture Shapes Employee Motivation – “A great culture is not easy to build — it’s why high performing cultures are such a powerful competitive advantage. Yet organizations that build great cultures are able to meet the demands of the fast-paced, customer-centric, digital world we live in. More and more organizations are beginning to realize that culture can’t be left to chance. Leaders have to treat culture building as an engineering discipline, not a magical one.”
Make Design Decisions With A Purpose (Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for recommending this article) – “As designers, we run the risk of becoming overly familiar with our work, designing for ourselves, and losing perspective of what our users see and experience. Preventing these bad habits isn’t difficult—using appropriate UX research methods makes us more connected designers and keeps us focused on the end user.”
8 Things That Self-Made Billionaires Do Differently (Thanks to Brian Zimmer for recommending this article) – “By researching these entrepreneurs, I’ve found unique ways of thinking that aren’t commonly known among most entrepreneurs (even successful ones). The process of uncovering these principles has fundamentally changed how I think about business. Some have served as a reminder that it’s consistently doing simple things that matter most.”
