What we are reading February 21, 2024

Sinister men looking at the Camera.
What we are reading with a tribute to Stanley Kubrick image from Midjourney v6

This week has plenty of ups and downs. Discover Card is getting purchased in a stock deal, Caitlin Clark enters the record books, and plenty of articles about how office culture is broken.

Let us know what you think.


Warren Buffett’s Squishmallows firm sues Build-A-Bear amid ‘knock-off’ claims
Jazwares claims that rival has created its own pillow-like toys to cash in on its viral success

Why we can't have nice things.

People Probably Like You More Than You Think
Do people understand the impressions they make on others or do their anxieties lead them to assume the worst? Across nearly 10 years of research and tens of thousands of observations, the authors have come to this answer: people underestimate how much others like them, and this bias has important implications for how people work together.

We are too hard on ourselves according to the Harvard Business Review.

AP Player of the Week: Iowa’s Caitlin Clark breaks NCAA scoring record in historic fashion
Caitlin Clark of Iowa is The Associated Press national player of the week in women’s college basketball for the third time this season.

She is really good at basketball.

Work culture in the U.S. is broken. It’s on employers to fix it. | Tiffani Bova for Big Think+
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, burnout: there are a ton of buzzwords to describe how modern work culture is broken. Now that we know what the problem…

Tiffani Bova explains an Experience Mindset

Agile is f***ng dead
Punk Rock… often shouted political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute…

We have been doing agile wrong and developers hate it!

Agile is a tainted term
What the **** does that mean?

We are great at selling agility but are we doing it.

The U.S. Navy Is Sinking in the Sand
A long-term campaign against Yemen’s Houthis will undermine America’s struggling navy where it’s most needed.

The U.S. is having some problems and sailors are voting with their feet.

Why Microtribes Are Wrecking Company Growth Plans
Leaders are rushing to drive consumer demand by focusing on innovation and loyalty programs. But the rise of microtribes demands that they pursue a new growth strategy.

You are going to hear a lot about this at your next marketing meeting.

Against Managerialism ❧ Current Affairs
<p>How management education promised a better workplace—and why it delivered nothing but more creative ways of exploiting people. </p>

Managers have gotten a bad name, here is why.

Capital One Could Buy Discover In Major Credit Card Merger
The acquisition would reportedly be Capital One’s largest deal to date.

It is a 35 Billion Dollar stock swap. Its a big deal.

The outdated concept that’s biasing managers against remote work
With no management training to assess the performance of remote staff, managers adopted an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude and underestimated their productivity.

More reasons why managers are hostile to remote work.

How Israel’s war went wrong
The conflict in Gaza has become “an era-defining catastrophe.” It’s increasingly clear what — and who — is to blame.

Things are not going well.

Edward J Wisniowski

Edward J Wisniowski

Ed Wisniowski is a software development veteran. He specializes in improving organization product ownership, helping developers become better artisans, and attempting to scale agile in organizations.
Sugar Grove, IL