Development Books

This book is a non-stop argument for successfull thinking. Mr Castro reminds us that we are in charge of our own potential and it is never too late to begin to accomplish your dreams and goals. This no excuses approach is motivating and inspiring.

When craziness breaks loose in your life, how will you handle it? Not that each of us will experiences the type of heartbreak often inevitable in life, but Critical Choices examines how overcoming difficulty is largely a matter of how you choose to focus your mind. What do you think will happen? Now that might sound easy when not faced with difficulty, but the author talks to so many people some famous and some not, and shows us examples on how focus and belief in an outcome will cause us to act accordingly. The examples from Martin Luther King, Walt Disney, James Earl Jones and countless others are inspiring and uplifting. While we may have heard the believe it, achieve it homily before, Castor motivates readers, inherent in the examples that there are ways the average person can achieve a hero's status in life.

Critical Choices by Dan Castro is one of the largest sources of inspiration I have come across in many years. The book is a quick read, and packs an incredible amount of motivation.

Each success story is easy to understand, and all of them are relevant to every day life, and the bulk will likely help you do what needs to be done; make choices to change your life for the better. All the short accounts of the Hero's lives are bound by common themes which led them to success.

Critical Choices will likely change the way you think about many things for the better, and positively change the way you perceive the world.

I learned a great deal from reading Dan's book, and I plan on sharing it with my friends and family. I suggest you do the same.

One day I was in a very cool book store People's Books) in Austin, Texas; you know those lazy, Summer afternoons when you find yourself all blissed out with the very, very rare opportunity of time? Time to think about your place here, your life and the bountiful world we create around us. Well, as soon as I walked into the store, I felt this magnetic pull toward the second floor...as I rounded the corner up the stair case, I came across this handsome gentle, sweet man in a suit, with this impressively large poster sized cover of a book. It was clear he was getting ready to speak, not privy to the topic of this book or if even this bright soul had written it, I checked out the cover and asked if he was going to be speaking soon and if he had written this book? His warm reply cemented my interested in hearing what this intriguing stranger had share with an intimate group, in a funky book store in Central Texas. When the time approached for him to begin, I took my seat quietly at the front of the room. The beautiful little voice inside me said that I was in for delicious surprise! As soon as Dan Castro stood up in front of the room and began to speak, I was captivated! His beautifully woven tale of how this book came to be was like watching an artist recreate with love and compassion. The light in his eyes as he held the room for more than an hour was so incredibly vibrate, that it made you lean forward with the concentration level of a surgeon. I was so taken by the heart, drive and message coming from this man that the hour felt like only seconds had passed. It was such a gift to have stumbled across this book that I bought two copies that day right after he was done and I have bought three more since, for family and friends. In today's busy world, I know we all wish we had more time to read; please let me personally assure you this book is worth the precious spare time you indulge yourself to read a wonderfully good book!

Like many inspiring, self-help books, Castro's contains myriad stories of "success" under fire. But to me, the most important point he makes is that we all face decision points in our lives. We can CHOOSE how we respond. A common thread ties together almost all of those briefly profiled in this book--they chose to act in an "heroic" manner.

I was especially interested in Castro's first chapter where he laid out his thinking about the difference between what he defines as "heroes," and the rest of us. The secret, he asserts, lies with how they answer three questions: 1. What are you focusing on? 2. What do you believe? 3. What are you expecting.

As a life coach, I think these are excellent questions for anyone who wants to achieve anything outside of their comfort zone. In fact the entire first chapter of the book where Castro develops his thesis about why "heroes" make the choices they do, was informative and helpful. His Seven Laws of Critical Focus could be a roadmap for people who are looking for ways to help them meet challenges in their own lives.

My 2 1/2 year old son absolutely loves this book..the illustrations are lovely, and it is so much fun to read with him. He has already remembered all the words, and fills in most of the gaps as we read it together. He is crazy about fire engines and firemen. I can't recommend this book enough.

My 2-year old follows this story pretty well (it has a repetitive-type storyline) and caught on quickly to the page turn cues (siren). He loves all the sound effects throughout the story. The illustrations are eye catching as well and help tell the story for a child that doesn't read yet. The price is reasonable considering how hard these cassette read-along are to find!

There's not much more to to add to the glowing reviews already here. I just wanted to say that the kids go crazy for Fireman Small. I like that he is such a sweet caring firefighter who goes out of his way to help everyone. I love any book that instills compassion in its readers. We love Fireman Small!!!

I picked this up thinking that it would be another good fireman book for my fireman-obsessed five-year-old. It certainly is that, but the flow and the structure also make it an excellent help-your-child-to-fall-asleep story. The basic plot is that Fireman Small is very tired and keeps trying to go to bed, but each time he does some new emergency happens that forces him to get up one more time. When he's done with the last one, everybody thanks him for all his help and he oh-so-happily drifts off to sleep. I usually read him several stories at bedtime, but I like to make sure that this is the last one; by the time we're through with it he's usually nodding off.

One small problem; Wong seems to have a unique sense of rhythm, which makes this harder to read aloud then you might expect; it took me a couple of readings before I felt that I had gotten it completely right. With practice, though, it flows beautifully.

This is a sweet story with a nice flow and repetition. My 2 1/2 year old son has immediately begun pretending to be Fireman Small saving the kitty and the baby bunny. I will definitely look into other books by this author.

I've been reading this to my one-year-old every night before bed, and she never tires of it. It is made of sturdy pages with big (also sturdy)flaps for little hands to lift. She loves playing peekaboo, so this book delights her, and she squeals everytime she sees her face at the end. I love this book so much, I intend to keep it in my "library" of books so that my grandchildren can enjoy it someday!

My son recieved this book for his 1st birthday and it was an instant hit. It was a fun enjoyable read for him, but the flaps are super flimsy and he had torn most of the book apart within 6 weeks. He's 15 months now and the book has been out of rotation for some time. :(

My boys loved this book. It actually lasted through one and passed on to the next extremely well! Each flap puts a smile on my little one's face. Its a great purchase.

We received this when my son was 15 months and he has loved it since. Initially, he just loved to lift the flaps, and it has handled his roughness. With the great pictures, we also use it to ask him to find an animal on a given page or within the whole book.

This is the sweetest book-after many many readings I am buying a new one since most of the flaps are gone and been "loved." This was my daughter's first book when she was 4 months old-she's loved it since the first time we read it. Hope your little one enjoys it too!

I like Mr. Lester R. Brown! I liked this well written book which was very interesting. He's a good writer. You don't have to struggle to get to the end of this book. I read books like these because I am concerning about what type of world my children will live in in 2035-2050, long, long, after I am gone. Some of the Author's warm and fuzzy ideas I don't agree with. When I was born, there were only 150 million Americans and 2.5 billion people on the earth. Now there are 300 million Americans and 6.5 billion people on the earth. Life will not be warm and fuzzy when there are 400 million Americans and 9 billion people on the earth. I think the outcome will be war and sickness. This book is a very, very good read! Regards, Keith Renick, Peachtree City, Ga.

I bought this book after much reading about the overall resource strain our planet has been facing though wanted to read all about it in one place. This book is an excellent resource for this purpose. I treasure this book because every now and then I can keep pulling out some impressive statistics and data and even helps me choose a direction to look for when thinking about my own family's future.

However, I take away one star because the 'solutions' offered are not indepth. A majority of the book only focuses on talking about issues. The last chapter with the solutions leaves something desired.

Read first copy I bought. This 2nd, 3rd & 4th are for my grandkids. They're are the ones inheriting the problems and, I hope, they will be living toward solutions. I especially like from p. 123 on, when Brown begins proposing solutions. Astounded that we humans, globally subsidize nonrenewables by &700 Billion ANNUALLY. Love the idea of carbon taxes rather than cumbersome regulation & enforcement. Kathryn Russell

Plan B. 2.0 is the most comprehensive book I've found yet on the converging crises that we are facing in the world today. In Part I of the book, Lester R. Brown lays out each crisis, explaining the causes, and then goes on in Parts II and III, lays out a rational, well-thought-out,practical solution to the problems at hand. I gave my husband a copy of it to use for part of the Critical Issues for Law Enforcement class he's teaching at our local university. As far as I'm concerned, every American ought to have a copy and read it often and thoroughly. We need to be aware of what we're doing to ourselves and others. The frosting on this cake is that he gives us the tools we need to remedy the situation...if we act now.

If you care about this planet and our journey upon it, this book is essential reading for the millennium ahead. I just wanted to add my five stars. Please read the other reviews for the overview of "Plan B: 2.0"

The information in the book is clear, easy to understand, and worth reading. The formatting of the text, the fonts used, and the overall style of the book is lacking. The end of the book was actually a few mm shorter than the spine on my copy, but nothing was cut off, so it doesn't matter beyond looking a little odd.

I would buy it again, even if the previous version is available for free online. It's great to read when you're not near a computer, as (for a programmer) the book is easy enough to follow without needing to try every example yourself.

One of the best programing language books I have read. If only the programing guides for other languages could be this clear and concise.

Good examples, suggestions, and notes. Is a must have for any one looking to program in Lua.

Naming this language after the moon is ironically apropos, as many of its lunatic creator's cognitive processes seem to randomly scramble themselves according to the phase of said moon. I'm no language designer myself, but if I were trying to come up with a high-level scripting language that would appeal directly to C programmers, the last thing I'd want to do is start array indices at 1 rather than 0. Sure, you have the option of altering this behavior in the constructor, but in the author's own words:

"I do not recommend the use of arrays starting at 0 in Lua. Most built-in functions assume that arrays start at index 1, and therefore they will not handle such arrays correctly."

Talk about giving you just enough rope to hang yourself. But it gets even better. Array elements in Lua are to be removed by assigning their indices the value of nil. This is all well and good, but, again in the author's own words:

"Lua uses [the nil] value as a sentinel to find the end of the array. When the array has holes--nil elements inside it--the length operator may assume any of these nil elements as the end marker. Of course, this unpredictability is hardly what you want."

No shoot, Sherlock. So why not get rid of that unpredictability? As I read further I came to the conclusion that this decision was made because doing otherwise would spoil the running theme of the language. Another favorite passage comes from page 32 when discussing the numeric for loop:

"you should never change the value of the control variable: the effect of such changes is unpredictable."

Great! I love unpredictable results. They make so much more sense than raising a predictable exception or pointing out a predictable old syntax error. Let's see now... How else can we anger C programmers? How about if we make it so "a break or return statement can appear only as the last statement of a block"? Wonderful! Now let's get rid of one of the primary attractions of high-level scripting languages--regular expressions--and say we can't include them due to size concerns (we really need to be able to brag about our entire distribution fitting on a single floppy disk, and the PCRE library is just HUGE).

These things are marginally less obnoxious than Python's significant whitespace, but still obnoxious, and apart from the multiple return values thing, I really didn't find any compelling reason to join the Lua fanboy camp in this volume. Maybe if I were a Warcraft player I'd feel differently.

As for the book itself, the writing is terse and very obviously coming from a non-native speaker. The typesetting is atrocious (good typography is one of those things you never really appreciate until it's gone) and the entire thing looks like it was printed on an old laser printer that was low on toner at Kinko's. If it were cheaper, I wouldn't care, but it's not, so I do.

Stick to the free PDF if you really have to learn Lua for something. The changes in 5.1 are not significant enough to warrant a second edition, and the flimsy, smudged paper is really not worth paying for.

Buying this book does more than support the Lua project. Having the book available will change your opinion of integrating script with C code! "Progamming in Lua" is a well-written text that makes using Lua practical. All of the best features of Lua are covered; the sample code is concise, clear and complete.

Lua is very different from C, and so allows a programmer to easily do things that are difficult in C. That makes it a perfect companion language. The only obstacle is training a C programmer to use it! That's where the book becomes useful. It's a quick read and covers all the essentials.

Even better, Lua is so well-connected to C that it is easy to switch back and forth in the course of a typical programming day, writing performance code in C and high-level logic in Lua. It is even possible to easily interact with Lua data structures in C without writing Lua code for situations where the data structures are desirable but Lua code isn't required. If you're looking for a scripting language for your next project, you need to know about Lua, and this book is the quickest way to make an informed decision.

Excellent high-lvel book for anyone involved with software development and implementation. This book digs deep with enough details of security in coding and testing practices and how to avoid security related bugs and vulnerabilities. The book also does well in terms of secure coding, white box and black box testing very well.

Few things where this book falls short "Ignorant" to emerging application landscape and the coding complexities in a multi-platform and application integration environment - J2EE, .NET, XML Web Services and SOA. I am sure, the author will agree on those gaps hopefully we see in the next edition of this book.

The book deserves 5 stars for the concepts + illustrations and 3 stars for those keen on development details for distributed applications.

A required reading for anyone involved with software development and implementation. This book drills-down to security in coding and testing practices and how to avoid security related bugs and vulnerabilities. The concepts illustrated on secure coding, white box and black box testing are excellent. As a developer/architect, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I suggest to everyone who wants to get started on secure coding and testing practices.

Couple of things I QUIBBLE with are... the book does'nt realize the emerging issues and how-to's for build/refactor security for distributed application proliferation as your it - Portals, Web Services and SOA. The way we develop software is changing, the applications are becoming more pervasive and no-longer contained standalone to a system which makes the built-in security brittle impeding the agile business requirements for application/process orchestration, b2b federation and Web based application mashups. I am sure, the author will realize those gaps in the next edition of this book.

Havingsaid - This book is still a must-read for the budding security developer who wants to focus on secure programming and testing.

What is MISSING - You will not find answers for how you do secure web-centric applications, XML Web services - message-level security, identity federation and other b2b application complexities.

Software Security is the best book for learning to integrate security throughout your software development lifecycle. It contains all the security material that is missing from software engineering books. The author understands that your software development lifecycle is different from his, and so focuses on seven touchpoints that can be introduced into any software development lifecycle, instead of attempting to sell you a new lifecycle. He also understands that no matter how important security is to you, you can't change everything about you develop software tomorrow, so he introduces the touchpoints in order of effectiveness based on his extensive consulting experience, starting with tool-assisted code reviews and architectural risk analysis.

If you're a software developer, Software Security is an essential book to have on your shelf, and you'll also want a secure programming book like Secure Programming with Static Analysis (Addison-Wesley Software Security Series) or the author's own Building Secure Software: How to Avoid Security Problems the Right Way.

The root cause of many security vulnerabilities is poorly written software. Often, software applications are written without security in mind. The logical, yet elusive, solution is to ensure that software developers are trained in writing secure code.

Software Security: Building Security In is a valiant attempt to show software developers how to do just that. The book is the latest step in Gary McGraw's software security series, whose previous titles include Building Secure Software and Exploiting Software.

In past decades, writing secure code was left to the military and banking industry. Today, with everything on networks, all sectors must get into the act.

Much of the problem is that organizations target their security elsewhere--specifically on networks--rather than on software. But so many malicious attacks are directed at software that it is foolish to leave this vulnerability exposed.

McGraw goes into detail not only about writing secure code but also about key related areas, which he terms "the seven touchpoints of software security."

These points comprise code review, architectural risk analysis, penetration testing, risk-based security tests, abuse cases, security requirements, and security operations. A major portion of the book effectively discusses these "touchpoints," making the work a recommended tool for inculcating software developers with a security mind-set.

I read six books on software security recently, namely "Writing Secure Code, 2nd Ed" by Michael Howard and David LeBlanc; "19 Deadly Sins of Software Security" by Michael Howard, David LeBlanc, and John Viega; "Software Security" by Gary McGraw; "The Security Development Lifecycle" by Michael Howard and Steve Lipner; "High-Assurance Design" by Cliff Berg; and "Security Patterns" by Markus Schumacher, et al. Each book takes a different approach to the software security problem, although the first two focus on coding bugs and flaws; the second two examine development processes; and the last two discuss practices or patterns for improved design and implementation. My favorite of the six is Gary McGraw's, thanks to his clear thinking and logical analysis. The other five are still noteworthy books. All six will contribute to the production of more security software.

Gary McGraw's book gets my vote as the best of the six because it made the biggest impact on the way I look at the software security problem. First, Gary emphasizes the differences between bugs (coding errors) and flaws (deeper architectural problems). He shows that automated code inspection tools can be applied more or less successfully to the first problem set, but human investigation is required to address the second. Gary applauds the diversity of backgrounds found in today's security professionals, but wonders what will happen when this rag-tag bunch (myself included) is eventually replaced by "formally" trained college security graduates.

Second, Gary explains that although tools cannot replace a flaw-finding human, they can assist programmers trying to avoid writing bugs. Gary is the only author I encountered who acknowledged that it is unrealistic to expect a programmer to keep dozens or hundreds of sound coding practices and historical vulnerabilities in his head while writing software. An automated tool is a powerful way to apply secure coding lessons in a repeatable and measurable manner. Gary also reframed the way I look at software penetration testing, by showing in ch 6 that they are best used to discover environmental and configuration problems of software in production.

Third, Gary is not afraid to point out the problems with other interpretations of the software security problem. I almost fell out of my chair when I read his critique on pp 140-7 and p 213 of Microsoft's improper use of terms like "threat" in their so-called "threat model." Gary is absolutely right to say Microsoft is performing "risk analysis," not "threat analysis." (I laughed when I read him describe Microsoft's "Threat Modeling" as "[t]he unfortunately titled book" on p 310.) I examine this issue deeper in my reviews of Microsoft's books. Gary is also correct when he states on p 153 that "security is more like insurance than it is some kind of investment." I bookmarked the section (pp 292, 296-7) where Gary explained how the "19 Deadly Sins of Software Security" mix "specific types of errors and vulnerability classes and talk about them all at the same level of abstraction." He's also right that the OWASP Top Ten suffers the same problem. Finally, Gary understands the relationships between operators and developers and the importance of security vocabulary.

I was pleasantly surprised by "Software Security". I reviewed an early draft for Addison-Wesley and wondered where the author was taking this book. It ended up being my favorite software security book, easily complementing Gary's earlier book "Building Secure Software." In my opinion, Gary is thinking properly about all the fundamental issues that matter. This book should be distributed to all Microsoft developers to help them frame the software security problem properly.

If you have children... This is the book for you. This is a LAUGH REALLY OUT LOUD book. I have passed this book around to about a half a dozen people. And they say the same. Husbands and wives alike. I wish KEN would write another book or find a book just as funny. It's a MUST read if you have children.

Ken is a master at capturing the parent's view of children. Our collective joy, frustration, and humor is encapsulated in this highly recommended book.

Any generation and believe it or not single people too can relate to the family life potrayed in Ken Swarners antics of his family life.

I received the book for Mothers Day, and jokingly accused my grown-up-sons of contributing ideas to it. It was that easy to share warm hearted memories and stories with family members after I had read it.

A Great Gift to read and save to pass down to the next generation of parents. (God Be Their Mercy)

This was a very funny book. The incidents were a reminder of what we faced raising our children. I hope Mr Swarner will do another book with the updates.

Got our copy about two weeks ago and have been smiling ever since (people generally refer to me as the "Grouch" so the book has helped).

Truly though, Ken has a unique style of reality and humor. He mixes them well in each episode of the book. It is definitely a "keeper" and I am recommending to all my e-mail friends.

I looked high and low, and this has to be the best option for developing an LDAP or ADSI component in C++. Find this out of print book and buy it instead of buying another book that is still in print.

Really awesome AD programming book. Covers all the basics of AD and ADSI and then dives into the LDAP API which all other authors try to avoid and dont cover well. You do not need any other AD programming books if you have this one.

Very good book, extensively covers LDAP programming
unlike others.

I've struggled with using LDAP and this explains it all with code samples, which for the likes of makes it easy to learn and best of all Copy and Paste

Really awesome AD programming book. Covers all the basics of AD and ADSI and then dives into the LDAP API which all other authors try to avoid and dont cover well. You do not need any other AD programming books if you have this one.

Dos ultimos livros que tenho comprado, assim como os da serie Head First da O'Really este livro superou muito as minhas espectativas.

Como um livro de tutorial foi maravilhoso e me trouxe muito conteudo !!!

Realmente vale a pena !!!

It's an excellent book, the book teaches you how to develop a site in three layers (presentation, business and data) in my ishe goal of this book.

It is cover a lot of great part of asp.net 2.0. It is easy to understand and implement. Some code is very profession and hard to understand. Most of them cover SQL,ASP,WEB service,security issue.I will say it is the cool part of ASP.net. You can see author spend a lot of time to collect the beauty of asp.net. You will like it no matter how many time you read the book.

'Beginning ASP .NET 2.0 E-Commerce in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional' by Cristian Darie and Karli Watson is one of the most unique and important books out there for anyone that is developing an E-Commerce site with ASP.NET 2.0. Starting from scratch, the authors step by step show you how to get a site running and WORKING well and efficient. Packed with 650+ pages of material, the authors break the steps down in logical parts, show how they go about the work to be done, and then provide the code which does the dirty work. Not only is it helpful, but it's a joy to follow the steps as so much of the curtain is pulled away to show the developer how to get the job done. This is easily one of my favorite Apress books that I have seen. One of the nicest things about the Apress line of books is the fact that they write and publish books that no one else seems to and this is a perfect example of this. I'll close with a chapter overview for your inspection:

01. Starting off
02. Laying Out the Foundation
03. Creating the Product Catalog: Part I
04. Creating the Product Catalog: Part II
05. Searching the Catalog
06. Improving Performance
07. Receiving Payments Using PayPal
08. Catalog Administration
09. Creating a Custom Shopping Cart
10. Custom Orders
11. Making Product Recommendations
12. Adding Customer Accounts
13. Advanced Customer Orders
14. Order Pipeline
15. Implementing the Pipeline
16. Credit Card Transactions
17. Integrating with Amazon

Tack on 2 appendixes to the end and you have a MUST-HAVE book for anyone that is looking to achieve the same goals that this books does!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This book covers it's topic E-Commerce very well. It also takes advantage of the new features found in ASP.Net 2.0 including some of the new ADO features. If you are getting ready to setup an E-Commerce site I highly recommend this book. I also recommend it for beginning developers wanting to know more about ADO and database design.
The authors have a great approach to design that anyone doing E-Commerce would do well to follow. Better yet they mention the pros and cons of different approaches and explain why they chose their approach. I've been thrilled to learn some new strategies to improve performance that I hadn't considered before as well as some new features in ASP.Net and ADO 2.0 that I wasn't aware of.
The only negative, for me, is the database as well as ADO basics this book spends many pages covering. However there's plenty of worthwhile content to justify the price. So if you are familiar with database design and have a working knowledge of ADO you can just skip past those pages. I do recommend you skim thru them though as, like me, you may learn some new 2.0 features you weren't aware of.
The book covered all my E-Commerce questions: catalog design, how to scale up/performance considerations, SSL, Security issues, credit card processing, and costs involved. They even point you in the direction of a few recommended credit card processing businesses. Best of all they approach the site creation in such a way you can quickly get up and going and then later on focus on fine tuning payment options and really making the site standout with features.

Peter's The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook is a must have for everybody who has read the original The Fifth Discipline or are in anyways interested on building learning organization.

In short, the book itself contains useful real life examples and tips & tricks on building learning organization. It really opens new point of views to see and solve problems. It has helped me at work and at personal life, it is 'more than asked I for'.

I recommend this book for anybody.

It seems to me that The Fifth Discipline (the previous publication of the series) is more attacting to me. The second book can be more precise and concise in content. Generally speaking I still like these two books as a foreign reader.

The Fieldbook attempts at making the esoteric concepts of the fifth discipline more down to earth and contains a treasure trove of strategies, tools, methods and explanations on how to make the learning organization into a reality.

Thus people who have read The fifth discipline will gain the most from this book. It's a must read for people who want to make their organizations transition into a 'learning organization'

This book is a collection of theoretical summaries, reports, analyses, and strategies all quite useful to anyone interested in generating some thinking and action around change. The team of five writers (Peter Senge, Richard Ross, Bryan Smith, Charlotte Roberts, and Art Kleiner) provide some original work, but also serve as editors to a vast quantity of material drawn from practitioners, theorists, and writers in the field of organizational improvement. According to Senge, "great teams are learning organizations - groups of people who, over time, enhance their capacity to create what they truly desire to create." (p.18) This book is really about creating and building great teams. The learning organization develops its ability to reflect on, discuss, question, and change its current and past practices. To do this, people and groups in the organization need to meaningfully pursue the study and practice of the five disciplines - personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.

The learning organization - Senge's vision for the productive, competitive, and efficient institutions of the future - is in a continuous state of change. Four fundamental questions continuously serve to check and guide a group's learning and improvement (see page 49): (1) Do you continuously test your experiences? ("Are you willing to examine and challenge your sacred cows - not just during crises, but in good times?") (2) Are you producing knowledge? ("Knowledge, in this case, means the capacity for effective action.") (3) Is knowledge shared? ("Is it accessible to all of the organization's members?") (4) Is the learning relevant? ("Is this learning aimed at the organization's core purpose?") If these questions represent the organization's compass, the five disciplines are its map.

Each of the five disciplines is explained, and elaborated in its own lengthy section of the book. In the section on "Systems Thinking" (a set of practices and perspectives, which views all aspects of life as inter-related and playing a role in some larger system), the authors build on the idea of feedback loops (reinforcing and balancing) and introduce five systems archetypes. They are: "fixes that backfire", "limits to growth", "shifting the burden", "tragedy of the commons", and "accidental adversaries". In the section on "Personal Mastery", the authors argue that learning starts with each person. For organizations to learn and improve, people within the organization (perhaps starting with its core leadership) must learn to reflect on and become aware of their own core beliefs and visions. In "Mental Models", the authors argue that learning organizations need to explore the assumptions and attitudes, which guide their institutional directions, practices, and strategies. Articles on scenario planning, the ladder of inference, the left-hand column, and balancing inquiry and advocacy offer practical strategies to investigate our personal mental models as well as those of others in the organization. In "Shared Vision", the authors make the case for the stakeholders of an organization to continually adapt their vision ("an image of a desired future"), values ("how we get to travel to where we want to go"), purpose ("what the organization is here to do"), and goals ("milestones we expect to reach before too long"). The section offers many strategies and perspectives on how to move an organization toward continuous reflection. In "Team Learning", the authors rely mostly on the work of William Isaacs and others, and make a case for educating organization members in the processes and skills of dialogue and skillful discussion.

This book is enlightening and informative. It has already found a place on my shelf for essential reference books.

Peter M Serge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook

To quote the first few paragraphs at beginning of book:

Among the tribes of northen Natal in South Africa, the most common greeting, equivalent to "hello" in English, is the expression: Sawu bona. It literally means, "I see you." If you are a member of the tribe, you might reply by saying Sikhona, "I am here." The order of the exchange is important: until you see me, I do not exist. It's as if, when you see me bring me into existence.

This meaning, implicit in the language, is part of the spirit of ubuntu, a frame of mind prevalent among native people in Africa below the Sahara. The word ubuntu stems from the folk saying Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu, which from Zulu, literally translates as: "A person is a person because of other people."


"I bow in honor and reverence that place within you where to the Universe resides, when you are in that place within you, and I am in that place within me, there is One." ~namaste


The five disciplines are at the CORE of a Learning Organization

1) Personal Mastery: expand your personal capacity and ability

2) Mental Models: see how our internal pictures of the world shape action and decision

3) Shared Vision: group commitment

4) Team Learning: group ability is greater than the sum of individual talents

5) System Thinking:


"When we try to bring about change in our societies, we are treated first with indifference, then with ridicule, then with abuse and then with oppression. And finally, the greatest challenge is thrown at us: We are treated with respect. This is the most dangerous stage." --A. T. Ariyaratne (Speech made at International Community Leadership Summit, Winrock, Arkansas, March 1983. This quote paraphrases and expands upon a well-known statement made by Mahatma Gandhi in his book Satyagraha in South Africa, 1982, 1979, Canon, Me.: Greenleaf books)


"An [organization] is not a machine but a living organism." --Ikujiro Nonaka /****
Fundamentals of epistemology: what is knowledge, the nature of knowledge, and what constitutes learning.
understanding is achieved after internalization.
Without experience, we cannot truly understand.
Internalization: transformation from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge, habits and culture that we do not recognize in ourselves.
Innovation is a process to capture, create, leverage, and retain knowledge.
What is your belief? A belief about images of the world - you may call it a mental model - is a very subjective thing

information is the flow of a message, while knowledge is created by accumulating information. Thus, information is a necessary medium or material for eliciting and constructing knowledge.

The second difference is that information is something passive. When we switch on a TV set, information comes regardless of my commitment. But knowledge comes from my belief, so it's more proactive.

And the organizational knowledge or intellectual infrastructure of an organization encourages its individual members to develop new knowledge through new experiences.

This dynamic process is the key to organizational knowledge creation - that is, socialization (from individual tacit knowledge to group tacit knowledge), externalization (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge), combination (from separate explicit knowledge to systemic explicit knowledge), and internalization (from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge) [...].

[...]

Three Guiding Ideas

1) The Whole. When you are pointing a finger at the problems, notice how many fingers are pointing back at you. If you fixed the symptoms and ignore the root causes, the problems have not gone away. Another way to look at this is treat the person, not the disease. Of course treat the disease if the patient is dying, but know that the patient will get sick again because the "root causes" are stil there.

2) Community. The self is "a point of view." "The essence of being a person is being in a relationship [with] other people." You will not believe this, but each person before you is there for a reason. The reason this person is there at this moment is for you to learn something about yourself. If you ignore the person, do not ignore or forget the lesson.

3) Language. The map is not the territory. We cannot contain every bit of information that comes to us in the world, so we have to create a "map of the territory" and then refer to the map for our information. By changing a person's map, we change their reality. Language is the map, not the reality.