Niccolò Machiavelli famously wrote, "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." That's what this book is about--innovation far more audacious than a new way to find a restaurant or a smart phone you can wear on your wrist. Harvard professor Amy Edmondson and journalist Susan Salter Reynolds explore how to bring into being systems that transform human experience and make the world more livable and sustainable. This demands "big teaming": intense collaboration across professions and industries that may have completely different mindsets and even be antagonistic to each other. To do this successfully requires practicing new forms of leadership that combine an expansive vision with incremental action--not an easy balance. To reveal how pioneers build the future, Edmondson and Reynolds tell the story of Living PlanIT, an award-winning "smart city" start-up with a breathtakingly ambitious goal: building a showcase high-tech city from scratch to pilot its software. This meant a joint effort spanning a truly disparate group of software entrepreneurs, real estate developers, city government officials, architects, construction companies, and technology corporations. We get to know Living PlanIT's leaders and follow them and their partners through cycles of hope, exhaustion, disillusionment, pragmatism, and renewal. There are powerful lessons here for anyone, in any industry, seeking to transform the world.

How to rebuild higher education from the ground up for the twenty-first century. Higher education is in crisis. It is too expensive, ineffective, and impractical for many of the world's students. But how would you reinvent it for the twenty-first century—how would you build it from the ground up? Many have speculated about changing higher education, but Minerva has actually created a new kind of university program. Its founders raised the funding, assembled the team, devised the curriculum and pedagogy, recruited the students, hired the faculty, and implemented a bold vision of a new and improved higher education. This book explains that vision and how it is being realized. The Minerva curriculum focuses on “practical knowledge” (knowledge students can use to adapt to a changing world); its pedagogy is based on scientific research on learning; it uses a novel technology platform to deliver small seminars in real time; and it offers a hybrid residential model where students live together, rotating through seven cities around the world. Minerva equips students with the cognitive tools they need to succeed in the world after graduation, building the core competencies of critical thinking, creative thinking, effective communication, and effective interaction. The book offers readers both the story of this grand and sweeping idea and a blueprint for transforming higher education.

Why the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in sharing the benefits of innovation with workers and how we can remedy the problem. The United States has too many low-quality, low-wage jobs. Every country has its share, but those in the United States are especially poorly paid and often without benefits. Meanwhile, overall productivity increases steadily and new technology has transformed large parts of the economy, enhancing the skills and paychecks of higher paid knowledge workers. What’s wrong with this picture? Why have so many workers benefited so little from decades of growth? The Work of the Future shows that technology is neither the problem nor the solution. We can build better jobs if we create institutions that leverage technological innovation and also support workers though long cycles of technological transformation. Building on findings from the multiyear MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, the book argues that we must foster institutional innovations that complement technological change. Skills programs that emphasize work-based and hybrid learning (in person and online), for example, empower workers to become and remain productive in a continuously evolving workplace. Industries fueled by new technology that augments workers can supply good jobs, and federal investment in R&D can help make these industries worker-friendly. We must act to ensure that the labor market of the future offers benefits, opportunity, and a measure of economic security to all.

Building Your Future is a practical business guide for business owners in the construction and service industry who want to grow a highly successful and profitable business while reclaiming time and freedom. This book will give you a solid foundation to completely transform your business and the confidence to take it to the next level.

There is no denying the transformational role of the computer in the evolution of contemporary architectural practice. But does this techno-determinist account tell the whole story? Are humans becoming irrelevant to the overall development of the built environment? Bulding (in) the Future confronts these important questions by examining the fundamental human relationships that characterize contemporary design and construction. Thirty-four contributors including designers, engineers, fabricators, contractors, construction managers, planners, and scholars examine how contemporary practices of production are reshaping the design/construction process

From the Foreword: "This book lays out much of what we’ve learned at AT&T about SDN and NFV. Some of the smartest network experts in the industry have drawn a map to help you navigate this journey. Their goal isn’t to predict the future but to help you design and build a network that will be ready for whatever that future holds. Because if there’s one thing the last decade has taught us, it’s that network demand will always exceed expectations. This book will help you get ready." —Randall Stephenson, Chairman, CEO, and President of AT&T "Software is changing the world, and networks too. In this in-depth book, AT&T's top networking experts discuss how they're moving software-defined networking from concept to practice, and why it's a business imperative to do this rapidly." —Urs Hölzle, SVP Cloud Infrastructure, Google "Telecom operators face a continuous challenge for more agility to serve their customers with a better customer experience and a lower cost. This book is a very inspiring and vivid testimony of the huge transformation this means, not only for the networks but for the entire companies, and how AT&T is leading it. It provides a lot of very deep insights about the technical challenges telecom engineers are facing today. Beyond AT&T, I’m sure this book will be extremely helpful to the whole industry." —Alain Maloberti, Group Chief Network Officer, Orange Labs Networks "This new book should be read by any organization faced with a future driven by a "shift to software." It is a holistic view of how AT&T has transformed its core infrastructure from hardware based to largely software based to lower costs and speed innovation. To do so, AT&T had to redefine their technology supply chain, retrain their workforce, and move toward open source user-driven innovation; all while managing one of the biggest networks in the world. It is an amazing feat that will put AT&T in a leading position for years to come." —Jim Zemlin, Executive Director, The Linux Foundation This book is based on the lessons learned from AT&T’s software transformation journey starting in 2012 when rampant traffic growth necessitated a change in network architecture and design. Using new technologies such as NFV, SDN, Cloud, and Big Data, AT&T’s engineers outlined and implemented a radical network transformation program that dramatically reduced capital and operating expenditures. This book describes the transformation in substantial detail. The subject matter is of great interest to telecom professionals worldwide, as well as academic researchers looking to apply the latest techniques in computer science to solving telecom’s big problems around scalability, resilience, and survivability.

Free and open source is the foundation of software development, and it's built by people just like you. Discover the fundamental tenets that drive the movement. Take control of your career by selecting the right project to meet your professional goals. Master the language and avoid the pitfalls that typically ensnare new contributors. Join a community of like-minded people and change the world. Programmers, writers, designers, and everyone interested in software will make their mark through free and open source software contributions. Free and open source software is the default choice for the programming languages and technologies which run our world today, and it's all built and maintained by people just like you. No matter your skill level or area of expertise, with this book you will contribute to free and open source software projects. Using this practical approach you'll understand not only the mechanics of contributing, but also how doing so helps your career as well as the community. This book doesn't assume that you're a programmer, or even that you have prior experience with free and open source software. Learn what open source is, where it came from, and why it's important. Start on the right foot by mastering the structure and tools you need before you contribute. Choose the right project for you, amplifying the impact of your contribution. Submit your first contribution, whether it's code, writing, design, or community organising. Find out what to do when things don't go the way you expect. Discover how to start your own project and make it friendly and welcoming to contributors. Anyone can contribute! Make your mark today and help others while also helping yourself.