In this book Steve Morlidge shows how the traditional methods of performance reporting fail, and what we need to do differently to help us make sense of our dynamic, complex and data rich world and to effectively communicate these insights to an audience of decision makers. It argues that organisations cannot be managed as if they were a simple mechanical system operating in a predictable environment. And that the variance analyses and data tables typically used to measure and communicate performance are completely inadequate. Performance reporting should not be a routine, mechanistic process. It should be treated as an act of perception performed to help the organization to assess whether and where intervention is needed to improve its performance, informed by the successful strategies used by the brain to make sense of its own super abundant sensory inputs. In order to make sense of the vast amounts of data available to organizations and to communicate the meaning effectively to decision makers, we need to learn to use approaches that exploit the strengths of our own brains and compensate for its weaknesses. From this provocative yet practical book, readers will learn: · About what the latest insights of cognitive science tell us about how to derive meaning from potentially overwhelmingly large data sets. · Why it is important to bring a dynamic perspective into performance reporting, and how it can be done. · To use simple tools that help isolate the signal in noise infected data and to make sound inferences. · The intelligent way to use goals to guide and assess performance. · The grammar of data visualization and how it can be used to design powerful ‘brain friendly’ reports. The ultimate aim of information professionals should be to create the shared consciousness that enables their organizations to quickly respond and adapt to their environments

Mark Helprin’s powerful, rapturous new novel is set in a present-day Paris caught between violent unrest and its well-known, inescapable glories. Seventy-four-year-old Jules Lacour—a maître at Paris-Sorbonne, cellist, widower, veteran of the war in Algeria, and child of the Holocaust—must find a balance between his strong obligations to the past and the attractions and beauties of life and love in the present. In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life—days bright with music, family, rowing on the Seine—Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist a third his age. Against the backdrop of an exquisite and knowing vision of Paris and the way it can uniquely shape a life, he forges a denouement that is staggering in its humanity, elegance, and truth.In the intoxicating beauty of its prose and emotional amplitude of its storytelling, Mark Helprin’s Paris in the Present Tense is a soaring achievement, a deep, dizzying look at a life through the purifying lenses of art and memory.

"Describes how the present tense was invented and why the poetics of the present tense novel is essential for an understanding of contemporary literature and the evolution of the novel since modernism"--

Making Sense of Martin Luther uses a conversational format to explore how Luther’s dynamic understanding of God’s life-changing gospel informs day-to-day faith and life in the world today. Introduction: Luther as Monk, Myth, and Messenger Chapter 1: The Reluctant Reformer—Introducing “the Monk Who Changed the World” Chapter 2: Freedom! Justification by Grace through Faith Chapter 3: The Present-Tense God—Law and Gospel Chapter 4: The Ambidextrous God—The Two Kingdoms and God’s Ongoing Work in the World Chapter 5: Called for Good—Vocation, Sinning Boldly, and the Respiratory System of the Body of Christ Chapter 6: God Hidden and Revealed—Luther’s Theology of the Cross and the Sacraments Chapter 7: Semper Simul—Sin, Forgiveness, and “Becoming Christian” Accompanying leader guide and DVD are available.

The Religious Sense, the fruit of many years of dialogue with students, is an exploration of the search for meaning in life. Luigi Giussani shows that the nature of reason expresses itself in the ultimate need for truth, goodness, and beauty. These needs constitute the fabric of the religious sense, which is evident in every human being everywhere and in all times. So strong is this sense that it leads one to desire that the answer to life's mystery might reveal itself in some way.

Born in Ireland, the artist Michael Craig-Martin studied in America. On returning to the UK, he became a key figure in British conceptual art and an influential educator, linked in particular to the YBAs including Damien Hirst and Gary Hume. Craig-Martin's works transform recognisable objects - such as sneakers, headphones, watches and, most recently, Modernist buildings - with bold colour and simplified lines. He cites his 'rationalism' as the root of his practice. Craig-Martin is the latest subject of a three-year curatorial partnership between The Gallery at Windsor, Florida, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, initiated to celebrate the Academy's 250th anniversary. This lively book reproduces a selection of his paintings, prints and sculptures, with an insightful essay by the art critic Ben Luke and an interview between Tim Marlow and the artist. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Gallery at Windsor, Florida, 26 January - 26 April 2019. AUTHORS: Ben Luke is the art critic at the London Evening Standard. Tim Marlow is artistic director at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. SELLING POINTS: * A selection of Michael Craig-Martin's paintings, prints and sculptures, with an interview * This book is the result of a collaboration between The Gallery at Windsor, Florida, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London 45 colour images