An Essential Knowledge Resource THE WORLD OF LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE has changed significantly since the first edition of First Things Fast was published more than a decade ago. This thoroughly revised and updated second edition of the best-selling classic recognizes a world chock-full of technology, economic strains, and opportunities. How do learning and performance professionals plan in this shifting context? How do they take advantage of new human and Internet-based resources? How do they bring their recommendations forward and add more value, no matter where they work? These questions are addressed throughout this new edition. This important resource is a practical guide that is filled with job aids, design templates, and examples offering step-by-step guidance to the basics of performance analysis. This new edition includes: New questions and templates that reflect the shift of learning and support from the classroom to the workplace, and the blends that provide learning and support in both environments Fresh approaches for using wikis, blogs, and online surveys to gather information Innovative ideas for tapping into the power of social networking and the possibilities presented for analysts Information on the critical link between analysis and evaluation and new guidelines for both activities A wealth of new illustrative case examples Insightful commentaries from successful leaders in the field who explain how they use analysis to advance individual and organizational strategy "Allison Rossett combines thought leadership for the profession with practical guidance. This book, the second edition of a classic in the field, is filled with proven practices and ready-to-use tools making this a resource you'll use frequently." DANA GAINES ROBINSON, COAUTHOR, PERFORMANCE CONSULTING AND STRATEGIC BUSINESS PARTNER "What I appreciate about this book is that it is a straightforward, practical guide to planning, and it embraces new technology and the convergence of learning and work." NANCY J. LEWIS, VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF LEARNING OFFICER, ITT CORPORATION

An Essential Knowledge Resource THE WORLD OF LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE has changed significantly since the first edition of First Things Fast was published more than a decade ago. This thoroughly revised and updated second edition of the best-selling classic recognizes a world chock-full of technology, economic strains, and opportunities. How do learning and performance professionals plan in this shifting context? How do they take advantage of new human and Internet-based resources? How do they bring their recommendations forward and add more value, no matter where they work? These questions are addressed throughout this new edition. This important resource is a practical guide that is filled with job aids, design templates, and examples offering step-by-step guidance to the basics of performance analysis. This new edition includes: New questions and templates that reflect the shift of learning and support from the classroom to the workplace, and the blends that provide learning and support in both environments Fresh approaches for using wikis, blogs, and online surveys to gather information Innovative ideas for tapping into the power of social networking and the possibilities presented for analysts Information on the critical link between analysis and evaluation and new guidelines for both activities A wealth of new illustrative case examples Insightful commentaries from successful leaders in the field who explain how they use analysis to advance individual and organizational strategy "Allison Rossett combines thought leadership for the profession with practical guidance. This book, the second edition of a classic in the field, is filled with proven practices and ready-to-use tools making this a resource you'll use frequently." DANA GAINES ROBINSON, COAUTHOR, PERFORMANCE CONSULTING AND STRATEGIC BUSINESS PARTNER "What I appreciate about this book is that it is a straightforward, practical guide to planning, and it embraces new technology and the convergence of learning and work." NANCY J. LEWIS, VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF LEARNING OFFICER, ITT CORPORATION

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

A guide to managing your time by learning how to balance your life.

The book that started the Techlash. A stinging polemic that traces the destructive monopolization of the Internet by Google, Facebook and Amazon, and that proposes a new future for musicians, journalists, authors and filmmakers in the digital age. Move Fast and Break Things is the riveting account of a small group of libertarian entrepreneurs who in the 1990s began to hijack the original decentralized vision of the Internet, in the process creating three monopoly firms -- Facebook, Amazon, and Google -- that now determine the future of the music, film, television, publishing and news industries. Jonathan Taplin offers a succinct and powerful history of how online life began to be shaped around the values of the men who founded these companies, including Peter Thiel and Larry Page: overlooking piracy of books, music, and film while hiding behind opaque business practices and subordinating the privacy of individual users in order to create the surveillance-marketing monoculture in which we now live. The enormous profits that have come with this concentration of power tell their own story. Since 2001, newspaper and music revenues have fallen by 70 percent; book publishing, film, and television profits have also fallen dramatically. Revenues at Google in this same period grew from $400 million to $74.5 billion. Today, Google's YouTube controls 60 percent of all streaming-audio business but pay for only 11 percent of the total streaming-audio revenues artists receive. More creative content is being consumed than ever before, but less revenue is flowing to the creators and owners of that content. The stakes here go far beyond the livelihood of any one musician or journalist. As Taplin observes, the fact that more and more Americans receive their news, as well as music and other forms of entertainment, from a small group of companies poses a real threat to democracy. Move Fast and Break Things offers a vital, forward-thinking prescription for how artists can reclaim their audiences using knowledge of the past and a determination to work together. Using his own half-century career as a music and film producer and early pioneer of streaming video online, Taplin offers new ways to think about the design of the World Wide Web and specifically the way we live with the firms that dominate it.

Daily reflections excerpted from the authors' book First Things First which discusses how to balance the demands of a schedule with the desire for fulfillment.