Ever noticed how most behavioral research is based on studies of Western, upper-middle-class, undergraduate university students? If you, like me, are American, it might never occur to you to wonder whether those results can really be generalized to describe the behavior of "people." After reading The weirdest people in the world? (Western, Educated, 
Union, etc. Our biases hide in plain sight. For a dose of cultural perspective from the comfort of your own beanbag chair, do not miss American Cultural Patterns. I’m told this tiny little book was written as culture-shock prep for undergraduates who were entering the Peace Corps, and were traveling overseas for the first time. It delves deeply into kernel-level cultural assumptions about communication, values, morality, the perception of time and causality - the list goes on. In my experience, reading any three pages of this book provokes an hour of fascinated discussion over the late-night-coffee of your choice.I think I can say, without fear of hyperbole, that this is the best math book in the history of the entire universe. The fact that there are only six reviews of the book so far, instead of six hundred, hints at the fundamental problem I personally see in math education: it looks harder than it is because we communicate so poorly about it. Urdan communicates clearly and naturally, so the chilly math textbook mystique drops away, and you are left with a functional vocabulary of basic stats techniques.
Urdan starts with the assumption that all humans can understand and benefit from statistical techniques. By assuming that, he makes it true. He not only defines every term and every symbol he uses -- which is already amazing -- but the new terms and definitions are summarized at the end of each chapter. He lays out lots of context and many straightforward and interesting examples. The chapters are short, which gives you a nice feeling of accomplishment and plenty of breaks to think. He even humanizes the experience by speaking in the first person, expressing personal preferences, and even cracking the occasional joke. It's like talking about math over tea with a good friend.
In the modern data space, there's a great shortage of people who have a comfortable intuition for stats. If this book were in every undergraduate class, I'd wager that shortage would just go away.
Kentaro Toyama, assistant director of Microsoft Research India, has spent a lot of time thinking about how to use technology to change social systems. He's focused on using technology to further development in rural India (ICT4D, or Information & Communications Technology for Developing Countries). He published a very cool set of essays in The Atlantic in 2011 about the topic. I've been thinking about them ever since. Check 'em out.
Kentaro talks about technology as basically an amplifier for people's will. Don't let the "virtue" language deter you; fully unpacked, it's a pretty loaded concept.
Remember, the driver is as important as the car. If you want to make the best use of your BI application, your organization needs the right people to exploit it. BI is not just about reporting and visualization anymore. It involves intensive and creative analysis, along with data management, to create value for an organization. - Got BI? Now You Need to Hire a Data Geek. Here’s What to Look For.
Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist, was interviewed a few months ago, and said the following in the McKinsey Quarterly: “The sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians… The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill.” - The Three Sexy Skills of Data Geeks
CNN coverage: Companies that want to make sense of all their bits and bytes are hiring so-called data scientists - if they can find any. [...] A recent report from the McKinsey Global Institute says that by 2018 the U.S. could face a shortage of up to 190,000 workers with analytical skills.
Skill #2: Data Munging (Suffering). The second critical skill mentioned above is “data munging.” Among data geek circles, this refers to the painful process of cleaning, parsing, and proofing one’s data before it’s suitable for analysis. Real world data is messy. - The Three Sexy Skills of Data Geeks
Historically, contractors (the folks who build the buildings) and architects have lived on opposite sides of the organizational divide. They spoke different languages and had different goal sets; they communicated via blueprints. This mutual organizational isolation allowed each group a lot of control over their spheres, but frequently made collaboration a painful, contentious mess. Each group guards its information and works at cross-purposes to the other, with miscommunications leading to mutual stereotyping, which itself helps reinforce the divide.
Gina is studying a transition that's taking place right now, before her eyes as she studies it: Today, builders and architects are beginning to share their visions via 3-D computer graphic tools and databases that represent the building being built. In other words, these groups are adopting a communications- and design- based technological innovation, and it is creating dramatic changes in the way they work together. The stereotypes are being put to the test as the groups are forced into proximity with one another, and each silo's private language is being opened up to the other. As Gina describes: "Their entire communications infrastructure has been channeled into different visual symbols, and is hardwired through different network pathways." Each group is also, in the process, losing some of the autonomy that came with that defended isolation.
