Category: Book Reviews

Josh Noel’s new book, Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business, is more than a history of Goose Island Beer Co. Rather, this goes far beyond the sales itself and presents one of the best, most interesting marketing case studies I’ve read. Noel, the Chicago Tribune’s beer… Continue reading Review: Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out

Here's what's been on my nightstand and in my backpack lately: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination - Elizabeth McCracken McCracken gets it. I wanted to highlight entire pages. As the cover pull quote says, “This is the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending.” Beautifully written, haunting, and nakedly… Continue reading Reading Roundup

I read very little while in the hospital itself, as drugs and doctors and illness really destroyed my attention span. Once I got to the peace of my house (and especially my shaded patio), that changed. Here’s a quick rundown of the books I’ve recently read (July through mid-October), excluding all the magazines and newspapers… Continue reading A Reading List

I’ve watched big data surge as an industry in the last year or so, and have learned a lot along the way. While on the big data journey, I met Phil Simon through Twitter, and have traded links and stories with him ever since. He sent me a copy of his book, Too Big to Ignore: The Case for Big Data, and asked for my in-the-trenches opinion. As a non-technical person thrust into the weeds of big data, this book helped me better understand where the phenomenon came from, how it ties into prior technologies, and where it may be headed.