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Brothers and Sisters: Sibling Relationships Across the Life Course
by Ann Buchanan Anna RotkirchThis edited volume presents unique insights on sibling relationships in adulthood in the early 21st century, focusing on three themes: relations beyond childhood and school years; factors shaping social support provision between siblings; and changes in family life and how these impact sibling relations. Comprised of chapters from distinguished international family scholars, this book examines sibling dynamics across age, race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, geography, and social environments. It answers important questions such as, to what extent do siblings support each other at different stages of the life cycle? How do cultural practices and family obligations impact on sibling support? How does sibling support differ when looking at surrogates, migrant families, polygamous families, and siblings with disabilities? These contributions expand and contribute greatly to the field of sibling studies and will be of interest to all students and scholars studying and researching family relationships.
Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana
by Abe StreepFrom journalist Abe Streep, the story of coming of age on a reservation in the American West and a team uniting a community. <p><p> March 11, 2017, was a night to remember: in front of the hopeful eyes of thousands of friends, family members, and fans, the Arlee Warriors would finally bring the high school basketball state championship title home to the Flathead Indian Reservation. The game would become the stuff of legend, with the boys revered as local heroes. The team’s place in Montana history was now cemented, but for starters Will Mesteth, Jr. and Phillip Malatare, life would keep moving on—senior year was only just beginning. <p><p> In Brothers on Three, we follow Phil and Will, along with their teammates, coaches, and families, as they balance the pressures of adolescence, shoulder the dreams of their community, and chart their own individual courses for the future. <p><p> Brothers on Three is not simply a story about high school basketball, about state championships and a winning team. It is a book about community, and it is about boys on the cusp of adulthood, finding their way through the intersecting worlds they inhabit and forging their own paths to personhood.
Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley
by Emily ChangSilicon Valley is a modern utopia where anyone can change the world. Unless you're a woman. <P><P> For women in tech, Silicon Valley is not a fantasyland of unicorns, virtual reality rainbows, and 3D-printed lollipops, where millions of dollars grow on trees. <P><P>It's a "Brotopia," where men hold all the cards and make all the rules. Vastly outnumbered, women face toxic workplaces rife with discrimination and sexual harassment, where investors take meetings in hot tubs and network at sex parties.In this powerful exposé, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals, why bro culture endures despite decades of companies claiming the moral high ground (Don't Be Evil! Connect the World!)--and how women are finally starting to speak out and fight back. <P><P>Drawing on her deep network of Silicon Valley insiders, Chang opens the boardroom doors of male-dominated venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins, the subject of Ellen Pao's high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit, and Sequoia, where a partner once famously said they "won't lower their standards" just to hire women. <P><P>Interviews with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer--who got their start at Google, where just one in five engineers is a woman--reveal just how hard it is to crack the Silicon Ceiling. And Chang shows how women such as former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, entrepreneur Niniane Wang, and game developer Brianna Wu, have risked their careers and sometimes their lives to pave a way for other women. <P><P>Silicon Valley's aggressive, misogynistic, work-at-all costs culture has shut women out of the greatest wealth creation in the history of the world. It's time to break up the boys' club. <P><P>Emily Chang shows us how to fix this toxic culture--to bring down Brotopia, once and for all.
Brown Bodies, White Babies: The Politics of Cross-Racial Surrogacy (Intersections #9)
by Laura HarrisonBrown Bodies, White Babies focuses on the practice of cross-racial gestational surrogacy, in which a woman - through in-vitro fertilization using the sperm and egg of intended parents or donors - carries a pregnancy for intended parents of a different race. Focusing on the racial differences between parents and surrogates, this book is interested in how reproductive technologies intersect with race, particularly when brown bodies produce white babies. While the potential of reproductive technologies is far from pre-determined, the ways in which these technologies are currently deployed often serve the interests of dominant groups, through the creation of white, middle-class, heteronormative families. Laura Harrison, providing an important understanding of the work of women of color as surrogates, connects this labor to the history of racialized reproduction in the United States. Cross-racial surrogacy is one end of a continuum in which dominant groups rely on the reproductive potential of nonwhite women, whose own reproductive desires have been historically thwarted and even demonized. Brown Bodies, White Babies provides am interdisciplinary analysis that includes legal cases of contested surrogacy, historical examples of surrogacy as a form of racialized reproductive labor, the role of genetics in the assisted reproduction industry, and the recent turn toward reproductive tourism. Joining the ongoing feminist debates surrounding reproduction, motherhood, race, and the body, Brown Bodies, White Babies ultimately critiques the new potentials for parenthood that put the very contours of kinship into question.
Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse
by Santa Ana OttoHe convincingly demonstrates that three anti-Latino referenda passed in California because of such imagery, particularly the infamous anti-immigrant measure, Proposition 187. Santa Ana illustrates how Proposition 209 organizers broadcast compelling new metaphors about racism to persuade an electorate that had previously supported affirmative action to ban it. He also shows how Proposition 227 supporters used antiquated metaphors for learning, school, and language to blame Latino children's speech—rather than gross structural inequity—for their schools' failure to educate them. Santa Ana concludes by calling for the creation of insurgent metaphors to contest oppressive U.S. public discourse about minority communities.
Brown White Black: An American Family at the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion
by Nishta J. MehraIntimate and honest essays on motherhood, marriage, love, and acceptanceBrown White Black is a portrait of Nishta J. Mehra's family: her wife, who is white; her adopted child, Shiv, who is black; and their experiences dealing with America's rigid ideas of race, gender, and sexuality. Her clear-eyed and incisive writing on her family's daily struggle to make space for themselves amid racial intolerance and stereotypes personalizes some of America's most fraught issues. Mehra writes candidly about her efforts to protect and shelter Shiv from racial slurs on the playground and from intrusive questions by strangers while educating her child on the realities and dangers of being black in America. In other essays, she discusses growing up in the racially polarized city of Memphis; coming out as queer; being an adoptive mother who is brown; and what it's like to be constantly confronted by people's confusion, concern, and expectations about her child and her family. Above all, Mehra argues passionately for a more nuanced and compassionate understanding of identity and family. Both poignant and challenging, Brown White Black is a remarkable portrait of a loving family on the front lines of some of the most highly charged conversations in our culture.
Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons (Asian American Sociology)
by Anthony Christian OcampoCo-Winner of the 2023 Latino/a Section Best Book Award, given by the American Sociological AssociationHonorable Mention, 2024 Best Book Award, given by the Asia and Asian America section of the American Sociological AssociationThe stories of second-generation immigrant gay men coming of age in Los AngelesGrowing up in the shadow of Hollywood, the gay sons of immigrants featured in Brown and Gay in LA could not have felt further removed from a world where queerness was accepted and celebrated. Instead, the men profiled here maneuver through family and friendship circles where masculinity dominates, gay sexuality is unspoken, and heterosexuality is strictly enforced. For these men, the path to sexual freedom often involves chasing the dreams while resisting the expectations of their immigrant parents—and finding community in each other. Ocampo also details his own story of reconciling his queer Filipino American identity and those of men like him. He shows what it was like for these young men to grow up gay in an immigrant family, to be the one gay person in their school and ethnic community, and to be a person of color in predominantly White gay spaces. Brown and Gay in LA is an homage to second-generation gay men and their radical redefinition of what it means to be gay, to be a man, to be a person of color, and, ultimately, what it means to be an American.
Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago (Historical Studies of Urban America)
by Lilia Fernández“Nuanced and meticulous analysis . . . The first historical study to examine Chicago’s Mexican and Puerto Rican populations in the same frame.” —Journal of Social HistoryBrown in the Windy City is the first history to examine the migration and settlement of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in postwar Chicago. Lilia Fernández reveals how the two populations arrived in Chicago in the midst of tremendous social and economic change and, in spite of declining industrial employment and massive urban renewal projects, managed to carve out a geographic and racial place in one of America’s great cities.Through their experiences in the city’s central neighborhoods over the course of three decades, Fernández demonstrates how Mexicans and Puerto Ricans collectively articulated a distinct racial position in Chicago, one that was flexible and fluid, neither black nor white.“A rich portrait of neighborhood life.” —Carmen Teresa Whalen, author of From Puerto Rico to Philadelphia“An essential read.” —Time Out Chicago
Brownfield Transformation in Fragile Territories: An Interreg-Based Action Research (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology)
by Marcello Modica Elena SoleroThis book presents and critically evaluates the results of a European territorial cooperation project addressing the planning challenge of brownfield transformation in fragile territories. Set against the backdrop of the current scenario of deindustrialisation in the European Alps, the book describes how to read and interpret the spatial condition of industrial brownfields in peripheral mountain areas as complex transformation sites. Through key theoretical references, well-documented experiences and field activities, the book explores and advances an innovative methodology of design-based participatory planning conceived specifically for fragile socioeconomic and environmental contexts. The empirical basis for such a methodological exploration is provided by four pilot sites distributed between Austria, Italy, France and Slovenia, identified in the cooperation project as highly representative and recurring situations. The book includes a comparative review of the work carried out for the pilot sites, as well as the planning outcomes generated, providing a clear and operative reference for scholars, professionals and public officers called to face similar experiences.
Bruno Latour in the Semiotic Turn: An Inquiry into the Networks of Meaning (SpringerBriefs in Sociology)
by Paolo PeveriniThis open access book highlights the link between Bruno Latour's works and the semiotic perspective on social phenomena analysis. It identifies and relaunches a dialogue that was as heated as it was fruitful, but still little recognized within the social sciences. It asks why the theory of signification has so far been only sporadically acknowledged in literature derived from Latour's work. Starting from these premises, the book explores two interrelated dimensions, the initial one of a "semiotics for Latour", which looks at concepts from semiotics in Latour's study of social phenomena, and extensively for the first time, a symmetrical one of a "Latour for semiotics," accounting for the impact of Latourian inquiry on contemporary semiotic research. The book offers a novel perspective on Bruno Latour's work by addressing a wide readership, including those interested in Latour’s approach, actor-network theory, semiotics, and the social sciences. The English translation of this book from the Italian original manuscript was done with the help of artificial intelligence, then revised technically and linguistically by the author in collaboration with a professional translator.
Bruno Latour: Hybrid Thoughts in a Hybrid World (Key Sociologists)
by Torben Elgaard Jensen Anders BlokFrench sociologist and philosopher, Bruno Latour, is one of the most significant and creative thinkers of the last decades. Bruno Latour: Hybrid Thoughts in a Hybrid World is the first comprehensive and accessible English-language introduction to this multi-faceted work. The book focuses on core Latourian themes: • contribution to science studies (STS – Science, Technology & Society) • philosophical approach to the rise and fall of modernity • innovative thoughts on politics, nature, and ecology • contribution to the branch of sociology known as ANT – Actor-Network Theory. With ANT, Latour has pioneered an approach to socio-cultural analysis built on the notion that social life arises in complex networks of actants – people, things, ideas, norms, technologies, and so on – influencing each other in dynamic ways. This book explores how Latour helps us make sense of the changing interrelations of science, technology, society, nature, and politics beyond modernity.
Brutalism (Theory in Forms)
by Achille MbembeIn Brutalism, eminent social and critical theorist Achille Mbembe invokes the architectural aesthetic of brutalism to describe our moment, caught up in the pathos of demolition and production on a planetary scale. Just as brutalist architecture creates an affect of overwhelming weight and destruction, Mbembe contends that contemporary capitalism crushes and dominates all spheres of existence. In our digital, technologically focused era, capitalism has produced a becoming-artificial of humanity and the becoming-human of machines. This blurring of the natural and artificial presents a planetary existential threat in which contemporary society’s goal is to precipitate the mutation of the human species into a condition that is at once plastic and synthetic. Mbembe argues that Afro-diasporic thought presents the only solution for breaking the totalizing logic of contemporary capitalism: repairing that which is broken, developing a new planetary consciousness, and reforming a community of humans in solidarity with all living things.
Buber and Education: Dialogue as conflict resolution (New Directions In The Philosophy Of Education Ser.)
by Alexandre Guilherme W. John MorganMartin Buber (1878-1965) is considered one of the 20th century�s greatest thinkers and his contributions to philosophy, theology and education are testimony to this. His thought is founded on the idea that people are capable of two kinds of relations, namely I-Thou and I-It, emphasising the centrality of dialogue in all spheres of human life. For t
Buck: A Memoir
by M. K. AsanteA rebellious boy's journey through the wilds of urban America and the shrapnel of a self-destructing family--this is the riveting story of a generation told through one dazzlingly poetic new voice. MK Asante was born in Zimbabwe to American parents: a mother who led the new nation's dance company and a father who would soon become a revered pioneer in black studies. But things fell apart, and a decade later MK was in America, a teenager lost in a fog of drugs, sex, and violence on the streets of North Philadelphia. Now he was alone--his mother in a mental hospital, his father gone, his older brother locked up in a prison on the other side of the country--and forced to find his own way to survive physically, mentally, and spiritually, by any means necessary. Buck is a powerful memoir of how a precocious kid educated himself through the most unconventional teachers--outlaws and eccentrics, rappers and mystic strangers, ghetto philosophers and strippers, and, eventually, an alternative school that transformed his life with a single blank sheet of paper. It's a one-of-a-kind story about finding your purpose in life, and an inspiring tribute to the power of education, art, and love to heal and redeem us.Praise for Buck "Frequently brilliant and always engaging . . . It takes great skill to render the wide variety of characters, male and female, young and old, that populate a memoir like Buck. Asante [is] at his best when he sets out into the city of Philadelphia itself. In fact, that city is the true star of this book. Philly's skateboarders, its street-corner philosophers and its tattoo artists are all brought vividly to life here. . . . Asante's memoir will find an eager readership, especially among young people searching in books for the kind of understanding and meaning that eludes them in their real-life relationships. . . . A powerful and captivating book."--Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times"A story of surviving and thriving with passion, compassion, wit, and style."--Maya Angelou "The book's strength lies in Asante's vibrant, specific observations, and, at times, the percussive prose that captures them. The author's fluid, filmic images of black urban life feel unique and disturbing."--Kirkus Reviews "Asante's noir chronicle is imaginative, powerful, and electric, written with passion and conviction."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This is an inspiring story about perseverance and finding purpose that is sure to appeal to readers interested in hip-hop, black studies, and American pop culture in general."--Booklist (starred review)"Buck takes the daily words of the American streets and forges something low and lovely. Angry, profane, and beautiful, it honors the best of hip-hop's literary canon by producing a work worthy of inclusion."--Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of The Beautiful Struggle "Buck sings a song that will force all of America to face what it has become and remember what it could be."--Eddie Huang, author of Fresh off the BoatFrom the Hardcover edition.
Buddhism and Jainism (Encyclopedia of Indian Religions)
by K. T. S. Sarao Jeffery D. LongThis volume focuses on Buddhism and Jainism, two religions which, together with Hinduism, constitute the three pillars of Indic religious tradition in its classical formulation. It explores their history and relates how the Vedic period in the history of Hinduism drew to a close around the sixth century BCE and how its gradual etiolation gave rise to a number of religious movements. While some of these remained within the fold of the Vedic traditions, others arose in a context of a more ambiguous relationship between the two. Two of these have survived to the present day as Buddhism and Jainism. The volume describes the major role Buddhism played in the history not only of India but of Asia, and now the world as well, and the more confined role of Jainism in India until relatively recent times. It examines the followers of these religions and their influence on the Indian religious landscape. In addition, it depicts the transformative effect on existing traditions of the encounter of Hinduism with these two religions, as well as the fertile interaction between the three. The book shows how Buddhism and Jainism share the basic concepts of karma, rebirth, and liberation with Hinduism while giving them their own hue, and how they differ from the Hindu tradition in their understanding of the role of the Vedas, the “caste system,” and ritualism in religious life. The volume contributes to the debate on whether the proper way of describing the relationship between the three major components of the classical Indic tradition is to treat them as siblings (sometimes as even exhibiting sibling rivalry), or as friends (sometimes even exhibiting schadenfreude), or as radical alternatives to one another, or all of these at different points in time.
Buddhism and Tamil
by Mayilai Seeni VenkatasamyFirst published in 1940, Mayilai Seeni Venkatasamy’s Buddhism and Tamil was one of the pioneering attempts to trace the history of Buddhism in the Tamil country. With judicious exploitation of archaeological, linguistic, and historical sources, Venkatasamy delineates how Buddhism flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 13th century CE and traces its residual presence in contemporary Tamil culture. The book challenges the then-prevalent belief that Tamil is synonymous with Saivism and problematises the simplistic understanding that Hinduism had always been the religion of India. Venkatasamy’s stylistic and literary analysis of Pali and Tamil texts, his careful study of inscriptions, and his extensive fieldwork identify the role of Buddhism in shaping the language, literature, and ethics of Tamil society.
Buddhism in Canada (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism)
by Bruce MatthewsBuddhism has become a major religion in Canada over the last half-century. The 'ethnic Buddhism' associated with immigrant Asian people is the most important aspect, but there is also a growing constituency of Euro-Canadian Buddhists seriously interested in the faith. This insightful study analyzes the phenomenon of Buddhism in Canada from a regional perspective. The work provides an important examination of the place of Buddhism in a developed western country associated with a traditional Judeo-Christian culture, but undergoing profound sociological transformation due to large-scale immigration and religio-cultural pluralism. It is a valuable text for students of religion, Buddhism and North American Studies.
Buddhism, International Relief Work, And Civil Society
by Geoffrey Samuel Hiroko KawanamiNatural disasters in Asian countries have brought global attention to the work of local Buddhist communities and groups. Here, the contributors examine local Buddhist communities and international Buddhist organizations engaged in a variety of relief work in countries including India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, and Japan.
Buddhist-Muslim Relations in a Theravada World
by Iselin Frydenlund Michael JerrysonThis book is the first to critically analyze Buddhist-Muslim relations in Theravada Buddhist majority states in South and Southeast Asia. Asia is home to the largest population of Buddhists and Muslims. In recent years, this interfaith communal living has incurred conflicts, such as the ethnic-religious conflicts in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Experts from around the world collaborate to provide a comprehensive look into religious pluralism and religious violence. The book is divided into two sections. The first section provides historical background to the three countries with the largest Buddhist-Muslim relations. The second section has chapters that focus on specific encounters between Buddhists and Muslims, which includes anti-Buddhist sentiments in Bangladesh, the role of gender in Muslim-Buddhist relations and the rise of anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya sentiments in Myanmar. By exploring historical fluctuations over time—paying particular attention to how state-formations condition Muslim-Buddhist entanglements—the book shows the processual and relational aspects of religious identity constructions and Buddhist-Muslim interactions in Theravada Buddhist majority states.
Budgeting Entitlements: The Politics Of Food Stamps
by Ronald F. KingAs budgetary concerns have come to dominate Congressional action, the design and implementation of welfare programs have come under greater scrutiny. This book focuses on the food stamp program to examine how the growing integration of welfare and budgeting has affected both politics and people.<P> Applying insightful analysis to this important policy topic, Ronald F. King looks at the effects on welfare transfers of the kinds of budgetary rules adopted by Congress: discretion, entitlement, and expenditure caps. King uses models based on these forms to interpret the events in the history of the food stamp program up to the welfare reform of 1996, and he shows how these different budget rules have affected political strategies among key actors and policy outcomes.<P> King analyzes tensions in the program between budgetary concerns and entitlement, revealing that budget mechanisms which seek to cap the growth of entitlement spending have perverse but predictable effects. He also explores the broader conflict between procedural and substantive justice, which pits inclusive democratic decision-making against special protections for the needy and vulnerable in society.<P> The food stamp program offers a valuable opportunity for studying the influence of shifting institutional factors. In an era when budgetary anxieties coexist with continuing poverty, King's book sheds new light on the increasing fiscalization of welfare in America.
Buffalo Nationalism: A Critique of Spiritual Fascism
by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd‘O Mother Lachumamma, your blouse is torn, Your hair is soiled, your sari in rags . . . Even in that condition what have you done? You planted saplings, walking backwards like a bull, In order to produce food from the mud.’ Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd translates these words of the Telugu poet, singer, activist Gaddar to emphasize the productivity of the ordinary people, the Dalit-Bahujans of India, who receive so little in return. Arguing forcefully against spiritual fascism, which refuses equality or freedom to the majority, he commends the buffalo as a productive animal that epitomizes the qualities of the Dalit-Bahujans. This book contains a selection from Ilaiah Shepherd’s columns in The Hindu, Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle, Hindustan Times among others, and journals such as Mainstream and Economic and Political Weekly. Of particular interest is the new Afterword that discusses his political and social programme for the Sudras of India, presenting his vision of a more just society.
Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch
by Dan O'BrienFor twenty years, Dan O'Brien battled drought, overgrazed pastures, and falling cattle prices as he struggled to maintain his cattle ranch, The Broken Heart, nestled at the foot of South Dakota's Black Hills. Having to take stints as an endangered species biologist, English teacher, and handyman to help pay off his accumulating debts, he questioned the logic of this losing enterprise, but never lost his fierce love of the Great Plains. So when a neighboring buffalo rancher invites him to lend a hand at the annual buffalo roundup, O'Brien comes face to face with these mammoth, impressive creatures, and the seeds are planted for converting his own ranch from cattle to buffalo. Starting with thirteen calves, "short-necked, golden balls of wool," O'Brien embarks on a journey that returns buffalo to his land for the first time in more than a century and a half. In BUFFALO FOR THE BROKEN HEART, Dan O'Brien, a writer possessed of "a keen and poetic eye" (The New York Times Book Review), ranges freely under the big western sky, bringing the Great Plains to life in clear and vibrant prose. Whether he's describing the grazing pattern of the buffalo (moving quickly from one pasture to another, thereby maintaining the diversity of the grasses), the ancient thrill of watching a falcon hone in on its prey, or the comical spectacle of a buffalo bull wallowing in the mud, O'Brien brings together a novelist's eye for detail with an ecologist's understanding to create an entertaining and enriching narrative. At once a heartfelt account of his struggles at the Broken Heart, a short history of the buffalo and its near extinction, and an engaging lesson in wildlife ecology,BUFFALO FOR THE BROKEN HEART illustrates the power of a dream and how life becomes infinitely richer when we dare to follow one. This is Dan O'Brien's greatest achievement to date, placing him firmly in the canon of other great writers on nature such as Annie Dillard and Peter Matthiessen.
Build Better Teams: Creating Winning Teams in the Digital Age
by George KarserasHow Today’s Highly Effective Leaders Develop High Performing Teams“Build Better Teams is an insightful book offering leaders a compelling and practical team building ‘code’ to optimize team performance.” —Amy EdmondsonBuild Better Teams, endorsed by both Amy Edmondson and Edgar Schein, provides the first ever scientifically backed team development code that can be applied to any virtual or hybrid team in any industry to boost performance. The book provides a simple, memorable, and easy to apply formula, together with practical advice for leaders expected to manage high performing teams.Teams today are more complex than ever before. Requirements for diversity training, and growing pressures from accelerating digitalisation, remote working, and mental health issues all combine to create increasing uncertainty and stress for team leaders. Build Better Teams describes this context and then provides a simple, practical code that takes the guess work out of leading and motivating a team to peak performance.Learn how to be a highly effective leader. Author George Karseras, executive team development coach with over twenty years of experience in team development, and founder of TeamUp, describes the “TeamUp Playbook”, a four-step sequence that any team leader can follow to produce high performing teams.Using real life examples from organizations and summaries from the most recent academic studies. Karseras equips leaders to use the code with practical tools, techniques and tips in a casual, easy to read format that answers questions such as:What can expect to be the impact of virtual working and digital transformations on my team?How do I use a road map that science confirms works for all teams?How do I build a greater sense of community into the organization and, eventually, the world?If you liked books like The Fearless Organization, Team of Teams, or Leaders Eat Last then you’ll love Build Better Teams.
Build Chatbot Interactions: Responsive, Intuitive Interfaces with Ruby
by Daniel PritchettThe next step in the evolution of user interfaces is here. Chatbots let your users interact with your service in their own natural language. Use free and open source tools along with Ruby to build creative, useful, and unexpected interactions for users. Take advantage of the Lita framework's step-by-step implementation strategy to simplify bot development and testing. From novices to experts, chatbots are an area in which everyone can participate. Exercise your creativity by creating chatbot skills for communicating, information, and fun. Developers of all skill levels can craft user experiences that are natural, easy to use, and most of all, fun. Build chatbots using free, open source tools and launch them to popular chat platforms like Slack and Amazon's Alexa. Use the Ruby programming language and the Lita bot framework to unlock fun and powerful chat abilities such as sending text messages and emails, creating new meme images, driving a robot around the room, and talking out loud on a home speaker. Use frameworks available in Ruby and Node.js to get started quickly. Create simple chatbot skills that respond quickly to basic requests. Chain skills together for more complex interactions. Take advantage of test-driven development techniques to build your bots with confidence. Coordinate tasks with colleagues via bot. Connect with external APIs to provide users with data they need. Extract data information from web pages when an API isn't available. Expand your bot's reach with SMS and e-mail messaging. Deploy a chatbot to a host so users can interact with it on their schedule. Build a more responsive, easy-to-use interface for your users today. What You Need: You don't need much to get started with chatbots. A Mac or Linux computer with a recent version of Ruby is recommended. Windows users can keep up with a free virtual machine running Linux. You'll deploy your chatbots for free (or at least cheaply) on cloud hosting platforms like Heroku and Digital Ocean.
Build for Tomorrow: An Action Plan for Embracing Change, Adapting Fast, and Future-Proofing Your Career
by Jason Feifer&“Build for Tomorrow will change the way you think so you can overcome any obstacle and reach your full potential.&”—Jim Kwik, New York Times bestselling author of LimitlessThe moments of greatest change can also be the moments of greatest opportunity. Adapt more quickly and use the power of change to your advantage with this guide from the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine and host of the Build for Tomorrow podcast. We experience change in four phases. The first is panic. Then we adapt. Then we find a new normal. And then, finally, we reach the phase we could not have imagined in the beginning, the moment when we realize that we wouldn&’t go back.Build for Tomorrow is designed to accelerate that process—to help you lessen your panic, adapt faster, define the new normal, and thrive going forward. And it arrives as we all, in some way, have felt a shift in our lives. The pandemic forced a moment of collective change, and we are still being forced to make new plans and adjustments to our lives, families, and careers. Many of us will never go back, continuing to work from home, demanding higher wages, or starting new businesses.To help people along this journey, Entrepreneur magazine editor in chief Jason Feifer offers stories, lessons, and concrete exercises from the most potent sources of change in our world. He speaks to the world&’s most successful changemakers—from global celebrities like Dwayne &“The Rock&” Johnson and Maria Sharapova to innovative CEOs and Main Street heroes—to learn how they decide what to protect, what to discard, and how to move forward without fear. He also draws lessons from history, looking at how massive changes across time can help us better understand the opportunities of today. For example, he finds guidance for our post-pandemic realities inside the power shifts that occurred after the Bubonic Plague, and he reveals how the history of innovations like the elevator and even the teddy bear can teach anyone to be more forward-thinking.We cannot anticipate tomorrow&’s needs, but it shouldn&’t take a crisis to push us forward. This book will show you how to make change on your own terms.