The News – A User’s Manual – Alain de Botton
There is a calmness and lucidity to de Botton’s writing which I find incredibly attractive. And when I’ve seen him interviewed he speaks in a similar way. I am no longer sure if I’m internalising his voice from those interviews or he is just brilliant at maintaining his written tone.
Regardless, if you ever have worried about what news consumption is doing to us, then this is the book for you.
Notes on a Scandal – Zoe Heller
What a nasty story! This is no criticism, I think Heller achieved exactly what she set out to: a growing sense of despair and disgust. Nobody comes out of this story well but you just keep wanting to find out where it will end up. The tale is of a middle aged teacher having a sexual relationship with a pupil, and how a colleague gets involved. I had been told there was a big twist in the story, but I disagree, it’s a slow burn. Either way, it’s a remarkably compelling book and yet distasteful. Worth reading but be prepared, it’s not going to be uplifting.
Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War – Raj Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff
This book is in the style of many modern American business tomes: a first-person narrative. There’s some padding in there on sections of the authors’ careers and business interests that felt unnecessary. But the core of the book is that commercially available technology such as drones, AI and micro-satelites are transforming war in fundamental ways. Yet the Pentagon has failed to adjust to this in terms of strategy, tactics and most fundamentally procurement. In many senses this is an age old tale of an oligopoly of established suppliers preventing innovation that they see as counter to their interests, and probably impossible to them culturally (cf local government tech suppliers, airline manufacturers etc). The Unit X of the title is an innovation unit the authors were heavily involved with, which managed to unblock some of the rules around the Pentagon trialling, buying and using commercial tech without going through multi-year billion dollar processes that keep awarding contracts to the same few ‘prime’ suppliers.
I found the discussions on the implications for war, power projection and diplomacy interesting, as it’s a topic I first explored for a university dissertation some 25 years ago. But a lot of the innovation unit stuff felt too rooted to the Pentagon example, or a bit obvious e.g. Have a very senior stakeholder if you want to make progress; Having power over who you hire is really important. But not everyone will have learnt or read those points, so I understand why they were included.
It’s a quick read and useful insight into defence innovation.
Jason Kitcat 