Yes, Entrepreneurship Can Be Taught

lumaxart/Flickr

Entrepreneurship programs are all the rage at business schools across the country. But with the high price tag of MBA programs today, many aspiring entrepreneurs wonder if it’s worth the cost and if these programs deliver real value. An MBA is not going to make someone an entrepreneur. But business school does teach some fundamental skills necessary to run a business, generate revenue, establish partnerships, manage people and generally avoid financial or legal issues. While the investment is significant, think if it this way: An MBA can be easier and cheaper than learning lessons the hard way through a failed startup or spending years toiling in a corporate job.

My company, Grammarly, an automated proofreader, was bootstrapped. I did not have ready access to mentors, nor the ability to hire experts that typically comes with substantial outside funding. I learned the ropes by drawing from the knowledge earned getting my MBA in Marketing and Finance. I was able to help my fellow entrepreneurs understand that a corporate vision, and the ability to sell that vision, is not enough to build a successful company. True success for a small company requires very specific and defined skills — from operations, to coding, to accounting, to taxes.

Of course, it’s entirely possible to learn how to run a company by jumping in with both feet. However, an MBA can be a huge boost for entrepreneurs who start small. I credit my MBA with helping me to sell my previous company, MyDropBox. The degree bolstered my credibility with the acquiring company and gave me the tools I needed to navigate a sophisticated negotiation. While having an MBA was a key factor in my case, the truth is the business world won’t be easily sold on that credential alone. Being able to understand the valuation of the company and participate intelligently during negotiations, while also offering advice to make the subsequent integration process go smoother, were conversations that boosted my credibility.

If you are pursuing an MBA, it’s important to know what you are working towards and where you need to specialize. For example, an MBA in entrepreneurship may not be useful to someone with several years of experience working in an early stage company. Instead, that person might benefit from more traditional tracks focused on strategy, operations or marketing. Whereas someone trying to move from investment banking to a startup might benefit from an entrepreneurship program.

An MBA can also provide valuable cultural lessons for professionals from a different country. As a Ukraine native, I knew that I needed to learn how to navigate the cultural differences that play into a typical business transaction. Business school is where I received the valuable exposure to different people and work styles.

The tough decision to put your career on hold and invest in an MBA is exactly the type of decision you will encounter as an entrepreneur. An MBA from a top school is ideal, but can you afford to pursue an MBA and work without pay or at a significant lower salary to get a startup off the ground? If the answer is “no,” then it’s better to get the skills and credibility elsewhere. For example, a few trusted advisors can provide the business acumen and a broader set of knowledge.

If you do pursue an MBA, be wary of additional expenses. Many programs today encourage extensive opportunities to travel to meet with companies in different countries or network with other students. Be aware that such expenses add up quickly and could limit your options when you graduate.

Bottom line: A degree program in entrepreneurship can teach important skills — and perhaps help graduates achieve their goals more quickly through internships and networking opportunities. But the essential passion, drive, and creativity of an entrepreneur cannot be measured or taught.

Max Lytvyn is co-founder and head of product strategy for Grammarly. He earned an MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management in 2004.

Peter Gabriel: Tech Can Make Video Evidence a Cornerstone of Justice

Albuquerque Police Chief Allen Banks talks about a still image Dec. 13, 2013, taken from an officer’s lapel camera, before the shooting of an armed suspect. Russell Contreras/AP

How is it that despite compelling video evidence, justice can be so elusive for the victims of police brutality? This is a question that has to be asked after the failure of a Staten Island grand jury to indict a New York City police officer for the death of Eric Garner.

We live in an age of video. As more and more of our lives are being filmed, we are amassing massive catalogs of potential evidence. Yet so little of this is finding its way into our political, legal or justice systems.

Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel is a musician, activist, and co-founder/Chair of the Board of Directors of the human rights organization WITNESS.

The evidence being trusted in courts today is most often based on our fallible memories, spoken evidence produced long after the event, which in turn, is being proved to be unreliable at best and often re-imagined. Video has the capability to put more reality into the world of “remembered” evidence.

If we want people to use the legal system to resolve disputes, rather than more dangerous or violent options, the system has to be trusted. Lord Chief Justice of England, Gordon Hewart’s famous maxim says, “Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done.”

Having one’s story be seen and heard anywhere in the world should be a fundamental right for those who have suffered.

Justice flourishes in the light, in openness and transparency, in which the defense and prosecution are seen to be treated fairly and given equal opportunity. Injustice is bred in darkness, in closed hearings and in a hidden process in which cozy backroom relationships can develop. In these situations, it is easy to put a slant on a case or prevent critical evidence from being seen or heard. The Internet revolution has exposed so much of what has, for so long, been hidden in our world. It’s time for justice to become a new focus.

The call to end police violence is not a negation of the dangers police themselves face, as evidenced by the tragic killings of two officers in Brooklyn, NY earlier this month. It is a call to overhaul a system that perpetuates racial injustice. Video technology will play an important part in that system change.

How Technology Can Legitimize Video Evidence

Law, like language, has to reflect the needs of the times. Justice systems in the United States and around the world urgently need to consider comprehensive appraisal of video as a potentially reliable form of evidence. Technology and the individuals using it can help make this happen.

Technology already exists that can aid us in proving a piece of video is authentic (hasn’t been tampered with, manipulated or edited in any way) or even prove the unique “signature” of the person who filmed it. If that is possible, why would a prosecutor need to present evidence to a grand jury to ask for an indictment where technology has presented irrefutable, visual evidence of a possible crime? Would that not be enough to indict a suspect and go to trial?

The full introduction of verified videos could be as critical as the introduction of forensics into criminal investigations and trials.

Tech companies can help make possible a “proof mode” that would enable investigators, journalists, and audiences to know if a piece of media is authentic. The proof mode would be accessed through a specific app, an option on a device or a media-sharing platform such as YouTube. It would incorporate and preserve important metadata such as the location and time and date a video file’s creation. This additional information would ensure a file’s integrity. In some cases, a file could have more metadata saved to a third-party site for further verification.

Furthermore, phones are already being designed, at companies like Qualcomm, to include 3D scanning, which can potentially provide hard evidence of exactly where people were at a specific moment in a particular environment.

In Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother uses video surveillance as a primary instrument of control. Today, billions of “little sisters and brothers,” are equipped with video devices, most often embedded in their mobile phones. Their regular vigilance and exposure of human rights abuses—like police brutality—can bring real pressure for change.

The sheer volume of video now being recorded will inevitably capture future instances of abuse. Will the next grand jury or prosecutor’s office be able to deny the power of such a video, as they did the video of Mr. Garner being placed in a chokehold and uttering those disturbing words, “I can’t breathe,” over and over again before collapsing?

The chances are slimmer when this enormous volume of citizen video is organized, easier to find and verified. Better tagging of videos by their creators and by the platforms to which they upload them can ensure that they can be found. Through using the data embedded in the media, investigators and advocates can create timelines or put multiple videos together into a cohesive story of an incident. A story that is less dependent on unreliable memories and based more on video evidence. This could be particularly helpful in cases where there is a question about false accusations being made against someone, whether a police officer or a citizen.

How I Got Involved in Documenting Injustice

You may be asking yourself why a musician has so much interest in the possibility of video to document, expose and prevent police violence and other human rights abuses. Here’s why:

In 1991 another police brutality incident caught on video caused an international uproar: the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. The following year we were able to get the support to create the nonprofit organization WITNESS. I had proposed the idea two years earlier after meeting human rights abuse survivors on the Amnesty International music tours of the late 1980s. It was obvious that when video evidence existed it was extremely hard for the perpetrators of those abuses to deny and bury what had happened. The Rodney King incident made very clear that ordinary people could use video to witness abuse and use it to campaign for justice and change.

Today, WITNESS provides resources and trains a new generation of citizen advocates to make effective and safe use of video for human rights and it works on innovative technology solutions that allow citizen media to play a stronger part in creating accountability in criminal justice cases.

From Syria to Staten Island citizens are exposing the truth with video. These citizen witnesses are bringing victims’ stories directly to our screens, revealing names and images that we might otherwise have never known.

Peter Gabriel. Clemens Niehaus/Geisler-Fotopres/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

Having one’s story be seen and heard anywhere in the world should be a fundamental right for those who have suffered. The act of recording and sharing a story of abuse can protect that right, ensure transparency and bring justice a little a closer.

These visual stories are bringing people to the streets, helping to pressure for reform, making it nearly impossible for lawmakers and politicians to be silent.

People old enough to remember will recall that the video of the Rodney King beating, failed to convince a jury of any guilt of the LAPD officers involved in the ensuing criminal case. This is not a failure of video, but a reminder that for issues like police brutality, which have deep systemic roots, and touch inbuilt prejudices, the struggle to end it will not come quickly.

Putting cameras in phones has put them directly into the hands of billions of people around the world, empowering billions of potential witnesses.

To ignore their experiences—and their evidence—is to ignore the foundation of real justice, the truth.

Will Africa Produce the ‘Next Einstein’?

AIMS’ flagship campus in Cape Town, South Africa. NextEinstein/Flickr

There is no shortage of ideas for ways to help African countries rise out of poverty. From big-dollar funds set up to deliver food, water, or medicine to destitute villagers to vociferous calls to leave the continent alone, the subject almost invariably escalates to a shouting match burdened by the specter of colonialism.

But Thierry Zomahoun’s plan represents what may be described as a middle way, leveraging donor dollars in support of a long-term initiative that instills homegrown talent with the skills, confidence, and contacts to improve their communities. Zomahoun is the president and CEO of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), a growing network of educational and research institutes that hopes to move the continent’s most capable intellectuals into the global spotlight.

There are three formal AIMS undertakings: a master’s degree program in Mathematical Sciences, research, and teacher training. The master’s program offers free tuition to accepted students and trains them in both general principles – problem formulation, the scientific method, communication – and cutting-edge math in subjects including computer science, biomathematics, and financial mathematics. Research will allow for international collaborations and advanced student training.

There are currently about a dozen researchers at the South Africa campus, and a handful of others distributed between sites in Senegal and Ghana. This number is expected to grow as each center develops its niche based on local needs and opportunities. Teacher training programs include a two-year advanced certificate course and a four-month intensive option; both programs involve both remote, web-based elements as well as residential stints at AIMS campuses.

Speaking at the Falling Walls Conference in Berlin in early November, Zomahoun noted that AIMS is hoping to reverse the colonial legacy of African education in two main ways. Traditionally, classrooms were led by an authoritative teacher who disseminated information to silent students, but Zomahoun hopes to turn that paradigm on its head. “We train people who can challenge the status quo,” he explains, “not just people who learn from books, listen to lectures, and just repeat it.” Rather, he hopes to instill qualities like “critical thinking, independent thinking, and problem solving” in order to prepare students for real-world problems.

AIMS also addresses what Zomahoun views as a historic dearth of scientists. He notes that talented students have typically pursued the humanities, because it was the best educational and professional route available during the colonial era. The pattern has continued to this day: “80% of the high school population, those moving up to university were going into the humanities,” Zomahoun explains. “It’s great, but when you’re building a continent that needs to develop, you need more people in science.” With the aim of an improved development trajectory, AIMS prioritizes the applied elements of math – fields like economics, health, or natural resource management.

Math also represents an ideal starting point for an under-resourced region to begin the climb up the research ladder. State-of-the-art biochemistry or electrical engineering requires expensive instruments and years of training just to start generating data. “The good thing about mathematical sciences is that it doesn’t require heavy infrastructure,” Zomahoun says. “It’s cheap – you just need a pen, paper, and then you can do it.”

Of course, you also need promising talent and inspiring teachers, and Zomahoun is scouring the continent for precocious youth in an effort he’s calling the Next Einstein Initiative. “AIMS is training Africa’s brightest students,” he says, “and we’re trying to provide solutions to the critical issues that the continent is facing.”

Yes, Entrepreneurship Can Be Taught

lumaxart/Flickr

Entrepreneurship programs are all the rage at business schools across the country. But with the high price tag of MBA programs today, many aspiring entrepreneurs wonder if it’s worth the cost and if these programs deliver real value. An MBA is not going to make someone an entrepreneur. But business school does teach some fundamental skills necessary to run a business, generate revenue, establish partnerships, manage people and generally avoid financial or legal issues. While the investment is significant, think if it this way: An MBA can be easier and cheaper than learning lessons the hard way through a failed startup or spending years toiling in a corporate job.

My company, Grammarly, an automated proofreader, was bootstrapped. I did not have ready access to mentors, nor the ability to hire experts that typically comes with substantial outside funding. I learned the ropes by drawing from the knowledge earned getting my MBA in Marketing and Finance. I was able to help my fellow entrepreneurs understand that a corporate vision, and the ability to sell that vision, is not enough to build a successful company. True success for a small company requires very specific and defined skills — from operations, to coding, to accounting, to taxes.

Of course, it’s entirely possible to learn how to run a company by jumping in with both feet. However, an MBA can be a huge boost for entrepreneurs who start small. I credit my MBA with helping me to sell my previous company, MyDropBox. The degree bolstered my credibility with the acquiring company and gave me the tools I needed to navigate a sophisticated negotiation. While having an MBA was a key factor in my case, the truth is the business world won’t be easily sold on that credential alone. Being able to understand the valuation of the company and participate intelligently during negotiations, while also offering advice to make the subsequent integration process go smoother, were conversations that boosted my credibility.

If you are pursuing an MBA, it’s important to know what you are working towards and where you need to specialize. For example, an MBA in entrepreneurship may not be useful to someone with several years of experience working in an early stage company. Instead, that person might benefit from more traditional tracks focused on strategy, operations or marketing. Whereas someone trying to move from investment banking to a startup might benefit from an entrepreneurship program.

An MBA can also provide valuable cultural lessons for professionals from a different country. As a Ukraine native, I knew that I needed to learn how to navigate the cultural differences that play into a typical business transaction. Business school is where I received the valuable exposure to different people and work styles.

The tough decision to put your career on hold and invest in an MBA is exactly the type of decision you will encounter as an entrepreneur. An MBA from a top school is ideal, but can you afford to pursue an MBA and work without pay or at a significant lower salary to get a startup off the ground? If the answer is “no,” then it’s better to get the skills and credibility elsewhere. For example, a few trusted advisors can provide the business acumen and a broader set of knowledge.

If you do pursue an MBA, be wary of additional expenses. Many programs today encourage extensive opportunities to travel to meet with companies in different countries or network with other students. Be aware that such expenses add up quickly and could limit your options when you graduate.

Bottom line: A degree program in entrepreneurship can teach important skills — and perhaps help graduates achieve their goals more quickly through internships and networking opportunities. But the essential passion, drive, and creativity of an entrepreneur cannot be measured or taught.

Max Lytvyn is co-founder and head of product strategy for Grammarly. He earned an MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management in 2004.

Peter Gabriel: Tech Can Make Video Evidence a Cornerstone of Justice

Albuquerque Police Chief Allen Banks talks about a still image Dec. 13, 2013, taken from an officer’s lapel camera, before the shooting of an armed suspect. Russell Contreras/AP

How is it that despite compelling video evidence, justice can be so elusive for the victims of police brutality? This is a question that has to be asked after the failure of a Staten Island grand jury to indict a New York City police officer for the death of Eric Garner.

We live in an age of video. As more and more of our lives are being filmed, we are amassing massive catalogs of potential evidence. Yet so little of this is finding its way into our political, legal or justice systems.

Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel is a musician, activist, and co-founder/Chair of the Board of Directors of the human rights organization WITNESS.

The evidence being trusted in courts today is most often based on our fallible memories, spoken evidence produced long after the event, which in turn, is being proved to be unreliable at best and often re-imagined. Video has the capability to put more reality into the world of “remembered” evidence.

If we want people to use the legal system to resolve disputes, rather than more dangerous or violent options, the system has to be trusted. Lord Chief Justice of England, Gordon Hewart’s famous maxim says, “Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done.”

Having one’s story be seen and heard anywhere in the world should be a fundamental right for those who have suffered.

Justice flourishes in the light, in openness and transparency, in which the defense and prosecution are seen to be treated fairly and given equal opportunity. Injustice is bred in darkness, in closed hearings and in a hidden process in which cozy backroom relationships can develop. In these situations, it is easy to put a slant on a case or prevent critical evidence from being seen or heard. The Internet revolution has exposed so much of what has, for so long, been hidden in our world. It’s time for justice to become a new focus.

The call to end police violence is not a negation of the dangers police themselves face, as evidenced by the tragic killings of two officers in Brooklyn, NY earlier this month. It is a call to overhaul a system that perpetuates racial injustice. Video technology will play an important part in that system change.

How Technology Can Legitimize Video Evidence

Law, like language, has to reflect the needs of the times. Justice systems in the United States and around the world urgently need to consider comprehensive appraisal of video as a potentially reliable form of evidence. Technology and the individuals using it can help make this happen.

Technology already exists that can aid us in proving a piece of video is authentic (hasn’t been tampered with, manipulated or edited in any way) or even prove the unique “signature” of the person who filmed it. If that is possible, why would a prosecutor need to present evidence to a grand jury to ask for an indictment where technology has presented irrefutable, visual evidence of a possible crime? Would that not be enough to indict a suspect and go to trial?

The full introduction of verified videos could be as critical as the introduction of forensics into criminal investigations and trials.

Tech companies can help make possible a “proof mode” that would enable investigators, journalists, and audiences to know if a piece of media is authentic. The proof mode would be accessed through a specific app, an option on a device or a media-sharing platform such as YouTube. It would incorporate and preserve important metadata such as the location and time and date a video file’s creation. This additional information would ensure a file’s integrity. In some cases, a file could have more metadata saved to a third-party site for further verification.

Furthermore, phones are already being designed, at companies like Qualcomm, to include 3D scanning, which can potentially provide hard evidence of exactly where people were at a specific moment in a particular environment.

In Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother uses video surveillance as a primary instrument of control. Today, billions of “little sisters and brothers,” are equipped with video devices, most often embedded in their mobile phones. Their regular vigilance and exposure of human rights abuses—like police brutality—can bring real pressure for change.

The sheer volume of video now being recorded will inevitably capture future instances of abuse. Will the next grand jury or prosecutor’s office be able to deny the power of such a video, as they did the video of Mr. Garner being placed in a chokehold and uttering those disturbing words, “I can’t breathe,” over and over again before collapsing?

The chances are slimmer when this enormous volume of citizen video is organized, easier to find and verified. Better tagging of videos by their creators and by the platforms to which they upload them can ensure that they can be found. Through using the data embedded in the media, investigators and advocates can create timelines or put multiple videos together into a cohesive story of an incident. A story that is less dependent on unreliable memories and based more on video evidence. This could be particularly helpful in cases where there is a question about false accusations being made against someone, whether a police officer or a citizen.

How I Got Involved in Documenting Injustice

You may be asking yourself why a musician has so much interest in the possibility of video to document, expose and prevent police violence and other human rights abuses. Here’s why:

In 1991 another police brutality incident caught on video caused an international uproar: the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. The following year we were able to get the support to create the nonprofit organization WITNESS. I had proposed the idea two years earlier after meeting human rights abuse survivors on the Amnesty International music tours of the late 1980s. It was obvious that when video evidence existed it was extremely hard for the perpetrators of those abuses to deny and bury what had happened. The Rodney King incident made very clear that ordinary people could use video to witness abuse and use it to campaign for justice and change.

Today, WITNESS provides resources and trains a new generation of citizen advocates to make effective and safe use of video for human rights and it works on innovative technology solutions that allow citizen media to play a stronger part in creating accountability in criminal justice cases.

From Syria to Staten Island citizens are exposing the truth with video. These citizen witnesses are bringing victims’ stories directly to our screens, revealing names and images that we might otherwise have never known.

Peter Gabriel. Clemens Niehaus/Geisler-Fotopres/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

Having one’s story be seen and heard anywhere in the world should be a fundamental right for those who have suffered. The act of recording and sharing a story of abuse can protect that right, ensure transparency and bring justice a little a closer.

These visual stories are bringing people to the streets, helping to pressure for reform, making it nearly impossible for lawmakers and politicians to be silent.

People old enough to remember will recall that the video of the Rodney King beating, failed to convince a jury of any guilt of the LAPD officers involved in the ensuing criminal case. This is not a failure of video, but a reminder that for issues like police brutality, which have deep systemic roots, and touch inbuilt prejudices, the struggle to end it will not come quickly.

Putting cameras in phones has put them directly into the hands of billions of people around the world, empowering billions of potential witnesses.

To ignore their experiences—and their evidence—is to ignore the foundation of real justice, the truth.

Will Africa Produce the “Next Einstein”?

AIMS’ flagship campus in Cape Town, South Africa. (Image: Flickr/NextEinstein)

There is no shortage of ideas for ways to help African countries rise out of poverty. From big-dollar funds set up to deliver food, water, or medicine to destitute villagers to vociferous calls to leave the continent alone, the subject almost invariably escalates to a shouting match burdened by the specter of colonialism.

But Thierry Zomahoun’s plan represents what may be described as a middle way, leveraging donor dollars in support of a long-term initiative that instills homegrown talent with the skills, confidence, and contacts to improve their communities. Zomahoun is the president and CEO of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), a growing network of educational and research institutes that hopes to move the continent’s most capable intellectuals into the global spotlight.

There are three formal AIMS undertakings: a master’s degree program in Mathematical Sciences, research, and teacher training. The master’s program offers free tuition to accepted students and trains them in both general principles – problem formulation, the scientific method, communication – and cutting-edge math in subjects including computer science, biomathematics, and financial mathematics. Research will allow for international collaborations and advanced student training.

There are currently about a dozen researchers at the South Africa campus, and a handful of others distributed between sites in Senegal and Ghana. This number is expected to grow as each center develops its niche based on local needs and opportunities. Teacher training programs include a two-year advanced certificate course and a four-month intensive option; both programs involve both remote, web-based elements as well as residential stints at AIMS campuses.

Speaking at the Falling Walls Conference in Berlin in early November, Zomahoun noted that AIMS is hoping to reverse the colonial legacy of African education in two main ways. Traditionally, classrooms were led by an authoritative teacher who disseminated information to silent students, but Zomahoun hopes to turn that paradigm on its head. “We train people who can challenge the status quo,” he explains, “not just people who learn from books, listen to lectures, and just repeat it.” Rather, he hopes to instill qualities like “critical thinking, independent thinking, and problem solving” in order to prepare students for real-world problems.

AIMS also addresses what Zomahoun views as a historic dearth of scientists. He notes that talented students have typically pursued the humanities, because it was the best educational and professional route available during the colonial era. The pattern has continued to this day: “80% of the high school population, those moving up to university were going into the humanities,” Zomahoun explains. “It’s great, but when you’re building a continent that needs to develop, you need more people in science.” With the aim of an improved development trajectory, AIMS prioritizes the applied elements of math – fields like economics, health, or natural resource management.

Math also represents an ideal starting point for an under-resourced region to begin the climb up the research ladder. State-of-the-art biochemistry or electrical engineering requires expensive instruments and years of training just to start generating data. “The good thing about mathematical sciences is that it doesn’t require heavy infrastructure,” Zomahoun says. “It’s cheap – you just need a pen, paper, and then you can do it.”

Of course, you also need promising talent and inspiring teachers, and Zomahoun is scouring the continent for precocious youth in an effort he’s calling the Next Einstein Initiative. “AIMS is training Africa’s brightest students,” he says, “and we’re trying to provide solutions to the critical issues that the continent is facing.”

Forecasting Avalanche Danger for the Country’s Most Treacherous Snowpack

Benjamin Rasmussen

To understand what’s happening at the top of a snow-covered mountain, you have to dig. Granular analysis of snowflakes can tell local ski resorts and government agencies which layers of snow are destined for collapse. But that process isn’t exactly scalable. “We can’t dig snow pits every 100 feet over the whole state,” says John Snook, who scrutinized snowflakes for eight years as a forecaster for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. In his new role as technical consultant, he aims to create the first-ever computer model of the state’s backcountry snowpack, combining topographical information with open source weather-simulation models to identify instability.

Snook, an atmospheric scientist, used to check whether individual snowflakes were rounded—strengthening the overall integrity of the snowpack—or cup-shaped and dangerous. Now the forecasting team does that, and Snook’s data supplements their work to characterize avalanche danger. That’s no small feat for a continental snowpack that may be the most treacherous in North America. “We’re trying to see how the layers evolve over the winter and hopefully make more intelligent forecasts,” Snook says. Plus, it’ll be much easier on his back.

15 Smart Design Books to Inspire You in 2015

Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photography explores the long, often symbiotic, relationship between architects and photographers. Bas Princen's subject of choice were monolithic structures like this Dubai cooling plant. Read more here. Bas Princen

Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photography explores the long, often symbiotic, relationship between architects and photographers. Bas Princen's subject of choice were monolithic structures like this Dubai cooling plant. Read more here.

Bas Princen

Instead of featuring famous skyscrapers and monuments, Imagine Architecture: Artistic Visions of the Urban Realm is filled with upside down apartment flats, levitating houses, and skyscrapers made of clouds. It's a quixotic branch of architecture: the kind that's only imagined. Dionisio González, from Imagine Architecture, Gestalten 2014

Instead of featuring famous skyscrapers and monuments, Imagine Architecture: Artistic Visions of the Urban Realm is filled with upside down apartment flats, levitating houses, and skyscrapers made of clouds. It's a quixotic branch of architecture: the kind that's only imagined. Dionisio González, from Imagine Architecture, Gestalten 2014

Collector's Editions documents the rise in elaborate collector's edition packaging that's happened as young designers combine digital and analog craft techniques. For The National's latest album, Trouble Will Find Me (seen here), the band adapted an image from a performance piece by Korean artist Bohyun Yoon. See more editions here. Ivan Jones

Collector's Editions documents the rise in elaborate collector's edition packaging that's happened as young designers combine digital and analog craft techniques. For The National's latest album, Trouble Will Find Me (seen here), the band adapted an image from a performance piece by Korean artist Bohyun Yoon. See more editions here.

Ivan Jones

Before Instagram existed, photo-takers could capture tinted filters and light leaks with cheap toy cameras, often manufactured to market movies or companies. Camera Crazy features dozens of such cameras. Check out more cameras here. J.K. Putnam

Before Instagram existed, photo-takers could capture tinted filters and light leaks with cheap toy cameras, often manufactured to market movies or companies. Camera Crazy features dozens of such cameras. Check out more cameras here.

J.K. Putnam

Variations On Normal is like a pint-sized sketchbook of contraptions, all sprung from designer Dominic Wilcox’s puckish, fertile imagination---square peas, anyone? More here. Dominic Wilcox

Variations On Normal is like a pint-sized sketchbook of contraptions, all sprung from designer Dominic Wilcox’s puckish, fertile imagination---square peas, anyone? More here.

Dominic Wilcox

These days, it seems like every other person is trying to launch a new app. That kind of entrepreneurial fever isn't so new: Inventions That Didn’t Change the World is a collection of Victorian era design ideas that didn't quite see the light of day. More would-be inventions here. The National Archives, London, England 2014. © 2014 Crown Copyright

These days, it seems like every other person is trying to launch a new app. That kind of entrepreneurial fever isn't so new: Inventions That Didn’t Change the World is a collection of Victorian era design ideas that didn't quite see the light of day. More would-be inventions here.

The National Archives, London, England 2014. © 2014 Crown Copyright

TM: The Untold Stories Behind 29 Classic Logos is brimming with fun historical graphic design facts. Such as: the CBS eye logo was inspired by a mid-19th century Shaker religious drawing. Read more here. Courtesy of Laurence King Publishing

TM: The Untold Stories Behind 29 Classic Logos is brimming with fun historical graphic design facts. Such as: the CBS eye logo was inspired by a mid-19th century Shaker religious drawing. Read more here.

Courtesy of Laurence King Publishing

Midcentury industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss pioneered the idea of designing for users. For an exhibit at the newly opened Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, designer Ellen Lupton curated Dreyfuss's charts and thoughts on ergonomics in Beautiful Users . Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Midcentury industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss pioneered the idea of designing for users. For an exhibit at the newly opened Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, designer Ellen Lupton curated Dreyfuss's charts and thoughts on ergonomics in Beautiful Users .

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Tiki Pop: America Conjures Up Its Own Polynesian Paradise looks at the peculiar Tiki design aesthetic that made rattan furniture and tropical drinks all the rage of the 1960s. More Tiki trivia here. Taschen

Tiki Pop: America Conjures Up Its Own Polynesian Paradise looks at the peculiar Tiki design aesthetic that made rattan furniture and tropical drinks all the rage of the 1960s. More Tiki trivia here.

Taschen

Sometimes the most staggeringly beautiful designs have humble origins. Horn Please chronicles the bus drivers on the Grand Trunk Road in India. The drivers essentially live in their buses, so each one gets lovingly decorated, like a home. More images here. Dan Eckstein

Sometimes the most staggeringly beautiful designs have humble origins. Horn Please chronicles the bus drivers on the Grand Trunk Road in India. The drivers essentially live in their buses, so each one gets lovingly decorated, like a home. More images here.

Dan Eckstein

MoMA unveiled an ambitious exhibit this year. In Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Growing Megacities the museum invited six teams of architects, urban planners, and researchers to propose urban planning solutions for future mega-cities. Curator Pedro Gadanho's book provides a closer look at the proposals. See more urban planning ideas here. Courtesy NLE and Zoohaus/Inteligencias Colectivas and MoMA

MoMA unveiled an ambitious exhibit this year. In Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Growing Megacities the museum invited six teams of architects, urban planners, and researchers to propose urban planning solutions for future mega-cities. Curator Pedro Gadanho's book provides a closer look at the proposals. See more urban planning ideas here.

Courtesy NLE and Zoohaus/Inteligencias Colectivas and MoMA

Working On My Novel isn't technically a book about design, but the spare and witty book could only have come from a designer: New York artist Cory Arcangel had to write a bit of code to properly mine Twitter for the best tweets containing “working on my novel.” It’s a pithy take on the nature of creativity. More tweets here. Cory Arcangel

Working On My Novel isn't technically a book about design, but the spare and witty book could only have come from a designer: New York artist Cory Arcangel had to write a bit of code to properly mine Twitter for the best tweets containing “working on my novel.” It’s a pithy take on the nature of creativity. More tweets here.

Cory Arcangel

Another children and parent pleaser: The op art works of 1970s psychedelic artist Victor Vasarely become three-dimensional in the colorful Pop-Up Op-Art: Vasarely . Prestel

Another children and parent pleaser: The op art works of 1970s psychedelic artist Victor Vasarely become three-dimensional in the colorful Pop-Up Op-Art: Vasarely .

Prestel

Design was still a budding industry when some of the most iconic album art---think the cover of The Beatles's Revolver---hit stands. Rock Covers tells the stories behind 250 of them. Taschen

Design was still a budding industry when some of the most iconic album art---think the cover of The Beatles's Revolver---hit stands. Rock Covers tells the stories behind 250 of them.

Taschen

German photographer Herlinde Koelbl traveled to 30 countries and visited military camps to photograph the shooting targets used around the world. The sometimes eerie, sometime comical results are compiled in Targets . See more here. Herlinde Koelbl

German photographer Herlinde Koelbl traveled to 30 countries and visited military camps to photograph the shooting targets used around the world. The sometimes eerie, sometime comical results are compiled in Targets . See more here.

Herlinde Koelbl