Mark Greville

Thank you to everybody who attended my talk at AtlanTec Virtual Festival of Technology. Particular thanks to the organising committee for putting on such a fantastic Virtual event. It was a great pleasure to talk about Rapid Change, a subject I am passionate about. There were a few requests for the reading list, so I’ve included the links below.

The most important link is the essay from Ray Kurzweil on the Law of Accelerating Returns, detailed and fascinating. It will change the way you think about change!  . 
His paper on how his predictions have fared is fun and astonishing in parts. 

The book Accelerate is a must read on building and scaling tech organisations

Merrill Chapmans book on tech disasters is called ‘In Search Of Stupidity’. It is hilarious and horrifying, and is a truly wonderful history of tech disasters

The Cutter Journal article I wrote on Public Self Governance is available for free (after you enter your name and email) here .

One last word. Three days before the publication of my article in the Cutter Journal, the editor got in touch and asked if I had permission to use Ray Kurzweil’s diagram. I was in a panic, and I knew that there was no way I could get permission in time. I would have to replace it myself and rewrite the section, then have it re-edited and fact checked, probably missing the deadline and my opportunity. Getting published in this journal was an enormous deal to me as so many people who I look up to have published there (Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, Alistair Cockburn to name a few).

I emailed the Kurzweil site and went to bed depressed. I awoke the next morning and found that Sarah, who works for Ray, had sent me a note telling me that Ray had given me permission to use the diagram. All he wanted in return was a copy of my article. 

Ray Kurzweil, visionary, genius, gentleman.