Reading List

Here are a few books that I recommend if you are looking to craft your tech creative career:

Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans. I first heard of this book from a TED Talk that Bill gave – I got the book immediately after that!
An Audience of One: Reclaiming Creativity for Its Own Sake by Srinivas Rao. Albert Shum one of the very creative people at Microsoft recommended this one.
Spin Your Tale: The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Your Personal Brand by Dona Sarkar. Dona is true polymath – a fashion designer, artist, writer, and program manager at Microsoft. She wrote a great how-to book on building your own personal brand.
The Breakthrough Principle of 16x by Richard Koch. This book was handed to my work team 12 years ago at my previous company by the team’s leader. I read it that night, and in it got the rationale to look for a new job. Within a few months, I started at Microsoft, never looking back.
The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter by David Sax. If you like recording your life in the paper pages of journals while listening to vinyl, this book is for you.
Getting Things Done by David Allen. Though not a book about creativity, it does describe a great methodology of getting the tasks in your life done so you can focus on your creative endeavors.

Michael’s Articles

Here are some of the articles I’ve written over the past few years – all touching on creativity – most with its intersection with technology.