Search results for ""Author Guru Madhavan""

In this engaging account of innovative triumphs, Guru Madhavan examines the ways in which engineers throughout history created world-changing tools, from ATMs and ZIP codes to the digital camera and the disposable diaper. Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we borrow strategies from engineering to find inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.

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Dubai's Burj Khalifa—the world’s tallest building—looks nothing like Microsoft’s Office Suite, and digital surround sound doesn’t work like a citywide telecommunication grid. Yet these engineering feats have much in common. Applied Minds explores the unique visions and mental tools of engineers to reveal the enormous—and often understated—influence they wield in transforming problems into opportunities. The resulting account pairs the innovators of modern history—Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Steve Jobs—with everything from ATMs and the ZIP code system to the disposable diaper. An engineer himself, Guru Madhavan introduces a flexible intellectual tool kit called modular systems thinking as he explains the discipline's penchant for seeing structure where there is none. The creations that result from this process express the engineer's answers to the fundamental questions of design: usefulness, functionality, reliability, and user friendliness. Through narratives and case studies spanning the brilliant history of engineering, Madhavan shows how the concepts of prototyping, efficiency, reliability, standards, optimization, and feedback are put to use in fields as diverse as transportation, retail, health care, and entertainment. Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we apply strategies borrowed from engineering to create useful and inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.

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Discover the secrets of the minds that built our world – and how they might teach us to think differently and innovate better. 'Smart, insightful, and fascinating.' Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography Dubai’s Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest building – looks nothing like Microsoft’s Office Suite, and digital surround sound doesn’t work like a citywide telecommunication grid. Yet these engineering feats have much in common: they are the result of a unique thinking process combining abstract and structured thinking, common sense and great imagination. They are born of the engineering mindset. In this groundbreaking and lively work, Guru Madhavan reveals the extraordinary influence of engineering on society, not just today but throughout history. Drawing on a cast of star engineers like Steve Jobs, the Wright brothers and Thomas Edison, Madhavan explores aspects of this mindset and shows its usefulness to life and business – in areas as varied as traffic congestion to health care to filmmaking. Full of case studies and practical insights spanning the brilliant history of engineering, Think Like an Engineer is in equal parts personal, practical, and profound. It reveals how key engineering concepts can help you make better decisions and create innovative solutions in a complex world.

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