Amazon.com
Thomas L. Friedman is not so much a futurist, which he is sometimes called, as a presentist. His aim, in his new book, The World Is Flat, as in his earlier, influential Lexus and the Olive Tree, is not to give you a speculative preview of the wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you caught up on the wonders that are already here. The world isn't going to be flat, it is flat, which gives Friedman's breathless narrative much of its urgency, and which also saves it from the Epcot-style polyester sheen that futurists--the optimistic ones at least--are inevitably prey to.
What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected": the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This in itself should not be news to anyone. But the news that Friedman has to deliver is that just when we stopped paying attention to these developments--when the dot-com bust turned interest away from the business and technology pages and when 9/11 and the Iraq War turned all eyes toward the Middle East--is when they actually began to accelerate. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete--and win--not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well. (He doesn't forget the "mutant supply chains" like Al-Qaeda that let the small act big in more destructive ways.) Friedman tells his eye-opening story with the catchy slogans and globe-hopping anecdotes that readers of his earlier books and his New York Times columns will know well, and also with a stern sort of optimism. He wants to tell you how exciting this new world is, but he also wants you to know you're going to be trampled if you don't keep up with it. His book is an excellent place to begin. --Tom Nissley
Where Were You When the World Went Flat?
Thomas L. Friedman's reporter's curiosity and his ability to recognize the patterns behind the most complex global developments have made him one of the most entertaining and authoritative sources for information about the wider world we live in, both as the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times and as the author of landmark books like From Beirut to Jerusalem and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. They also make him an endlessly fascinating conversation partner, and we'd happily have peppered him with questions about The World Is Flat for hours. Read our interview to learn why there's almost no one from Washington, D.C., listed in the index of a book about the global economy, and what his one-plank platform for president would be. (Hint: his bumper stickers would say, "Can You Hear Me Now?")
The Essential Tom Friedman
From Beirut to Jerusalem |
The Lexus and the Olive Tree |
Longitudes and Attitudes |
More on Globalization and Development
China, Inc. by Ted Fishman |
Three Billion New Capitalists by Clyde Prestowitz |
The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs |
Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz |
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli |
The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto |
Book Description
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?
In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.
Download Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist gives a bold, timely, and surprising picture of the state of globalization in the twenty-first century
Customer Reviews:
What a good boy am I.......2007-10-06
Reading this book is like watching someone else's kids open their Christmas presents from relatives they don't really know. I'm not sure how the author can possibly be so fascinated by technology and yet know absolutely nothing about it at the same time, but his endless diatribes about the miracles of PayPal and Microsoft Word are beyond laughable, and I was pretty much in shock when he started citing howstuffworks-dot-com as a technical reference on fiber optics and SOAP. What editor told him that this was OK?
So enamored with his own cleverness is he that Mr. Friedman dedicates several pages to explaining the book's title, even though a single sentence would have sufficed. Unfortunately, this doesn't stop after the first chapter; rather than make a point and move on, he has to point out the fact that he just made a point and tell you what a wonderful point it was just in case you missed the point. It's like hanging out with that one friend who sits around smiling and pointing to his butt after he f*rts at the dinner table.
If you want to learn about globalization and are not old enough to remember the first light bulb, go read "No Logo" instead. This is horrible, irrelevant geriatric babbling.
My opinion is flat.......2007-10-03
When a book has had over a thousand reviews, what can I possibly say that hasn't already been said? So I will keep it short and not so sweet.
No one will read this book, or any of the updates, for "fun." Do you NEED to read it? Yes, it contains some important economic concepts and realities, but it's a bit overlong. I'd say it could be cut in half, so skim through some of the numerous "interviews," repetition of central points, and endless advice and encouragement. The global pie is getting bigger and better, but the competition for piecies of that pie is heating up. Smart, ambitious, creative people will thrive; slow, lazy, dull people will languish, and everything inbetween. For too long many Americans have been sitting on their laurels and the day of reckoning is near. Heed this warning: Put down your TV remotes, game controllers, and iPods, and start working like your life (or lifestyle) depended on it. Get your rear into some serious gear, and don't balk at the notion that you should be an "expert" in at least three different, unrelated fields. Does this scare or excite you?
In so many interviews with foreign entrepreneurs, we are told (or reassured) that no matter how much of the "mundane" work is performed by countries other than the U.S., America's creative and innovative spark is still unsurpassed: All the world looks to America to lead the way into the future. I'm not sure. A lot of that "mundane" work was high level and highly paid, and why should we expect that America will continue to dominate in creativity and innovation? The truth is, we're in for a flattening of living standards, and from the perspective of the relatively high American standard of living, it will seem like a drop in standards until we reach another equilibrium (who knows how long that will take?). In any case, the reassurances about the talents and abilities of Americans seem at odds with other parts of the book, such as Bill Gates feeling "terrified at the American work force of tomorrow."
If you're already working hard at becoming an expert in three fields, then you probably don't need to read this book. Indeed, you probably don't have time to read it, or to read and write Amazon reviews, for that matter.
Great book to introduce an inside to the 90's and now.......2007-10-03
This was an excellent book for someone who is ever curious about the expanding global ecomomy as a whole. As a sailor in the U.S. Navy I found the book fasinating because I not only grew up during which most of the book was talking about but I am witnessing the predictions of the book first hand. Great book all around!!
Friedman's writing and subjects are captivating.......2007-09-27
Are you still a little confused about why American corporations are outsourcing to India and manufacturing in China, or why Al Qaeda has suddenly become so powerful? If so, this is the book for you.
Friedman's made 'Globalization' simple enough for a high school student to understand. That being said, this is NOT a high school textbook. It is NOT dry. Friedman is a great journalist and an author who will hold your attention chapter after chapter.
Friedman has a knack for taking complex and often emotionally charged issues and breaking them down into easy to understand concepts. You don't have to be a graduate student to enjoy this book. It's great!
Globalization 3.0.......2007-09-24
I wish I had read this book during a Globalization class I took a year ago.
Friedman is an exceptional writer, very engaging. He really lays out the information well and then brings in together in the latter part of the book.
I thought the middle part of the book could of been edited a bit.
Overall, an excellent introduction to globalization and the affect this will have on the US and industries in general.
Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
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They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies
ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Amazon.com
The Medium is the Massage is Marshall McLuhan's most condensed, and perhaps most effective, presentation of his ideas. Using a layout style that was later copied by Wired, McLuhan and coauthor/designer Quentin Fiore combine word and image to illustrate and enact the ideas that were first put forward in the dense and poorly organized Understanding Media. McLuhan's ideas about the nature of media, the increasing speed of communication, and the technological basis for our understanding of who we are come to life in this slender volume. Although originally printed in 1967, the art and style in The Medium is the Massage seem as fresh today as in the summer of love, and the ideas are even more resonant now that computer interfaces are becoming gateways to the global village.
Book Description
30 years after its publication Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage remains his most entertaining, provocative, and piquant book. With every technological and social "advance" McLuhan's proclamation that "the media work us over completely" becomes more evident and plain. In his words, 'so pervasive are they in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, or unaltered'.
McLuhan's remarkable observation that "societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication" is undoubtedly more relevant today than ever before. With the rise of the internet and the explosion of the digital revolution there has never been a better time to revisit Marshall McLuhan.
Customer Reviews:
Very good book. Almost prophetic........2007-05-16
Some of McLuhans stuff is really unaccessible for average readers... It's deep stuff... BUT we see much of what he was talking about occuring in our modern day. It's really interesting. I think if he could have found a better way to present his philosphies he could have really made much more of a difference to our "global community"
My view of the world ..........2006-12-16
... was profoundly influenced by this book. I read it about 30 years ago. I'm pleasantly surprised to find it still in print.
Where are the Audio and Video Versions?.......2006-10-21
Yes, back in the late 60's or early 70's there were both audio and a movie version of this title. I use to own the LP album and frequently watched the short movie version that played on college campuses more than 35 years ago. Hopefully, the LP and movie will eventually be transferred to CD and DVD? Better yet: podcast? clyde
Wisdom from the Prophet of the Internet.......2006-06-20
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) never conceived of the Internet. But the great communications theorist understood where communications was going, and the revolutionary effects of its direction.
This book takes his sometimes impenetrable prose and places it in a context of compelling photographs, advertisements, and cartoons in order to dramatically illustrate the meaning of his words, and the radical effect that changes in communications technology have on the lives of all the world's citizens. "It is impossible to understand social and cultural changes without a knowledge of the workings of the media," he writes.
The Medium is the Massage begins and ends with quotes from Albert North Whitehead. The first is that "The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur." The last is that "It is the business of the future to be dangerous."
There always are jeremiads against the new by those who are accustomed to the old. McLuhan quotes Socrates: "The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves...You give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be heroes of many things, and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing."
The effects of the media on individuals are profound. "All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, pyschological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments. All media are extensions of some human faculty--psychic or physical."
Media affect you, the individual citizen. "Electrical information devices for universal, tyrannical womb-to-tomb surveillance are causing a very serious dilemma between our claim to privacy and the community's need to know. The older, traditional ideas of private, isolated thoughts and actions--the patterns of mechanistic technologies--are very seriously threatened by new methods of instantaneous electric information retrieval, by the electrically computerized dossier bank--that one big gossip column that is unforgiving, unforgetful and from which there is no redemption, no erasure of early 'mistakes.' We have already reached a point where remedial control, born of knowledge of media and their total effects on all of us, must be exerted...."
Media affect your family. "The family circle has widened. The whirlpool of information fathered by the electic media--movies, Telstar, flight--far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world's a sage."
Media affect your neighborhood. "Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of 'time' and 'space' and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concerns of all other men. It has reconstitued dialogue on a global scale. Its message is Total Change, ending psychic, social, economic, and political parochialism. The old civic, state, and national groupings have become unworkable. Nothing can be further from the spirit of the the new technology than 'a place for everything and everything in its place.' You can't GO home again."
Media affect your education. "Today's television child is attuned to up-to-the-minute 'adult' news--inflation, rioting, war, taxes, crime, bathing beauties--and is bewildered when he enters the nineteenth century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules. It is naturally an environment much like any factory set-up with its inventories and assembly lines."
Media affect your job. "From the fifteenth century to the twentieth century, there is a steady progress of fragmentation of the stages of work that constitute 'mechanization' and 'specialism.' These procedures cannot serve for survival or sanity in this new time. Under conditions of electric cicuitry, all the fragmented job patterns tend to blend once more into involving and demanding roles or forms of work that more and more resemble teaching, learning, and 'human' service, in the older sense of dedicated loyalty."
Media affect your government. "Nose-counting, a cherished part of the eighteenth century fragmentation process, has rapidly become a cumbersome and ineffectual form of social assessment in an envrionment of instant electric speeds. The public, in the sense of a great consensus of separate and distinct viewpoints, is finished. Today, the mass audience (the successor to the 'public') can be used as a creative, participating force. It is instead merely given packages of passive entertainment. Politics offers yesterday's answers to today's questions. A new form of 'politics' is emerging, and in ways we haven't yet noticed. The living room has become a voting booth. Participation via television in Freedom Marches, in war, revolution, pollution, and other events is changing EVERYTHING."
Media affect our relationships with groups of other citizens. "The shock of recognition. In an electric information environment, minority groups can no longer be contained, ignored. Too many people know too much about each other. Our new environment compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other. There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening."
This book is, in short, a superb introduction to McLuhan's thinking. Ideally, it would be read before any of McLuhan's other books. Understanding McLuhan takes some time and thought, but the effort is well worth it to understand today's media and today's world.
"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing," McLuhan quotes Meister Eckhardt as saying. McLuhan erases preconceptions of media being relatively insignificant, and demonstrates how the media affect the way each of us sees the world in which we live.
A memorable photo in the book is one of a middle-aged man dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase standing upon a surfboard, riding the waves. "In his amusement born of rational detachment of his own situation, Poe's mariner in 'The Descent Into the Maelstrom' staved off disaster by understanding the action of the whirlpool," says McLuhan's accompanying prose. "His insight offers a possible strategem for understanding our predicament, our electrically-configured whirl."
The last cartoon in the book--from the New Yorker in 1966--summarizes McLuhan's essential theme. A young man with a guitar discusses McLuhan with his father in a well-appointed library. "You see, Dad, Professor McLuhan says the enviroment that man creates becomes his medium for defining his role in it. The invention of type created linear, or sequential, thought, separating thought from action. Now, with TV and folk singing, thought and action are closer and social involvement is greater. We again live in a village. Get it?"
We all should get McLuhan. The development of Internet--likely even more transformative than television--has greatly revived interest in McLuhan's view of technological changes as changing us as people, and of creating a global village for all of us to live in. "We impose the form of the old on the content of the new. The malady lingers on," McLuhan warns. We should heed his warnings and recognize, embrace, and work for constructive improvements in the ever-changing world in which we live.
To Digital or Not to Digital; Was That The Question? Chocolate/Vanilla, Either/Or Options?.......2005-12-05
Do printed Words create a sick society of antisocial eggheads with their noses hovering habitually above pages of ink? Duh, what? He said what when?
Here are a few of the words McLuhan used to politely and perceptively express this concept and much more.
>> Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.... The alphabet and print technology fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, a process of specialism and of detachment. Electric technology fosters and encourages unification and involvement. It is impossible to understand social and cultural changes without a knowledge of the workings of media. Anxiety is, in great part, a result of trying to do do today's jobs with yesterday's tools, with yesterday's concepts.
<<
Of course, the above quoted passage makes more sense today; imagine the awesome brain blower it would have been to a regular Jane or Joe reading it in 1967.
Possibly the only concept McLuhan hadn't yet tasted on his perceptive palate, was the idea that we could choose both chocolate AND vanilla, as we now do.
On other words, what is Amazon.com?
Possibly one of the best examples of a chocolate/vanilla marbled merger (what IS it with all these "M"'s) is the existence, style, and success of Amazon.com, where a graphically-enriched, ethereal electronic medium sells BOOKS... which have WORDS in them, on printed pages! Oh my, (dear McLuhan) we (humans) still like to bow out of the global, communal bombardment and READ in isolated luxury, in addition to enjoying the social, "interconnected" facets of electronic ease (sometimes coming through as sleazy cheese, and now we have Velveeta, too).
The 60's were truly gooey with phobias of solitude. Wonder what THAT was all about?
When composing my review of Jill Churchill's FEAR OF FLYING (posted 11/24/05, on Thanksgiving morning, with 2 other gourmet, sizzled turkey offerings), I was Right-Brain kicked into mentioning McLuhan's Massage, which hadn't crossed my mind in ages. In the FoF review, due to the Right Brain being basically non-verbal, my syntax around McLuhan's hallmark, landmark book tied itself into a Freudian slip-knot which I was forced to untie with a postscript:
P.S. Marshall McLuhan wrote THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE (implying more than "message"). I visited the Amazon buying page for that book to check spelling of his name. The editorials and 15 customer reviews there were amazingly insightful as well as delightfully (and crisply) worded. Even the slight criticisms felt clean, clear, and honestly helpful. Without reservation, I voted "Yes" on each of the reviews. They told me more about the book than I "got" when I read it in college (umpteen Ages ago) and they returned to memory and life what I did get. Born in 1947, I'm in the Baby Boomer crowd. (Maybe I should go post this P.S. into a review?)
(End of P.S. added to my review of Jill Churchill's FoF.)
In the last half of the 60's, my soul was still asleep and my body was off base with the hormones of youth (no OUT-of-the-body's personal repertoire of drugs were intended, needed, or used). In this condition, my mind was somewhat in a state of "Duh, Maynard" when I read McLuhan's Massage picture book. The reading was done as a university class requirement, along with Joseph Wood Krutch's desert book (Alvin Toffler's FUTURE SHOCK came a bit later), and a few other offerings of that type of mind-blowing, nearly hallucinogenic publication which seemed to come out in waves in that cultural push-&-shove period. I didn't/don't use drugs, but for all practical purposes some of the "Hey, DUUUUDE" peer-poking effects were "totally" unavoidable. (Admired the uniqueness of the review written with Hippie slang syntax.)
The fascinating thing (a la Spock) is, though, that a surge of shocking, sometimes brilliant conceptualization was being published then. While some of it exposed prolific, prophetic genius, some appeared to be a result of fried brain cells flashing toxins on their way to being an ash.
Was that time-frame also when shock treatment was initiated as a cure for depression, to give the brain a cellular-zapped clue that life was supposed to be a bed-of-roses, not a pain-in-the-patootie? What irony.
And, were heart-shocker paddles originally put out then to keep a soul trapped in a body when it was attempting a back door exit? What horror.
When will Pet Sematary reach its age of prophesy undone (my review 10/16/05). Okay, I'm drawing an extreme here. Electrically convincing the heart to begin-again beating when it had hiccuped and halted doesn't always return an unwilling soul to an almost cold, warn out body. Sometimes that medical miracle extends life as a very good thing for all concerned. And, how would I know whether shocking a heart back to beating is good or bad? I don't know.
However, for me, Stephen King's Pet Sematary makes a good point to ponder.
When is Death doing us a favor?
I'm going to have to reread (or would that be "redo") McLuhan's book from my current state of having worked a Quantum particle beyond "huh?" The reviews here on TMITM have peaked my curiosity for a return visit, though my taste for culinary mystery novels will probably take the cake and be the frosting on it as I read it, too, for a while yet.
What I got from The Medium then was, "Big things are happening, babe; better watch out! The Future is going to be lightning electrified. Not only is God dead; words are out."
I don't recall much Left Brain stuff from that time-frame, but I may have hoped that mass electrocution wouldn't be the Last Hurrah of Our Species." Looking back, it seemed then that some of the intellectual eggs were trying to scramble the Right Brain into the Left, using words so full of "meaning" they had leaped the gap of comprehension.
I love electronic mediums and the messages I'm able to send and receive through ozonic ether. And, I still love the grounded pleasure of reading a good book. A delightful, carnival-marriage of the best of both worlds is "Now Playing" on Amazon.
Strange how the future sometimes creates the whole (ball of wax, basket of eggs, whatever) as more than the sum of its pasts; and the future continues to arrive in spite of the best published intentions of Chicken-Little twinges, as enlightening and insightful though the small, salmonella-slinging-species may be.
This is not to say that any of the books I've mentioned are examples of Chicken Little syndromes. They are not. They are gems to be treasured in their prophetic intensity of down sides, which come to pass, somewhat, in uncanny manifestations of words made flesh, even as the future continues to save itself as it comes to pass by the present in one grand leap of time.
I'm not sure, but I may have just channeled a message from Confucius (or maybe Buddha), still receiving...
Who is (are?) the Author(s?) of The (actual) Laws of Physics?
Who designed this reality so precisely that we're allowed to make the messes we're in and still somehow grow out of them (to varying degrees, rather than to the Nth)?
Or... How many times have we started over?
All I know is I love books, and cozy escape fiction is my cup of vanilla-bean tea. As a chocaholic, I also love DVD's. All these mediums titillate my brain and (sometimes) make my soul glad it's agreed to this tour in a body glued to a planet by gravity.
Thanks, Amazon, for allowing us to be here and spout. A Fountainhead (see my review 10/15/05) I'm not, but my mouth often runs off without me...
I'm still wondering what McLuhan had against paper and ink.
I understand that he would have been disgusted with peoples' fears of electric and electronic progress, since he clearly saw the beauty of potential and sheer release of creativity in that mind-enhancing evolution. And, I'm beyond thankful for his contribution to holding gateways open for that evolution.
Even understanding McLuhan's obvious need to fight fears of progress, I feel there's more to ferret about his deal against paper/ink technology.
Certainly he would have been impatient with being forced to communicate that way, since his brain consistently made sonic booms beyond the speed of his typewriter clicks.
Yeah, and how hard would it have been for ancient scribes painstakingly etching records of existence with scratchy pen tip & sloppy ink bottle?
Likely, McLuhan was incensed with the lost time it took to communicate his brain farts & sparks, when he wanted to be OUT side playing in a (symbolic) sandbox with his friends. This man clearly had Sagittarius, Jupiter, and/or the 11th House in play at his time, place, day and year of birth. He was probably born right after a fresh New Moon had made its debut, maybe even right after the peak of a Solar Eclipse. He had more to say than several lifetimes would allow him to express. Who wouldn't be impatient with the slowness and lack of "out-of-the-house" drama of working on a typewriter or even one of the types of electronic mechanisms available in the early 60's (actually he probably began that surge-to-scribe-and-communicate process in the 50's or earlier).
I remember well how I felt when I realized (in 1986, when I was typing a 500 page ms for the first on an 8000 IBM Clone PC w/out a hard drive) that I didn't have to retype each and every page of 500 every time I needed a "clean copy" to work from. Oh man! I could do so much MORE in a given amount of time by chust (ironically, I'm reviewing Amish novels, too, see my Listmania's & reviews on Tamar Myers's PenDutch series and IN DUTCH AGAIN by Barbara Workinger) reprinting a page or so each time I needed to make a correction or edited improvement.
Unless you've composed, typed & re-typed, edited & revised several drafts of a 500 page ms, you might not be totally aware of this awesome feeling of relief to an intensely creative mind. Most book-length mss (manuscripts) done prior to PC & printer capacity, had to be retyped a few to several times, as revisions darkened the page with hand-scrawled changes, so much that the author was no longer able to see through the mess, and had to make a complete fresh copy of the whole work, with page-numbering-sequence corrected, which would often take even the best typist about a week of full-time-effort.
Oh yeah. I can see what caused McLuhan to develop such a putrid disgust of printed-word-technology, when I take time to empathize with the sheer drudgery of this tedious, mundane process to a mind surged with so much creativity it could design, in a few days, every detail of a new world in a strange universe (or "merely" explain the essence and fundamentals of our present world and its cultures).
Of course, given the level of minds we (as a species) have (and sometimes use) now, we might be able to design at Quantum Level a new world to be communicated within the pages of a novel (a book of printed words) or within a movie on DVD (yea, McLuhan we have THOSE goodies now!). We aren't quite yet at the level to design (then seed, activate or implement) whole physical universes with varieties of functioning sets of Laws of Physics to hold them together, from a massive core of gravity, and allow them to expand and contract, maybe even grow/evolve a few species of interacting critters on various world and galactic venues.
Or, would you like to be trapped in a physical world designed by our current state of mind? Oops. Maybe that's what's wrong with us? Still, there's a lot right with us, too. A species which created the novel isn't all bad (see my spotlighted review of THE NOVEL by James Michener).
In awe of a Consciousness so far beyond mine it actually created Time,
Linda G. Shelnutt
P.S. As a student English teacher in 1970, I was set up in a Denver suburb high school to teach a new class called "Filmic Statement." The class exposed a revolutionary concept of the Language of Film. Fresh out of college in 1970, still trailing tangents from graduate seminars in Language, Linguistics, History of Language, Semantics, etc., I didn't fully realize how much that high school class owed its existence to McLuhan. I can certainly identify with the English professor side of McLuhan. I'm still trying to recall through which course of study his Medium/Massage book was touted, English Lit or Sociology.
P.S.S. I see that the medium of communication says a lot more than many of us would have realized, without a mind like McLuhan's having burst its seams. But, I don't quite "buy" that the medium says more than its content. If so, why did I take days to compose this review, and why would you read it. You could just sit there and do a Right-Brain-"oohhhhmmmmm" to a blurry monitor screen without reading word one. Try that and see if you can comprehend what I've struggled to communicate. Words. Gotta love em. Syntax is sensual. And, as to the concept of Language, yes, we have to consider that it will probably grow well beyond these packages, eventually. I mean. After I pop out of this body for that Final Time, am I going to be forced to use words to express the experience? I ask you. Will I need a Notebook PC, on "the other side"? What link will I use then to get messages back to planet? Death is more than The Great Equalizer, and maybe it should be proud of its alternate set of Laws of Physics. Whew. What a release.
Book Description
According to virtually every business writer, we are in the midst of a new "information age," one that will revolutionize how workers work, how companies compete, perhaps even how thinkers think. And it is certainly true that Information Technology has become a giant industry. In America, more that 50% of all capital spending goes into IT, accounting for more than a third of the growth of the entire American economy in the last four years. Over the last decade, IT spending in the U.S. is estimated at 3 trillion dollars. And yet, by almost all accounts, IT hasn't worked all that well. Why is it that so many of the companies that have invested in these costly new technologies never saw the returns they had hoped for? And why do workers, even CEOs, find it so hard to adjust to new IT systems? In Information Ecology, Thomas Davenport proposes a revolutionary new way to look at information management, one that takes into account the total information environment within an organization. Arguing that the information that comes from computer systems may be considerably less valuable to managers than information that flows in from a variety of other sources, the author describes an approach that encompasses the company's entire information environment, the management of which he calls information ecology. Only when organizations are able to combine and integrate these diverse sources of information, and to take them to a higher level where information becomes knowledge, will they realize the full power of their information ecology. Thus, the author puts people, not technology, at the center of the information world. Information and knowledge are human creations, he points out, and we will never excel at managing them until we give people a primary role. Citing examples drawn from his own extensive research and consulting including such major firms as A.T. and T., American Express, Ford, General Electric, Hallmark, Hoffman La Roche, IBM, Polaroid, Pacific Bell, and Toshiba Davenport illuminates the critical components of information ecology, and at every step along the way, he provides a quick assessment survey for managers to see how their organization measures up. He discusses the importance of developing an overall strategy for information use; explores the infighting, jealousy over resources, and political battles that can frustrate information sharing; underscores the importance of looking at how people really use information (how they search for it, modify it, share it, hoard it, and even ignore it) and the kinds of information they want; describes the ideal information staff, who not only store and retrive information, but also prune, provide context, enhance style, and choose the right presentation medium (in an age of work overload, vital information must be presented compellingly so the appropriate people recognize and use it); examines how information management should be done on a day to day basis; and presents several alternatives to the machine engineering approach to structuring and modeling information. Davenport makes explicit what many managers already know in their gut: that useful information flow depends on people, not equipment. In Information Ecology he paves the way for all managers to build a more competitive, creative, practical information environment for their companies.
Customer Reviews:
When a change is needed.......2004-06-17
This book offers great insight into creating an information envionment within the company. I think that the numerous examples for real life companies provide credibility to his claims. However this is for people who are building and IT strucutre for scratch or are looking for a paradigm shift in how they do IT? If your IT envionment is not producing results this is a great place to start. It provides the theory to apply to real life situations. Understanding the necessity of Information Technology is essential for implementing results oriented systems.
Useful and informative book with new insights.......1998-01-12
I found this to be a useful and informative book with new insights, especially in the area of developing a wholistic view of an information enterprise. Most previous books seem to be limited to just MIS departments and ignore the fact that managing information is not something that just happens in a vacumn. I also found the diagnosis section to be useful and grounded in real work versus the "blackboard" consulting suggestions that sometimes comes from academics whose ideas are not grounded in real world experiences.
Good theme but more buzzwords and bull than practical advice.......1997-09-05
I was disappointed by this book. While its central thesis (that MIS should include human and political considerations, not just technical ones) is valid and needs championing, I found the text repetitive, lacking in clear advice, and full of buzzwords used to restate the obvious. Mr. Davenport is clearly an expert on how to run MIS at large companies. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to glean applicable lessons from his book
Customer Reviews:
Terrific ethics text for non-IT managers and decision-makers.......2000-10-20
I teach a graduate class in Information Technology in the Public Sector, in the M.S. in Public Administration program at a major university in southern California. I selected this text for my class because I found it to be an excellent, wide-ranging and deep exploration of a host of ethical issues dealing with information technology for non-computer majors. While not every article was directly relevant to my class (which is made up of current and future managers of public sector organizations), the book is easy to read and has a "friendly" style that draws you into the articles. Some articles are only a few pages while others are quite long. This text has been very appreciated by my students and the articles in it have been the source of many in-class discussions and debates. Overall: Outstanding!
Book Description
If economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our new information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information.
With all the verve and erudition that have established his earlier books as classics, Richard A. Lanham here traces our epochal move from an economy of things and objects to an economy of attention. According to Lanham, the central commodity in our new age of information is not stuff but style, for style is what competes for our attention amidst the din and deluge of new media. In such a world, intellectual property will become more central to the economy than real property, while the arts and letters will grow to be more crucial than engineering, the physical sciences, and indeed economics as conventionally practiced. For Lanham, the arts and letters are the disciplines that study how human attention is allocated and how cultural capital is created and traded. In an economy of attention, style and substance change places. The new attention economy, therefore, will anoint a new set of moguls in the business world—not the CEOs or fund managers of yesteryear, but new masters of attention with a grounding in the humanities and liberal arts.
Lanham’s The Electronic Word was one of the earliest and most influential books on new electronic culture. The Economics of Attention builds on the best insights of that seminal book to map the new frontier that information technologies have created.
Customer Reviews:
Rambling wreck.......2007-08-16
The reviewer here, Henry Berry, has given a wonderful summary of the main point of the book. Reading the book will not advance your understanding any further than that. It is an undisciplined meandering hodgepodge of undigested readings and odd memories. I guess I'm old-fashioned, but I look for substance. As another reviewer notes, it's quite ironic that a book with this title doesn't bother to demonstrate its value to a reader with a limited span of life.
Didn't hold my Attention.......2007-01-19
I gave up on this book after 80 pages. Either he doesn't have much of value to say, or he doesn't realize reader attention is scarce enough that he needs to show early on that the book contains valuable ideas.
A triumph of style over substance.......2006-12-28
When I ordered this book, even when I packed it for winter holiday in the Midwest, I had high hopes - it was well-reviewed in Amazon, and Lanham is a well-respected scholar. Yet the only point on which the book succeeds is Chapter 3, in which Lanham fully develops a theory of the benefits of self-conscious artifice - which has little, if anything, to do with economic theory. Lanham admits he is no economist; this might explain his adoration of libertarian economic thought, which of course, is more a faith than a theory. "Don't worry, be happy" is Lanham's response to anyone who questions any possible negatives associated with technology or the market. Ultimately, these are the only real "lessons" of the book - awareness of communicative "styles" make us better communicators (a valid point, but hardly new), and a McFerrinesque attitude towards risk and responsibility. Hardly worthy of the pulp it is printed on.
an updated, timely reading of the Internet in contemporary culture.......2006-12-01
"Seeing clearly what is happening as the word moves from page to screen seems...to depend on seeing clearly what is happening in the world that expressive field has to express," the noted, influential rhetorician Lanham remarks in the beginning of his "Preface." His metaphor of an economy for this "expressive world" is literarily, generally, and perceptively apt. It's more than a useful image. In this economy, "attention is the commodity in short supply." In this economy, individuals "budget" their attention; and web designers, software engineers, computer makers, marketers, and more and more writers are in competition for the attention of consumers, users, and readers; which attention is often leads in one way or another to earnings. Anyone who has used the Internet to find information, buy something, communicate with others, pay bills, and other activities both common and innovative will have a feel for what Lanham proposes and investigates. The terms "cyperspace" and "virtual reality" no longer suffice to relevantly denote the substantive place the digital world with its operations and potentials has taken in most persons' lives. Such terms now seem exotic or frivolous considering, as Lanham recognizes, how the considerably arbitrary, yet essential and formulative trait of attention has ineluctably moved to the computer screen.
The Economics of Attention.......2006-07-01
Lanham has been a university professor for about 40-years, Yale-educated, English lit and rhetoric. He came of age pre-computer revolution, when writing meant manual type-writers and white-out and transcription. This series of connected essays are his ideas about what the digital revolution means for the future of books, universities and what he calls "the economics of attention" - how the world operates when information is plentiful and the scarce resource are "eyeballs" (attention). We are flooded with high-quality art, news, books, movies, data of every type - it is not an "information economy" because information is as plentiful as air - the scarce resource is peoples attention. In that environment, style (the wrapping paper, the ornamentation, packaging, literary style, etc..) becomes more important than substance - style is the substance (think for example all the crazy cultural things that come out of Japan - all style, no substance). He also discusses how we interact with things: we look "at" them, or we look "through" them - ie. we enjoy them for what they are, or we analyze them. We read a novel/movie on a literary level and dissect how it was created or and historical context, or we "get lost in the book" and enjoy it for what it is. These two forces are in a constant tug of war with every object we own - cars for example, utilitarian or style (or some combo usually). In the end Lanham concludes it is the liberal arts that will save the day for they are the ones who are trained to filter (critics) and create design and style (the new substance). He also provides the most detailed and lucid explanation I've seen on why paper books have not been replaced by the digital medium.
Amazon.com
In this book about the darker side of technology's impact on our lives, Alan Cooper begins by explaining that unlike other devices throughout history, computers have a "meta function:" an unwanted, unforeseen option that users may accidentally invoke with what they thought was a normal keystroke. Cooper details many of these meta functions to explain his central thesis: programmers need to seriously reevaluate the many user-hostile concepts deeply embedded within the software development process.
Rather than provide users with a straightforward set of options, programmers often pile on the bells and whistles and ignore or deprioritize lingering bugs. For the average user, increased functionality is a great burden, adding to the recurrent chorus that plays, "computers are hard, mysterious, unwieldy things." (An average user, Cooper asserts, who doesn't think that way or who has memorized all the esoteric commands and now lords it over others, has simply been desensitized by too many years of badly designed software.)
Cooper's writing style is often overblown, with a pantheon of cutesy terminology (i.e., "dancing bearware") and insider back-patting. (When presenting software to Bill Gates, he reports that Gates replied: "How did you do that?" to which he writes, "I love stumping Bill!") More seriously, he is also unable to see beyond software development's importance--a sin he accuses programmers of throughout the book.
Even with that in mind, the central questions Cooper asks are too important to ignore: Are we making users happier? Are we improving the process by which they get work done? Are we making their work hours more effective? Cooper looks to programmers, business managers, and what he calls "interaction designers" to question current assumptions and mindsets. Plainly, he asserts that the goal of computer usage should be "not to make anyone feel stupid." Our distance from that goal reinforces the need to rethink entrenched priorities in software planning. --Jennifer Buckendorff
Book Description
The Inmates are Running the Asylum argues that, despite appearances, business executives are simply not the ones in control of the high-tech industry. They have inadvertently put programmers and engineers in charge, leading to products and processes that waste huge amounts of money, squander customer loyalty, and erode competitive advantage. They have let the inmates run the asylum. Alan Cooper offers a provocative, insightful and entertaining explanation of how talented people continuously design bad software-based products. More importantly, he uses his own work with companies big and small to show how to harness those talents to create products that will both thrill their users and grow the bottom line.
Download Description
Imagine, at a terrifyingly aggressive rate, everything you regularly use is being equipped with computer technology. Think about your phone, cameras, cars - everything - being automated and programmed by people who in their rush to accept the many benefits of the silicon chip, have abdicated their responsibility to make these products easy to use. The Inmates are Running the Asylum argues that, despite appearances, business executives are simply not the ones in control of the high-tech industry. They have inadvertently put programmers and engineers in charge, leading to products and processes that waste money, squander customer loyalty, and erode competitive advantage. Business executives have let the inmates run the asylum! In his book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum Alan Cooper calls for revolution - we need technology to work in the same way average people think - we need to restore the sanity. He offers a provocative, insightful and entertaining explanation of how talented people continuously design bad software-based products. More importantly, he uses his own work with companies big and small to show how to harness those talents to create products that will both thrill their users and grow the bottom line.
Customer Reviews:
No Cognitive Friction Here.. .......2007-06-12
Alan Cooper gives the reader insight into why so many of today's technological products frustrate and confuse users. Yet he goes past this to discuss a methodology for keeping it simple and designing for the user i.e. avoiding cognitive friction. This book has changed the way I will develop products and should be a must read for product managers of application developers. Just learning Mr. Cooper's vocabulary is worth the read. The ideas such as personas, keywords, and designing for an individual push the book way above average. This is an easy read that should be done in your spare time if you want to avoid cognitive friction with your users. It has changed the way I view technology and brought a new awareness to thoughtless technology implementation which often cause failure or misuse. The only reason I gave this book a 4 out of 5 as I feel it could have been reduced a little bit more, certain points I felt like the author was rambling about personal fustrations.
an essential handbook for designing software.......2007-06-11
Cooper's argument in this book is simple: you have to know your users, and you have to understand what they're trying to accomplish with your software. The method that he puts forth for achieving this understanding is personas, richly-described archetypical users.
The book is easy to read and understand. He begins with a detailed description of the problem with software design as carried about by programmers who can only imagine themselves as the users of their software, resulting in software that makes really difficult things possible but doesn't bother to make easy or common things quick and easy.
After making the argument that programmers shouldn't design interfaces and making the case both for usability and interaction design, he lays out the personas concept. Cooper's guidelines for creating personas and using them are well-written and well-thought-out. However, his examples of applying them to some of his own customers are rather repetitive, and sometimes come across as somewhat whiny.
Now that it's time for my group at Microsoft to revisit our personas and determine what needs to be tweaked for our next version, I decided that I should revisit the book that first advanced the idea. It has stood up well to the test of time (something that not many computer books can do). I highly recommend it, both to usability and design professionals, as well as programmers.
Great writing, very illustrative examples, definitely not a detailed how-to.......2007-05-13
The strength of this book its clear and easy-to-read writing. Cooper's examples are instructive and the theory of why design-centric business approaches are the most powerful. It's supposed to be a business-case book but I'm quite sure all programmers and even designers would find the read very worthwhile.
My only wish for the book would be that Chapter 10 onwards seemed to be the really exciting stuff, detailing the how more than the why of design-centric approaches. This part feels like a rushed summary in comparison the the attention paid to the why aspect in the rest of the book. You may want to consider Cooper's newly revised "how" book although it is mainly a designer's handbook: About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
I'm not done with that About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design but I'm starting to worry it's going to leave me wishing it had more specific methodologies as opposed to theories. Of course, it has much more methodological attention than The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition) and there's no fault in what is written, only in what is omitted.
If you're really looking for the ultimate how-to, you might want to consider attending the four-day "Cooper U". Case in point: I had the chance to ask Alan Cooper where I could learn more about how to create the design documents he writes about in the last part of The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition) and he really couldn't say what books would be able to instruct that (including his own) and that it would be covered in his course.
this book changed my life.......2007-02-22
I was a well-paid systems administrator/help desk guy until I read this book. This book really did inspire me to change careers!
The book basically outlines why engineers (and people who think like engineers) are INCAPABLE of designing effective interfaces. It delves into specifics and supplies some great examples.
I am amused by some of the reviewers here who display the same sort of arrogant contempt that the book outlines. OF COURSE programming a VCR is easy for YOU--you're a person with an "engineer mind". My mom can't program a VCR at all, and that's not because she didn't try hard enough or read the instructions. She can't use it because everything about it's interface is counter-intuitive to someone who does not understand machine/code logic.
Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it doesn't stink. Just because it makes sense to you doesn't mean it can't be made better--to work intuitively for "regular" people. Buy this book. Read it. Demand more from your products. It's time to end the insanity.
Blown out of proportion.......2007-01-18
It's true that some products have poor interfaces, but in my experience this "problem" is blown way out of proportion with reality. The only people I know who couldn't figure out how to program their VCRs were people who did not try for more than 5 minutes. Read the instructions, both in the book and onscreen, and VCR programming is a snap, from the earliest models to today.
I think the real question should be: Why are so many users so lazy? This is more of a social problem than a technological one. Some think that if any effort is required to learn how to use a new device then it's poorly designed. Poppycock!
Average customer rating:
- Of all things, a postmodern manifesto
- TED + BI = W
- Risk of getting a headache here
- One of my top 10 favorite business books
- Still Relevant
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Information Anxiety 2
Richard Saul Wurman ,
David Sume , and
Loring Leifer
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ASIN: 0789724103 |
Amazon.com
Information might want to be free; but, why should we free it? We've got enough trouble keeping track of all the petabits that already run around untethered, and risk a computer counterrevolution if we let the situation get much crazier. Information architect Richard Saul Wurman swept the field clear in 1989 with his groundbreaking book that foresaw the problems of data clutter and proposed a radical new means of organizing and presenting knowledge humanistically; for the new century, he has revised it substantially as Information Anxiety 2. This book is sparklingly clear and readable--it'd better be, after all--and offers insight not only to designers, educators, and content developers, but also to anyone who needs to communicate effectively through dense clouds of facts. If Wurman occasionally indulges in New Age-y pop psychology, his analysis is never muddy, and the more hardheaded reader will forgive him soon enough. The discussion alternates between describing the deeply stressful task of absorbing poorly organized data and exploring solutions that require a bit of rethinking, but that reward such an investment with improved understanding and, maybe, a state change from information to wisdom. We could do worse--if we don't pay attention to Wurman and his colleagues, we almost certainly will. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
A follow up to the first edition, Information Anxiety 2 teaches critical lessons for functioning in today's Information Age. In this new book, Wurman examines how the Internet, desktop computing, and advances in digital technology have not simply enhanced access to information, but in fact have changed the way we live and work. In examining the sources of information anxiety, Wurman takes an in-depth look at how technological advances can hinder understanding and influence how business is conducted.
Customer Reviews:
Of all things, a postmodern manifesto.......2006-12-12
Although this book is officially about design, communication, and business information--for which it probably is only a mediocre, quasi-random collection of personal musings--I unexpectedly found this text to be a fabulous introduction to the postmodern mindset. It is a post-modern manifesto, of sorts, calling us to plunge into the new information age with courage, creativity, and hope. It is "real-world" philosophy set in a business context.
Wurman demonstrates that not only have times in fact changed, but we can change with them and even flourish. Rather than a threat to our old, familiar "modern" way of thinking, the new "Information Age" can be an exciting opportunity for creativity, relationship, and learning.
This book is an example of how we CAN get over our anxieties or doubts about postmodernism and start engaging the world and people around us in a more meaningful way.
And one more thing,... as a person working in Information Technology, I wish more people in IT would read this book. It could save us some grief in our deliverables and methodologies.
TED + BI = W .......2006-11-08
Technology, Entertainment, Design + Business Information = Wisdom
Wurman is the founder of the acclaimed TED conference, where the most brilliant minds meet once in a while to discuss creativity applied to virtually all existent fields in the world. Only for this fact he already deserves 5 stars.
For the title of this book he deserves another 5. The book is written in a very interesting way, it really reminds an information explosion. It is organized and chaotic at the same time, presenting opinions from different authors in the sidebars and reminding an interactive dialog.
The subjects discussed are diverse and rich, including corporate behavior, information (organization, communications, usage, design, and importance), creativity, technology, and many more.
It is an insightful and interesting book; I think it is underrated with 4 stars.
Risk of getting a headache here.......2006-01-10
If you want a kind of phone book full of thoughts and grousing and preaching on information and how to handle it, "Information Anxiety" is for you. But don't expect something you can actually "read like a book." A mishmash indeed, and disappointing. Wurman seems to project his own information anxiety onto the reader, assuming the reader suffers from it, when that may or may not be the case. I personally have no trouble passing up reading newspapers, magazines, websites, etc. I read what I want or need to read. If I don't read everything that I could possibly read, so what. Life goes on, and has other sources of fulfillment. In fact, maybe people like me are just not in his intended audience. I can see how his books might be valuable as a source of ideas for improving various communications. But, *very* ironically, the format he uses screws up what could have been much more useful material if it were organized better, and streamlined, and easier on the eyes. For the life of me, I don't understand why someone who wants to reduce information anxiety would put non-linear information (e.g., quotes) in the margins, so the reader doesn't know what to read first, and may easily lose his or her place. It's like he throws information at you compulsively and without restraint while telling you about the woes of being deluged with information. What's up with that?
One of my top 10 favorite business books.......2005-03-16
The father of "information architecture" beautifully displays specific strategies for fighting the war against info-glut. It's on the short list of recommended resources in my book The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course in Business Writing and Communication.
Still Relevant.......2005-01-08
Although written in 1990, this book is still relevant because it deals with the basic principles on how to handle the information overload. We need this now more than ever with 24/7 TV news, 24/7 internet alerts, email, text messaging TiVo, etc. etc. the basic principles are easy to apply with lots of shortcuts and it doesn't really matter the form the information bombardment takes.
Amazon.com
How many times has your PC crashed today? While Gordon Moore's now famous law projecting the doubling of computer power every 18 months has more than borne itself out, it's too bad that a similar trajectory projecting the reliability and usefulness of all that power didn't come to pass, as well. Advances in information technology are most often measured in the cool numbers of megahertz, throughput, and bandwidth--but, for many us, the experience of these advances may be better measured in hours of frustration.
The gap between the hype of the Information Age and its reality is often wide and deep, and it's into this gap that John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid plunge. Not that these guys are Luddites--far from it. Brown, the chief scientist at Xerox and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Duguid, a historian and social theorist who also works with PARC, measure how information technology interacts and meshes with the social fabric. They write, "Technology design often takes aim at the surface of life. There it undoubtedly scores lots of worthwhile hits. But such successes can make designers blind to the difficulty of more serious challenges--primarily the resourcefulness that helps embed certain ways of doing things deep in our lives."
The authors cast their gaze on the many trends and ideas proffered by infoenthusiasts over the years, such as software agents, "still a long way from the predicted insertion into the woof and warp of ordinary life"; the electronic cottage that Alvin Toffler wrote about 20 years ago and has yet to be fully realized; and the rise of knowledge management and the challenges it faces trying to manage how people actually work and learn in the workplace. Their aim is not to pass judgment but to help remedy the tunnel vision that prevents technologists from seeing larger the social context that their ideas must ultimately inhabit. The Social Life of Information is a thoughtful and challenging read that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone trying to invent or make sense of the new world of information. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
To see the future we can build with information technology, we must look beyond mere information to the social context that creates and gives meaning to it.
For years pundits have predicted that information technology will obliterate the need for almost everything--from travel to supermarkets to business organizations to social life itself. Individual users, however, tend to be more skeptical. Beaten down by info-glut and exasperated by computer systems fraught with software crashes, viruses, and unintelligible error messages, they find it hard to get a fix on the true potential of the digital revolution.
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid help us to see through frenzied visions of the future to the real forces for change in society. They argue that the gap between digerati hype and end-user gloom is largely due to the "tunnel vision" that information-driven technologies breed. We've become so focused on where we think we ought to be--a place where technology empowers individuals and obliterates social organizations--that we often fail to see where we're really going and what's helping us get there. We need, they argue, to look beyond our obsession with information and individuals to include the critical social networks of which these are always a part.
Drawing from rich learning experiences at Xerox PARC, from examples such as IBM, Chiat/Day Advertising, and California's "Virtual University," and from historical, social, and cultural research, the authors sharply challenge the futurists' sweeping predictions. They explain how many of the tools, jobs, and organizations seemingly targeted for future extinction in fact provide useful social resources that people will fight to keep. Rather than aiming technological bullets at these "relics," we should instead look for ways that the new world of bits can learn from and complement them.
Arguing elegantly for the important role that human sociability plays, even--perhaps especially--in the world of bits,
The Social Life of Information gives us an optimistic look beyond the simplicities of information and individuals. It shows how a better understanding of the contribution that communities, organizations, and institutions make to learning, working and innovating can lead to the richest possible use of technology in our work and everyday lives.
Download Description
Drawing from recent research and practical examples across a range of organizations, The Social Life of Information dispels many of the futurists' sweeping predictions that information technology will obliterate the need for everything from travel to supermarkets to business organizations to social life itself. The authors examine the potential and limitations of technology with regard to intelligent software agents, the automated home office, business reorganization for innovation, knowledge management and work practices, the paperless society, and the digital university. Arguing eloquently for the important role human sociability plays in the world of bits, Brown and Duguid give us an optimistic look beyond the simplicities of information and individuals. They show how a better understanding of the contribution that communities, organizations, and institutions make to learning, knowledge, and judgment can lead to the richest possible use of technology in our work and everyday lives.
Customer Reviews:
Some good and some old, some nostalgia.......2007-08-11
This work, published in 2000, describes the perils of ignoring social aspects of information flow. The book is dated in certain respects. It spends a lot of time debunking concepts like denationalization and disintermediation that sound today like naïve meanderings from a misspent youth. But there are also good discussions of how social interactions critically influence how work actually gets done. Such interactions are typically ignored in process engineering, which explains among other things why SOX compliance is so painful. Worth reading for that by itself.
Information is not Epiphany.......2007-03-11
I think personally, for me, I realized this was a pretty important book when I became rather bored with it in the middle. "I know all this," I was thinking to myself. While reading it, my mind kept wandering to the social media book I'm trying to write. I kept coming up with new things to write in the book.
Soon, The Social Life of Information was coated with scribbles related to my book.
And then I had to laugh at myself when I realized this was a large part of JSB's & PD's point. I had all the information to come to these little epiphanies, but it was only through the social interaction of reading their book did many of these concepts gel.
These thoughts gelled not because these guys were specifically telling me them, but because reading their book was part of a pattern of practice of my own in social media. Their ideas, my ideas, their experiences, my experiences and information combined to create context. Our social interaction created context.
The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same.......2007-01-29
In "The Social Life of Information", the authors explore the informational revolution and its drumbeat of futuristic implications. As many thought at the beginning of the internet age, the 'Net would wipe out the big box concept and stores would disappear (i.e. Walmart or Sears), as too would books and etceteras. However, we have come to learn in the last 10 years or so that this did not take place for several reasons, of which, one very important reason is that information has its own social life with respect to content & context. For example, as the authors propose, if a company or organization of managers are primarily information processors, then the new technology and processes would have made organizations flatter with less management. However, as most of us would suspect or have experienced, most organizations only got more management top heavy which is similar to the futuristic assumption that paper too would slowly be obsolete as we continue to consume more paper every year.
As we tend to be social animals, Judgment and discretion are not features of software, but are learned not by the acquisition of facts and rules, but through social relations and participation in human activities. The authors help remind us of this fact as we move forward with new processes and designs.
Good counter-arguement to available books.......2006-12-28
I read this book recently and I thought it was decent but not really great. I liked it because it was a counterpoint to what you always hear about modern technology and globalization. I read some of the Thomas Friedman's books and I thought they were well written and had a great point, but I always was skeptical about his message. It was just too rosy for me: Globalization flattens the world and changes existing power structures. I don't think it's neccessary to describe Friedman's other points and for the most part I think they are valid; I just think that there's more to it than that. This book, on the other hand, is all about taking that with a grain of salt. It really highlights the fact that the new technologies and the information systems really enhance the existing power structure rather than immediately break down existing norms.
The reason I gave this book 2 stars, though, is because I felt that it wasn't the easiest read. I often wondered what the authors were talking about and I had to re-read several passages because I just couldn't follow their logic or they just didn't elaborate enough on the important points. Maybe it was too dry and just not captivating.
An interesting and useful antidote to technotopia.......2005-12-23
Most books on internet and computing are optmistic in a 'infine linear projection' fashion - the common bane of all futurological speculations. Others are characterized by Luddite approaches to technology and media.
Every 'IN' medium is greeted with tremendous enthusiasm or pathological fear. Yet the history of technology and media shows that time and again the course taken by these is very different from the one predicted.
'The Social Life of Information' is one of the rare balanced outlooks on internet and computing technology. Written by eminent information scientists associated with Xerox PARC and University of California, it is based on well grounded empiricism and clear, level-headed reasoning.
The authors warn against a tunnel vision of narrow focus and blind optimism (or pessimism) and state that all problems are not information problems and therefore information by itself can not be the solution. They distinguish the promise of technology and the actual context of use and show how these are related or different.
The eight chapters of the book 'demythify' one or the other popular assumptions about power of information technology to change our lives and put things in context.
In one of the chapters they launch a scathing critique or technology-driven process engineering mania, showing how process engineering often ignores people, and even -- more seriously --actual practices that help solve problems.
In another they make useful distinction between knowledge and information and explain why knowledge management is not simply a question of using tools in isolation but of one of communities empowered through tools.
In yet another they explain the paradox why paper consumption has increased with increase in sales of computers and why we have not moved to a paperless office as prophesized.
They also show why universities are not just places where you take courses and degrees such that they can be replaced by online universities but places where you partake in the liesure needed for learning and the community interactions needed for developing good social skils as well as shared 'dialogical' learning.
They also explain why startups and home-offices fail and why IT has lead to agglomeration and not small enterprise. They state that there is a great deal of 'tacit' or hidden learning in a workplace that is not possible in a home office.
Other chapters discuss other issues like nature of problem solving, nature of 'knowledge ecologies' etc.
While this book won't 'open your mind' if you are basically level-headed, it will certainly correct any one-sided opinions that get formed by listening more often to one-side of the debate repeated ad nauseam in media.
Average customer rating:
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Time to take control: The impact of change on corporate computer systems
Tony Johnson
Manufacturer: Butterworth-Heinemann
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ASIN: 0750698632 |
Book Description
Time to Take Control provides reasonable and effective guidelines for successfully using computers to improve the workplace. This is a perfect book for anyone who wants to increase the productivity and flexibility of their business.
The author maintains an Internet Web site, designed as a forum and bulletin for the latest papers and research on the subject as it develops.
Explores the role of computers in corporate change.
Provides guidelines for those wishing to realign corporate computer systems to a new level of flexibility as change becomes a way of life.
Shows how these guidelines are pragmatic and proven.
Books:
- The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
- Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry (2nd edition) (Thin Book Series)
- Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
- Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrows Success (Maxwell, John C.)
- Tools for Engagement: Managing Emotional States for Learner Success
- Trading Chaos: Maximize Profits with Proven Technical Techniques (A Marketplace Book)
- Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment
- Understanding Today's Electricity Business
- What's Wrong With My Mouse: Behavioral Phenotyping of Transgenic and Knockout Mice
- Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny
Books Index
Books Home
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