Sep 052008
 

Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking at the 2008 Democratic Convention, asked whether her supporters backed her just as a person or because of the issues she embraced, implying that of course they should answer: “the latter.” But we know that is not in truth the case. All candidates “flip-flop” to some degree on issues that might be important to their voters, and since no one can foresee exactly what will face successful candidates during the term […]

Aug 152008
 

“Links are good. I believe that.” So begins David Weinberger’s argument  [p. 181] on the morality he sees embedded in the hyperlinked structure of the Web. His is one of the more interesting contributions to a book based on a conference entitled “The Hyperlinked Society:Questioning Connections in the Digital Age”, edited by Joseph Turow and Lokman Tsui. (Michel Bauwens suggested the book as something I might be interested in commenting on. So I read it […]

Jul 282008
 

Why should we elect Obama? One obvious reason is the mess the American Economy (as traditionally defined) is in right now.  Does this mean that Obama and his economic advisors will come up with good plans for reviving the economy and preventing a further slide? I suspect they would do better than McCain and his crew, but also that they will not be very well equipped themselves to understand the real problems. They come from […]

Apr 122008
 

Crash-free No Longer In a recent post, I discussed the current problems re sub-prime mortgages and the credit crunch in connection with ignorance in high finance and in general. The complex entities that are investment banks, which were supposedly highly knowledgeable as organizations, actually were quite in the dark, quite ignorant in fact, when it came to the mortgage problems. I argued that someone has to be knowledgeable and interested for a problem to be […]

Feb 282008
 

Lately, much has been written about the “dilemma” of too much e-mail. See Zeldes et al., or Krill for instance) Some write on this from the perspective of firms. They suggest that “knowledge workers” are spending too much time on e-mail, time when they could be being “productive.” The writers claim that we must deal with the “problem” of “information overload” or “infomania” as if this were something new, and as if there were a […]

Feb 192008
 

This is supposed to be the era of knowledge. Yet I think we should be increasingly worried that it is in fact even more the era of ignorance. The two are in some ways complementary. An expert has long been known, at least by cynics, as someone who “knows more and more about less and less.” That means that even experts — as well as the rest of us — also know less and less […]

Jan 122008
 

Like millions of other Americans, I watched Hillary Clinton’s “meltdown,” as the media called it, as an Internet video on Monday January 7, the day before the New Hampshire primary. I am on record as opposing Hillary, for a number of reasons, including dislike of many of her stands such as her belligerent votes on Iraq and Iran, never apologizing for  the Iraq vote, dismay at her connection to the Democratic Leadership Council, and revulsion […]

Dec 062007
 

In a recent post, Gwen Bell cites my work as a partial basis for her thoughts about “personal branding.” She has some sensible suggestions, but I think the idea of personal branding — common though it is — gets things backwards. 1. Meet the Smith Brothers, Trade and Mark Of course, most of us know or would recognize hundreds or even thousands of brands: Heinz Ketchup, Toyota Prius, Apple iPod, AT&T, Hilton Hotels, Pepsi, Dr. […]

Oct 242007
 

0. Preface In this and the next few installments, I will be addressing a number of connected ideas: the changing role in our lives of material things; the changing nature of firms; the rise of what I shall term hyper-creativity; how it interacts with slower moving institutions such as government; some examples; and the connection of all these with advertising.  All these are involved in the change from what I will now call the “Money-Thing […]

Oct 222007
 

As readers of this blog already know, I first came up with the phrase “Attention Economy” to describe the entirely new kind of economic system that I see as increasingly dominating our lives. It is an economy in the sense that it involves allocating of what is most scarce and precious in the present period, namely the attention that can come to each of us  from other human beings. As you also know, ever since […]