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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Here’s some Q &A from the Encyclopedia Britannica online: Quick Facts about Bellow, Saul Biography Q: Who is the author of “The Adventures of Augie March”? A: Saul Bellow is the author of “The Adventures of Augie March” Q: Who is the author of “Dangling Man”? A: Saul Bellow is the author of “Dangling Man” Q: Who is the author of “The Victim”? A: Saul Bellow is the author of “The Victim” …. Quick Facts […]
A couple of years ago, the philosophy professor Harry Frankfurt made publishing history of a sort by allowing his 7,000-word paper “On Bullshit” — which lives up pretty well to the second word in its title — to be published as a book. Bind some printed pieces of paper together, preferably in hard covers, distribute them via bookstores, at a cost of around $20, and voila, you have a book. If you choose not buy […]