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bad is good for you by
Steven Johnson Penguin 2006 Someone called Mark Thompson who runs the BBC
called this a must-read. Impressive. So I read it. This is a very coherent
argument that far from dumbing down that popular culture and the media that
mediates it is getting smarter. No wonder the DG got on board so sharpish.
Music to Aunties ears. The increasing complexity of the narrative structures
of TV, the willingness of audiences to follow complicated stories and to
construct meaning where few clues are given. This is a classic defence of
how the media is getting smarter and so are we. Detractors will still claim
that there's too much filth and that morality has been thrown to the winds.
Johnson's answer is that the media isn't intended to be a mirror but a place
where societies value can be explored and played with. We don't ban cowboy
films for being 2 dimensional and unreal, why should we ban reality shows
which push real people into unreal situations for endless public debate.
Its a persuasive argument. What I liked about it is that unlike the sophistry
of a Malcolm Gladwell or a Blink, Johnson keeps focussed and his punches
keep landing. Too early to call it a classic but you really ought to read
it so you have something to say when your mum asks you why you watch that
awful rubbish on Big Brother. Or East Enders. Or Weakest Link. Answer Because
its the future mum! |
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Change the world for a fiver Ed
Eugenie Harvey Short Books 2004
I have rather cheekily put this in the Globalisation section but this puts it
alongside Anita Roddick's work and arguably this is about global rather than
organisational change. There's a whole community of collaborators behind it including
some rather familiar names from Adland including Ken Hoggins, Chris O'Shea, Steve
Hanry and Paul Twivy. Our very own Russell Davies gets a mention too. It has
a very simple structure 50 ideas (one a week?) which won't cost a bundle but
will make a big difference. And it sells for a fiver (of course) which seemed
clever at the time but as Eugenie told me when I met her - became a bit of a
limitation when the book took off and the retailers all wanted their full 50%
margin thankyou very much. It has been just launched in Australia .... by the
Prime Minister who first got recommended it by his good friend Gordon Brown.
So go on buy yourself 5 copies, and give em away this Christmas - this project
has gone viral and is gonna run and run. They're just putting Mark 2 on the skids.
Its called the We are what we do project. Because we are.
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Globalinc, Medard Gabel Henry Bruner 2003 The new press
Great idea this book - shame that inevitably it has dated so quickly. This is
an atlas of multinationals. Unfortunately most of the data comes from around
2000/2001. I'm sure you've heard that more than half of the largest economic
entities in the world aren't countries they're corporations. But when this data
was collected no less than 75 of the top entities were corporations. Shock horror.
But then the stock market crashed - GDPs stayed the same and all of these overvalue
multinational stocks lost nearly half their value. It serves to show the dangers
of trying to equate cap value and GDP. There's a breakdown by market type of
some of the biggest categories with a profile of some of the leaders - who aren't
leaders anymore by the way. Saatchis is there WPP is not. That's how fast it
can change. And although the graphs are very colourful you do wonder what is
served by showing where the head and regional offices are - what's their point?
They are after all global organisations. But it's an accessible way to browse
through and thinkabout the implications of globalisation.
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The corporation, Joel Bakan 2004 Constable
This is an all out attack on the corporation. Amd they've managed to find a quotation
on the cover from the Economist which concedes that they've got a point. Well
it's at best one and a half points but it does get rather repetitive by the end.
There are 2 accusations - one that the corporation (or limited company they treated
as the same - is a tool for maximising profit - that's all it does and is designed
to do. And the second is that the corporation is in effect a psychopath which
will act in self interest to the exclusion of all else. Let me take the first.
I know I'm going to sound like the National Rifle Association - guns don't kill
but people do. But surely a company is there to do whatever you want it to do.
Cars weigh a quarter of a ton and kill people but that isn't their purpose. There's
nothing intrinsic to running a company which says you have to grab as much money
as you can. Which leads to the more substantive accusation - that corporations
are pathologically self interested and that one that isn't is betraying it's
owners. They'll also trying to dump the costs of processing on other people,
subvert law and order etc etc. Fair point but isn't this what dictators and nation
states will also do if they can get away with it? Surely we have a regulatory
order of checks and balances to keep one another in order because left to ourselves
we will indeed act in our own self interest. I used to get very annoyed when
I had to write letter to the local council to object to planning applications
because if they had to ask me then local government must be failing until I realised
that my writing the letter was how local government worked. And the national
executive and the legislature are there to be able to call corporations to account.
If they don't then the citizens need to protest. The US can get away with ignoring
global warming for a while but the pressure through all channels is mounting
- you can't make a nation state co-operate but you can influence. I just wasn't
convinced that the pathological argument was unique to corporations. If you have
a bunch of pyschopaths you control them with legislation. You lock up the dangerous
ones and you confront the pathological ones if you think they will change their
behaviour when confronted with it.
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Take it personally, Anita Roddick 2001 Thorsons
This is a very useful and accesible introduction to a whole raft of
issues around the antiglobalisation movement. What I liked about it was that
it was well edited. None of the articles is more than a few hundred words in
length and considerable effort has been made to keeping the whole thing very
readable. So very easy to dip in and out which considering the complexity of
the issues is impressive. There 's still a fair amount of rhetoric - which I
struggle with. Demonising the opposition doesn't help very much - Monsanto treating
honeybees as pollen thieves is a good headline but I'm certain that's not how
Monsanto would put it - you have to make your case in terms that would be recognisable
by the people you are opposing - parallel universes aren't helpful - the worlds
have to collide and make sense to one another.
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