Category Archives: Book reviews

Tapscott on future of newspapers

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Been working my way through Tapscott and Williams’ excellent ‘Macrowikinomics‘.  Good Chapter (11) re ‘The Demise of the Newspaper’.  Favourite topic of mine – as an avid consumer of news (both on and off line).  And in may respects this chapter speaks to any business – you cannot stand still, you cannot just put up walls – you must change with the times, adapt, provide what the market wants (or thinks it wants).

Good, simple advice for news executives:

  1. Familiarise yourselves with the technology being used by young people
  2. Forget about making money from commodity news
  3. Develop unique value proposition e.g. The Economist
  4. Provide rich multimedia experiences
  5. Support/ enable/ lead collaborative innovation e.g. The Guardian

In the chapter he reviews a number of interesting developments including the success of the Huffington Post, the survival of investigative journalism e.g. Propublica, possible roles for journalists as curators.

I believe the game is only now really moving on for newspapers – as smart phones, tablets and internet TVtake a real grip.

And the current initiative out of Ireland, Storyful, is another excellent example for news media execs looking for innovative thinking and use of current and emerging technologies including cloud computing and semantic web.

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rethinking corporate education

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Have been reading Macrowikinomics, Rebooting Business and the World – by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.  They include an excellent chapter: Rethinking the University: collaborative learning.  I also recently watched Ken Robinson’s excellent animation: RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms.

Both the chapter and the book have left me thinking about how we deliver education/ training in the corporate or enterprise environment.  Tapscott & Williams and Robinson are arguing for new approaches in education.  These changes are being seen, to different degrees, in different educational institutes.

Web 2.0 and social networking platforms have presented wonderful opportunities for business’s to engage in collaborative processes – within their own organisations and, perhaps more importantly, with people and entities outside the enterprise.  However is would seem to me that enterprises should now be looking to change their own approaches to education – to increase the collaborative content of corporate education.  This would apply both in the case of internally delivered education/ training and training delivered by professional institutes of education.

Do you know of good examples of collaborative education being employed in industry?

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‘Glimmer’ – a review

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Just read ‘Glimmer – how design can transform your business, your life, and maybe even the world’ – by Warren Berger.

Main focus of the book  seems to be Bruce Mau and his approach to Design – of his philosophy re Design and its place in the world.

The ‘Glimmer Principles’ are:

Ask Stupid Questions, Jump Fences, make hope visible, Go deep, Work the metaphor, Design what you do. Face consequences. Embrace constraints, Design for emergence and BEGIN ANYWHERE.

The book and the examples are built around these principles.

There are basic entry level introductions to a number of frameworks and concepts e.g. Doblin Inc.’s five phases of a consumer experience: attraction, entry, engagement, exit, extension (pp 134-137).

As someone who has been involved in BPR for many years now I could certainly relate to the principles referenced.  Asking Stupid Questions and Going Deep are critical to any effort.  I think current focus on lean processes in start ups also echoes many of the ket principles, in particular Make Hope Visible and Face Consequences – in the context of maximising learning/ experimentation with the potential users of the solution.

In summary, I found the book more to be an interesting introduction to Mau and a number of other Designers rather than a ‘how to’ type book.  In this sense I found the title a little misleading and the book a little disappointing.  On the positive side the book is a call to action for everyone to put on their Designer Hat – that design is not something limited to a small few creative types.