Reading List from the Apple Summit
Here are books mentioned or authored by the presenters with Amazon links:
- It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by Michael Abrashoff
- IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage Decision Rights for Superior Results by Peter Weill and Jeanne Ross
- Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
- The Ten Faces of Innovation by Thomas Kelley
I’ve started the Kelley book–it’s a quick fun read, highlighting ingenuity.
Maurry Tamarkin said:
Feb 11, 09 at 7:41 amI read “Amusing Ourselves to Death” several years ago, and I also heard him speak about his issues. As I recall, he attacks TV for not being educational. He sets up straw man after straw man and then considers his argument persuasive because he has destroyed these straw men.
If you grew up with TV, as I have, then you likely have the ingrained ability for critical analysis that Postman laments is lacking, but which, ironically, enables one to shuffle off his arguments as “…a tale,…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
rufusb said:
Feb 11, 09 at 8:31 amMaurry,
You think TV makes one a better critical thinker? How so?
admin said:
Feb 11, 09 at 6:02 pmI think Maurry’s idea is that if you’ve grown up with TV you are better prepared to engage with it critically. That is, you’re a more sophisticated consumer than, say, a cave man. Which, ironically, kind of supports Alan Kay’s point in my earlier post: we who are not digital natives seem to be easily impressed by the ability of our youth to create seemingly slick content. We are not as able to engage critically–our rhetoric is reserved for textual analysis. So, basically, we’re letting kids fool us with their youtube videos. I remember teaching college composition and a student asked me if she could write a poem rather than an essay as a response to the assigned reading. I knew a con then as I do now and said, “Um, no.” And sorry.
Maurry Tamarkin said:
Feb 12, 09 at 8:34 amRufus,
My comment was tongue in cheek. My point, actually, is that, counter Postman, watching TV does not necessarily inhibit critical analysis. E.g., I assume Postman, as I, grew up watching TV and yet, he is able to be critical about it. (And, rightly or wrongly, I am able to be critical of Postman.) But, his argument is that others will not be. Sort of, “I can overcome it, but you cannot. Therefore, TV is bad for you.”
Thanks for the opportunity to explain.
Maurry
rufusb said:
Feb 12, 09 at 12:59 pmI enjoy critique as much as the next guy, admin and Maurry. And I suppose it makes me feel somewhat superior to think that only I and others like me can see what’s /really/ going on. I sometimes wonder if TV is as insidious as its critics make it out to be or if critics themselves are an industry created to give jobs to English majors. We all know philosophers are superior. I myself have a degree in philosophy (this is only a coincidence, of course). How’s THAT for tongue in cheek?
admin said:
Feb 12, 09 at 5:19 pmI’m backing out of this one, having completely missed the point earlier… 🙂