A recent episode of The West Wing featured a character named Larry Lessig as a law professor who’d written a book called The Future of Ideas. This Lessig was advising Belarus on constitutional principles and the White House Spin Doctor was upset about the role of presidential power in the US constitution. The character was loosely based on reality, according to Lawrence Lessig of Blogistan:
The story is based (loosely) upon a true story. I was involved in the drafting of one early version of the Georgian constitution. But the story ended up in the West Wing because I told the story to my students in Constitutional Law at Harvard, and a current writer for the West Wing was in that class.
Well, I dunno about all this. The Future of Ideas is one of the corniest books ever written, and The West Wing is one of the corniest teevee shows, so it stands to reason they’d get together at some point. I figured the connection would be through the corniest man in Hollywood, Mr. Sterling creator Larry O’Donnell, so I’m actually surprised it was some guy named Josh Singer.
Technically, the Larry Lessig on TWW was fictional because the real Lessig didn’t actually have diddly to do with the Belarus constitution, but who’s quibbling?
I used to think Future of Ideas was the worst book ever written about the Internet, but Hugh Hewitt’s Blog tops it by a considerable distance. How fleeting is fame indeed.
One of these days I’m going to review Blog like I did FOI, only more so.
I’d like to see you weigh in on “Blink.”
I think that Gladwell guy is a boob, to put it most compassionately.
Really? I haven’t read Blinked but I saw a talk Gladwell gave in Seattle and thought it was quite brilliant. He analyzed the Amadou Diallo killing in minute detail, showing the mistakes the cops made along the way that lead to the final outcome. My impression is that Gladwell is a pretty brainy chap, even if he does tend to hype just a little bit.
All the manangement/marketing folks are nuts about this guy. At the bookstore where I work, both “Blink” & “The Tipping Point” selling like wildfire. He’s coming to the store to speak/sign books next week, so I’ll probably get to meet him. Before then I’ll glance thru his books, see what all the whoopla’s about.
Even biz students at the Univerisity of Texas are required to read his books.
I have to find the managment/marketing book that basically said that all management/marketing books were garbage…
I don’t know what Blink has to do with management or marketing, but its fundamental insights are empirically-based and sound. The Diallo case involved four rookie cops driving around together just days after graduating the academy. This is a prescription for disaster for several reasons: putting rookies on the street without experienced partners, multiple cops in a car, and failing to follow procedure all raise the risk of bad things happening, and Gladwell has documented all of it.
I’ve never taken a course on management or marketing, but I’m going to read Blink based on the talk I saw.
I’ve seena lot of strange sales/marketing/business motivation cum “inspiration” books on the shelves, & folks grabbing them left & right. Titles ranging from “Jesus, CEO” to “The Automatic Millionaire”. “Good to Great” also a huge seller, along with “First, Break All the Rules”. I too don’t know what “Blink ” has to do with marketing (or what Jesus has to do with it either) but I’ll be interested to see this guy at the store & check out the crowd we’re expecting.