Corporate executives are struggling with a new trend: people using online social technologies (blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, podcasts) to discuss products and companies, write their own news, and find their own deals. This groundswell is global, it's unstoppable, it affects every industry and it's utterly foreign to the powerful companies running things now.
When consumers you've never met are rating your company's products in public forums with which you have no experience or influence, your company is vulnerable. In Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester, Inc. explain how to turn this threat into an opportunity.
Using tools and data straight from Forrester, you'll learn how to:
Evaluate new social technologies as they emerge
Determine how different groups of consumers are participating in social technology arenas
Apply a four-step process for formulating your future strategy
Build social technologies into your business including monitoring your brand value, talking with the groundswell through marketing and PR campaigns, and energizing your best customers to recruit their peers
Timely and insightful, this book is required reading for executives seeking to protect and strengthen their company s public image.
"Groundswell is jammed with big ideas, useful stories, and quotable stats. This is the new industrial revolution. Are you on board?" -Seth Godin, author, Meatball Sundae
"Groundswell provides practical advice on how to stay nimble and flexible in an ever-morphing digital world. Enabling your company to respond to change quickly especially when talking to and supporting your consumers is essential for business success." -Cathie Black, President, Hearst Magazines
"The first phase of the Internet was about getting everyone connected. In this next phase, which changes the way we work, live, play, and learn, we are starting to realize the value of those connections as well as the new communications and experiences those interactions lead to the human network. Groundswell effectively documents this shift and underscores the opportunities available to all from this major market transition." -John T. Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco
About the Authors Charlene Li is a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. She is one of the driving forces behind Forrester's Social Computing and Web 2.0 research. Josh Bernoff is a vice president at Forrester Research and one of their most senior and most frequently quoted research analysts. He created the Technographics segmentation, a classification of consumers according to how they approach technology.
Associated Press "A wickedly funny, first-person parody...Politically incorrect and breezy...oPtion$ skewers Silicon Valley, with touches of `Bonfire of the Vanities,' `Dilbert' and `Revenge of the Nerds.'"
Tom Krazit, CNETnews.com "Almost anyone who has worked in Silicon Valley over the past 15 years...will find something to laugh at in Options...A delightful send-up of Valley culture, celebrity CEOs and the inscrutable mix of enlightenment and paranoia that's thought to inhabit the brain of the real Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple...I laughed out loud several times...It's an entertaining read for the tech industry veteran and a quick one, perfect for your next `nerd bird' flight between San Jose and Austin."
Book Description A pitch-perfect riff on Silicon Valley culture that follows the daily struggles, triumphs, and awesome celebrity encounters of Fake Steve Jobs.
Welcome to the mind, to the world of Fake Steve Jobs. Fake Steve the counterintuitive management guru: "Obviously we can't literally put our employees' lives at risk. But we have to make them feel that way." Fake Steve the political hobnobber: "I can see why they keep Nancy Pelosi under wraps. Wacky as a dime watch." Fake Steve quoting friend/musician/philosopher Bono on road etiquette: "Tink about dat next toim yer cuttin off some bloke and you don't know who it is, right? Could be Jay-sus. Or Boutros Boutros-Ghali or sumfin." And on, yes, himself: "Geniuses have feelings, too."
In the tradition of Thank You for Smoking and in the spirit of The Onion, Options is a novelistic sendup and takedown of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Washington, D.C., as viewed by a central character who exists, to his immense self-satisfaction, at the crossroads of all three worlds: "It's like in one of those movies where a guy realizes he's got telekinetic powers and it's just too bad if he doesn't want them, he's got them. Likewise, I have this gift. It's who I am."
About the Author Fake Steve Jobs (Forbes senior editor Daniel Lyons) is an award-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction with something of an insider's knowledge of the high-tech industry. He decided to use his powers for good by starting up the wildly popular blog "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs", which created the persona and voice for this novel.
Returning to the basics, Lorelle VanFossen has put together hundreds of the tips you need to know before you start blogging, and after.
Learn how to define your blog’s purpose.
Learn how to build your blog’s plan.
Explore the pros and cons of blog design.
Learn more about writing interesting and attention-getting content.
Develop your blog writing voice and style.
Tips on writing with keywords and search terms.
Learn how to encourage your readers to respond.
Deal with comment spam and other nasty comments.
Explore the new PageRank, TrustRank, and SEO techniques.
Learn how to improve SEO with podcasts, video, and other multimedia.
Tips to prevent blog burnout.
Tips on developing a blog plan of action in response to disasters, emergencies or accusations.
Tips on administrating and maintaining your blog.
Tips on online social networking and interaction.
Learn how to respond to copyright violations.
Learn about your rights as a blogger.
About the Author Lorelle VanFossen is a professional writer and the author of Lorelle on WordPress, a popular technical blog on WordPress and blogging. She is also the author of Taking Your Camera on the Road, one of the first personal websites on the Internet, featuring over a thousand articles on travel, nature photography, and life on the road, and Lorelle’s Family History, a genealogy blog.
Lorelle is a columnist for the Blog Herald and guest blogs and writes for many blogs, ezines, websites, and print publications. She travels extensively, as a web consultant and public speaker, and can often be found in airports, truck stops, outside shops, and prowling your neighborhood looking for an open WIFI connection to send off her next blog post.
One Cosmos Under God: The Unification of Matter, Life, Mind & Spirit - by Robert W. Godwin
One Cosmos actually begins in the "mind of God" prior to creation, and culminates in the "mind of the saint" who has transcended the culturally conditioned ego, awakened from the nightmare of history, and merged with the divine mind.
One Cosmos Under God takes the reader on an intellectual and spiritual journey through the whole of creation, describing the evolution of the cosmos from the big bang to the ultimate state of consciousness. It is a comprehensive, self-consistent account of our universe which draws out implications of the latest scientific knowledge and accessibly harmonizes material from a wide range of disciplines. The book also provides a "road map" for serious spiritual aspirants of all faiths who wish to establish an experiential relationship to the non-local dimension that is the ultimate source and destiny of our cosmos.
One Cosmos under God represents nothing less than a new religio-scientific "mythunderstanding" for our time, in which humans are cosmologically situated and revealed to be the key to fathoming the mystery of existence itself. Daring to venture where language cannot go, One Cosmos actually begins in the "mind of God" prior to creation, and culminates in the "mind of the saint" who has transcended the culturally conditioned ego, awakened from the nightmare of history, and merged with the divine mind.
About the Author Robert W. Godwin, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and independent scholar, with subspecialties in forensic, psychoanalytic and transpersonal psychology. A contributing editor to the Journal of Psychohistory and a past member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Melanie Klein and Object Relations, he has published some two dozen articles in scholarly journals, covering a wide range of topics. Much of his work has been interdisciplinary in nature, helping to forge a dialogue between apparently divergent fields.
Dr. Godwin has published many articles applying the insights of modern psychoanalysis and attachment theory to history, politics, and culture. His most recent contribution in this vein was "The Land that Developmental Time Forgot," a timely psychological analysis of the phenomenon of radical Islamic terror.
Dr. Godwin is married and lives in Calabasas, California, where he is in private practice, specializing in the treatment of psychological barriers to spiritual growth.
In fact, he's the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house.
But then one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension.
Joey's walk between the worlds makes him prey to two terrible forces—armies of magic and science who will do anything to harness his power to travel between dimensions.
When he sees the evil those forces are capable of, Joey makes the only possible choice: to join an army of his own, an army of versions of himself from different dimensions who all share his amazing power and who are all determined to fight to save the worlds.
Master storyteller Neil Gaiman and Emmy Award-winning science-fiction writer Michael Reaves team up to create a dazzling tale of magic, science, honor, and the destiny of one very special boy—and all the others like him.
About the Author Neil Gaiman is the author of the New York Times bestselling children's book Coraline and of the picture books The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, illustrated by Dave McKean. He wrote the script for the film MirrorMask and is also the author of critically acclaimed and award-winning novels and short stories for adults, as well as the Sandman series of graphic novels. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States.
A bomb in Rome, a flash of bluish-white light, and photojournalist Josh Ryder's world exploded. From that instant nothing would ever be the same.
As Josh recovers, his mind is increasingly invaded with thoughts that have the emotion, the intensity, the intimacy of memories. But they are not his memories. They are ancient—and violent. A battery of medical and psychological tests can't explain Josh's baffling symptoms. And the memories have an urgency he can't ignore—pulling him to save a woman named Sabina—and the treasures she is protecting.
But who is Sabina?
Desperate for answers, Josh turns to the world-renowned Phoenix Foundation—a research facility that scientifically documents cases of past life experiences. His findings there lead him to an archaeological dig and to Professor Gabriella Chase, who has discovered an ancient tomb—a tomb with a powerful secret that threatens to merge the past with the present. Here, the dead call out to the living, and murders of the past become murders of the present.
Library Journal, Starred Review - Rose's engrossing thriller effortlessly leaps to and fro through the centuries. Dramatic suspense and intriguing characters expertly set the stage for this first in a series. Strongly recommended for all popular fiction collections.
About the Author International bestselling author M.J. Rose is the author of eight previous novels, including Lip Service and three titles in the Butterfield Institute series: The Halo Effect, The Delilah Complex and The Venus Fix. She's also the coauthor of two nonfiction books on marketing. Rose is on the board of directors of the International Thriller Writers and lives in Connecticut.
The old saying is wrong—winners do quit, and quitters do win.
Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point—really hard, and not much fun at all.
And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you’re in a Dip—a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try.
According to bestselling author Seth Godin, what really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts.
Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt—until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can become number one in your niche, you’ll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and long-term security.
Losers, on the other hand, fall into two basic traps. Either they fail to stick out the Dip—they get to the moment of truth and then give up—or they never even find the right Dip to conquer.
Whether you’re a graphic designer, a sales rep, an athlete, or an aspiring CEO, this fun little book will help you figure out if you’re in a Dip that’s worthy of your time, effort, and talents. If you are, The Dip will inspire you to hang tough. If not, it will help you find the courage to quit—so you can be number one at something else.
Seth Godin doesn’t claim to have all the answers. But he will teach you how to ask the right questions.
About the Author Seth Godin is the author of the bestsellers Permission Marketing, Unleashing the Ideavirus, Purple Cow, Free Prize Inside!, All Marketers Are Liars, and Small Is the New Big, among other books. He is also the editor of The Big Moo, the founder and CEO of Squidoo, and one of the most popular business bloggers in the world.
The Internet has profoundly changed the way people communicate and interact with each other. But it has also changed the way businesses communicate with their customers (and those who they want to be customers). In the old days, companies could only communicate through the filter of expensive advertising or media ink placed by a PR firm. Today the rules have changed entirely.
The New Rules of Marketing and PR shows you how to leverage the potential that Web-based communication offers your business. Finally, you can speak directly to customers and buyers, establishing a personal link with the those who make your business work. You can reach niche buyers with targeted messages that cost a fraction of your big-budget ad campaign. Rather than bombard them with advertising they’ll likely ignore, you can focus on getting the right message to the right people at the right time.
When people visit your company’s Web site, they aren’t there to hear your slogan or see your logo again. They want information, interaction, and choice—and you’d be a fool not to give it to them. This one-of-a-kind guide to the future of marketing includes a step-by-step action plan for harnessing the power of the Internet, showing you how to identify audiences, create compelling messages, get those messages to the right people, and lead those consumers into the buying process. Including a wealth of compelling case studies and real-world examples, this is a practical guide to the new reality of PR and marketing.
About the Author David Meerman Scott is an award-winning online thought leadership strategist. The marketing programs he has developed are responsible for selling over one billion dollars in products and services worldwide. He has presented at industry conferences and events in more than twenty countries on four continents.
Discover how to harness Web tools to motivate and update student reading, research, and communication!
This book brings teachers a bold vision and on-the-ground Monday morning practicality. It will move educators to think differently about technologys potential for strengthening students' critical thinking, writing, reflection, and interactive learning. Will Richardson demystifies words like "blog," "wiki," and "aggregator" making classroom technology an easily accessible component of classroom research, writing, and learning.
This guide demonstrates how Web tools can generate exciting new learning formats, and explains how to apply these tools in the classroom to engage all students in a new world of synchronous information feeds and interactive learning. With detailed, simple explanations, definitions and how-tos, critical information on Internet safety, and helpful links, this exciting book opens an immense toolbox, with specific teaching applications for
Web logs, the most widely adopted tool of the read/write Web
Wikis, a collaborative Webspace for sharing published content
Rich Site Summary (RSS), feeding specific content into the classroom
Aggregators, collecting content generated via the RSS feed
Social bookmarking, archiving specific Web addresses
Online photo galleries
This book makes it possible for anyone, no matter how inexperienced, to harness this amazing technology for the classroom today!
"We need a solid book explaining and illustrating and letting teachers know about these powerful tools. This book meets the need in an awesome way!" - Mike Muir, Director Maine Center for Meaningful Engaged Learning
Naked Conversations is a powerful exploration of how, and why, businesses had better be blogging.
According to experts Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, blogs offer businesses something that has long been lacking in their communication with customers -- meaningful dialogue. Devoid of corporate-speak and empty promises, business blogs can humanize communication, bringing companies and their constituencies together in a way that improves both image and bottom line.
The authors use more than 50 case histories to explain why blogging is an efficient and credible method of business communication. You'll find yourself excited about the possibilities blogs present after reading just a few pages. Discover how:
Prominent business leaders, including Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks, Bob Lutz from General Motors, and Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems, are beginning to use blogs to connect with their customers in new ways.
Blogging has changed the rules of communication and competition.
You can launch an effective blogging strategy and the reasons why you should.
Bill Gates on Robert Scoble: "You are letting people have a sense of the people here. You're building a connection. People feel more a part of this. Maybe they'll tell us how we can better improve our products."
"Scoble and Israel really understand the issues of corporate blogging well. They discuss why it's important for businesses of all sizes to engage in this new form of communication with their customers and of course, the danger of not participating." —Michael Gartenberg, Vice President & Research Director, Jupiter Research
About the Authors Robert Scoble is Microsoft's best known blogger, with over 3.5 million visitors to his main blogsite annually. By day, as a "technical evangelist" (a marketing position) he helps run Microsoft's Channel 9 website and can be seen with his camcorder taping interviews and getting people inside looks at Microsoft's people and technology. He started blogging in 2000 and within a few weeks, he was invited to Steve Wozniak's Super Bowl party.
Shel Israel has been consulting for over 20 years. He has played a key strategic role in introducing some of technology’s most enduring products including: SoundBlaster, PowerPoint, Filemaker, MapInfo and Sun Microsystems workstations and more. He is editor-in-chief of Conferenza Premium Reports.
Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation - by J.D. Lasica
"That was a very nice presentation," a Hollywood studio chief said to a delegation from TiVo after seeing the device in action. "Now go set yourselves on fire."
What happens when the irresistible force of technological innovation meets the immovable object of big entertainment? For starters, Hollywood moguls start shooting themselves in the foot. It's easy to forget now that the big media companies were against VCRs in the '80s and CDs in the '90s. They're currently working on dumbing down your TiVo, iPod, and DVD burner. We've entered a new age of Prohibition, like in the 1920s, but with your home entertainment system at stake instead of your home bar. In both cases, the laws are so senseless and out of touch with the public that they're turning millions of us into digital outlaws.
J.D. Lasica argues that many of the future gadgets we long for might already be here if we were better able to balance the needs of Hollywood and the public it supposedly serves. Darknet takes you behind the scenes and into the trenches of this widening conflict, pulling back the curtain on the Hollywood insiders, tech innovators, and wily provocateurs who lurk in the darkest corners of cyberspace. He reveals how profoundly technology has shifted the balance of power between corporate media and regular people, and how determined many media powers are to turn back the clock, lock down our devices, and curtail fair use.
"There are few who see the future clearly, and even fewer who can explain what they see. This brilliant, beautifully written book sees, and explains. We will never understand how different it will be till we live it. But this will get you close." Lawrence Lessig - Author of Free Culture, The Future of Ideas, and Code
"The people who most need to read J.D. Lasica's thoughtful and provocative new book are, unfortunately, the least likely to do so. They are the members of Congress, entertainment executives and intellectual property zealots who want to control digital information rather than allow marvelous new technologies to democratize it. The rest of us -- voters and average people -- should read it for them, and then demand that our rights and needs get at least equal weight in this vital debate." Dan Gillmor - Author of We the Media
"The first comprehensive look at the restrictions being placed on our digital freedoms by the major media powers." Howard Rheingold - Author of Smart Mobs
A few big names in fiction, a handful of below-the-radar faves, and a lot of writers to watch discuss "why books? why now?" in this collective credo about the future of literature
An anthology of original essays from our most intriguing young writers, Bookmark Now boldly addresses the significance of the production of literature in the twenty-first century. Or simply, "How do we talk about writing and reading in an age where they both seem almost quaint?"
The book features authors in their twenties and thirties-those raised when TV, video games, and then the Internet supplanted books as dominant cultural mediums-and their intent is to examine: (1) how this generation came to writing as a calling, (2) what they see as literature's relevance when media consumption and competition have reached unprecedented levels, and (3) how writing and reading fit in with the rest of our rapid, multitasking world. The result will offer a voyeuristic peek into the private, creative lives of today's writers and shed light on what their work means at a time when the book business is changing, yet-almost paradoxically-a time when storytelling as a means of both self-realization and community building (be it via e-mail, weblogs, or "This American Life") seems more relevant than ever before.
Edited by Kevin Smokler, his writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Baltimore Sun, on NPR, and has been syndicated through the Independent Media Institute.
Book Proposals That Sell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success - by Terry Whalin
As Michael S. Hyatt, President of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the 9th largest publisher in the world, wrote, "Traditional publishing is shrouded with mystery. Terry Whalin peels back the curtain to give authors an inside look at what a writer needs to provide a publisher. Following his advice will give you the edge you need to create a slam dunk proposal!"
They come from all walks of life and age ranges. They bring their hopes and dreams to the paper and desire to get them into print. But most of them are doomed to failure because they don't understand publishing.
Now with BOOK PROPOSALS THAT $ELL, 21 SECRETS TO SPEED YOUR SUCCESS (Write Now Publications, Publication Date: April 2005) readers can take an inside look at the publishing industry and shape their book projects so they hit the mark. According to author W. Terry Whalin, more than 80% of all nonfiction books are sold from a book proposal. This mysterious document contains many elements that will never appear in a manuscript--yet these details are critical to publishing executives who make the decision about publishing or rejecting the book.
With real stories and experiences, Whalin takes the reader inside the meetings where publishing executives make decisions about which books to publish. For years, he has often been the first person to receive a new author's work and guide them into making their dreams become the reality of a printed book. Whalin understands the needs of writers because he has written more than 60 books but his perspective about books completely shifted when he became a book acquisitions editor.
Here's some of what's inside this title:
Key trends in the marketplace and how to continue to follow them
Pinpoint the topic for the book and the specific audience
Learn how to cast a specific vision for the book idea, the shape and size
Understand the competition in the marketplace for the proposed idea
Create a dynamic, realistic marketing plan and explain how the author will be proactive in those plans.
A popular speaker at conferences, Whalin knows how to communicate with would-be authors. He guides authors to shape their book ideas into the perfect proposal which will stand apart from the competition.
Through real-world success stories and interviews with professionals who've enthusiastically gone visual, this one-of-a kind book outlines a five-step plan for developing a visual communication strategy that will sharpen your organization's competitive edge and improve its bottom line.
How and why to make visual communication a powerful competitive tool.
Throughout history--beginning with our earliest ancestors who painted on cave walls--people have used images to communicate their thoughts and ideas. Yet as a society, while we understand and effortlessly use the power of visual communication in our personal lives, we're just now awakening to its tremendous potential in our business lives. With the democratization of technology, in the form of the Internet, wireless communications, and easy-to-use, inexpensive digital devices, the doors to Going Visual are now open to virtually any organization or businessperson.
In Going Visual: Using Images to Enhance Productivity, Decision Making, and Profits, authors and visual communication experts Alexis Gerard and Bob Goldstein demonstrate how businesses large or small and entrepreneurs can harness the power of digital images and video to streamline information flow, communicate more effectively, and gain competitive advantage. From digital cameras and camera phones to videoconferencing, visual communication technology is changing not only personal lives but global business relationships and communities of interest. Visual communication is an essential tool for every corporation-in any industry-that wants to stay competitive.
Alexis Gerard (San Mateo, CA) is the founder of Future Image Inc., an imaging technology think tank whose clients include Adobe, Canon, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Intel, Procter & Gamble, and Sony. He previously held executive positions in new technologies marketing at Apple Computer. Bob Goldstein (Los Angeles, CA) has been the president and founder of ZZYZX Visual Systems, president of the Altamira Group, and a visual communication consultant to such companies as Eastman Kodak, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard. Gerard and Goldstein have coauthored articles in Red Herring and Forbes.
"Blog" is short for "Web log"--an online site with time-dated postings, maintained by one or more posters, that features links and commentary. But that is like saying a car is a means of transportation featuring four wheels. Millions are changing their habits when it comes to information acquisition, and the blogosphere has appeared so suddenly as to surprise even the most sophisticated of analysts. In Blog, best-selling author Hugh Hewitt helps you catch up with and get ahead of this phenomenon.
Up until now no influential blogger has written a definitive book about this phenomenon. Since Hugh Hewitt's blog site--HughHewitt.com--was launched in early 2002, more than 10 million people have visited this site. Why does this visitor traffic matter? People's attentions are up for grabs. If you depend upon the steady trust of others, suddenly you have an audience waiting to hear from you. The race is underway, though, to gain mindspace and to be part of the blogosphere reader's habits and to position yourself as well as your business or organization at the forefront of this information movement.
Gadget geeks and technology buffs, this is the book for you! Leo Laporte's 2006 Gadget Guide is the definitive guide to all of your gadget-buying questions for 2005-06. Leo Laporte, host of TechTVs "Call for Help" and Que Publishing's resident gadget guru, boils down the reams and reams of product specs, slices through the marketing hype, and delivers his best of breed picks for everything from digital cameras to MP3 players. Organized in a sereis of categories, such as "Gadgets for the Ultimate Home Theater," Leo will provide you with the best picks for gadgets and equipment on any kind of budget. This is the ultimate guide for anyone interested in gadgets, gidgets, whos-its and whats-its. Don't go shopping again without it!
Leo Laporte is a weekend radio host on L.A. radio KFI AM 640 and co-hosts "Call for Help" on Canada's TechTV network. He also appears regularly on many other television and radio programs. He is the author of recent bestsellers: Leo Laporte's 2005 Gadget Guide, Leo Laporte's Mac Gadget Guide, and Leo Laporte's 2005 Technology Almanac.
Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity - by Lawrence Lessig
"An entertaining and important look at the past and future of the cold war between the media industry and new technologies." - Marc Andreessen, cofounder of Netscape
A powerfully argued and important analysis... surprisingly entertaining - The New York Times Book Review
Lawrence Lessig, “the most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet era” (The New Yorker), masterfully argues that never before in human history has the power to control creative progress been so concentrated in the hands of the powerful few, the so-called Big Media. Never before have the cultural powers- that-be been able to exert such control over what we can and can’t do with the culture around us. Our society defends free markets and free speech; why then does it permit such top-down control? To lose our long tradition of free culture, Lawrence Lessig shows us, is to lose our freedom to create, our freedom to build, and, ultimately, our freedom to imagine.
About the Author Lawrence Lessig is a professor at Stanford Law School and the founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. He has clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and for Judge Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. The author of The Future of Ideas and Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace.
Grassroots journalists are dismantling Big Media's monopoly on the news, transforming it from a lecture to a conversation. Not content to accept the news as reported, these readers-turned-reporters are publishing in real time to a worldwide audience via the Internet. The impact of their work is just beginning to be felt by professional journalists and the newsmakers they cover.
In We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People, nationally known business and technology columnist Dan Gillmor tells the story of this emerging phenomenon, and sheds light on this deep shift in how we make and consume the news. We the Media is essential reading for all participants in the news cycle:
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution - by Howard Rheingold
This study of the potential of mobile, always on, fast Internet access nicely serves as a travelogue to the future, showing the possibilities and dangers of communications innovation.
Smart Mobs takes us on a journey around the world for a preview of the next techno-cultural shift.
The coming wave, says Rheingold, is the result of super-efficient mobile communications-cellular phones, wireless-paging, and Internet-access devices-that will allow us to connect with anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Rheingold offers a penetrating perspective on the new convergence of pop culture, cutting-edge technology, and social activism. He also reminds us that the real impact of mobile communications will come not from the technology itself but from how people use it, resist it, and adapt to it.
Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web - by David Weinberger
Weinberger shows that the Web is transforming not only social institutions but also bedrock concepts of our world such as space, time, self, knowledge-even reality itself.
From a Web visionary and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, a fascinating, ambitious look at how the Web is transforming the concepts on which our society is built.
In this insightful social commentary, David Weinberger goes beyond misdirected hype to reveal what is truly revolutionary about the Web. Just as Marshall McLuhan forever altered our view of broadcast media, Weinberger shows that the Web is transforming not only social institutions but also bedrock concepts of our world such as space, time, self, knowledge-even reality itself.
Through stories of life on the Web, a unique take on Web sites, and a pervasive sense of humor, Weinberger is the first to put the Web into the social and intellectual context we need to begin assessing its true impact on our lives. The irony, according to Weinberger, is that this seemingly weird new technology is more in tune with our authentic selves than is the modern world. Funny, provocative, and ultimately hopeful, Small Pieces Loosely Joined makes us look at the Web as never before.
Wil Wheaton has never been one to take the conventional path to success. Despite early stardom through his childhood role in the motion picture "Stand By Me", and growing up on television as Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Wil left Hollywood in pursuit of happiness, purpose, and a viable means of paying the bills. In the oddest of places, Topeka, Kansas, Wil discovered that despite his claims to fame, he was at heart Just a Geek. In this, his newest book, Wil shares his deeply personal and difficult journey to find himself. You'll understand the rigors, and joys, of Wil's rediscovering of himself, as he comes to terms with what it means to be famous, or, ironically, famous for once having been famous.
Writing with honesty and disarming humanity, Wil touches on the frustrations associated with his acting career, his inability to distance himself from Ensign Crusher in the public's eyes, the launch of his incredibly successful web site, wilwheaton.net, and the joy he's found in writing. Through all of this, Wil shares the ups and downs he encountered along the journey, along with the support and love he discovered from his friends and family. The stories in Just a Geek include: - Wil's plunge from teen star to struggling actor- Discovering the joys of HTML, blogging, Linux, and web design- The struggle between Wesley Crusher, Starfleet ensign, and Wil Wheaton, author and blogger- Gut-wrenching reactions to the 9-11 disaster- Moving tales of Wil's relationships with his wife, step-children, and extended family - The transition from a B-list actor to an A-list author Wil Wheaton--celebrity, blogger, and geek--writes for the geek in all of us.
Engaging, witty, and pleasantly self-deprecating, Just a Geek will surprise you and make you laugh.
As one of New York's top sex therapists, Dr. Morgan Snow sees everything from the abused to the depraved, from couples grappling with sexual boredom to twisted sociopaths with dark, erotic fetishes. And the Butterfield Institute is the sanctuary where she helps soothe and heal these battered souls.
Cleo Thane is one of those special patients Morgan connects to immediately. A high-priced prostitute, Cleo is remarkably sensitive and unscathed, a woman desperate to reconcile her successful professional life with her neglected personal one. And when she asks Morgan to read her unpublished tell-all book about her exclusive clientele, Morgan realizes that what she has in her hands could be explosive.
Then Cleo disappears.
Detective Noah Jordan is trying to stay one step ahead of a serial killer who has been targeting prostitutes, killing them with ritualistic precision. When a missing person's report is filed on Cleo Thane, Noah wonders if she, too, has fallen prey to the psycho's wrath. He approaches Dr. Morgan Snow for any insight on her patient, but Morgan refuses to breach patient confidentiality. Instead she begins her own investigation into Cleo's disappearance.
Certain that the answers lie in the manuscript that Cleo has entrusted her with, Morgan delves into the private confessions of a woman paid to act out the sexual fantasies of some of the city's most powerful men.
Damian McNicholl's A SON CALLED GABRIEL announces the arrival of a striking new literary voice. The novel was a Book Sense August 2004 Pick and is now a finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards.
Set in the hills of Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 70s, A SON CALLED GABRIEL is a deeply felt and often funny coming-of-age novel that is ultimately unforgettable.
Gabriel Harkin, the eldest of four children in a working-class family, struggles through a loving yet often brutal childhood. It's a turbulent time in Ulster, and in the staunchly Catholic community to which Gabriel belongs, the strict rules for belief and behavior are clear. As Gabriel begins to suspect that he's not like other boys, he tries desperately to lock away his feelings, and his fears. But secrets have a way of being discovered, and Gabriel learns that his might not be the only ones in the Harkin family....
The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
Aiming squarely at the solar plexus of corporate America, authors Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger show how the Internet is turning business upside down.
From four of the liveliest personalities on the Web comes a provocative, outrageous, and wickedly smart account of what it will take to prosper in the fast-forward world on the wire. This nationally acclaimed best seller is a spirited, original, and wonderfully irreverent conversation that will challenge, provoke, and forever change your outlook on the digital economy. A rich tapestry of anecdotes, object lessons, parodies, insights, and predictions, The Cluetrain Manifesto illustrates how the Internet has radically reframed the seemingly immutable laws of business--and what business needs to know to weather the seismic aftershocks.
"An earnest plea for a new kind of language and new expectations for the Web.... While others work on turning the Internet into the perfect medium for reaching traditional business goals, these four Net-philes hope cyberspace will give commerce a 'human voice.'" -Harvard Business Review
"For every retail or consumer-products company wondering why its Internet marketing doesn't seem to be working, The Cluetrain Manifesto...offers fresh and sound advice, expressed in entertaining prose. Its oft-repeated premise--that markets are conversations--should be pounded into the collective brain of corporate executives." -Business Week
"OUR UNIT REACHED THE EUPHRATES AT THREE THAT MORNING, A full hour ahead of the generals' war plan"; so the story begins.
When the Desert Storm conflict was declared over, U.S. soldier Peter Ford was ordered to stand by and watch as the Iraqi Republican Guard continued to commit horrific acts against its own people. But now, four years later, Peter Ford is no longer a soldier-and his former superior officer is no longer alive. Roberto Garza's murder has helped convince him that not even Washington can tell him right from wrong. And moving through the chaotic and ruthless world of postwar Iraq, Ford is making a new choice-to hunt down the men responsible for his nightmare, and find out the truth for himself...
The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World - by Lawrence Lessig
Author Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor and keen observer of emerging technologies, makes a strong case that large corporations are staging an innovation-stifling power grab while we watch idly.
The Internet revolution has come. Some say it has gone. In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the revolution has produced a counterrevolution of potentially devastating power and effect. Creativity once flourished because the Net protected a commons on which widest range of innovators could experiment. But now, manipulating the law for their own purposes, corporations have established themselves as virtual gatekeepers of the Net while Congress, in the pockets of media magnates, has rewritten copyright and patent laws to stifle creativity and progress.
Lessig weaves the history of technology and its relevant laws to make a lucid and accessible case to protect the sanctity of intellectual freedom. He shows how the door to a future of ideas is being shut just as technology is creating extraordinary possibilities that have implications for all of us. Vital, eloquent, judicious and forthright, The Future of Ideas is a call to arms that we can ill afford to ignore.
Available Formats: Rocket eBook, MS-Reader, Adobe PDF, Palm Doc, HieBook
Jozef describes the village in which he grew up with such emotion and sadness that the reader can hear the snow crunching beneath his expectant mother's feet as she makes her way through the snow drifts.
This story is fact--not fiction; when you are finished, you will know what it is like to taste freedom for the first time. And perhaps feel the pain of its cost.
Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living, and one of the wonders of the world. In eighty-one brief chapters, the Tao Te Ching looks at the basic predicament of being alive and gives advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit.
This book is about wisdom in action. It teaches how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the Tao (the basic principle of the universe) and applies equally to good government and sexual love; to child rearing, business, and ecology.
Stephen Mitchell's bestselling version has been widely acclaimed as a gift to contemporary culture.
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