These ideas—first introduced in the Harvard Business Review—will intrigue anyone who wants to channel the new power of the...
A study of the “new power” made possible by connectivity.
Heimans, CEO of Purpose, which “builds and supports social movements,” and Timms, executive director of the 92nd Street Y, debut with an illuminating discussion of how technology and our rising expectations have enabled us to achieve our goals on a greater-than-ever scale. Old power, write the authors, depends on expertise and what you own or control, as in Fortune 500 companies. New power relies on connectivity and the desire to participate and collaborate, as in Uber, Airbnb, and Facebook (as well as protest movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter and terrorist groups like the Islamic State). Using online engagement, crowdsourcing, and peer-to-peer approaches, new power offers a fresh means of participation and a “heightened sense of agency” for all involved. The authors detail how power—old, new, or a combination of both—is now exercised by people, companies, and movements to quietly shape our lives in impactful ways. Old power has the top-down voice of a corporate press release; new power soars through “meme drops,” which “spread sideways, coming most alive when remixed, shared, and customized by peer communities”—e.g., in the ice bucket challenge and Pepe the Frog. Heimans and Timms provide fascinating examples of new power at work: how NASA enlisted the crowd (nonexperts) to foster open innovation; the heightened participatory experience of worship at Denver’s House of All Sinners and Saints, where whoever shows up is in charge; and how crowdsourcing of ideas rejuvenated the Lego brand. The authors also offer a cogent analysis of the contrasting campaigning styles of Barack Obama (participatory) and Donald Trump (“leader of a vast, decentralized social media army” via Twitter). Their accounts of how diverse groups like the National Rifle Association and TED use both old and new power approaches with great success may well inspire many.
These ideas—first introduced in the Harvard Business Review—will intrigue anyone who wants to channel the new power of the crowd.Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-385-54111-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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