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‘The Reputation Game’ You’ll be engrossed for days and changed forever
The Reputation Game is a compelling read that has you nodding along in agreement, turning the page for another insight and then pausing to take in the academic research. Written by a former Financial Times journalist and PR guru David Waller and a Business School academic Rupert Younger, the blend of the journalism and the academic gives you two books beautifully blended into one.
I find you become engrossed for hours at time – it has that ‘can’t put it down’ quality, but also as it skips through so many examples and references that any of these can form a satisfying quick read making it good not only for a commute, but to flick through between stops on the underground.
I know a dozen people who should have a copy, one who probably wishes he had written it. On the one hand I can send them this review, on the other I might just buy them copies and tell them why they should read it and how it well both be a pleasure to read and of value to them either because they have a ‘reputation’ to maintain, build or rejuvenate, or because they are in the business of doing this for others, both individuals and organisations.
Amongst many, often interviewed for the book, in relation to ‘reputation’, you will gain insights into:
Roman Abramovich
Lance Armstrong
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi
Michel Barnier
David and Victoria Beckham
Benedict XVI aka the Pope
Jeff Bezos
Tony Blair
Sepp Blatter
Usain Bolt
Susan Boyle
Richard Branson aka Sir Richard
Gordon Brown
Warren Buffett
George W Bush
Caligula aka The Emperor
David Cameron
Jimmy Carter
Charles Windsor aka the Prince of Wales
Winston Churchill
Nick Clegg
Bill and Hillary Clinton
Jeremy Corbyn
Robert Downey Jnr
James Dyson aka Sir James
Elizabeth Windsor aka The Queen
Roger Federer
Niall Ferguson
Margaret Hodge
Steve Jobs
Boris Johnson
Tom Jones aka Sir Tom
Bernie Madoff – interviewed in person by the authors.
Theresa May
Max Mosley
Horatio Nelson aka Admiral Lord
Barack Obama aka President
John Profumo
Vladimir Putin aka President
Cecil Rhodes
Saddam Hussein
Maria Sharapova
Joseph Stalin
Ivan the Terrible
Margaret Thatcher
Donald Trump
Mark Zuckerberg
And when it comes to business and organisational reputation you will learn about:
Adidas
Amnesty International
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream
The Bhopal Disaster
The British Army
Buzzfeed
Cazenove
The Catholic Church
CBS
BP
The Deepwater Horizon Crisis
Domino’s Pizza
The EU
Exxon
FIFA
GlaxoSmithKline
Goldman Sachs
Innocent Drinks
IS
The London School of Economics
Nestlé
Philip Morris International
Rolls-Royce
Rowntree
RBS
Unilver
Union Carbide
United Airlines
VW
Wonga
Zimbabwe
And in doing so you will learn about:
Capability reputation and character reputation and a whole lot more. Some of which will make you smile, much of which you can apply.
Story shapes that offer a way forward
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| From Writing |
Kurt Vonnegut’s wanted to write an MA thesis on the common shapes of stories: he was told it was too simple. He can be found in various interviews and presentations waxing lyrical about the shape stories take.
His are: 1) Cinderella: needs no elaboration. Applies to incremental steps of progress, radical failure then absolute glory.
2) Boy Meets Girl similar: we know it. Applies to any story of desire for something, its loss, then recovery. Also rom-com territory.
3) Man in a Whole: things go bad, then you get out of your whole. Shawshank Redemption. Martian. Haruki Murakami wrote a novel in which the protagonist was really down a well much of the time. I feel I’m most inclined to relate to and to write this one.
4) New Testament: like Cinderella–gifted things, which are then taken away before being returned with interest.
5) Old Testament: gifted things that are taken away forever.
6) Creation Stories: God made Earth in seven days …
7) From Bad to Worse: And it never gets better. Says it all. Fallen.
8) Which Way Is Up: That ambiguity in life where we don’t know what is good or bad from actions and events. Probably the hardest to sustain. Hamlet.
What you get if you use a plot generator
Have a go with Plot Generator
Of far better use is TV Tropes, which is a cross-media analysis of story types, with examples and links to the authors.
Web Networks – from the micro to the macro
We are each unique – our brains make us so. At the microlevel the network in our heads is then tickled out into the the Web in, at first. the simplest of ways. Our first post, our first comment is that first baby-step. Unlike our firsf steps though, online everything we do is saved, is monitored, is shared. It takes on a life of its own. Multiplied billions of times now many millions of us have learnt to crawl, then walk, then run online. As we are virtual we can split into many versions or parts of ourselves too – the professional and private the immediate split, but then into hobby groups and as here, a study group. The network of networks is a living thing that mathematics can help to weight and categorize, even to visualise, but crucially – the point made here, humanising the maths requires the insight of someone asking questions, seeking to interpret what it taking place. I see currents in a digital ocean that transpires into a cloud that then precipitates digital artefacts in a myriad of other places. Others, like Yrjo Engegstrom, see the growing tendrils of a funghi. Either way it is fascinating to condense, simplify and sharing the thinking.
How I read has changed, though my curiosity hasn’t dimmed, rather it has been indulged.
Fig.1 pp 116-117 of Lawrence Lessig’s book ‘Remix’
Despite the rhetoric of the content industry, the most valuable contribution to our economy comes from connectivity, not content’. Lawrence Lessig (2008:89) CF Andrew Odlyzko ‘Content is not King’.
There’s some irony that I found I could only get my hands on a book on the generational shift towards the digitized-enabled world of remixing with a book.
What is the legal position of creating a remix, by way of example, marking the passing of Britain’s last First World War veteran, by putting online a video that combines photographs of the deceased, and clips lifted from the TV film about the struggle by Kipling to commission his short-sighted son into the army? Or, not even ‘remixing’ but simply putting a series of excerpts of the film Passchendeale online so that you can watch it for free? Or grabbing stills from archive film, colouring it in and claiming it is as from your own unique collection? Some of these ‘producers’ should be applauded and encouraged in the hope that they generate their own footage and learn how to do so on a shoestring, others need to have their content removed and where a blatant copyright infringment has occured they ought to be warned if not prosecuted.
How I read has changed, though my curiosity hasn’t dimmed, rather it has been indulged.
As an undergraduate I forewent lectures in a hall with 90+ fellow students and instead took myself to the library. I would order up the book the lecturer I felt was reading from, and while reading pick out further books and journals. At the time this meant putting in a request slip and waiting a couple of hours, even a couple of days and quite often moving to a different library entirely. I began this journey most mornings in the Map Room of the Bodliean Library on Broad Street, would find myself in the underground chambers of the Radcliffe Science Library and typically end the morning, or pick up in the afternoon with reading in an alcoved window of the Rhodes Library. These places were conducive to reading. The spaces between reading may have contributed to the retention of the information.
As I read Lawrence Lessig’s Remix I search for books that sound of interest on Amazon and may, with a One Click, have the book in eBook form on my Kindle Reader or iPad seconds later. If an paper or academic gets a mention I may check the full reference, go to the OU online library and search for it. More often than not I will then download the PDF … and ‘stack it’ in either iBooks or on the Kindle Reader. I’ll save the references to the paper to RefWorks and file this in an appropriately named folder – I could leave the papers online, but like to know they are there ready to browse. Far from following therefore a strict reading list from A to B, I tend to meander and indulge. It takes time. I may stumble. I may race off in comletely the wrong direction.
By the time I return to the track I will either be reading at a trot or dragging my feet.
I am currently jogging, though I sense thst it is towards an assault course.
Reading ‘Red Nile: a biography of the world’s greatest river’ – a gem
At times you laugh out loud, always informative, great stories, full of well-known facts with a twist, as well as a myriad of gems. The kind of book I would have bought and sent to people for the pleasure of it … not sure how that works with an eBook. If Michael Palin had got stuck in Egypt for six years, without the film crew, he might have made a stab at it. I described Robert Twigger to my wife as Michael Palin’s mischievous younger brother. (I know Robert, though I’ve not seen him for twenty years). He’s exceedingly bright but very modest, even humble. A boffin you might find going through second-hand books in a pile at a charity shop.
There’s an intimacy, cleverness and a flash of British funniness throughout. Encyclopedic whilst as readable as an unputdownable novel.
For me this is the very best travel writing. I’ve bounced into it via a need to take an interest in ethnography in H809 Practice-based research in e-learning. I found myself watching ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ then reading the book by Heinrich Harer. ‘The Red Nile’ is written in a similar vein, though Robert’s relationship is with the river and not the Dalai Lama. The book touches on a good deal of anthropological study of the peoples of the Niles (blue and white). It’s value is how easy it is to read after all the academic papers, and how quotable and informed it is too.
‘It seems peculiar to me that specialisation should involve developing a point of view that obscures the very subject you wish to study’.
This is I will take as a warning as I venture towards doctoral study. My interest is in learning, and e-learning in particular. Learning can apply to many, many fields. We all do it whether we want to or not.
Related articles
- Beware The Man In The Angry White Pyjamas (aikidoexeter.wordpress.com)
- Dalai Lama free to those who can’t afford him (theage.com.au)
What’s going on in there? This apparently!
New Scientist 9 February 2013 Mind Maths by Colin Barras
Teenagers and technology
Fig.1. Letters from Iwa Jima. Clint Eastwood directed Movie.
In one of those bizarre, magic ways the brain works, last nigmt I watched the Clint Eastwood film ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ then stayed up reading in bed (quest for a very specific paper/set of papers on teenagers/young adults, health, presription medication) while waiting for my own teenagers to come in from a concert in Brighton.
Fig.2. Last minute reading for H809 TMA01
I stumbled upon ‘Teenagers and Technology’ by Chris Davies and Rebecca Eynon.
After a chapter of this I did a One Click on Amazon and kept on reading through the next couple of chapters.
I kept reading once they got home.
My mind constructed a dream in which instead of bagging letters home from soldiers, I found myself, Japanese of course, constructing, editing and reassembling some kind of scroll or poster. I could ‘re-enter’ this dream but frankly don’t see the point – it seems self-evident. I’ll be cutting and pasting my final thoughts, possibly literally on a 6ft length of backing wall paper (I like to get away from a keyboard and screen from time to time). Reinforced by a Business School module, B822 Creativity Innovation and Change I found that ‘working with dreams’ and ‘keeping a dream diary’ are some of the tools that can be used.
If I wish to I could re-enter this dream over the next few months as a short cut to my subconscious.
We’ll see.
I’m not sure how you’d come up with a Harvard Reference for a dream.
Fig.3. fMRI scan – not mine, though they did me a few years ago
Perhaps in 20 years time when we can where an fMRI scanner like a pair of headphones a set of colourised images of the activity across different parts of the brain could be offered.
Dream on 🙂
Research
I’ll be through this in 24 hours. 48 if I keep pausing to add notes to the highlights, longer if I download and read any references … and longer still if I apply it directly to the first tutor marked asignment of H809.
To teach is to nurture and the best metaphor for the mind is to see it as a garden
Fig. 1. My own vision of education as nurturing – like growing plants in a garden
‘Her metaphor for the brain is that of a garden, that’s full of the most interesting, different things that have to be constantly cultivated and constantly checked‘. This was Kirsty Young introducing her guest, Professor Uta Frith. (01:24 into the transmission, BBC Radio 4 2013)
Professor Uta Frith of University College London was on Desert Island Discs for the second time this week – this time round I paid close attention. I then went to the BBC website and took notes.
Having recently completed the Open University postgraduate module H810 Accessible Online Learning and of course interested in education, this offers insights on what studying autism and dyslexia tells us about the human mind.
There’s more in another BBC broadcast – Uta Frith interviewed for the BBC’s Life Scientific – Broadcast 6 Dec 2011 accessed 1st March 2013 – and available, by the way, until January 2099 should you not be able to find time and want your dyslexic grandchildren to listen.
The difference between someone who is autistic and the rest of us is how we each of us see the world.
‘We learn by taking different perspectives – something about ourselves which we otherwise would have never known’. Uta Frith (2013)
‘Take what’s given to you and make the best of it, but of course the cultivation is key to all of these things, so culture in our lives, learning from other people … these are the really, really important things’. Uta Frith (2013)
We may all have some of this in us.
Genetic factors matter.
‘How we are raised is a myth. It is not right. It has been so very harmful. It is a illusion to think that doing the right things, for example that you get from books, that you can change things.’ Uta Frith (2013)
Then from BBC’s Life Scientific
‘A passionate advocate of neuroscience and how its findings can be used in the classroom to improve learning. She hopes that eventually neuroscience will inform education in the same way that anatomy informs medicine’. (01:35 in, BBC 2013)
Uta Firth wants knowledge of the brain to inform education the way knowledge of the body informs medicine.
Professor Uta Frith is best known for her research on autism spectrum disorders. Her book, Autism, Explaining the Enigma (1989) has been translated into many languages. She was one of the initiators of the study of Asperger’s Syndrome in the UK and her work on reading development, spelling and dyslexia has been highly influential.
Throughout her career she has been developing a neuro-cognitive approach to developmental disorders.
In particular, she has investigated specific cognitive processes and their failure in autism and dyslexia. Her aim is to discover the underlying cognitive causes of these disorders and to link them to behavioural symptoms as well as to brain systems. She aims to make this research relevant to the education of people with development disorders and to contribute to a better quality of their everyday life.
The above profile form the UCL pages
Further Reading/Viewing
Uta Frith on YouTube on early years, then on dyslexia
Frith, U (1989/2003) Autism – explaining the enigma (second edition)
Frith, U (2008) Autism – a very short introduction
REFERENCE
Uta Frith, Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, Transmission accessed 1st March 2013
Uta Frith, The Life Scientific, BBC Radio 4, from BBC website as a podcast (accessed 1st March 2013
University College London, Staff. Website (accessed 1st March 2013)
Related articles
- Uta Frith: ‘The brain is not a pudding; it is an engine’ (guardian.co.uk)
- Autism: a Q&A with Uta Frith (oup.com)
- Autism: a Q&A with Uta Frith | OUPblog (pluk.mt.typepad.com)
- Link feast (bps-research-digest.blogspot.com)
- New Smartphone App to Boost Interaction Skills in Children with Autism (prweb.com)
Mind Bursts 