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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.
Here’s your 2013 reading list – one a week for the year.
The perfect Ger-man, British Citizen, Strongman entrepreneur
I find as I read David Waller’s biography of strongman Eugen Sandow that its relevance a century on is profound: it touches on fame, fortune and celebrity, advertising, entrepreneurship, showmanship, self-publicity, branding and networking, as well as British Empire and our relations with Europe, The US and the ‘colonies’.
No doubt Sandow would have done movies (and appears in a pre-1900clip). He is part Arnold Schwarzenegger, part Simon Cowell or Rod Hull and Emu both Michael Ballentine and Richard Branson. It’s a read not merely for those who operate leisure centres and gyms, but also successful athletes and their agents, franchisees, and soft drinks companies, ad and PR agents and events companies. You’ve got to exploit what you’ve got while you have your admirers.
It should even interest body builders, sports coaches and anyone whose lifestyle includes fitness. And add in the British Army for good measure.
Homosexuality, parenting, the state of the nation’s health and what today would be called ‘wellness’. With Waller there is always the sense of a well read mind and a well exercised pen. I happen to have read HGWell’s Tono-Bungay, but this to me suggests that David is as much an historian as an English scholar, as he does in EH Carr’s words ‘read on a period until you can hear its people speak’. The context of profound ante-German sentiment leading up to The Great War is touched upon and handled well. Indeed, there are occasional phrases or words than give the sense that the author is sitting in his study in his Edwardian smoking Jacket smoking a cigar.
This and I’ve added half a dozen new words to my vocabulary.
Search Engine Optimisation gone wrong – aggregated feeds translated into jibberish
A feed from Google Alerts on business Schools led to this gibberish, the appearance of a legitimate blog but clearly a piece of aggregated pap designed to feed the search engines.
Like spam before it I hope this kind of nonsense is summarily removed from the system.
We can’t help but think in metaphors; it’s what makes us human
It could be the subject of of PhD Thesis.
Metaphor is the essence of learning, of knowledge transfer, of transmitting ideas, of ideas themselves, of innovation and creativity.
Reading Sfard and various other authors/academics and philosophers … and a neuroscientist I draw my own conclusions in relation to learning in general and e-learning in particular.
The first image is from Gareth Morgan. The explanation of how metaphor is used, and potentially abused (or simply confused) is clear. ‘Man is a lion. He is a lion because he is brave.’
We permit poetic licence
We then move on to the idea of what I am calling (for want of a metaphor)
Stage 1 Learning, that necessary first step where the person learning needs to acquire ‘stuff,’ where knowledge is imparted or experienced.
This might be a lecture, a talk, a video, a book. Acquisition for me is not the metaphor, it is the description of what is occurring. I cannot see ‘acquisition.’ I can see someone at a supermarket check-out ‘acquiring’ goods, I can even visualise the ‘sausage machine’ concept/cartoon of information/knowledge being ground out of books and deposited in a person’s head.
Moving on to Stage 2 Learning (though it could be any stage 2 through to infinity) we have a tool of learning, ‘participation.’
Here, once again, I understand an adjective describing actual participation, as demonstrated in the John Seely Brown lecture, of students working together at a table (round of course), with those on the ‘periphery’ taking part tangentially while those in the middle are the primary ‘actors.’ THIS is learning in the Congo Rain Forest to get honey from the top of a tree, this is learning above the Arctic Circle to cut blow-holes to harpoon seals … this is how ‘man’ has always learned. a) where’s the new thinking? b) is ‘participation’ a metaphor, or simple an adjective?
For me participation is the end of term play, the Christmas Panto, working on a student newspaper, blog or TV magazine show.
To use metaphor suggests improving communication of ideas and doing so in a persuasive and memorable way.
There are clichéd metaphors
They lose currency through over use. Educators appear to be stuck in a rut on this one, regurgitating old ideas.
REFERENCES
Brown, J.S., Collins.A., Duguid, P., (1989) Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan. – Feb., 1989), pp. 32-42 American Educational Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1176008 . Accessed: 05/03/2011 13:10
Cox, R. (2006) Vicarious Learning and Case-based Teaching of Clinical Reasoning Skills (2004–2006) [online], http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ esrcinfocentre/ viewawardpage.aspx?awardnumber=RES-139-25-0127 [(last accessed 10 March 2011).
Sfard, A. (1998) ‘On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one’, Educational Researcher, vol.27, no.2, pp.4–13; also available online at http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1176193 (last accessed 10 December 2010).
The feeding frenzy of our digitised world – a mobile maelstrom of information overload
There is something of a feeding frenzy when it comes to consumption of digitised and other media; there’s a constant maelstrom of activity that engenders adapted behaviour by those who indulge it.
The answer is a hobby!
‘How can anyone become a thinker if he does not spend at least a third of the day withou passions, people and books?’ Asked Neeitzsche.
Does racing a Fireball count? Does challenging yourself to ski an unchartered couloir on skiis? Or does these mean yoga and meditation?
All I can manage to escape at present is teaching and coaching swimming. It engages much of my brain … though even here, if I am dreaming up a mobile-learning course for fellow teachers, or how to engage my athletes with the sessions they are doing there is no escape.
Swimming, sailing, painting, cooking, soccer … learning a musical instrument, and still, reading, which might be a book, but could be an e-reader.
I take the view that my education is life-long, sounds like a cliche, but I never chose to divorce myself from needing or wanting to learn more after university. Some of the habits of learning require reading, chunking of information and developing it in different ‘sizes’ for your own consumption, let alone for others.
Are we not, or have we not, simply created many different entry routes into a subject? From a piece on the radio or in a paper, or in a blog or emailed to us, that leads to something on iPlayer, or on terrestrial TV … or Freeview, that can be read about in popular journals (print or not), or academic … and if there is interest taken up as a course at a point of entry of your choosing?
Does this suggest anything to you?
My thinking is to play to what is possible, making information available in a multitude of sizes and forms. Suddenly I feel like a brand manager for Kit-Kat biscuits 😦 Though there is much more educators should be learning from commerce.
(I was an advertising agency account manager for Kit-Kat, Polo, Walnut-Whip and Dairy Box in a former, distance life)
Tearing my hair out over Social Media – the MMC Fix at Learning Technologies 2011
The cost is always the thing, but Adobe shine.
For the creative industries and creative they are unsurpassable. They are like the Avid from TV and complement all things MAC for designers, art directors, photographers and video directors.
I hear my name in this mix.
When I assess a new e-learning tool I find myself giving several a go. There are blogs in Diaryland, Edublogs, WordPress and the OU. I have a presence on YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr, in LiveJournal and Blogger. I’ve tried eportfolio systems MyStuff (OU), Mahara and PebblePad.
Beyond PowerPoint I’ve used the Google.doc equivalent Articulate, Captivate and Lectora. And others that may have swept in and out of my life and consciousness untagger, unblogged and unloved.
(The tearing my hair out guy courtesy of MMCLearning whose seminar I attended at Learning Technologies. Give me a moment in my life and I’ll doi their Diploam in Digital Marketing.)
I have in front of me the Adobe eLearning Suite 2 on a 30 day trial.
To do this justice I’m thinking to myself 45-90 mins a day.
Will this underline February 2011?
I favour big and established brands like Adobe and can make Adobe Photoshop sing thanks to a training CD-rom I used. DIY learning or self-taught can work.
Now that I’ve declared my interest I guess I should load it up and make a start.
Twelve years I was learning Dreamweaver … before that Avid off-line editing.
Tomorrow something else.
I’m sure.
I could stop blogging.
(I’ve given up TV)
Related articles
- Call for papers – Learning, Media and Technology (hastac.org)
- #AdobeCaptivate & #eLearning Suite: Subscription Has its Advantages: (blogs.adobe.com)
- From “learning technologies” to “social technologies” (janeknight.typepad.com)
- Young People’s Learning Technology Priorities (fraser.typepad.com)
Mind Bursts 