| |
|||||||||||
| Books of the Month |  |
||||||||||
| | |||||||||||
We leave our cars to mechanics - why shouldn't we leave science to scientists? Science critic Jane Gregory and chemist Steve Miller tear down our preconceptions about popular science education and erect a scaffolding on which to build new communication systems with Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility. This deeply thoughtful book explores the lengthy history of scientific mass communication and the various rationales for encouraging greater public understanding of research processes and results. From Copernicus to Carl Sagan, great thinkers have tried to explain not just the facts and theories produced by science, but the very work itself. Their reasons are enlightening and more often than not surprisingly self-serving, but Gregory and Miller are careful to maintain a tone of fairness throughout. What can we learn about the various forces of academia, government, business, and the media that have profoundly different interests in scientific communication, and how can we use this awareness to best help all the people and systems involved? Science in Public seeks to calmly observe and judge these forces, occasionally using case studies, like the mad cow madness that struck Europe in the waning days of the 20th century, to illustrate points. Any reader interested in science or education will find it a challenging and provocative work.
This celebrated bestseller, now in paperback, is a book that is changing the way Americans think about selling products and disseminating ideas. The new Afterword by the author describes how readers can constructively apply the tipping point principle in their own lives and work. Defining that precise moment when a trend becomes a trend, Malcolm Gladwell probes the surface of everyday occurrences to reveal some surprising dynamics behind explosive social changes. He examines the power of word-of-mouth and explores how very small changes can directly affect popularity. Perceptive and imaginative, The Tipping Point is a groundbreaking book destined to overturn conventional thinking in business, sociological, and policy-making arenas. New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major
changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly.
Ideas, behavior, messages, and products, he argues, often spread like
outbreaks of infectious disease. Just as a single sick person can
start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti
artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the
empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics, and
the moment when they take off, when they reach their critical mass,
is the Tipping Point." "Gladwell introduces us to the particular
personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends,
the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth. He analyzes
fashion trends, smoking, children's television, direct mail, and the
early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas
infectious, and visits a religious commune, a successful high-tech
company, and one of the world's greatest salesmen to show how to start
and sustain social epidemics.
A new book just published by Harvard Business School Press called "What's the Big Idea? Creating and Capitalizing on the Best Management Thinking" by Larry Prusak and Tom Davenport endorses the power of storytelling. The book covers new ground and shows how new ideas get introduced and implemented in organizations and why. It explicitly identifies stories and narratives as "the most important way" that new ideas are communicated and brought into organizations. It gives a number of examples where telling the story had a major role e.g. particularly in the sections on KM where it talks about stories told by Tom Stewart, Tom Peters, Dorothy Leonard, Kent Greenes, Keith Pearce, Chris Collinson and Steve Denning. There are many explicit references to storytelling throughout the book. In other places, storytelling is there by implication, e.g. when Joe McCrea in the UK Government talks about setting loose some "Trojan mice" and not trying to spell out the ultimate significance of the idea. Overall, the book is a powerful endorsement from a mainstream source about the power of organizational storytelling in the creative and innovative aspects of organizational life. * Mail-in rebate procedure: 1. Purchase of book titles from Acmabooks. 2. Delivery and receipt of books. 3. Download a copy of the rebate voucher. 4. Return completed voucher and copy of receipt to Acmabooks for rebate by post, fax or email. Once the purchase has been made, a printout of the receipt can be obtained from your personal ‘order history’ window online. 5. Acmabooks will then issue rebates in the form of e-voucher. Normal Acmabooks e-voucher terms & conditions applies. Note: BICalert subscribers will enjoy a special 15% rebate* on top of regular AcmaBooks discounts. MABIC members who are first time Acmabooks users will also receive a RM10 e-voucher as a welcome gift. ** Terms and Conditions: 1. MABIC rebates will be 15% for featured titles and 2% for non-featured titles bought in a single receipt (amount off Recommended Retail Price). 2. MABIC promotional rebates cannot be used in tandem with other Acmabooks promotional offers. 3. e-Vouchers are not redeemable for cash, and are non-transferable. All normal Acmabooks e-voucher Terms & Conditions applies. 4. Mail in rebate only applicable if order includes MABIC’s ‘Book of the Month’. 5. Offer valid for the duration of current BICalert validity ie from the 15th of month of release until the 14th of following month. 6. For orders under RM150, usual Acmabooks shipping charges applies.
|
|||||||||||
| |
|||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
| |
|||||||||||
