My favorite business book by far is Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shrinky.
For me, this book has been very influential In the way we look at our world. His books works like an owners manual for humanity, opening up opportunity to build a better world.
The book opens with an explanation about proportional times set aside for employees during the industrial revolution. Which was not that long ago in terms of our country. The eight hours allotted for work, sleep, and personal development or free time, is something that that had been overlooked. Yet, with the added time that we’ve secured an interesting phenomenon is beginning to appear.
With the shifts in generations you have less people watching television now then ever before, according to Shirky. The younger generation is focusing on interactive media that has been created by the increases in technology. Shirky is very optimistic in his stance on the power of social media and influence. He looks at the power of social influence and evaluates how it can positively impact our work in future technological landscapes.
Shrinky also takes the opportunity to show the shift in how we as a population handle time management in conjunction with the work force and technology. With the growth of technology and social media people are being paid to work towards an idea or something non tangible vs needing to physically make a product to sell. This shift has been happening world wide for many years and it has been fascinating to watch. With these shifts and new adaptations to the work force, there has also been a rise in acceptance for lower quality standards.
I found humor in his explanation of wikipedia, Shirky stated that a majority of our attention has shifted to the online platform where we, as consumers, are currently experiencing the most important shift in social change. Consumers are working with interactive media to not only consume media but also produce and share it, much like wikipedia. Shirky believes that with this level of involvement from consumers, we now are apart of a globally interconnected group(s).
My exercise for this class would be to try and live in a world for three days without any significant connection to technology. I'd like to gage the evolution of our dependency on social media. Can you get all the information you need about what is going on in today's society just by simply watching television? Can you identify any factors that might have lead to the shift that Shrinky pointed out?
For me, my biggest "aha" moment was when Shrinky talked about the decreasing television audience across the younger age group. It makes sense and its easy to see why but I grew up in a time where TV was super important and it was always playing in my house, regardless of the material on. It's just very impactful to witness these shifts happen right before my eyes and take a moment to reflect.
Hi Tara,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like it would have been a very interesting and insightful read. As I read your reflection, I thought about the world shifting from consuming ideas, to participating in the sharing of ideas. So strange to think of how we can “produce” something of value that can contribute to consumers when it is no longer physical either.
Cameron
Hey Tara,
ReplyDeleteThis was actually the same book that I decided to read! I loved how this book shed so much light on the fact that technology is no longer used just to pass time and for leisure. This book describes how we can use an interactive method to describe almost our own media. It splits into many chapters that have a different topic in each that relates back to the boom of technology and furthering the impact technology is going to have on our society in the future. Great post as always and glad we got to read the same book.