Moneyball
Tim Bray: I don’t think it’s that useful as a business book, but it’s fascinating (particularly towards the end) as a study of how a closed belief system reacts to the introduction of fact-backed heresy. Since the human race in general and technology profession in particular tend to the development of closed belief systems, this I think will find a lot of resonance with a lot of readers.
Purchased
Policy Entrepreneur
I've been thinking about roles in the economy of ideas. Three roles: those that make ideas, those that consume them, but most importantly the idea middlemen. I'm reasonably sure it was one of Paul Krugman early books that introduced me to the idea of the Policy Entrepreneur. These folks are middlemen between those who do and those who know; i.e. their suppliers are smart people who think about how we might fix a hard problem, were new oportunities are emerging, etc. etc. Their customers are the people with the resources - policical, social, capital, etc - to act on those oportunities. They are entrepenuers because they are striving to trigger big transformations; what might be called disruptive changes. Here's a nice example of how a frustrated policy entrepeur might spin a sentence: "it’s fascinating (particularly towards the end) as a study of how a closed belief system reacts to the introduction of fact-backed heresy. Since the human race in general and technology profession in particular tend to the development of closed belief systems" That is Tim Bray. Sam who quoted it immediately followed that with a posting about getting it done. When Krugman first wrote about this he was very much a member of the idea supplier class. His description of the Policy Entrepeneural class was dripping with the usual distaste for the middleman. He complained. The Policy Entrepreneur tends to sell an inventory of spoiled goods from the the last decade of ideas. The ideas that have spoiled in his warehouse. Ideas he has stripped them down and repackaged to their in service of making them into talking points that the customer could comprehend. The ironies in that run deep. Krugman is and economist, who might be expected to have some repect for the middleman, and in the years since while holding onto his stature in the knowledge creating class he has become a premier member of the middleman class. A fair critque. But, that's what all marketing departments do with the elegant output of engineering. That's their job. The knowledge suppliers are not the only ones who...... [more]Trackback from Ascription is an anathema to any enthusiasm at
Enjoy! It's an immensely interesting book about Baseball economics and, specifically, how some teams are able to exploit market inefficiencies created by decades of myth and legend.
Posted by Doug at