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A Vision of Repose
Claude Lorrain,
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
(1644) |
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Snapshots of "Knowledge
Work"
(see also my Palinurus:
The Academy and the Corporation –
Teaching the Humanities in a Restructured
World)
"Postindustrial"
knowledge work values "knowledge"
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Thomas A. Stewart,
Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth
of Organizations (1997):
"We grew up in the Industrial
Age. It is gone, supplanted by the
Information Age. The economic world
we are leaving was one whose main
sources of wealth were physical. The
things we bought and sold were, well,
things; you could touch them, smell
them, kick their tires, slam their
doors and hear a satisfying thud.
. . . In this new era, wealth is the
product of knowledge. Knowledge and
information–not just scientific
knowledge, but news, advice, entertainment,
communication, service–have become
the economy's primary raw materials
and its most important products. Knowledge
is what we buy and sell. You can't
smell it or touch it. . . . The capital
assets that are needed to create wealth
today are not land, not physical labor,
not machine tools and factories: They
are, instead, knowledge assets."
(p. x)
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Knowledge
Work values the "new"
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In the Ideology of Corporate Business:
-
Michael
Hammer & James Champy, Reengineering
the Corporation: A Manifesto for
Business Revolution (1993):
When
someone asks us for a quick definition
of business reengineering, we
say it means "starting over."
It doesn't mean tinkering
with what already exists or making
incremental changes that leave
basic structures intact"
(p. 31).
- Herman
Bryant Maynard, Jr., and Susan E.
Mehrtens, The Fourth Wave: Business
in the 21st Century (1993):
The
First Wave of change, the agricultural
revolution, has essentially ended
and will not be of concern here.
The Second Wave, coincidental with
industrialization, has covered much
of the Earth and continues to spread,
while a new, postindustrial Third
Wave is gathering force in the modern
industrial nations. We see a Fourth
Wave following close upon the Third.
(pp. 5-6)
-
Peter
Drucker, Managing in Turbulent
Times (1980):
Innovation
means, first, the systematic sloughing
off of yesterday. (p. 60)
The Ethos of "Creative Destruction"
- Business
Week,
Special Double Issue on "The
21st Century Corporation"
(From lead article on "The
Creative Economy," 21-28 Aug.
2000: 76-82):
Now
the Industrial Economy is giving
way to the Creative Economy, and
corporations are at another crossroads.
Attributes that made them ideal
for the 20th century could cripple
them in the 21st. So they will have
to change, dramatically. The Darwinian
struggle of daily business will
be won by the people—and the
organizations—that adapt most
successfully to the new world that
is unfolding (p. 78)
( From concluding Editorial, "The
21st Century Corporation":
278):
Innovation
builds profits . . .
In an information economy, companies
can gain an edge through new ideas
and products that increase in value
as more people use them. . . .
But the emphasis is on "temporary."
Knowledge-based products and networks
can quickly disappear in a burst
of Schumpeterian creative destruction.
So corporations must innovate rapidly
and continuously.
In the Ideology of Information
Technology
- Bill
Gates, The Road Ahead,
rev. ed. (1996)
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The
Art of "Destructive Creation"
The
Culture of "cool"
Survey of "cool" and related terms on the
Web using major search engines, July 6-7,
1998
|
AltaVista |
Infoseek |
Excite |
Hotbot |
Northern
Light |
| Total
Pages in Database (millions) |
140 |
30 |
55 |
110 |
67 |
| "cool"
Anywhere |
5,681,310 |
2,582,284 |
676,122 |
1,614,631 (1,314,428
in North America) |
1,424,618 (excluding
proprietary pages) |
| In
Page Title |
71,444 |
19,168 |
N/A |
57,773 |
N/A |
| In
Page Text (excluding
links and images) |
2,031,469 |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
| In
Link(s) on Page |
456,529 |
132,630 |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
| In
URL |
41,604 |
7,029 |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
| "cool
links" |
68,761 |
3,209 |
647,140 |
65,312 |
82,541 |
| "cool
sites" |
34,980 |
1,369 |
647,140 |
36,006 |
83,936 |
| "cool
stuff" |
34,996 |
1,121 |
647,140 |
64,342 |
59,405 |
| "cool
pages" |
1,205 |
417 |
647,140 |
15,221 |
26,597 |
| "cool
cool" |
17,347 |
34 |
46,690 |
2,952
(exact phrase) |
3,952 |
| "kewl" |
97,070 |
567 |
11,643 |
12,167 |
24,235 |
"Cool Site" Archives on the Web
Table of Contents of The
Laws of Cool: The Culture of Information:
(forthcoming, Stanford Univ. Press, 2003)
|
INTRODUCTION
1 Literature and Creative Destruction
PART I THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT
Preface "Unnice Work":
Knowledge Work and the Academy
2 The Idea of Knowledge Work
PART II ICE AGES
Preface "We Work Here, But We're
Cool"
3 Automating
4 Informating
5 Networking
PART III THE LAWS OF COOL
Preface "What's Cool?"
6 The Ethos of Information
7 Information is Style
8 The Feeling of Information
9 Cyber-Politics and Bad Attitude
HUMANITIES AND ARTS IN THE AGE
OF KNOWLEDGE WORK
Preface "More"
10 The Tribe of Cool
11 Educating Cool: Humanities in the
Information Age
12 Destructive Creativity: The Arts
in the Information Age
13 Viral Aesthetics: A Case Study
in Destructive Creativity
14 New Humanities and New Arts: An
Alliance for the Future
Coda: Toward the Future Literary
APPENDICES
A. Taxonomy of Knowledge Work
B. Chronology of Downsizing
C. "Ethical Hacking" and
Art
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