Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future


Richard Heinberg - 2013
    This is the first book to look at fracking from both economic and environmental perspectives."

Over The Top: How The Internet Is (Slowly But Surely) Changing The Television Industry


Alan Wolk - 2015
    Given the intricacies of the industry, it's also going to be the most resistant to change. Alan Wolk, an industry veteran and longtime analyst and observer, lays out how the television industry is adapting to the digital era, explaining what's really happening in a tone that will appeal to laypeople and insiders alike. In the first section, Wolk takes us through how the industry works today, focusing on how the various players actually make money and who pays who for what. The next section deals with the changes that are taking place in the industry today–everything from time shifting to binge viewing to cord cutting–and how those changes are starting to create some seismic shifts. In the final section, Wolk reveals his predictions for the future and what the industry will look like in ten years time. Andrew Wallenstein, co-editor-in-chief of Variety says "Alan Wolk is one of the most insightful observers writing about the media business today. There's no better expert to help you navigate the confusing, complicated nexus of TV and the Internet." David Zaslav, President and CEO of Discovery Communications says "Alan Wolk has a deep understanding of the complex nature of television today… this is a fantastic primer of the business and one of the most educated perspectives on the future of our rapidly evolving industry."

Ebook: Design Thinking (Innovation Trends Series)


BBVA Innovation Center - 2015
    In this issue you will find out all there is to be known about Design Thinking, the different and creative approach to businesses everyday challenges.

The U.S. Constitution: Explained--Clause by Clause--For Every American Today


Ray Raphael - 2017
    Setting forth the workings of our democracy, it is the bedrock document from which we derive our policies on topics as diverse and galvanizing as immigration, gun ownership, voting rights, taxation, policing, civil liberties, and war.In this indispensable edition, acclaimed historian and Constitutional expert Ray Raphael guides us through the origins, impact, and current relevance of the original text and all twenty-seven amendments. Here is the key historical context for issues in the news today--from the Electoral College to Washington gridlock, from peaceful protests to executive power. Thoughtful and nuanced, lively and highly readable, this annotated Constitution is for all of us to read and refer to--the ultimate political fact-checking source for every American.

The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics


Salena Zito - 2018
    Donald Trump's electoral coalition is smashing both American political parties and its previously impenetrable political news media.The political experts called the 2016 election wrong and in the wake of the 2016 election surprise, the experts have continued to blow it - looking to predict the coming demise of the President without pausing to consider the durability of the trends and winds that swept him into office.The Great Revolt delves deep into the minds and hearts of the voters the make up this coalition. What emerges is a group of citizens who cannot be described by terms like "angry," "male," "rural," or the often-used "racist." They span job descriptions, income brackets, education levels, and party allegiances. What unites them is their desire to be part of a movement larger than themselves that puts pragmatism before ideology, localism before globalism, and demands the respect it deserve from Washington.Zito and Todd have traveled on over 27,000 miles of country roads to interview more than 300 Trump voters in 10 swing counties. What they have discovered is that these voters were hiding in plain sight--ignored by both parties, the media, and the political experts all at once, ready to unite into the movement that spawned the greatest upset in recent electoral history. Deeply rooted in the culture of these Midwestern swing states, Zito and Brad Todd reframe the discussion of the "Trump voter" to answer the question: What next?

Managing Risk and Information Security: Protect to Enable


Malcolm Harkins - 2012
    Because almost every aspect of an enterprise is now dependent on technology, the focus of IT security must shift from locking down assets to enabling the business while managing and surviving risk. This compact book discusses business risk from a broader perspective, including privacy and regulatory considerations. It describes the increasing number of threats and vulnerabilities, but also offers strategies for developing solutions. These include discussions of how enterprises can take advantage of new and emerging technologies—such as social media and the huge proliferation of Internet-enabled devices—while minimizing risk. With ApressOpen, content is freely available through multiple online distribution channels and electronic formats with the goal of disseminating professionally edited and technically reviewed content to the worldwide community. Here are some of the responses from reviewers of this exceptional work: “Managing Risk and Information Security is a perceptive, balanced, and often thought-provoking exploration of evolving information risk and security challenges within a business context.  Harkins clearly connects the needed, but often-overlooked linkage and dialog between the business and technical worlds and offers actionable strategies.   The book contains eye-opening security insights that are easily understood, even by the curious layman.” Fred Wettling, Bechtel Fellow, IS&T Ethics & Compliance Officer, Bechtel     “As disruptive technology innovations and escalating cyber threats continue to create enormous information security challenges, Managing Risk and Information Security: Protect to Enable provides a much-needed perspective. This book compels information security professionals to think differently about concepts of risk management in order to be more effective. The specific and practical guidance offers a fast-track formula for developing information security strategies which are lock-step with business priorities.” Laura Robinson, Principal, Robinson Insight Chair, Security for Business Innovation Council (SBIC) Program Director, Executive Security Action Forum (ESAF) “The mandate of the information security function is being completely rewritten. Unfortunately most heads of security haven’t picked up on the change, impeding their companies’ agility and ability to innovate. This book makes the case for why security needs to change, and shows how to get started. It will be regarded as marking the turning point in information security for years to come.” Dr. Jeremy Bergsman, Practice Manager, CEB     “The world we are responsible to protect is changing dramatically and at an accelerating pace. Technology is pervasive in virtually every aspect of our lives. Clouds, virtualization and mobile are redefining computing – and they are just the beginning of what is to come. Your security perimeter is defined by wherever your information and people happen to be.

Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity from Politicians


Joe Quirk - 2017
    But imagine a vast new source of sustainable and renewable energy that would also bring more equitable economies. A previously untapped source of farming that could produce significant new sources of nutrition. Future societies where people could choose the communities they want to live in, free from the restrictions of conventional citizenship. This extraordinary vision of our near future as imagined in Seasteading attracted the powerful support of Silicon Valley’s Peter Thiel—and it may be drawing close to reality. Facing growing environmental threats, French Polynesia has already signed on to build some of the world’s first seasteads. Joe Quirk and Patri Friedman show us how cities built on floating platforms in the ocean will work, and they profile some of the visionaries who are implementing basic concepts of seasteading today. An entrepreneur’s dream, these floating cities will become laboratories for innovation and creativity. Seasteading “offers hope for a future when life on land has grown grim” (Kirkus Reviews), proving the adage that yesterday’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact.

Agendas and Instability in American Politics


Frank R. Baumgartner - 1993
    Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones show that rapid change not only can but does happen in the hidebound institutions of government.Short-term, single-issue analyses of public policy, the authors contend, give a narrow and distorted view of public policy as the result of a cozy arrangement between politicians, interest groups, and the media. Baumgartner and Jones upset these notions by focusing on several issues—including civilian nuclear power, urban affairs, smoking, and auto safety—over a much longer period of time to reveal patterns of stability alternating with bursts of rapid, unpredictable change.A welcome corrective to conventional political wisdom, Agendas and Instability revises our understanding of the dynamics of agenda-setting and clarifies a subject at the very center of the study of American politics.

All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power


Nomi Prins - 2014
    She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. These families and individuals recycle their power through elected office and private channels in Washington, DC.All the Presidents' Bankers sheds new light on pivotal historic events—such as why, after the Panic of 1907, America's dominant bankers convened to fashion the Federal Reserve System; how J. P. Morgan's ambitions motivated President Wilson during World War I; how Chase and National City Bank chairmen worked secretly with President Roosevelt to rescue capitalism during the Great Depression while J.P. Morgan Jr. invited Roosevelt's son yachting; and how American financiers collaborated with President Truman to construct the World Bank and IMF after World War II.Prins divulges how, through the Cold War and Vietnam era, presidents and bankers pushed America's superpower status and expansion abroad, while promoting broadly democratic values and social welfare at home. But from the 1970s, Wall Street's rush to secure Middle East oil profits altered the nature of political-financial alliances. Bankers' profit motive trumped heritage and allegiance to public service, while presidents lost control over the economy—as was dramatically evident in the financial crisis of 2008.This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how the same financiers retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation. All the Presidents' Bankers explores the alarming global repercussions of a system lacking barriers between public office and private power. Prins leaves us with an ominous choice: either we break the alliances of the power elite, or they will break us.

Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars


William Patry - 2009
    In Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars, William Patry lays bare how we got to where we are: a bloated, punitive legal regime that has strayed far from its modest, but important roots. Patry demonstrates how copyright is a utilitarian government program--not a property or moral right. As a government program, copyright must be regulated and held accountable to ensure it is serving its public purpose. Just as Wall Street must serve Main Street, neither can copyright be left to a Reaganite magic of the market. The way we have come to talk about copyright--metaphoric language demonizing everyone involved--has led to bad business and bad policy decisions. Unless we recognize that the debates over copyright are debates over business models, we will never be able to make the correct business and policy decisions. A centrist and believer in appropriately balanced copyright laws, Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak copyright laws, miss the point entirely: the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of encouraging the creation of new works and learning. Our current regime, unfortunately, creates too many bad incentives, leading to bad conduct. Just as President Obama has called for re-tooling and re-imagining the auto industry, Patry calls for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected.

Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism


Thomas E. Patterson - 2013
    Too often, reporters give equal weight to facts and biased opinion, stir up small controversies, and substitute infotainment for real news. Even when they get the facts rights, they often misjudge the context in which they belong. Information is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy. Public opinion and debate suffer when citizens are misinformed about current affairs, as is increasingly the case. Though the failures of today’s communication system cannot be blamed solely on the news media, they are part of the problem, and the best hope for something better. Patterson proposes “knowledge-based journalism” as a corrective. Unless journalists are more deeply informed about the subjects they cover, they will continue to misinterpret them and to be vulnerable to manipulation by their sources. In this book, derived from a multi-year initiative of the Carnegie Corporation and the Knight Foundation, Patterson calls for nothing less than a major overhaul of journalism practice and education. The book speaks not only to journalists but to all who are concerned about the integrity of the information on which America’s democracy depends.

A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy


Russell Muirhead - 2019
    But conspiracists today have introduced something new--conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, why so few officials speak truth to conspiracy, and what needs to be done to resist it.Classic conspiracy theory insists that things are not what they seem and gathers evidence--especially facts ominously withheld by official sources--to tease out secret machinations. The new conspiracism is different. There is no demand for evidence, no dots revealed to form a pattern, no close examination of shadowy plotters. Dispensing with the burden of explanation, the new conspiracism imposes its own reality through repetition (exemplified by the Trump catchphrase "a lot of people are saying") and bare assertion ("rigged!").The new conspiracism targets democratic foundations--political parties and knowledge-producing institutions. It makes it more difficult to argue, persuade, negotiate, compromise, and even to disagree. Ultimately, it delegitimates democracy.Filled with vivid examples, A Lot of People Are Saying diagnoses a defining and disorienting feature of today's politics and offers a guide to responding to the threat.

Marketing To The Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business


Larry Weber - 2007
    CEOs should heed this transformation and learn from Weber's insights how to navigate this new landscape to fully maximize their business opportunities." -Mark Fuller, Chairman, Monitor Group "Consumers are using technology to grab power from companies, the media, and the government. Marketing to the Social Web succinctly outlines how institutions can survive and win in this chaotic new world, and lays out the revised rules of engagement-ignore them at your peril." -George F. Colony, CEO, Forrester Research, Inc. "Larry has brought pragmatic and useful recommendations to help brand builders manage the complexity of social interaction in a digital age. I was pleased to read a book that actually suggests how to do something with social networks, instead of just ponder them." -David Kenny, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Digitas Inc. "Where's the allure of social 2.0? Brands can talk . . . customers talk louder! Digital influence has arrived." -Jeff Taylor, CEO, Eons and Founder of Monster.com "Larry Weber provides a simple and effective roadmap of the new customer information highway. Marketing to the Social Web is a valuable tool that will give everyone the confidence and know-how to compete in this fast-growing marketplace of ideas." -Steve Harris, Vice President, Global Communications, General Motors Corporation "As all lines and boundaries are washed away by the Web, Weber describes how to become part of the sea versus the sand." -Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman, One Laptop per Child

Megatrends 2000


John Naisbitt - 1990
    Identifies ten forces--from a decline in the welfare state to a renaissance in the arts--that promise worldwide social change in the coming milennium.

The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency


Chris Whipple - 2017
    The chiefs of staff, often referred to as "the gatekeepers," wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond; they decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push POTUS's agenda, and--most crucially--enjoy unparalleled access to the leader of the free world. Each chief can make or break an administration, and each president reveals himself by the chief he picks.Through extensive, intimate interviews with all seventeen living chiefs and two former presidents, award-winning journalist and producer Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on this unique fraternity. In doing so, he revises our understanding of presidential history, showing us how James Baker's expert managing of the White House, the press, and Capitol Hill paved the way for the Reagan Revolution--and, conversely, how Watergate, the Iraq War, and even the bungled Obamacare rollout might have been prevented by a more effective chief.Filled with shrewd analysis and never-before-reported details, The Gatekeepers offers an essential portrait of the toughest job in Washington.