2004-05-25 Empty

The influences here are clear: European manifesto agit-prop, youth television, glossy magazines and the web. The result is a book full of short zippy paragraphs, clever terminology and which, like a surfer, jumps from wave to wave, link to link. The effect however, is one of emptiness. The ideas expressed seem second hand (not that much different from the strat texts of the dot com boom or Tom Peters), and the authors have trouble making he world fit their terminology. Anecdotes rather than eveidence is bought out to justify theories, a trait of pop-journalism, not of business theory. The effect is that it seems the authors are not fully explaining, or worse not fully understanding their subject. The books agressive enthusiasm is tiring and after a while, almost bland, its superficiality overwhelming. A bit like watching music videos for 8hours non-stop.