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Update 7/18/07
TechDirt says the same, but better.

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We look back through history and see that humans strives to breaks technological and social barriers through innovation. Even today, we can see: those who know can take advantage of those that don’t know. Professions such as sorcery and alchemy were displaced by the scientific peer review. Today, some professions slowing fading away or undergoing radical change: PR, travel agents, real estate agents, legal aids. We are deciding to do more things by ourselves because the cost/convenience ratio meets a sweet spot.

Many would argue that changes like this are bad because they breaks tradition. Breaking tradition is part of how we define historical events. Town scribes, a profession, that like many other obsolete occupations, once had the aura of a sacred priesthood, gave way to mass adoption of literacy. A person had to be given the right practice it, and the commoner would be a fool to try by himself or herself. Later, women would be allowed to do things such as vote, and former slaves could own property. The right to compute freely had to be fought in the workplace against czars know as “system administrators.” People were fired for sneaking computers into their offices. People are using Zillow to help themselves in the real estate process, using software wizards with lawyers to help legal matters, or using WebMD to get a second opinion, mowing our own lawn, user generated content in the form of blogging/journalism, video production, and music production. People are using Google for research, and using e-mail instead of smoke signals. These are all in the same spirit. The human spirit’s desire to do more for less is a force of nature and economics that cannot be stopped. To argue that actions to end tradition is some sort of threat is to argue against the nature of evolution itself (and some do).

Will knowledge help make the world a better place? What is more important: ending ignorance to improve life or keeping the tradition of bad ideas just because they are old?

The Internet is as revolutionary as the Gutenberg’s printing press. It helps the spread of knowledge, which helps society progresses. And now, anyone with an Internet connection can contribute to that pool of knowledge. Knowledge and wisdom themselves can evolve further. Any profession will become less valuable over time (even over one’s lifetime), and each person must constantly strive to learn new things, to and reinvent themselves to survive (as shown by Darwin). The human spirit demands that we get to decide what we want to do, and to do it if we can. We want to outsource some things, and do other things ourselves with the aid of social or technological innovations. When you jokingly call someone a dinosaur, do not do it because they are old, but because of their inability to adapt to a changing world.

Andrew Keen published (on the Internet of all places) a ChangeThis Manifesto to coincide with his new book (that not even worth a mention). I was eager to read this new manifesto because I thought it might have a insight that I had not heard from Keen in all of his other articles and interviews. However, I could not find a strong argument that “killing culture” is a bad thing. Keen is just whining that he is past his prime, can no longer keep up with the accelerating pace of change in the world, and he wrote a book to complain about it.

Killing culture is a euphemism for social and technological progress through innovation.

A list of the tragic killing of cultures:
The written word killed the culture of illiteracy (but not the story teller).
The wheel killed the culture of the inconveniences of travel (but not long lines at the airport).
Knowledge killed the culture of ignorance (but not in 3rd world).
Man’s discovery of fire killed the culture of freezing to death and uncooked food (but not in 3rd world).

There will always be a need for new types of occupations that will evolve out of the complexity of the circumstances of the future. There is never a need to impeded progress.

Defunct Occupations: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_occupations

Update 6/19/2007:
Andrew Keen was interviewed on TechNation and Dr. Moira Gunn calls Keen out at about 7:00 into the interview arguing that children have better BS detectors than adults because of the myriad of information sources and since they spend more time online “hanging out” with friends on social networking sites. It is older people who actually fall victims to believing everything they read, possibly since they grew up with traditional media as an authority. I agree; kids are a lot smarter than adults like to give them credit for.

Update 4/13/08:
I like what Kevin Kelly is saying, that anyone who’s job has been aided by a computer is accepting of new ways computers can replace themselves even further. Theses peopled have been “Turing’d,” a reference to computer scientist Alan Turing.

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The first book in what as become a long series of books about the changing media and business strategy landscape was that I took an interest in was Naked Conversations around the time hit the shelves in January 2006. I found out about it because by I been following Steve Ruble at MicroPersuasions which I discovered from TechCrunch, which I found from a Google search around the first couple weeks that it (TechCunch) launched. I had gotten to know who Robert Scoble was around March 2005. I had heard so much about this book from blogs building up to its release date, and I was curious to read about what they had to say. I think is was after this time that I found Shel Israel’s blog. If had committed to subscribing to a feed and reading posts everyday, it was easy to make the transition to buying blog author’s book or a book recommended by a trusted blogger.

Sometimes I tend to notice books in pairs. The World Is Flat and Freakonomics are one pair that comes to mind. Not only were they mentioned on a lot of blogs, but they were also best sellers. I can’t say it was any one particular post or blogger that got me interested in these two, but the buzz was enough. I bought TWIF Expanded Edition on CD. I bought the Freakonomics from Audible.com an received the hard copy as a gift.

The same with The Tipping Point and Blink. These I paired because they are by the same author, Malcolm Gladwell who I took an interest in after hearing a couple of his talks on ITConversations: Human Nature from Pop!Tech 2004 and his SXSW 2005 Keynote. He did one of these talks he did for free. As a result of this talk, he went on to become one of the most in-demand speakers for tradeshows, conferences, and corporate presentations in the pas couple years, not to mention selling books to those who want to hear more about his ideas on how ideas spread(The Tipping Point) and how people make decisions (Blink).

Naked Conversations mentioned many times that The Cluetrain Manifesto was its catalyst, so I had to check that one out, not to mention Tara Hunt‘s repeated references to it. This lead me to discover Doc Searls (one of the authors of Cluetrain) and his blogs.

When I discovered that Steve Rubel was doing a podcast back around November 2005 called Across the Sound, I just had to check it out. That is when I discovered Joseph Jaffe and his book Life After the 30-Second Spot. Rubel did the podcast for about 5 or 10 episodes with Jaffe and then he decided to spend time with other projects.

From Jaffe, I was turned on to Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell, authors of Creating Customer Evangelists, and then to John Moore author of (check out the TribalKnowledg blog and the 47 Tribal Truths). John Moore’s blog is where I first read about Mavericks at Work from this post and I picked up the hard copy and Audible.com versions soon after.

Eric Mattson of the Marketing Monger Podcast turned me on to Jeremiah Owyang. Jeremiah is one of my favorite bloggers on the topic of marketing and social media, so when Jeremiah suggested The Starfish and the Spider, I just had to check it out. Jeremiah pointed to Ben Casnocha’s blog where he has reviewed many business books. Jeremiah also pointed to Jennifer Jones’s interview with Seth Godin on his book Small is the New Big a couple months after I read it. One of the many podcast and blog mentions of this book was the Joseph Jaffe’s interview with Seth. This book is a collection of blog posts and columns Seth wrote for magazines on the changing face of advertising, marketing, and strategy.

Blue Ocean Strategy is another book that I cannot say there was one place I saw it that lead me to believe it would be a good read. I have the hard copy as well as an Audible.com download.

Besides all of the blog hype that had been building up for a year around Chris Anderson‘s The Long Tail, one moment where I definitely could not wait to get the book was after hearing his talk on IT Conversations titled The Economics of the Long Tail. The Long Tail and The Wisdom of Crowds are another set of books that I pair together in my mind, maybe because I read (listened) to them around the same time. What really got me turned on to The Wisdom of Crowds was James Surowiecki’s talk at SXSW 2006. I do not have the hard copies of either of these, just the Audible.com downloads.

When I first blogged about books I found through blogs and podcasts, Todd at 800CEORead blog linked to it. That was the first time I had heard of the 800CEORead blog. When I went to read other posts at this great blog, I noticed a post about a book that talked about the different strategies of XM and Sirius. It was Get Back in the Box by Douglas Rushkoff. I found this title intriguing since recent conventional wisdom was to think “outside of the box.” When Rushkoff popped up again in and episode of Boing Boing’s Get Illuminated podcast, I knew there must be something to him and his book so I bought it and could not stop reading it. I think this is definitely my favorite out of all of my recent reads. It is about how some companies have wandered so far outside of their core competencies that they are no longer doing what they did best. This had some of the most diverse ideas out of all of my recent reads. Another book mention on the BoingBoing’s Get Immuminated podcast is Stven E. Landsburg More Sex is Safer Sex:The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics. I am also interested in David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous and Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert because of these two BoingBoing posts.

IT Conversations has been the source of many book purchases and whishlist additions (as mentioned above). Moira Gunn’s show TechNation (featured on IT Conversation) if a great place for me to hear book recommendations as interviews with the authors, most of which are right up my alley. Her interviewed Gerd Leonhard, author of The Future of Music prompted me to find that I was able to download the first 5 chapters as a podcast at the books blog. This prompted me to add it to my Amazon wishlist and it was ten purchased for me as a gift. I downloaded Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath from Audible.com minutes after hearing Moira interview Chip. In her interview with Peter Navarro on The Coming China Wars (ITC interview part 1 and ITC interview part 2). I added it to my Audible.com wishlist. Next was an interview Robert Sutton on his book The No Asshole Rule along with a review on Guy Kawasaki’s blog along with an interactive self test. I purchased this book at Audible.com. Next, Moira interviewed Nassim Taleb on his book The Black Swan which sounds fascinating, so I added to my Amazon wishlist. On Open Source Conversations (an IT Conversations Channel) I was turned on to Scott Rosneberg’s talk on his book Dreaming in Code about how designing and programming the perfect software application can a nightmare. Phil Windley interviewed Howard Moskowitz about his book Selling Blue Elephants on how to manipulate the senses with the right product design. I added it to my Amazon wishlist. Another talk heard on ITC was by Richard Florida at Pop!Tech 2004, author of Rise of The Creative Class. I added it to my wishlist and it was purchased for me as a gift. My last audiobook purchases was The End of Faith by Sam Harris because of his talk at Pop!Tech 2005 on It Conversations.

Brian Oberkirch‘s podcast is another cool source for book recommendations. First was an interview with Michael Ryanor about this book The Strategy Paradox. Guy Kawasaki interviewed him as well. On the SXSW 2007 podcast I was awestruck by Tim Ferriss talk on his outlook on life regarding how to beat the 9-5 system and get your life back, The Four Hour Work Week. He was then interviews on Brian’s podcast a couple days later. I downloaded the Audible.com version that same day and then bought the hardcopy book a couple of days later. Going back to Guy Kawasaki, he recommended Elegant Solution by Matthew May which I am reading currently.

The ChangeThis Manifesto is the site to find out about books that dissect the massive changes going on in culture, media, and business strategy. They have short, free PDFs, some of which are by authors of newly released books that either sum-up the book or focus on one key point of the book. Almost every author that writes a ChangeThis Manifesto is one who’s books’ subject is right up my alley. One of the most popular is Rajesh Shetty‘s 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself where he suggests Let’s Get Real or Lets Not Play by Mahan Khalsa, a great book on negotiating sales. I have both the Audible.com and hard copy versions.

Thanks to this episode of The Negotiation Tip of the Week podcast, I was turned-on to Beyond Reason by Daniel Shapiro and Roger Fisher, featuring an interview with Shapiro.

After writing a post about Seth Godin, a representative from Allworth Press left a blog comment about a book on a similar topic, Brandjam by Marc Gobé. I managed to get them to send me a copy. I have not yet read it, but the ideas are pretty solid. It features a lot of examples of stuff people are talking about in the marketing blogosphere, and documents some great examples of things like user generated content and “design is the new marketing/advertising,” but he was not on my radar otherwise becuase he was not leveraging social media in the way the rest of these authors are. The book does have plenty of Technorati mentions but there is no blog at his company site dga.com. Maybe he does not need the blog mentions as much as the others?

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Guy Kawasaki and Malcolm Gladwell both started blogging this year, and have significant readership. This allows for an ongoing conversation that the author with readers, the readers with each other, and the readers with the authors. There is no easier way to keep the author’s ideas expressed in the book fresh in the minds of his or her readers. When the author announces a new book, it is almost guaranteed that at least 25% of the readers will buy the book within the first month. I am basing this is number is based on 37 Signal’s readership, and how many Getting Real e-books they sold in the first month of the release, (around 19,000 blog subscribers at that time of this post according to their FeedBurner stats) with the only marketing being a blog post and a sub domain page on their site, and enthusiastic readers’ word of mouth.

Malcolm Gladwell blogs to point out new examples of the points he made in his books Blink and The Tipping Point. As do As do Guy Kawasaki regarding startups, as does and Seath Goodin regarding marketing, as does Joseph Jaffe regarding new marketing. In the case of Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, they used a blog to introduce the ideas of blogging in a book they wrote, and then continue to point out new examples of the points in their book as news items break.

Almost every book I have purchased in the last year was because of blog buzz. Only one was based on Amazon ratings and reviews. Some are because I read the author’s blog, others are because the books keep coming up in the conversation in various blogs. Or could it just be that these books just happen to be popular with blog readers?

Books I have purchased from being influenced by the author or the book in blogs/podcasts (I am not going to link to my Amazon affiliate links because I want to make a genuine point in this post, and do not want it to appear that I am doing this for the commission):
-Naked Conversations, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
-Life After the 30 Second Spot, Joseph Jaffe
-Ruby Programming, Dave Thomas, Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt
-Agile Development in Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson, Tomas Hunt
-Learn to Program, Chris Pine
-The Pragmatic Programmer, Andy Hunt, Dave Thomas
-The World Is Flat, Thomas Freidman
-Getting Real, 37 Signals
-Defensive Web Design, 37 Signals

Future book purchase from being influenced by the author or the book in blogs/podcasts:
-The Tipping Point, Malcolm Glawell
-Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
-Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
-The Clutrain Manifesto, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger
-Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida
-The Ten Faces of Innovation, Thomas Kelley
-Creating Customer Evangelists, Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell

One thing to note is that I did not first hear about them, nor was I marketed to about them by any traditional means such as TV, newspapers, magazines, or radio. It was all through reading blogs (by the authors in some cases), and in many cases, hearing the author speak in a podcast. I am wondering whether it is more blogs or Amazon reviews that are influencing blog readers to buy a given book.

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