Innovation is the hottest buzzword in business. But what if its benefits has been exaggerated, and our obsession with finding the next big thing has distracted us from the work that matters most? It's hard to avoid innovation these days. Nearly every product gets marketed as being disruptive, whether it's a new technology or a new toothbrush. But in this manifesto on the state of American work, historians of technology Lee Vinsel and Andrew Russell argue that our focus on shiny new things has made us poorer, less safe, and--ironically--less innovative. Drawing on years of original research and reporting, Russell and Vinsel show how our fixation on innovation has harmed every corner of the economy. Corporations have spent millions hiring chief innovation officers while their core businesses tanked. Computer science programs have focused on programming and development even though the overwhelming majority of jobs are in IT and maintenance. Suburban sprawl has saddled cities with expensive infrastructure and piles of deferred maintenance that they can't afford to fix. And sometimes, innovation even kills--like in 2018, when a Miami bridge hailed for its innovative design collapsed onto a highway and killed six people. Vinsel and Russell tell the at-times humorous, at-times alarming story of how we devalued the work that keeps our world going--and in so doing, wrecked our economy, left our public infrastructure derelict, and lined the pockets of consultants who combine the ego of Silicon Valley with the worst of Wall Street's greed. They offer a compelling plan for how we can shift our focus in resources away from the pursuit of growth at all costs, and back toward the people and technologies underpinning so much of modern life. For anyone concerned by the crumbling state of our roads, bridges, and airports, and the direction our economy is headed, The Innovation Delusion is a deeply necessary re-evaluation of a trend we can still disrupt.

The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most

Business & Money

Russell, Andrew L.

Vinsel, Lee

Economics

Crown Currency

Open Standards and the Digital Age: History, Ideology, And Networks (Cambridge Studies in the Emergence of Global Enterprise)

How did openness become a foundational value for the networks of the twenty-first century? Open Standards and the Digital Age answers this question through an interdisciplinary history of information networks that pays close attention to the politics of standardization. For much of the twentieth century, information networks such as the monopoly Bell System and the American military's Arpanet were closed systems subject to centralized control. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, engineers in the United States and Europe experimented with design strategies to create new digital networks. In the process, they embraced discourses of "openness" to describe their ideological commitments to entrepreneurship, technological innovation, and participatory democracy. The rhetoric of openness has flourished - for example, in movements for open government, open source software, and open access publishing - but such rhetoric also obscures the ways the Internet and other "open" systems still depend heavily on hierarchical forms of control.

Open Standards and the Digital Age: History, Ideology, and Networks (Cambridge Studies in the Emergence of Global Enterprise)

History

Americas

Cambridge University Press

How did openness become a foundational value for the networks of the twenty-first century? Open Standards and the Digital Age answers this question through an interdisciplinary history of information networks that pays close attention to the politics of standardization. For much of the twentieth century, information networks such as the monopoly Bell System and the American military's Arpanet were closed systems subject to centralized control. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, engineers in the United States and Europe experimented with design strategies to create new digital networks. In the process, they embraced discourses of "openness" to describe their ideological commitments to entrepreneurship, technological innovation, and participatory democracy. The rhetoric of openness has flourished - for example, in movements for open government, open source software, and open access publishing - but such rhetoric also obscures the ways the Internet and other "open" systems still depend heavily on hierarchical forms of control.

Circuits, Packets, and Protocols: Entrepreneurs and Computer Communications, 1968-1988 (Association for Computing Machinery)

As recently as 1968, computer scientists were uncertain how best to interconnect even two computers. The notion that within a few decades the challenge would be how to interconnect millions of computers around the globe was too far-fetched to contemplate. Yet, by 1988, that is precisely what was happening. The products and devices developed in the intervening years--such as modems, multiplexers, local area networks, and routers--became the linchpins of the global digital society. How did such revolutionary innovation occur? This book tells the story of the entrepreneurs who were able to harness and join two factors: the energy of computer science researchers supported by governments and universities, and the tremendous commercial demand for Internetworking computers. The centerpiece of this history comes from unpublished interviews from the late 1980s with over 80 computing industry pioneers, including Paul Baran, J.C.R. Licklider, Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn, Larry Roberts, and Robert Metcalfe. These individuals give us unique insights into the creation of multi-billion dollar markets for computer-communications equipment, and they reveal how entrepreneurs struggled with failure, uncertainty, and the limits of knowledge.

Circuits, Packets, and Protocols: Entrepreneurs and Computer Communications, 1968-1988 (ACM Books)

Computers & Technology

Pelkey, James L

Robbins, Loring G

Networking & Cloud Computing

ACM Books

Review\nA marvelous and 
personal exploration of a poorly documented period in the history of data 
communication! I lived through it and re-lived it in these interviews and 
narrative.--Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer\nCircuits, Packets, 
& Protocols is full of revelations for me even though I was there. Never 
had it explained so clearly how my distributed computing strategy was the wrong 
one for 3Com in the 1980s.--Bob Metcalfe, Ethernet Inventor\nCircuits, Packets, 
& Protocols is not all about "winners" but includes the story of "losers" 
as well, and what can be learned from failures as well as successes. If you 
wonder whether there was a one-time confluence of events that brought us to the 
Digital Age, or a pattern we can learn from and pursue, this book will help you 
decide.--Elizabeth (Jake) Feinler\nThe key technologies 
that brought us our modern networked society--routers, packet switching, 
multiplexers, Internet protocols--were all invented by people in the short 
period between 1968 and 1988. James Pelkey interviewed these people at that 
time and recorded their stories. This book is the result: a detailed and 
up-close personal history of a world being born. Fascinating.--W. Brian Arthur\nThe Internet didn't 
happen overnight. It was the product of a set of quiet and diverse engineering 
efforts that took place over two decades long before the Internet became 
America's digital Main St. Circuits, Packets, & Protocols tells that 
story.--John Markoff\nCircuits, Packets, and Protocols tells the story of the engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, and visionaries who laid the groundwork and built the foundations of the Internet. 
In the late 1960s, two American corporate behemoths were poised to dominate the rapidly converging industries of computing and communications--the computer giant, IBM, and the regulated telecommunications monopoly, AT&T. But in 1968, a key ruling by the Federal Communications Commission gave small businesses a doorway into an emerging market for communication devices that could transmit computer data over telephone lines. In the two decades that followed, an industry of networking technology emerged that would impact human history in profound and unfathomable ways. Circuits, Packets, and Protocols is a groundbreaking study of the men and women in the engineering labs, board rooms, and regulatory agencies whose decisions determined the evolution of our modern digital communication networks. 
Unlike histories that glorify the dominant players with the benefit of hindsight, this is a history of a pivotal era as it happened. Drawing on more than 80 interviews recorded in 1988, the book features insights from now-famous individuals such as Paul Baran, JCR Licklider, Vint Cerf, Louis Pouzin, and Robert Metcalfe. Inspired by innovations from government-sponsored Cold War defense projects and the birth of the modern venture capital industry, these trailblazers and many others built the technologies and companies that became essential building blocks in the development of today's Internet. Many of the companies and products failed, even while they helped propel the industry forward at breakneck speed. Equal parts academic history and thrilling startup drama, Circuits, Packets, and Protocols gives the reader a vivid picture of what it was like to take part in one of the most exciting periods of technological advance in our time.

Morgan Claypool

Ada's Legacy: Cultures of Computing from the Victorian to the Digital Age (ACM Books)

Ada's Legacy illustrates the depth and diversity of writers, thinkers, and makers who have been inspired by Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician and writer. The volume, which commemorates the bicentennial of Ada's birth in December 1815, celebrates Lovelace's many achievements as well as the impact of her life and work, which reverberated widely since the late nineteenth century. In the 21st century we have seen a resurgence in Lovelace scholarship, thanks to the growth of interdisciplinary thinking and the expanding influence of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Ada's Legacy is a unique contribution to this scholarship, thanks to its combination of papers on Ada's collaboration with Charles Babbage, Ada's position in the Victorian and Steampunk literary genres, Ada's representation in and inspiration of contemporary art and comics, and Ada's continued relevance in discussions around gender and technology in the digital age. With the 200th anniversary of Ada Lovelace's birth on December 10, 2015, we believe that the timing is perfect to publish this collection of papers. Because of its broad focus on subjects that reach far beyond the life and work of Ada herself, Ada's Legacy will appeal to readers who are curious about Ada's enduring importance in computing and the wider world.

Hammerman, Robin

Computer Science

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