Category: 1-7 Star Rating

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Review: Information Space

5 Star, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology

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5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Vital, and On Target Evaluation of InfoSpace,

April 8, 2000
Max Boisot
Together with Edward Wilson's Consilience this is the most structured and focused book in this section, and has real applicability as to how one might organize a truly national (that is to say, not just spy) intelligence community. Written from a transatlantic perspective, integrating the best of American and European thinking in his references, the author addresses the nature of information, its structuring, the dynamics of sharing information, learning cycles, institutional and cultural contexts, and ends with this thought: that we have spent close to a century “de-skilling” the population to suit assembly line needs and now must spend close to a century “re-skilling” the population to deal with complex information tasks where every action and reaction will be unique.
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Review: Who Owns Information?–From Privacy To Public Access

5 Star, Information Society, Intelligence (Public)

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Benchmark–The Post Office Owns Your Name,

April 8, 2000
Anne Wells Branscomb
This is a unique book by a very respected scholar. It methodically goes, chapter by chapter, over who owns your name and address (the U.S. Postal Service does), your telephone number, your medical history, your image, your electronic messages, video entertainment, religious information, computer software, and government information. The answers are not always obvious. A real benchmark.
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Review: The exemplar–The exemplary performer in the age of productivity

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Leadership

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5.0 out of 5 stars Productivity Primer–One of Five Basic Books for InfoAge,

April 8, 2000
Robert R Carkhuff

This book had a profound influence on me, helping me to understand that the functions fulfilled by an employee dealing with “things” are completely distinct from the functions fulfilled by an employee dealing with “ideas”, and that completely different educational, training, management, and compensation models are needed for the new “Gold Collar” worker. From this book I realized that virtually everything we are doing in U.S. education and U.S. personnel management and training today is way off the mark and at least a decade if not two or three decades behind where we could be in human productivity management.

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Review: A World of Secrets–The Uses and Limits of Intelligence

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Best in class textbook for intelligence,

April 8, 2000
Walter Laqueur
I continue to regard this book as one of the best available textbooks for inspiring informed student and entry-level employee discussion about the intelligence professional and its role in supporting policy-making. The author's conclusion, and the “eleven points” he makes regarding the current status and future of intelligence, continue to be an essential contribution to the great debate.
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Review: Informing Statecraft–Intelligence for a New Century

4 Star, Diplomacy, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Strategy

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4.0 out of 5 stars Informing Policy is more important than stealing secrets,

April 8, 2000
Angelo Codevilla

“It is not too gross an exaggeration that when considering any given threat, DIA will overestimate, CIA will underestimate, and INR will blame the U.S. for it.” From his opening chapter and his distinction between static, dynamic, and technical facts, on through a brilliant summary of the post-war spy on page 103 and lengthy sections on how we've gotten it wrong, how we can get it right, and what is needed in the way of reform, I found this book worthy of study. An analyst and political staffer by nature, the strength of this book rests on the premise in the title: that intelligence should be about informing policy, not about collecting secrets for secrets' sake.

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Review: Hackers–Heroes of the Computer Revolution

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Change & Innovation, Culture, Research, Information Society, Information Technology

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Thing–Definitive Early Study,

April 7, 2000
Steven Levy
This is the definitive book on the early hackers, true hackers, and should be required reading for all those people, generally with good intentions, that ignorantly refer to electronic criminals and vandals as “hackers”. Steven starts his book with a “who's who” in hacking that includes Lee Felsenstein from Interval, Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, and Woz Woniak, among others, and then goes on in three parts to examine the original night hackers at MIT and other nodes of excellence, then the hardware hackers, and finally the game hackers. Hackers are a national resource, and it is only the ignorant who do not understand this.
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