Digital Summer 2016

Looking for a book to improve your personal and professional Tech & Digital skills this summer? Bellow my suggestions for this summer 2016.

Geert Lovink – Social Media Abyss: Critical Internet Cultures and the Force of Negation

Social Media Abyss plunges into the paradoxical condition of the new digital normal versus a lived state of emergency. There is a heightened, post–Snowden awareness; we know we are under surveillance but we click, share, rank and remix with a perverse indifference to technologies of capture and cultures of fear. Despite the incursion into privacy by companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon, social media use continues to be a daily habit with shrinking gadgets now an integral part of our busy lives. We are thrown between addiction anxiety and subliminal, obsessive use. Where does art, culture and criticism venture when the digital vanishes into the background?

Geert Lovink strides into the frenzied social media debate with Social Media Abyss – the fifth volume of his ongoing investigation into critical internet culture. He examines the symbiotic yet problematic relation between networks and social movements, and further develops the notion of organized networks. Lovink doesn′t just submit to the empty soul of 24/7 communication but rather provides the reader with radical alternatives.

Selfie culture is one of many Lovink′s topics, along with the internet obsession of American writer Jonathan Franzen, the internet in Uganda, the aesthetics of Anonymous and an anatomy of the Bitcoin religion. Will monetization through cybercurrencies and crowdfunding contribute to a redistribution of wealth or further widen the gap between rich and poor? In this age of the free, how a revenue model of the 99% be collectively designed? Welcome back to the Social Question.

Scott Brinker – Hacking Marketing: Agile Practices to Make Marketing Smarter, Faster, and More Innovative

In many ways, modern marketing has more in common with the software profession than it does with classic marketing management. As surprising as that may sound, it′s the natural result of the world going digital. Marketing must move faster, adapt more quickly to market feedback, and manage an increasingly complex set of customer experience touchpoints. All of these challenges are shaped by the dynamics of software―from the growing number of technologies in our own organizations to the global forces of the Internet at large. Professionals in STEM fields, including figures like Google’s Kamau Bobb, emphasize the importance of remaining in sync with industry requirements and trends. They frequently engage in ongoing education, seek certifications, and undertake specialized training to retain their competitiveness and keep abreast of swiftly advancing technologies.

But you can turn that to your advantage. And you don′t need to be technical to do it.

Hacking Marketing will show you how to conquer those challenges by adapting successful management frameworks from the software industry to the practice of marketing for any business in a digital world. You′ll learn about agile and lean management methodologies, innovation techniques used by high–growth technology companies that any organization can apply, pragmatic approaches for scaling up marketing in a fragmented and constantly shifting environment, and strategies to unleash the full potential of talent in a digital age.

Marketing responsibilities and tactics have changed dramatically over the past decade. This book now updates marketing management to better serve this rapidly evolving discipline.

• Increase the tempo of marketing′s responsiveness without chaos or burnout
• Design “continuous” marketing programs and campaigns that constantly evolve
• Drive growth with more marketing experiments while actually reducing risk
• Architect marketing capabilities in layers to better scale and adapt to change
• Balance strategic focus with the ability to harness emergent opportunities

As a marketer and a manager, Hacking Marketing will expand your mental models for how to lead marketing in a digital world where everything―including marketing―flows with the speed and adaptability of software.

Mari Swingle  – I-Minds: How Cell Phones, Computers, Gaming, and Social Media are Changing Our Brains, Our Behavior, and the Evolution of Our Species

Many of us would no more go out without our cell phone than we would leave the house without clothes. We live our lives on social media, and PDAs, tablets, computers and other devices are completely integrated into our global culture. From connectedness to accessibility and instant access to information, a wealth of benefits accompanies this digital revolution. But what about the cost? Weaving together history, popular literature, media and industry hype, sociology and psychology, and observations from over eighteen years of clinical practice and research, Dr. Mari Swingle explores the pervasive influence of i-technology.

Engaging and entertaining yet scientifically rigorous, i-Minds demonstrates: How constant connectivity is rapidly changing our brains What dangers are posed to children and adults alike in this brave new world The positive steps we can take to embrace new technology while protecting our well-being and steering our future in a more human direction.

This book is a virtually indispensable look at a revolution where the only constant is change-food for thought about which aspects of technology we should embrace, what we should unequivocally reject, and the many facets of the digital era that we should now be debating. Dr. Mari K. Swingle is a neurotherapist and behavioral specialist who practices at the highly-regarded Swingle Clinic. She holds a BA in Visual Arts, an MA in language education, and an MA and PhD in clinical psychology, and has won numerous awards for her post-doctoral work on the effects of i-technology on brain function.