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Photo from my keynote at NETC08 thanks to Jason Young
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"I don't want them to believe me, I just want them to think." - Marshall McLuhan
"It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious." - Alfred North Whitehead
To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found. The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.
Taylor’s 1911 Principles of Scientific Management outlined his basic precepts: (1) Decompose work into tasks, or “elements” and develop “a science” for each one; (2) Select and train workers according to a scientific approach; (3) Create cooperation between workers and managers to ensure the work is being done according to the developed science; and (4) Divide the work between managers and workers, so that each performs the tasks to which they are respectively suited.So why do I recite this history (which is from an unpublished paper of mine, Frederick Taylor is alive and well and living in management process), and what does it have to do with bloggers?
Taylor’s scientific management principles were a result of the need created for “professional managers” when ownership separated from management control in the late nineteenth century. Its apparent effectiveness became legendary worldwide: For the first half of the twentieth century, Taylor’s American "way" of doing business was seen as superior to all others.
Taylor’s methods were applied to even lowly jobs such as loading pigs – standard, 92-pound blocks of iron – into shipping gondolas. Many authors, relate the anecdote of the productivity improvements achieved by encouraging workers at Bethlehem Steel in 1899 to work harder and faster in exchange for a higher daily wage, based on piece-work incentives. Taylor’s pig iron loading experiment is characterized as accomplishing tremendous productivity gains: loading a standard of 45 tons per worker at an incentive-fuelled daily rate of $1.69 – for those that made the quota – compared to the average 12 tons loaded at a fixed daily rate of $1.15. However, Charles Wrege and Richard Hodgetts (2000) investigate this now-fabled justification for scientific management by reviewing some of the original logs and journals kept at the time. They discover that the anecdotes were incomplete as retold by Taylor, and subsequently canonized in management folklore and textbooks.
The deficiencies they identify centre on Taylor’s reporting of productivity gains that occurred only under ideal conditions of pig placement and location, perfect weather conditions, and permission given to the workers to toss the pigs into the gondola cars, rather than stacking them neatly. As one might expected, this resulted in significant damage and shorter life for the cars and therefore, higher overall costs to the company. Additionally, workers choosing incentive pay could not sustain the higher production rates for longer than several days per month because of the physical strain.
The total savings achieved through Taylor’s methods were minimal, compared to a completely non-incentive, “rule-of-thumb” method, and neither included, nor compensated for, the additional costs of gondola damage. Despite the unsurprising fact that none of Bethlehem Steel’s competitors took up Taylor’s approach, his principles entered management folklore as a “best practice” of the time.
Died peacefully of natural causes at her home in Wychwood Park surrounded by her family. She was the beloved and loving wife and confidante of the late Marshall McLuhan (1980); dear sister of the late Carolyn Lewis Weinman (1996); devoted and loving mother of Eric (Sabina Ellis), Mary, Teri, Stephanie (Niels Ortved), Elizabeth (Don Myers), and Michael (Danuta Valleau); proud grandmother of Jennifer Colton Theut, Emily McLuhan Boms, Anna and Andrew McLuhan, Claire and Madeleine McLuhan Myers, Arthur, Mark, and Gwendolyn McLuhan; and great-grandmother of Olivia, Charlotte, and Gillian.
Corinne was known for her beauty, grace, intelligence, wit, and Southern charm. She embraced life fully and enjoyed many rich experiences and wonderful friendships along the way. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Corinne proudly remained an American all her life. She graduated from Texas Christian University and went on to do graduate work in theatre at the leading drama school of the day, Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California. It was there that she met her future husband, Marshall McLuhan, a graduate student at Cambridge University in England, who had travelled to Pasadena to visit his mother, a drama coach at the Playhouse.
The family wishes to extend its heartfelt thanks to Dr. Wendy Brown for her years of unflagging and tender care, and to special caregivers Sally, Bona, Tasie, Amy, and particularly Cynthia, who has stayed at Corinne's side day and night for the last four years. There will be a funeral mass at Holy Rosary Church, 354 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 1:30 p.m. Interment Holy Cross Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to the Turner & Porter Yorke Chapel, 416-767-3153.