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Putt's Law
''Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat'' is a book, credited to the pseudonym Archibald Putt, published in 1981. An updated edition, subtitled ''How to Win in the Information Age'', was published by Wiley-IEEE Press in 2006. The book is based upon a series of articles published in ''Research/Development Magazine'' in 1976 and 1977. It proposes Putt's Law and Putt's Corollary which are principles of negative selection similar to The Dilbert principle proposed by Scott Adams in the 1990s. Putt's law is sometimes grouped together with the Peter principle, Parkinson's Law and Stephen Potter's Gamesmanship series as "P-literature". Putt's Law The book proposes Putt's Law and Putt's Corollary In mathematics and logic, a corollary ( , ) is a theorem of less importance which can be readily deduced from a previous, more notable statement. A corollary could, for instance, be a proposition which is incidentally proved while proving another ... * Putt's Law: "''Technology is domin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wiley-IEEE Press
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in print and electronically, as well as online products and services, training materials, and educational materials for undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students. History The company was established in 1807 when Charles Wiley opened a print shop in Manhattan. The company was the publisher of 19th century American literary figures like James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as of legal, religious, and other non-fiction titles. The firm took its current name in 1865. Wiley later shifted its focus to scientific, technical, and engineering subject areas, abandoning its literary interests. Wiley's son John (born in Flatbush, New York, October 4, 1808; died in East Orange, New ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hardcover
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as case-bound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occasionally leather). It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk. Hardcover books are often printed on acid-free paper, and they are much more durable than paperbacks, which have flexible, easily damaged paper covers. Hardcover books are marginally more costly to manufacture. Hardcovers are frequently protected by artistic dust jackets, but a "jacketless" alternative has increased in popularity: these "paper-over-board" or "jacketless" hardcover bindings forgo the dust jacket in favor of printing the cove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's own. Many pseudonym holders use pseudonyms because they wish to remain anonymous, but anonymity is difficult to achieve and often fraught with legal issues. Scope Pseudonyms include stage names, user names, ring names, pen names, aliases, superhero or villain identities and code names, gamer identifications, and regnal names of emperors, popes, and other monarchs. In some cases, it may also include nicknames. Historically, they have sometimes taken the form of anagrams, Graecisms, and Latinisations. Pseudonyms should not be confused with new names that replace old ones and become the individual's full-time name. Pseudonyms are "part-time" names, used only in certain contexts – to provide a more clear-cut separation between o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative Selection (politics)
Negative selection is a political process that occurs especially in rigid hierarchies, most notably dictatorships, but also to lesser degrees in such settings as corporations or electoral politics. The person(s) on the top of the hierarchy, wishing to remain in power forever, chooses their associates with the prime criterion of incompetence; they must not be competent enough to remove the leader from power. Since subordinates often mimic their leader, these associates do the same with those below them in the hierarchy, and the hierarchy becomes progressively filled over time with more and more incompetent people. If the leader sees that they are threatened nonetheless, they will purge those that threaten them from their positions. Emptied positions in the hierarchy are normally filled with people from below—those who were less competent than their previous leaders. So over the course of time, the hierarchy turns less and less effective. Once the leader dies, or is removed b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dilbert Principle
The Dilbert principle is a satirical concept of management developed by Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip ''Dilbert'', which states that companies tend to promote incompetent employees to management to minimize their ability to harm productivity. The Dilbert principle is inspired by the Peter principle, which is that employees are promoted based on success until they attain their "level of incompetence" and are no longer successful. By the Dilbert principle, employees who were never competent are promoted to management to limit the damage they can do. Adams first explained the principle in a 1995 ''Wall Street Journal'' article, and elaborated upon it in his humorous 1996 book ''The Dilbert Principle''. Definition In the ''Dilbert'' comic strip of February 5, 1995, Dogbert says that "leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow". Adams himself explained, I wrote ''The Dilbert Principle'' around the concept that in many cases the least competent, le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scott Adams
Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is an American author and cartoonist. He is the creator of the syndicated ''Dilbert'' comic strip, and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, and business. ''Dilbert'' gained national prominence during the downsizing period in 1990s America and reached a worldwide audience. Adams worked in various business roles before he became a full-time cartoonist in 1995. He writes in a satirical, often sarcastic way about the social and psychological landscape of white-collar workers in modern corporations. In addition Adams has written books in various other areas, including the spiritual experiment ''God's Debris'' encapsulating a form of pandeism, and books on political and management topics, including '' Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter''. Early life Adams was born in 1957 in Windham, New York, the son of Paul and Virginia (née Vining) Adams. He is of half-German descent and also has English, Iris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Principle
The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another. The concept was explained in the 1969 book ''The Peter Principle'' (William Morrow and Company) by Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull. (Hull wrote the text, based on Peter's research.) Peter and Hull intended the book to be satire, but it became popular as it was seen to make a serious point about the shortcomings of how people are promoted within hierarchical organizations. The Peter Principle has since been the subject of much commentary and research. Summary The Peter principle states that a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills. If the promoted person lac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Potter
Stephen Meredith Potter (1 February 1900 – 2 December 1969) was a British writer best known for his parodies of self-help books, and their film and television derivatives. After leaving school in the last months of the First World War he was commissioned as a junior officer in the British Army, but by the time he had completed his training the war was over and he was demobilised. He then studied English at Oxford, and after some false starts he spent his early working life as an academic, lecturing in English literature at Birkbeck College, part of the University of London, during which time he published several works on Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Finding his income inadequate to support himself and his family, he left the university and took up a post producing and writing for the BBC. He remained with the BBC until after the Second World War, when he became a freelance writer, and remained so for the rest of his life. His series of humorous books on how to secure an unfair ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gamesmanship
Gamesmanship is the use of dubious (although not technically illegal) methods to win or gain a serious advantage in a game or sport. It has been described as "Pushing the rules to the limit without getting caught, using whatever dubious methods possible to achieve the desired end". It may be inferred that the term derives from the idea of playing for the game (i.e., to win at any cost) as opposed to sportsmanship, which derives from the idea of playing for sport. The term was popularized by Stephen Potter's humorous 1947 book, ''The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship (or the Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating)''. It had, however, been used before by Ian Coster in his autobiographic book ''Friends in Aspic'', published in 1939, where it was attributed to Francis Meynell. Alleged origins Potter cites the origin of gamesmanship to be a tennis match [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corollary
In mathematics and logic, a corollary ( , ) is a theorem of less importance which can be readily deduced from a previous, more notable statement. A corollary could, for instance, be a proposition which is incidentally proved while proving another proposition; it might also be used more casually to refer to something which naturally or incidentally accompanies something else (e.g., violence as a corollary of revolutionary social changes). Overview In mathematics, a corollary is a theorem connected by a short proof to an existing theorem. The use of the term ''corollary'', rather than ''proposition'' or ''theorem'', is intrinsically subjective. More formally, proposition ''B'' is a corollary of proposition ''A'', if ''B'' can be readily deduced from ''A'' or is self-evident from its proof. In many cases, a corollary corresponds to a special case of a larger theorem, which makes the theorem easier to use and apply, even though its importance is generally considered to be secondary t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1981 Non-fiction Books
Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensive, gaining control of most of Morazán and Chalatenango departments. * January 15 – Pope John Paul II receives a delegation led by Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa at the Vatican. * January 20 – Iran releases the 52 Americans held for 444 days, minutes after Ronald Reagan is sworn in as the 40th President of the United States, ending the Iran hostage crisis. * January 21 – The first DeLorean automobile, a stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors, rolls off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. * January 24 – An earthquake of magnitude in Sichuan, China, kills 150 people. Japan suffers a less serious earthquake on the same day. * January 25 – In South Africa the largest part of the town Laingsburg i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
