Beach Haven

THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE
By Tracy Kidder
Back Bay Books, 2000, 293 pages

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The work is a tale of an upstart computer company taking on the big boys. Specifically, in the early 1980s Data General Corp (DGC) created a minicomputer as the market was just taking off. Giant IBM was left in the lurch as they concentrated on large-scale super-computers. This book traces the conception, design and build of the Eclipse model (internally called the Eagle). Kidder also speaks to the technology that led to the possibility of a minicomputer, the microchip.

Internal politics, the cult of personality, and subterfuge are just a few of the story lines traced in this work. Just as fascinating is what happens after the model becomes a hit. Sales and Marketing take over and the engineers based in Massachusetts who created the asset suddenly have no direction in their careers. Along the way there is an interesting combination of cooperation and competition between the hardware chip designers, and the micro-code firmware writers. Aside from this mini-competition, and the strategic competition with the likes of IBM, there is an intermediate layer race as well. An entirely different group of engineers at DGC in South Carolina were working on a different model. The other group was well funded while the Eagle group were scraped together by a few tenacious leaders.

​The work is a fascinating look into an industry and culture most of us only vaguely aware of. Despite how much technology is discussed, Kidder is able to make it understandable for the rest of us.

​FORCES OF PRODUCTION
A Social History of Industrial Automation
By David F. Noble
Transaction Publishers, 2011, 409 pages

In Forces of Production, Noble notes the belief that technological progress is thought by some to mean social progress. In fact, he argues that “progress” is determined by who is setting the goals and expectations. If change moves an organization closer to the stated goal then it is dubbed progress.

In this light, technology is a tool to move an organization towards a goal, but it is not the driving force in determining the goal. One example given are the chapters around the adoption of numerical control (NC) and the non-adoption of record-playback (RP) methods of automated machining. NC is more complicated and requires a planning and programming set of skills that are different from the skills of a machinist. RP depends, at least initially, on the skills of a machinist to record the moves to be replicated by the machine.

Despite many drawbacks, management saw NC as progress and RP as a step backwards. Why? Noble notes that one goal of management, if not the goal, is to reduce dependence on skilled labor. The desired outcome would be to lower cost and increase management’s control over what happens in the shop. NC pushes control away from machinists. RP requires a machinist. Labor, he argues, saw NC as the opposite of progress since it reduced the strength of the laborer and labor unions in negotiation with management. Noble argues convincingly that technology is not a problem or a solution. Problems and solutions are political, moral, and cultural. Technology is one tool to help clarify and resolve both the problems and solutions.


Like other works I have reviewed, Noble makes a strong argument against technological determinism. In fact, he almost speaks as if technology is really a minor, or at least secondary, part of the story. Technology in his examples is an enabling or disabling factor in the goals and decisions of the actors.

His approach seems to start each chapter with the generalized positions, then give a number of specific examples. At the end of each chapter he restates the arguments linked to the specific examples in the chapter. The technology examined is very specific, automation of machining parts, and primarily aircraft parts. In fact, automation was also being implemented in other industries at the same time which he alludes to once. This approach is not unlike at least a portion of the David Hounshell work reviewed in a past review posting (http://bhaven.org/reviews/american-system-to-mass-production). In that reading the argument was about movement from skilled manual labor toward mechanization, though not automation per se. In the Hounshell work several different industries are looked at in the beginning, but eventually the focus moves to sewing machine manufacturing.


There are plenty of good examples and specifics that support the arguments made by Noble. In deed, at times perhaps there are too many arguments shared. For example in the section about why RP was not adopted it seems like many more people or organizations are quoted than in any other portion of the book. It appears that Noble “sides with” the proponents of RP because he quotes so many of them. It felt a little like he was piling on. He at times offers other motives by management for adopting automation such as lowering costs, increasing productivity, being more competitive. Unfortunately these motives seem minimized throughout the text to a point where these might be only viewed as positives by management because they support the real motives, control and power.

In the end, the epilogue, Noble's arguments seem more balanced. He refocuses on the topic of technology and its relationship to the idea of progress. Clearly the motives of management and labor go to defining progress, and it is how Noble helps clarify that technology is a means and not an end. The work as a whole could appeal to varying interests. It could help clarify the topic for historians, students of business and labor movements, sociologists, and political scientists.

There were portions I found enlightening. For example during WWII when the image we have these days shows the nation united in purpose, Rosie the Riveter taking care of the home front while “our boys” were fighting evil. Yet in reality there were large numbers of strikes, lockouts and other sorts of work stoppages. The responses by FDR were telling of the thought process of the day, that led directly to the later hunting for “anti-American activities” by Congress. World competition between democracy/free enterprise and socialism/communism were and are real, but seeing communism as the force behind every ill made resolution of the problems difficult. Policy makers could take note from this linkages of technology with academia, industry and politics. Economists might also find the financial ties between government, academia and industry worth consideration. 

​​THE ATTENTION MERCHANTS
By Tim Wu
Alfred A. Knopf, 2016, 403 pages
Reviewed by Michael Beach
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This tome is subtitled The Epic Scramble to get Inside Our Heads. The focus is on how advertisers seek to gain space inside our collective and individual psyche. The ultimate goal is to encourage our economical behavior. This history looks a patterns starting with the original "snake-oil salesmen" to the modern use of social networks and other online tools. 

Whether the merchants chase us with the hard sell or the soft sell, in the end, the goods and services are not what they are selling. Actually, we are the product that advertisers are selling to providers of goods and services. There has always been an element of "fake news" involved in claims made by some advertisers about the benefits of their products. It is also true that part of the intent of advertising is to convince us of needs we have we didn't know we needed before it was pointed out to us in enticing ways. 

The book is an interesting look into motives, psychology, and methods of those who seek to convince us to spend our hard-earned money in specific ways.

​​THE FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS OF A TEAM
By Patrick Lencioni
Jossey-Bass, 2002, 229 pages
​Reviewed by Michael Beach
 
The work, subtitled A Leadership Fable, uses a fictitious company CEO replacement based on poor company performance to show common leadership issues. The new CEO brings in a fresh approach to how strategic decisions will be made going forward. Some of the leadership adjust, some don’t. Those that can’t adjust to the new approach leave, or are asked to leave.
 
The dysfunctions center on trust and honesty among members of the C-suite. They are depicted as a pyramid. The list starting from the bottom of the pyramid and ascending to the top are: Absence of Trust, Fear of Conflict, Lack of Commitment, Avoidance of Accountability, and Inattention to Results. Lencioni makes the argument that each item in the pyramid links to, or fosters, the one just above it. The “fable” depicts attitudes, reactions, and interactions among the various C-team members and the positive and negative effects that result.
 
The last section of the book gives some suggested ways to approach the five dysfunctions. There is a follow on volume that more deeply addresses how to overcome them. That’ll likely be a future read for me.