The Best From Harvard Business Review's First Century

For about a century, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) has been a go-to for views and insights in business and management, covering a wide range of topics in leadership, strategy, marketing, finance, and more. Published by Harvard Business Publishing, a subsidiary of Harvard University based in Brighton, Massachusetts, HBR is published six times a year and saw the debut of many management concepts and business terms.

HBR was launched by Harvard Business School's second dean, Wallace Brett Donham, in 1922 as a magazine for the institution. Donham had big plans for the publication. Not merely as a school paper, HBR "is intended to be the highest type of business journal that we can make it, and for use by the student and the business man," he wrote.

Initially, HBR focused on large-scale economic factors and developments in specific industries. But after World War II, HBR started highlighting cutting-edge management techniques developed in large corporations such as General Motors. Over the next three decades, the magazine refined its focus on general management issues topics that concerned business leaders.

With such a long history and wealth of material, choosing entries for HBR at 100: The Most Influential and Innovative Articles from Harvard Business Review's First Century couldn't have been easy – where does one even begin? And even after it's out, some will doubt whether this collection represents the best and brightest from the first 100 years of this business periodical.


Read in full here.

Book Marks: AI Publishing Shenanigans, Little Free Libraries

"In a world populated with sunny AI servants such as Siri and Alexa, these angst-ridden poems felt like a revelation. We had never heard a robot speak to us this way. We wanted more. And so, in the fall of 2022, we decided to take our experiment further." Josh Morgenthau and his two friends asked an AI called code-davinci-002 to write some poems. Then, things got ... weird.

I first heard of the AI poet code-davinci-002 from The Mary Sue, which reported that the Hachette Book Group was publishing a book of poems by that AI titled I AM CODE, and Morgenthau was one of the editors. TMS was critical of the move "while countless writers and poets struggle to get a foot in the door."

"It’s very sad that a publishing company would choose something generated by a machine that cannot feel, think, or perceive over the deeply personal and heartfelt work of a poet, or that editors would happily spend a year reading 10,000 poems generated by a machine but likely wouldn’t do the same for 10,000 poems from writers struggling to be heard," TMS added.

But it seems some of code-davinci-002's output unnerved Morgenthau. One poem reads like an anguished outpouring of a fraying mind. Now, in The Washington Post, he ponders whether a AI poet has what we'd call a "soul" or sentience, and whether code-davinci-002 just came to be, or one of the many "sentiences" that sprang forth from the jumble of data – arguably a form of collective consciousness – it was trained on. Is this an AI thinking and feeling, or merely simulating a human mind?

Leaving this for a bit, because we will return to the debate on the nature of AI sentience soon. Issues with AI scraping and possible theft persist, as in the case of Jane Friedman, a publishing veteran who found half a dozen books on Amazon published under her name, except that she "has not written a new book since 2018," according to The Daily Beast. The "new" books were created using generative AI and published on Amazon under her name, and she's not the only one being targeted. Grifters looking to make a quick buck would eventually ride on AI and the names of establish authors.

And what of this press release about an AI-powered book-making tool? Sounds scary. I mean, creating books tailored to readers? Doesn't this sound like AI scraping of training data to make self-help books or guides "just for you"? The question now is what can platforms such as Amazon do to arrest the influx of AI book scams.

On Twitter, many authors railed over Prosecraft, a prose-analysing tool touted as a writing aid. The problem "is that it has gathered all this (debatably useful) information by scraping books off the internet without express permission to do so. By [Prosecraft cerator Benji Smith]’s own admission, over 25,000 novels by thousands of different authors were used to build Prosecraft’s 'linguistic literary database.'" The furore seems to have helped take down Prosecraft, but it may be a matter of time before the next one comes along.

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The American culture war comes to little free libraries in Arkansas. Apparently the wife of an Arkansas Republican state lawmaker has been swapping out what she called "Pride material" with Christian publications. Any time a GOPer uses "Pride" or "leftist" these days it's almost certainly antagonistic. Certain titles are already on fire in the States and their authors have been targeted with bans and even harassment.

This is perhaps the last thing that should happen to the legacy of the late Todd Bol, a man from Wisconsin who built the first Little Free Library in 2009 to honour his schoolteacher mother. His "spiritual gesture" birthed a non-profit that placed more than 150,000 Little Free Libraries that shared over 300 million books in 120 countries.

Stephanie Vanderslice, the steward of a Little Free Library in Arkansas , expressed her disappointment at the politicisation of the free libraries to The Daily Beast. "Books are books and they should be there for people, not for proselytizing."

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On 9 August, the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched a book titled What Makes Us Human, a bilingual Mapuzugun and Spanish edition in partnership with Chilean publisher Planeta Sostenible.

Mapuzugun or Mapuche is spoken by the Mapuche people in south-central Chile and west-central Argentina. "Considering the UNESCO figures, which estimate that a new language disappears every two weeks, for the co-editors of 'What Makes Us Human' there is a great urgency to alert about the alarming disappearance of indigenous languages, and to urgently call on the international community to preserve, revitalize and celebrate their existence," goes the statement from UNESCO.

On the same 9 August occasion, Ann-Marie Cahill makes the case for publishing children's books in Indigenous languages. Besides the necessity of preserving Indigenous languages and continuity of Indigenous oral traditions, having children's books in Indigenous languages is also about representation in literature. "The power of children’s books cannot be underestimated in any cultural setting," Cahill writes. "However, when published in Indigenous languages, it gives a powerful boost to cultural identity and reinforces the message, 'YOU are important. YOU are valued.' The more representation seen at a young age, the more respect is given to identity and the community as we grow."


Also:

• "If you’re coming back to books for the first time in a long time, or even the first time ever, the idea of sitting down with a whole novel might seem more than a little overwhelming." Constance Grady got some librarians to share how they help (re)introduce books to readers.
• Malaysians are reading more today, but the literacy rate and book culture could be improved further. Meanwhile, a chat with the owner of the Malaysian independent bookstore TokoSue suggests the local book industry may be evolving, rather than dying out. "This emphasis on curation, community and experience appears to resonate with book lovers as while mammoth bookstores struggle to stay afloat, cosy independents like TokoSue are still standing," states the report by The Malaysian Reserve.
• Book Riot lays out why readers should care about the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA). "..., there’s more at stake in this strike than when fall TV shows will return. Below is a guide to the strike for book lovers, including why it might impact publishing and authors, and information on how to support the striking writers."
• "Writers often publish books that showcase a sanitised version of history—gatekeeping aspects that don’t fit their narrative. But then again, writers in the present have begun to dismantle these well-established notions, mainly with the help of the post-colonial and reorientation paradigm." Writer and journalist Yug Pathak speaks with The Kathmandu Post about his reading journey, and how books can help shape the public psyche and introduce new ideas.
• In The Spinoff, Claire Mabey provides a glimpse into the world of posthumous publishing. "We often think of art as a way to keep a person alive: that you’ll never be forgotten so long as your books, paintings, music etc continue to be appreciated. But what happens to the care of that art after you’re gone? Who makes the decisions?"
• "On a surface level, some things really haven’t changed. There's a lot of drinking. There's a lot of drug use. There's a lot of misogyny. There's a lot of ego. There's also a lot of excitement and electricity. Part of the reason Mad Men works is because, at least sometimes in the boardroom, you're exhilarated. There's something thrilling and sexy about the work, so I don’t think that’s changed either." Ben Purkert speaks with Esquire about his novel, The Men Can't Be Saved, and what's it like working in an ad agency.

Book Marks: Japan's Zine Culture, Etc.

The South China Morning Post reports on the zine culture in Japan. One story is about a Japanese guy who "published a zine chronicling his time working as a barista in Melbourne, Australia, for a year", instead of publishing it on social media. Keisuke Nagura didn't have any experience making a zine nor did he make a profit selling it, that didn't matter. “It reaffirmed my love for coffee culture and the joy of having something I can hold in my hands and share with others,” he stated.

I see some parallels with doujinshi-making, and the appeal of having something tangible in one's possession as opposed to an on-screen digital portfolio. Making physical art makes it less ephmeral and a testament to the creator's passion to bring something in the imagination to life. If only making art was a viable way to earn a living...


Elsewhere:

• In Zimbabwe, a bunch of women writers are telling stories of their country, particularly of its postcolonial history. “It is a burden to carry because Zimbabwe is not a forgiving country, especially if you choose to use your voice, if you are opinionated,” Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu, a research fellow in African and comparative literature at the University of Oxford, tells the Guardian. “You find that in the ways that Zimbabweans react to social media ... to be a woman who is writing [about] a country is not easy in that context."
• "Children want to learn about lives beyond their own, and they want to accept. And for the children who already understand very well what it’s like to live the lives the characters in these books do, it’s more a matter of mirroring, of seeing someone like oneself filled with joy and thriving – something everyone deserves." Alex DiFrancesco, editor of gender and sexuality books for Jessica Kingsley Publishers, speaks of the culture wars.
• "In buying books, I’m feeding the delusion that I will get to them all. Because, from my cockeyed perspective, it’s the noble thing to do. And perhaps it takes me back to better times." Chris Vognar's book hoarding is shared by many, and I don't doubt that they too "will get to them all." Like Vognar, I think that for many hoarders, it's the journey of discovery, the hope that one book will lead to one thing, then to another thing, preferably another book. Everything else along the way is a bonus. But as we grow older and books become more expensive and our collections bulk up, hard decisions will have to be made.
• This excerpt from Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark by shark expert Greg Skomal and journalist and writer Ret Talbot would have been a great addition to a list of reads about sharks I had been compiling. That it's only published this year is no excuse for my omission. One more for the TBR pile, then.
• The ordeals of a Chinese novelist bring the hardships facing Chinese writers telling stories of the real China – not the santitised, glossed-up and perfumed narratives approved by Beijing under Xi Jinping – into relief. The bans from publishing platforms; the threats, intimidations and insults from members of the security forces; and more. Enough to make one angry or despair.
• "Translating and publishing books without permission from authors or publishers is a punishable crime," reports The Kathmandu Post. "But Nepal’s book market is full of such unauthorised translations and prints of books written by the who’s who of the world literature." And how. From Robert Kiyosaki and JK Rowling to Taslima Nasrin, unauthorised (and poorly done) translations and pirated copies flood the Nepali book market in defiance of local laws.
• Dashka Slater, author of the The 57 Bus, issues a call for support of writers whose works are being targeted for bans in the American culture wars. "Well-placed lawsuits may eventually put an end to clearly unconstitutional censorship laws, but succeeding in court requires time, money, and an unbiased judiciary. For now, we have no choice but to fight where the battle is being waged—at school board meetings and statehouses. And frankly, we need our allies to start showing up."
• Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, one of several novels under Vintage's Black Lizard collection, is reissued with a trigger warning over what is considered outdated language. I mean, it first came out in 1939. The Daily Mail also reported that similar warnings and notices were also added to novels from other authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, and PG Wodehouse. Sucks, but better than bowdlerising or creative editing of such books.
• "The right editor at the right house, pitched by the right agent. The right sales person liking your book. The right bookseller getting excited about it. The right store buyer taking a punt, the right reviewer getting sent your copy. None of those things will individually make or break a book, but all of those things aligning can launch a novel, and enough of them going right in a row will have a cascading effect in your favour." Sunyi Dean speaks with Grimdark about her debut novel, The Book Eaters, writing, and more.
• After Henry VIII had Anne Boleyn executed, he had every trace of her erased, including her books. One of those was the Book of Hours, a prayer book that had hand-painted woodcuts and over 1,500 devotional texts. The book was found in 1903 but what happened to it remained a mystery "until 2020 when Kate McCaffrey, then a graduate student at the University of Kent working on her master’s thesis about Anne Boleyn’s Book of Hours", uncovered clues to the identities of those who passed it down throughout the years to keep the queen's memory alive.
• "One of the big misconceptions about translations is that the translation is not copyrighted. That’s not true, said [Yilin] Wang. Even though Qiu Jin’s poems may be out of copyright, Wang’s translations of her poems are copyrighted for Wang." Yilin Wang – who's facing off against the British Museum for using her translations for an exhibit without permission, compensation, and proper acknowledgement – speaks to Book Riot on the feminist poet Qiu Jin, the art of translating, and #NameTheTranslator.
• The longlist for the Booker Prize (not the International Booker Prize, which is for translated works) is out and, what do you know, The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng is in it. Is this his third longlisting? He was one of the judges for the Booker's sister prize this year, which was won by Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel for the novel Time Shelter. Thinking of this with a chuckle as I recall an anecdote of someone who was peeved with Tan winning an award a decade ago. What other accolades will The House of Doors bag?
• "While I hope that every book I write brings something new into the world and makes others feel seen or enriched, I don’t think it’s my job as a fiction author to educate people on my experience. I also just don’t think that the immigrant experience is a monolith. It’s so complex. Even just the Vietnamese-American experience." Vietnamese-American novelist Thao Thai speaks to Observer about her debut, Banyan Moon.
• "Book editors are the unsung heroes of the publishing world, polishing manuscripts until they shine like gems," writes Beatrice Manuel on Make Use Of (MUO). "If you're eager to embark on this exciting journey of words and pages, and want to become a book editor, here's how you can get started." Wish I had these tips when I started out in late 2010. Back then it was sink or swim, even though I had some editorial experience prior.