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the motivational challenge of corporate success in tech
From The Boy Kings, by Katherine Losse, pg 191-193: The catch for Facebook was that the more successful we became (and we were still, despite all the competition, dominant), the more likely employees were to be distracted by money and the new pastimes it enabled: fine dining, bar hopping, five- star vacations, expensive cars. In…
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structure, culture and agency: selected papers of margaret archer
The Amazon page just went live for this book I’m editing with Tom Brock and Graham Scambler. As well as the titular selected papers, it will include an interview with Archer, an annotated bibliography, a foreword by Doug Porpora and an extended introduction to her work. This edited collection of papers seeks to celebrate the…
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the extremely disturbing dreams of mark zuckerberg
From The Boy Kings, by Katherine Losse, pg 166: Later on, when I was working directly for Mark and charged with the task of interpreting his thoughts for the world, Mark told me that his dream for Facebook was something like this, to make us all cells in a single organism, communicating automatically in spite…
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the turn away from contract labour in the sharing economy
This is an interesting development: there’s clearly an interest served by the announcement but the potential success of this positioning could prove influential if legal challenges to contract labour gain some traction: Shift, an on-demand startup that helps people buy and sell cars, is looking to make employees out of its contract-based labor force. Almost…
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the multiple time regimes within facebook
From The Boys, by Katherine Losse, pg 146: My career upgrade from dungeon department to quasi- technical role meant, along with a better salary and more respect from the technical echelon of the company, that I was now on engineering time. This meant that while I could come to work later, as late as lunchtime,…
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you are always being ranked and it’s your job to perform
A fascinating snippet from The Boy Kings, by Katherine Losse, describing the approach of a new operations director joining Facebook in 2007. From pg 144: The next week, Chamath asked me and my management colleagues in customer support to do an evaluation exercise in which we ranked everyone on the Customer Support Team from highest…
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the rituals of tech bros
From The Boy Kings, by Katherine Losse, pg 134: That Sunday, after I’d slept off our long night, I logged in to Facebook to see an endless stream of videos that the boys had filmed at the club. In them, the boys were not chatting up or kissing girls they had met, as I had…
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the creepy rituals of the facebook office
From The Boy Kings, by Katherine Losse, pg 25: For example, on Mark’s birthday, in May 2006, I received an email from his administrative assistant telling me that it would be my job that day, along with all the other women in the office, to wear a T- shirt with Mark’s picture on it. Wait,…
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please tell early career scholars: the isrf social media essay competition
The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) and Big Data & Society (BD&S) intend to award a prize of CHF 1,000 for the best essay on the topic ‘Influence and Power’. This is a topic, not a title. Accordingly, authors are free to choose an essay title within this field. The winner will also be invited…
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still places left for tomorrow: sociological careers outside of academia
A few places have opened up for tomorrow’s event The Sociological Review’s Early Career Researchers Event: Working Outside of Academia Organised by The Sociological Review Early Career Researcher team For those with a background in social science, career paths do not always followed a straight forward traditional academic trajectory. With the current shortage of entry-level…
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deadline tomorrow! the question of the human in social theory & social research
25th November 2015, 11:00 to 17:00 WT0.05, University of Warwick This workshop and symposium will explore the, mostly implicit, conceptions of the human, humanity and human nature that underpin various contemporary conceptions of social life. In the context of much-publicised post-human futures, this is an invitation to reconsider the idea that social life itself is predicated…
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the eugenecist temptation for digital elites
It’s perhaps slightly unfair to use the term ‘eugenecist’ in relation to these remarks. But I’m interested in how the the notion of being ‘smart’ is constructed amongst digital elites, as well as how this might develop into something much nastier as the broader political climate changes. From Elon Musk, by Ashlee Vance, pg 357:…
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how many dancing billionaires are there at burning man?
From Elon Musk, by Ashlee Vance, pg 318: After arriving at Burning Man, Musk, a regular at the event, and his family went through their standard routines. They set up camp and prepped their art car for a drive. This year, they had cut the roof off a small car, elevated the steering wheel, shifted…
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a perpetual-motion machine that runs on a weird mix of dissatisfaction and eternal hope
What a glorious way to describe the life of an organisation. I wonder which other organisations this might be an apt description for? What’s it like to work under these conditions? From Elon Musk, by Ashlee Vance, pg 258 (my emphasis): Just as it did in the early days, SpaceX continues to experiment with these…
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acronyms seriously suck
An email sent to the entirety of SpaceX by Elon Musk, as quoted in Ashlee Vance’s book about him, pg 238-239: There is a creeping tendency to use made up acronyms at SpaceX. Excessive use of made up acronyms is a significant impediment to communication and keeping communication good as we grow is incredibly important.…
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the hiring rituals of tech companies
From Elon Musk, by Ashlee Vance, pg 220-222: Like many tech companies, SpaceX subjects potential hires to a gauntlet of interviews and tests. Some of the interviews are easygoing chats in which both parties get to feel each other out; others are filled with quizzes that can be quite hard. Engineers tend to face the…
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the performativity of bins
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the pleasures of intensified work
From Elon Musk, by Ashlee Vance, pg 125: Some members of the Texas crew honed their skills to the point that they could build a test- worthy engine in three days. These same people were required to be adept at software. They’d pull an all- nighter building a turbo pump for the engine and then…
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the paypal mafia
This Wikipedia page makes for interesting reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia “PayPal Mafia” is a term used to indicate a group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since founded and developed additional technology companies[1] such as Tesla Motors, LinkedIn, Matterport, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer.[2] Most of the members attended Stanford University or University…
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the expanding ambitions of digital elites
From Elon Musk, by Ashlee Vance, pg 16. I think a sociological analysis of contemporary digital elites needs to treat these ambitions seriously, while nonetheless recognising how these cultural formulations intersect with material interests. While the “putting man on Mars” talk can strike some people as loopy, it gave Musk a unique rallying cry for…
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the first gold rush of digital capitalism
From Elon Musk, by Ashlee Vance, pg 10-11. I think this understates the degree to which ‘playing hard’ was driven by a potent mix of fear and aspiration. But it’s a nice overview of circumstances which intruige me: And, in 2000, San Francisco had been over- taken by the boom of all booms and consumed…
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things I’ve been reading recently #14
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer Straight To Hell by John LeFere Swimming With Sharks by Joris Luyendijk Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow Call Me Dave by Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart Graphic Novels: Judge Dredd: The Chief Judge’s Man Revival Volume 5 C.O.W.L Volume 2 Criminal:…
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one month left : the @ijsrm seminar competition
The Board of the International Journal of Social Research Methodology (IJSRM) is pleased to announce the launch of our new Seminar Competition. Our aim is to support the development of critical and innovative approaches to on-going and emerging methodological debates across a range of approaches, both qualitative and quantitative, and including mixed and comparative methods, as these…
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a week left to register: the question of the human in social theory & social research
25th November 2015, 11:00 to 17:00 WT0.05, University of Warwick This workshop and symposium will explore the, mostly implicit, conceptions of the human, humanity and human nature that underpin various contemporary conceptions of social life. In the context of much-publicised post-human futures, this is an invitation to reconsider the idea that social life itself is predicated…
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an image I can’t get out of my mind
I’ve been preoccupied by this work by Fanny Maria Churberg since seeing it a few days ago. I’m struggling to articulate precisely why but I think it’s connected in some way to my current passion for rural noir. Saved here for my own reference, as much as anything else.
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the anxieties of ageing digital elites
From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 10326: Aging brought another challenge—what one female friend called the “fear of not having any more brilliant ideas. The idea that after thirty, you’re kind of over the hill, that you’re not being clever anymore.” Steve Jobs, she believed, had a similar fear, one he and…
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the insular world of a technology giant
From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 10354: Microsoft was what one consultant called “their own little special world,” just as IBM was to many of its employees. The early IBM had a corporate golf course; Microsoft had softball and soccer fields and running paths. At Microsoft there was no equivalent of the IBM…
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the intensification of work and the competitive busyness of ceos
The culture of competitive sleep deprivation has reached weird heights in recent years. This Guardian feature, detailing the times at which CEOs wake up, gives some sense of the extreme forms this can take. Concern for sleep pervades productivity culture, most obviously on sites like Life Hacker, with sleep routines given parity to software choices…
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the boss in your head: an unrecognised form of reflexivity?
From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 10246: It was Bill Gates who focused that view: As Harbers put it, “I created a Bill simulator in my head. Before I would go to a meeting with Bill I would actually run Bill in my head and ask all the tough questions and make…
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remembering cinemania: the history of digitalisation
I just came across a reference to an old Microsoft initiative, Cinemania, in Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 10184: Cinemania, demonstrated by Chairman Bill himself—a CD-ROM movie database containing information on 19,000 films and 3,000 stars. The movie-mad Gates called up The Maltese Falcon, clicked on the sound icon, and smiled as Humphrey Bogart’s…
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german is such a wonderful language
Also, is it just me, or is the dog obviously choking the cat? Is this bad photoshopping or an insight into a really horrible photo shoot?
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a foretaste of the coming uber wars
This is a fascinating buzzfeed article about Uber’s successful encroachment into the Las Vegas market, in the face of massive opposition: But tonight, for the first time, there were Uber cars among the limos and cabs. One picked up a fare at Caesars Palace and embarked on what would have been one of the first…
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the rhetoric of the sharing economy and uber’s plans for world-domination
Uber is planning to raise up to $1 billion in new investment, only months after having raised the same amount. As Natasha Lomas observes, this raises an important question: Why does a ride-hailing business that likes to claim it’s not a transportation company need such a massive money mountain behind it? It’s pretty clear Uber…
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the coding skills bubble
As we enter the second machine age, it’s easy to assume that coding skills will be in ever increasing demand. But this TechCrunch feature suggests both that the skills shortage will likely prove fleeting, due to the impending automation of much coding, as well as that bullshit abounds in schemes which aim to address the…
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my brain has too many tabs open: the problem of attention in digital capitalism
I’ve just ordered this print which I’ve been obsessed by since Su Oman showed it to me. Leaving aside the brain as computer metaphor, which I object to theoretically and yet find myself lapsing into using in everyday life, I like it because it so neatly conveys what I see as the problem of attention…
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time use event in oxford
This looks really interesting. I wish I wasn’t already committed that day, as I’d like to understand time use data much more than I do at present. Its deployment in parts of the acceleration literature is something that interests me more and more, the further I get into my current project: The Centre for Time…
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innovation through appropriation
From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 9378: Developers trying to cut deals with Microsoft often divulged their technology and/or their business plans. According to the complainants, Microsoft then used the knowledge for its own gain. The case of Go was the most widely publicized. The Silicon Valley startup, headed by ex-Lotusian Jerry…
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the challenge of sociological writing
In this event organised by The Sociological Review’s Early Career Forum, a panel of accomplished writers with a long history of supporting younger scholars reflect on the challenges of sociological writing. Each participant will give a short talk, discussing a particular aspect of the challenge of writing, before the panel opens up for a general discussion with…
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digital distraction and human concern
Another startlingly illuminating point in Retrieving Realism by Dreyfus and Taylor. At loc 665, they observe how Heidegger’s early work “undercuts another basic feature of the classical picture: that the primary input is neutral, and is only at a later stage attributed some meaning by the agent.” This is a familiar point but I’ve never…
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the motivational culture of early microsoft
From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 6989-7007: Microsoft was more like a northwestern Paul Bunyan. “It’s a culture of work,” Cole recalled. “Bill would hate it when the weather got good in Seattle. People would leave early. They weren’t going to put in their twelve hours that day or sixteen hours that…
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the fascinating crudeness of early digital rights management
Has the mentality actually changed? My suspicion is that these messages express the same underling disposition as can be found in the present day, now dressed up in carefully crafted ideological clothing. From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 6969: Late in 1985, Sheldon Richman of the Washington Times reported that his brand-new copy…
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upcoming bird la bird events in london
I’ll hopefully be at both of these, as well as interviewing Bird La Bird for The Sociological Review: Queer Perspectives: A Queer Portrait of a Workhouse 5 November 2015, 19:00 Ondaatje Wing Theatre, National Portrait Gallery Free http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/late-shift-1/in-conversation-05112015.php Join Queer Perspectives resident artist Sadie Lee as she introduces a special performance by Bird La Bird. Queer Perspectives is a quarterly happening where guests identifying at LGBTQ respond to the Gallery’s Collection. If you read the Gallery History section of the National Portrait Gallery website, you will learn that the gallery is built on the site of St Martin-in-the-Fields Workhouse, which existed from 1725 to 1871. Performer Bird la Bird connects artists and individuals portrayed in the gallery with the history of workhouses, including St Martin-in-the-Fields. She uncovers fascinating queer connections to workhouses, revealing how they became a site of queer Victorian scandal. A huge thanks to Dawn Hoskins and Zorian Clayton for allowing me to once again run amok in the V&A! An Armchair Tour of the ‘Queer People’s Knick Knack Emporium Sunday, 22 November 2015 14:00 to 15:30 Lecture…
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why the left should not support the britain stronger in europe campaign
This is just awful. There’s a great post by Richard Seymour about it here
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how to shift sociological product: lessons from the career of tony giddens
Taking the lead from Peter Walsh’s laudible work on academic celebrity, here’s some lessons from the career of Tony Giddens which I inferred from this excellent review article Peter pointed me towards, coupled with my own reading of Giddens, who was the major protagonist for my PhD: Choose your targets well. Take early aim at…
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liberating yourself from leisure activities
I just came across this advert in Dublin advert. On the surface, it’s interesting on a straight forwardly chronopolitical level: with sufficient resources, it’s increasingly possible to outsource tasks for others in order to save yourself time. But what stood out to me about this was the increasingly formal category of ‘relaxation’: it’s becoming that which…
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dear academic hive mind: help me produce a comprehensive list of critiques of margaret archer’s work
I’m trying to put together a comprehensive list of critiques of Margaret Archer’s work. Any help would be appreciated! If you could e-mail me, leave them as a comment or tweet a link then I’ll add them to this list: Defining personal reflexivity: A critical reading of Archer’s approach. European Journal of Social Theory http://est.sagepub.com/content/18/1/60.short Reflexivity as…
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the 2015/16 @sociowarwick seminar series
This year’s seminar series in the Sociology department at Warwick looks like an interesting mix:
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workshop and symposium: the question of the human in social theory and social research
25th November 2015, 11:00 to 17:00 WT0.05, University of Warwick This workshop and symposium will explore the, mostly implicit, conceptions of the human, humanity and human nature that underpin various contemporary conceptions of social life. In the context of much-publicised post-human futures, this is an invitation to reconsider the idea that social life itself is predicated…
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“work hard to find something that fascinates you”: richard feynman’s advice to students
I’ve found some lovely snippets from this book of Richard Feynman’s letters after only a few pages: “Work hard to find something that fascinates you” “study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible” “I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which…
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the acceleration of consumption
Ironically, I had to wait to take a picture of this after initially seeing it, as it was on a billboard that rotates every 10 seconds:
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the pre-history of the internet of things
I had no idea how long this notion had been around for. Blair Newman was a notoriously drug addled technologist (who once tried to claim cocaine as a business expense) into whose failed venture Microsoft ploughed $50,000 in the late 70s. At the same time, he was also kicking around the idea of an architecture…
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the preoccupations of life hackers
To celebrate their 10th birthday, Life Hacker have compiled the ten most popular posts to have featured on their site, as measured by unique visits. They’re actually much more practical and much less obscure than some of the stuff that I’ve seen on there over the years: http://lifehacker.com/top-10-lifehacker-posts-of-all-time-1682801558/1733843249 I sometimes overstate my case about life…
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before google and their staff perks, came microsoft and its free drinks
Quoted from Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 3012-3032: Slaving over computers and shouting about them can be thirsty work. Gates eventually instructed Miriam Lubow to keep Microsoft supplied with Coca-Cola. When a six-pack disappeared inside of five minutes, Bill explained that he was thinking more in terms of a case. “I had no…
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the politics of discretionary effort
Since first encountering the notion of discretionary effort, I’ve been fascinated by it. This is a definition I found on page one of Google: Discretionary effort is the level of effort people could give if they wanted to, but above and beyond the minimum required. Many organizations manage performance in such a way that motivates…
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the hostage taking capacity of banks
From Europe Entrapped by Claus Offe, pg 16-17. Recognition of this fact, as well as recognition of its recognition by non-financial agents, needs to underpin any adequate analysis of depoliticisation: Financial institutions are first and foremost debtors , owing assets to myriads of private and public claimants. Therefore, if big banks go under, many other…
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reasons for the commitment of capital to the european project
From Europe Entrapped by Clause Offe, pg 13. If this analysis is accepted then I find it difficult to see how a leftist commitment to the EU can be sustained: (a) Competitive advantages can be expected from economies of scale, given the increase in market size and the reduction in transaction costs; (b) While regulation…
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how to normalise ubiquitous surveillance
Present it as a technology for ensuring services are “as individual as you are”. I don’t think this Barclays advert is selling surveillance but I think their advertising strategy is something we will begin to see ever more of in coming years.
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over-reach by unelected technocrats
This is the debate which the Financial Times says has been prompted by Mark Carney’s intervention on climate change earlier in the week. His point seemed rather incisive to me, observing that “Since the 1980s the number of registered weather-related loss events has tripled” and that furthermore “Inflation-adjusted insurance losses from these events have increased from an…
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the cruel optimism of the nine to fivers anthem
I love this track by Aesop Rock. It occurred to me earlier how well it articulates the pleasure of doing what you love (the pastimes / That we have harbored based solely on the fact / That it makes us smile if it sounds dope) but potentially in a way which contributes to the mystification of doing what…
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interrogating internships: unpaid work, creative industries, and higher education
This looks like a great special issue of tripleC. I’m going to get started on it as soon as I finish this special issue of The Sociological Review on Gender & Creative Labour. I did an interview with the editors of this issue & it left me aware that I’m even more interested in these…
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surviving life in the accelerated academy: prospects and problems for digital scholarship
Here’s a link to the podcast of an invited talk I did at the Society for Research Into Higher Education last week: Surviving life in the accelerated academy: prospects and problems for digital scholarship In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the stress and anxiety of academic life. This developing discourse has an ambivalent…
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the capture of the political class
Joseph Stiglitz quoted in The Rich: a 2000 Year History by John Kampfner, pg 386: Virtually all US senators, and most of the Representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 per cent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 per cent, and know that if they…
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things I’ve been reading recently #13
Race Against The Machine by Erik Brynjolfsson Trust Me, I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday Liquid Surveillance by Zygmunt Bauman and David Lyon Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy by Gabriella Coleman The Fear Index by Robert Harris Graphic Novels: The Superior Iron Man volume 2 The Fade Out Act 2 Sex book 2
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register for the accelerated academy
Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life 2nd-4th December 2015, Prague (Vila Lanna) Organised by the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences and supported by the Strategy AV21. Register and get more information at http://accelerated.academy Powered by Eventbrite There is little doubt that science and knowledge production are presently undergoing dramatic and multi-layered transformations…
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good cafes in manchester to work in
I asked this question earlier on Twitter and received an excellent range of responses. For my own convenience, here’s a list of the recommended cafes that I’m planning to try out over the coming weeks: @mark_carrigan Cornerhouse cafe/gallery used to be my go to place when I lived in Manchester but havent been since its…
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registration now open: power, acceleration and metrics in academic life
Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life 2nd-4th December 2015, Prague (Vila Lanna) Organised by the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences and supported by the Strategy AV21. Register and get more information at http://accelerated.academy Powered by Eventbrite There is little doubt that science and knowledge production are presently undergoing dramatic and multi-layered transformations…
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Mark Carrigan 