Caterina.net: Blackberries and Caste

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{ Monday, February 2, 2009 }

Blackberries and Caste

In her HuffPo article, Linda Stone highlights the tradeoff between "staying on top of things at the expense of getting to the bottom of things" and quotes Peter, a retired Fortune 500 CEO as saying:

I gave up my Blackberry when I became CEO. I needed to trust my assistant to screen and forward things to me. I was afraid that if I didn't do that, I wouldn't have time to reflect, to consider and plan for the future of the company. There would have been a much greater risk of getting consumed by the day to day.

This reminded me of the beginning of Feersum Endjinn, one of my favorite science fiction novels, in which the castes in the society are defined by how much information one is subjected to. The higher your status, the fewer messages and information you have to sift -- instead your minions take care of the screening.

(Feersum Endjinn is spelled that way, instead of "Fearsome Engine" B cuz 1 ov teh mane carokters rites en funetic inglish, which takes some getting used to, as with another favorite of mine, Riddley Walker)

LINK | 9:18 AM | TB

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{ COMMENTS }

Ohhh.. Riddley Walker is great, especially good for rereading as each new pass reveals new insights. I will definitely check out Feersum Endjinn

Neil Bruder | February 2, 2009 10:59 AM

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Thanks for the sift.

Zach | February 2, 2009 11:36 AM

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I was going to add a comment to request that you doubled the size of your rss feed content but after reading this post I am not going to.

ClickingThrough | February 2, 2009 12:11 PM

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if you're reading this comment, i apologize for subjecting you to additional information.

striatic | February 4, 2009 2:22 PM

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Hazy memory from the way back parts of my mind, of a friend's dad using "the number of keys you have to carry" as a metaphor for the amount of power you wielded. The fewer keys you carried, presumably, the more people you had beneath you whose responsibilities involved "dealing with" the keys and the things they unlocked.

Obviously, the metaphor is full of holes, and it's quite possible that the entire scenario is from some movie or book or something. Again: hazy memory.

Nevertheless, thanks for the quote from Peter.

Charlie Park | February 12, 2009 1:11 PM

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this information idea has its precedent in the much older idea that an executive at the top does not need a desk...or at the most...an empty desk. No brief case. No file cabinet. Underlings are hired to cover those bases.

Punkawalllah | March 1, 2009 4:17 PM

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