By now, we all know the mythology of the digital revolution: it improved efficiency, eliminated waste, and fostered a boom in innovation. But as business reporter David Sax shows in this clear-sighted, entertaining book, not all innovations are written in source code. In fact, businesses that once looked outdated are now springing with new life. Behold the Revenge of Analog. Sax has found story after story of entrepreneurs, small business owners, and even big corporations who've found a market selling not apps but real, tangible things. As e-books are supposedly remaking reading, independent bookstores have sprouted up across the country. As music supposedly migrates to the cloud, vinyl record sales have grown more than ten times over the past decade, generating more than half a billion dollars in 2015 alone. Even the offices of Silicon Valley icons like Google and Facebook increasingly rely on analog technologies like pen and paper for their business. Sax's work reveals not just an underreported trend in business, but a more fundamental truth about how humans shop, interact, and even think. Blending psychology and observant wit with old-fashioned reportage, Sax shows that humans need to work, sell, and live in the real world--not on a screen"-- "A funny thing has happened on our way to the digital utopia: we find ourselves increasingly missing reality. In this spirited book, David Sax has found story after story of entrepreneurs, artisans, and creators who make real money by selling real things. And they're not just local craftspeople, either. As paper is supposedly vanishing, Moleskine notebooks--a company founded in 1997, the same year as the first dot-com boom--has grown into a large multinational corporation. As music supposedly migrates to the cloud, vinyl record sales were up over 50 percent in 2015, and generated almost $350m in sales. And as retail was supposedly hitting bottom, star Silicon Valley companies like Apple and Amazon are investing in brick-and-mortar stores. Sax's work reveals not just an underreported trend in business but a more fundamental truth about how humans shop, interact, and even think. He captures what you're missing when you can't find a good song in a vast iTunes library, or can't recall the details of an ebook you read: any simulation of a sight or smell or activity you experience in the real world is just that--a simulation. As you read this enlightening book (preferably on paper!) that seemingly simple observation gathers ever more weight. The success stories in this book are eye-opening, even inspiring. You'll come away from this book with a renewed sense of what it means to work, live, and shop. It is the perfect gift for a book lover--something you can unwrap and hold. And for anyone who has grown weary of overnight billionaires and social media market-disruptors, it is proof positive that there's another side of the story. (Publisher)
...MoreReview A. David Wunsch (June 2019) Review of "The revenge of analog: real things and why they matter". IEEE Technology and Society Magazine (pp. 11-13).
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