Study Hall Douglas and Runge

Book review

As you climb the career ladder (in advertising, pharma, or some other corporate gig) do you ever wonder what it’d be like to lead a pharma startup?
I have! So this month, we had Dr. Kelly on the podcast. After earning a PhD in Chemistry, he had successful big pharma research career, then became Chief Scientific Officer and then CEO of Comentis—which at the time was commercializing small-molecule Alzheimer’s and schizophenia therapies.
It was a great talk, covering what it’s REALLY like to lead a pharma startup, lessons learned and rules for success. We also get into the current (and future) research space and even the role of advertising and marketing in startups.
Now Dr. Kelly runs a consulting practice focused on strategic and practical solutions in the drug discovery space. If you’re interested in reaching out, you can contact him at LinkedIn.

First part of my review of Tim Wu's great book on attention, advertising and culture in the industrial age.

We're back at it with Tim Wu's great book on advertising. This month's entry covers the history of   advertising from the 20s up through the mid 80s. 
After almost losing the whole thing in the early 30s, the industry comes roaring back and enters the golden age of huge, unified audiences who paid attention to a few, clearly defined channels. (While across the pond, an entirely different kind of attention merchant worked their evil will and blackened the name of propaganda forever.)
From there, we move through the turbulence and attentional revolt of the 60s, when Tim Leary, Marshall McLuhan and Herbert Marcuse tried to turn everyone's attention to building an anxiety-free utopia. But TV and advertising deftly picked up on and co-opted the hippies and hit the 80s without breaking their stride.
By '85, the rise of computers and tech like cable and the VCR shatter the attention of the West, giving people more control over what they consume and giving rise to a very recognizable crisis: The chase to find your audience as they run wild across the land, taking their attention with them.

This is the story of the rise of the digital space, or "the third screen," the screen that watches YOU.
It's a short section of the book, detailing the rise of email (and the reason the email check-in is SUCH a hard habit to break), the intersection of hardware with serious money (through computer gaming), and (how) America (got) Online.
Some interesting stuff! Lots to think about, including how even having the right idea (eg, Prodigy understood the power of online retailing, but make a few mistakes and now...well...When was the last time you got an email from prodigy.net?) Good ideas are not enough. You have execute well ...and be lucky.

Happy August, Study Hall-ers! 
Well, we're almost to the end of the estimable book, The Attention Merchants.
In part 4, we learn about the rise of the "Kardashian Kulture" and get into it a little over what we've done with the amazing attention-gathering machine we've built ourselves. 
I've pretty much avoided dealing with the ethics of modern attention merchandising and (more precisely) advertising until now, and this section of the book seemed like a good place to do it. 
This time, we're turning the comments on, so go ahead and leave a reaction/opinion.