Search results

The U.S. Army has been fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for over 10 years and in the process produced a new military doctrine called mission command. Mission command doctrine was conceived from a wartime environment to allow followers in the field to act according to the dictates of the situation on the ground, giving them maximum discretion. The concept of mission command fits nicely into followership research and theory. For a military widely dispersed both by geography and mission, this concept represents an effective way to empower followers and encourage them to take initiative and accept prudent risk. Mission command doctrine expects officers and exemplary followers to be courageous. It requires them to act on their own, be wise in assuming risk, be actively engaged in executing the commander’s intent, and find multiple ways and options to accomplish the mission. Since mission command is a philosophy born of our recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the question remains of how this philosophy will fare in an inter-war period of forced reductions, downsizing, and substantial budget reductions.

This paper investigates how two characteristics of language, abstractness vs concreteness and narrativity, influence user engagement in communication exercises on innovation targeted to the general audience. The proposed conceptual model suggests that innovation fits well with more abstract language because of the association of innovation with imagination and distal construal. Moreover, communication of innovation may benefit from greater adherence to the narrativity arc, that is, early staging, increasing plot progression and climax optimal point. These effects are moderated by content variety and emotional tone, respectively.

Based on a Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) application on a sample of 3225 TED Talks transcripts, the authors identify 287 TED Talks on innovation, and then applied econometric analyses to test the hypotheses on the effects of abstractness vs concreteness and narrativity on engagement, and on the moderation effects of content variety and emotional tone.

The authors found that abstractness (vs concreteness) and narrativity have positive effects on engagement. These two effects are stronger with higher content variety and more positive emotional tone, respectively.

This paper extends the literature on communication of innovation, linguistics and text analysis by evaluating the roles of abstractness vs concreteness and narrativity in shaping appreciation of innovation.

This paper reports conceptual and empirical analyses on innovation dissemination through a popular medium – TED Talks – and applies modern text analysis algorithms to test hypotheses on the effects of two pivotal dimensions of language on user engagement.

This chapter explores the potential for a rigid format of event structure that has been successful for decades to be curated by, hosted by, attended by and with speakers who are all children or young people. The chapter considers the opportunities for an event and the changes in format that need to be made to stay true to the essence of the TED format yet incorporating the creativity and brilliance of children and young people to ensure they gain the most from an event of this format.

The background leading up to the estblishment of a library and information (LIS) school by a consortium of university libraries in the Bristol area is described. Course development and structure are examined. Practical consequences of the course and issues arising from the school’s establishment and operation are discussed within a broader professional context. These include the use of practitioners as lecturers and implications for research; and developments in the professional curriculum including the place of generic skills and specialisms.

Thorn EMI is continuing to expand its commitment into robotics. Following the purchase of Hazmac last year it has now added Workmaster to its range.

EVERY so often, somebody comes up with a new idea. Of course, it may be an old idea dressed up, or an idea taken from some other country, so it MUST be good. Always the idea is intended to be the answer to almost every manufacturer's problems. They are seized on, copied, altered, adapted.