McLuhan for Managers
Subtitle: New Tools for New Thinking
Publisher: Viking Canada
Published: January 2003
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780670043712
Subjects: Leadership; Business / Economics / Finance
First sentence: The beginning of Marshall McLuhan’s relationship with the corporate world was a revealing false start. It may have begun in Winnipeg at the University of Manitoba, where McLuhan befriended the economist, Tom Easterbrook, when they were both freshmen. They found themselves together at a used bookstore. After lengthy rummaging, both came up to the cashier with a book in hand. McLuhan had selected a textbook on economics, Easterbrook had G.K. Chesterton’s What’s Wrong with the World? They looked at each other’s choice, looked at each other and, exchanging books, agreed that each had made the other’s more appropriate choice. “This is more like your kind of stuff, ” said Easterbrook as he gave McLuhan the Chesterton book. Easterbrook became a respected economist, and McLuhan began his journey of conversion to Catholicism inspired by one of England’s most influential converts.
Description: More than a how-to book for business managers, this innovative—and practical—book guides the reader to think using the same tools as did Marshall McLuhan. 

More than thirty years ago, Marshall “The Medium is the Message” McLuhan predicted the changes to business and society that we are now seeing by virtue of the ubiquitous Internet. Imagine if we could have him beside us now, as we try to cope with the challenges created by the effects of almost instantaneous and continuous change. McLuhan for Managers captures some of McLuhan’s unique approaches to thinking about such challenges—their nature and their effect on us—and applies them in a form directly useful to today’s business leaders and managers. 

The McLuhanesque approach differs from the general lateral thinking approach of people like de Bono.  It specifically sets the “figures” of McLuhan’s thinking techniques and probes against the “ground” of modern business challenges. McLuhan for Managers presents two sets of thinking tools: one set to improve thinking about specific issues, projects or management situations, and another set to facilitate and improve collaboration. This unique book and its associated web site form a sort of desktop reference for the busy manager.