In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters, Second Edition » (2ND)

Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman is the author of the first edition of this book. He has worked in the software industry since 1978 as a programmer, salesman, support representative, senior marketing manager, and consultant for many different companies, including WordStar (really MicroPro, but no one remembers the name of the company), Ashton-Tate, IBM, Inso, Novell, Bentley Systems, Berlitz, Hewlett-Packard, and Ziff-Davis. His first computer was a Trash One (you antiques out there know what that is), and he began his career writing software inventory management systems for beer and soda distributors in New York City. He is the author of The Product Marketing Handbook for Software, coauthor of the Software Industry and Information Association's US Software Channel Marketing and Distribution Guide, and periodically writes articles about software and high-tech marketing for a variety of publications.

In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters, Second Edition is National Lampoon meets Peter Drucker. It's a funny and well-written business book that takes a look at some of the most influential marketing and business philosophies of the last twenty years. Through the dark glass of hindsight, it provides an educational and entertaining look at why these philosophies didn't work for many of the country's largest and best-known high-tech companies.

Marketing wizard Richard Chapman takes you on a hilarious ride in this book, which is richly illustrated with cartoons and reproductions of many of the actual campaigns used at the time. Filled with personal anecdotes spanning Chapman's remarkable career (he was present at many now-famous meetings and events), In Search of Stupidity, Second Edition examines the best of the worst marketing ideas and business decisions in the last twenty years of the technology industry.

The second edition includes new chapters on Google and on how to avoid stupidity, plus the extensive analyses of all chapters from the first edition. Youll want to get a copy because it

• Features an interesting preface and interview with Joel Spolsky of "Joel on Software"


• Offers practical advice on avoiding PR disaster


• Features actual pictures of some of the worst PR and marketing material ever created


• Is highly readable and funny


• Includes theme-based cartoons for every chapter

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An excellent source of information, analysis and good laughs. It's one of the few industry titles that will give you a large supply of stories to re-tell to other developers over a beer. Chapman's book is also an excellent case study collection of anti-management rules that one should avoid when running a high tech company.