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“Machine, Platform, Crowd” Book Launch, LiveChat Video

June 26, 2017

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A revolution is underway. Smarter machines, powerful platforms, and connected crowds are reshaping the digital economy. We live in an era of growing complexity, but also one of vast opportunity for leaders seeking to harness technology for good.

Following on the huge success of MIT IDE directors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s last book, The Second Machine Age, is a new book, Harnessing our Digital Future: Machine, Platform, Crowd, released June 27 from Norton press.The authors say we are entering “the second phase of the second machine age,” where there’s a greater sense of urgency, as technologies are demonstrating that they can do much more than just the type of work we have thought of as routine.

Want to learn more?

On June 26, the authors held a live conversation with MIT Sloan’s Rebecca Knight.  Also featured were Beth Comstock, Vice Chair of GE, who shed light on how the company harnesses the wisdom of the crowd for product ​innovations and design, and Sandy Pentland, MIT Professor of Media Arts and Science. Pentland talked about managerial and organizational best practices for navigating this new world of rapidly advancing technology.

Watch the full video. 

The live chat followed a book launch with MIT Sloan alumni in San Francisco on June 20. A book discussion  hosted by Future Tense will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 29, in New York. Find details of that event here.

For more, listen to this a16z podcast, and read a review of the book on FT.com here and an interview with MIT here.