Excerpt: How to Get Ahead in Tech Groups

I have permission from John Wiley & Sons to distribute an excerpt from the new book, "Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat," a 25th Anniversary remake of the howlingly funny clbuttic on climbing corporate hierarchies. The excerpt contains Putt's advice on the Internet, including Putt's Paradox:

"The more firmly you are caught in the Web, the faster you can outpace your compebreastion."

"Putt's Law" was originally released in 1981 and achieved cult status for its scathing satire about the way groups behave. "Every technical hierarchy, in time, develops a competence inversion," says Putt, in his most oft-quoted corollary. Readers of Putt's Law will learn such valuable techno-Machiavellian skills as how to leverage failure and how to beat out colleagues who are always right. The author's anonymity gives these teachings the air of omniscience you want in a rule book.

In the excerpt I'm distributing, Archibald Putt shows he's learned a lot from bloggers and others on the Internet. Putt's third law of decision making is "a decision is judged by the conviction with which it is uttered." Sounds like a page from the bloggers handbook, doesn't it?

with the subject line "Send Putt's Law" and I will reply with the text -- and *only* the text -- NO file attachments or opt-in mailing list jive. Thank you.