John Lovett Jr. – författare

Whether painted by artist-warriors depicting their feats in battle or by other Native American artists, 19th and 20th century ledger drawings—drawn on blank sheets of ledger books obtained from U.S. soldiers, traders, missionaries, and reservation employees—provide an excellent visual source of information on the Great Plains Native Americans. An art form representing a transition from drawing on buffalo hide to a paper medium, ledger drawings range in style, content, and quality from primitive and artistically poor to bold and sharp with lavish use of color. Although interest in ledger drawings has increased in the last 20 years, there has never been a guide to holdings of these drawings. By bringing together the diverse and scattered institutions that hold them, this book will make finding the drawings quicker and easier.Illustrated with examples of ledger drawings, the guide identifies the libraries, archives, historical societies, and museums that hold ledger drawings. The institutions listed range from those with large collections, such as the Smithsonian, Yale, and Oklahoma museums, to institutions with only a few drawings. The book also includes a bibliography of books and articles about Indian pictographic art. The index will enable researchers to locate art by individual artists and tribes.

In The Politics of Herding Cats, John Lovett looks at the relationship between media, Congress, and public policy, showing that leaders in Congress under normal circumstances control public policy on issue areas due to their status both within Congress and in the media by and large. When issue coverage on topics increases in media, however, other members seize on the opportunities to engage in the issue and shift public policy away from leader desires. As more members engage and more groups become involved, leaders lose the ability to control the process and are more likely to have problems actually getting public policy enacted. Lovett look at this phenomenon using newspaper coverage in the Washington Post over a 40-year period, both in terms of general analysis as well as individual case studies exploring agricultural subsidies (a low coverage topic), immigration (a changing coverage topic), and health care (a high coverage topic). As coverage increases, the amount leaders can control in the process decreases. Only under extreme circumstances, as seen in the Affordable Care Act, can leaders get anything done at all. The Politics of Herding Cats would be useful for those who wish to better understand the relationship between the media and Congress. It will also be useful to those who want to understand the relationship between actors in government and how the media has influenced American politics, as well as how individual members of Congress can go against party leaders on major issues.

Developing B2B Social Communities: Keys to Growth, Innovation, and Customer Loyalty explains why business-to-business companies need a robust online community strategy to survive and flourish in today’s changing economy and shows you how to design and execute your company’s strategy successfully.Seminars, publications, market research, and customer care centers remain important tools in every B2B firm’s toolbox for understanding, attracting, and serving customers while keeping them loyal. But in a world of fierce global price competition, increasing transparency of business practices, and ever-rising complexity, these traditional customer interaction channels are no longer enough for most B2B companies. That’s why smart organizations—both large and small—are tapping into online communities to gain a huge competitive advantage: the ability to get much closer to customers and become more valuable to them. Developing B2B Social Communities delves into the generators of business value in online communities: immediate customer access to expert information within the company and from other customers; inexpensive delivery of custom technical help; demonstrations of how customers can to get the most from their products; and forums where customers can share tips, air gripes, reveal unmet needs, and suggest improvements.  Three veteran community managers show you how to harness the knowledge of the crowd to help shape your company’s strategic direction, develop new products and services, identify trends, sell more, serve customers more efficiently, and provide better product support. Fleshing out precepts with real-world examples and case studies, the authors detail the transformational opportunities—and pitfalls—for creating online communities.