I’m trying out something new here: book reviews. No, I don’t intend to gun for Michiko Kakutani’s job. Rather, I can’t help but draw parallels between what I read and what I do.
So let’s begin with the only book I’ve ever read to devote an entire chapter, and then some, to setting dimensional and material standards for shipping containers.
Hey, this was a major plot point for Season Two of “The Wire!”
Marc Levinson’s The Box covers the roughly half-century in which the hidebound world of ocean shipping transformed from rugged stevedores placing each and every carton in the hold of a freighter by hand to the current era where nearly all shipping except bulk commodities and motor vehicles takes place in a metal container moved by giant cranes. While the topic only indirectly broaches marketing, it has important ideas for marketers nevertheless.