Philip M. Parker

Philip M. Parker (born June 20, 1960) holds the INSEAD Chair Professorship of Management Science at INSEAD (Fontainebleau, France). He has patented a method to automatically produce a set of similar books from a template which is filled with data from database and internet searches.[1] At Amazon.com, Parker is listed as the author of 107,000 books that his program created and overall he claims to have produced 200,000 different titles.[2][3] This would make him one of the most prolific authors in the world. Parker publishes the automated books through ICON Group International, using several ICON group subheadings. Via EdgeMaven Media, he also provides applications for firms from different business domains to create their own computer-authored content material.[4][5]

Contents

Biography

Born dyslexic, Parker early on developed a passion for dictionaries.[3] He gained undergraduate degrees in mathematics, biology, and economics. He received a Ph.D. in Business Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and has Masters degrees in Finance and Banking (University of Aix-Marseille) and Managerial Economics (Wharton). He was a senior consultant at EMCI, and an economist for Nathan Associates in Washington, DC, before moving to INSEAD.[6]

Work

Books on economics

As well as co-authoring some technical economic articles, Parker has written six books on national economic development and economic divergence. These insist that consumer utility and consumption functions must be bounded by physical laws, against economic axioms which violate laws of physics such as conservation of energy.

Online dictionary

Parker is also involved—as entrepreneur publisher and editor—in new media reference work projects. He is the instigator of Webster's Online Dictionary: The Rosetta Edition, a multilingual online dictionary created in 1999 and using the "Webster's" name, now in the public domain.[7][8][9] This site compiles different online dictionaries and encyclopedia including the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), the Wiktionary, and Wikipedia.[10]

Automatically generated books

Most of Parker's automatically generated books target niche markets (the Long Tail). Examples include:

All books are self-published paperbacks. Ninety-five percent of the ordered books are sent out electronically; the rest are print on demand.[3] He plans to extend the programs to produce romance novels.[2]

Economic development initiatives

Beginning in 1998, Parker launched literacy initiatives, based on his consultations with the World Bank, designed to create educational materials for under-served languages. These have included programs which can produce scripts for animated game shows intended to teach English to non-native speakers, some of which are available on YouTube. Recently he has collaborated with various projects sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In one project, Parker worked with PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa) by assisting researchers to more quickly synthesize the dispersed information on useful tropical plants. This resulted in the creation of a public access portal covering the biodiversity of plants in Africa.[17] In another he is engaged in creating automated rural radio weather programs in collaboration with Farmer Voice Radio.[18] Similar projects are underway with The Grameen Foundation, Farm Radio International, and the GSM Association, generating radio scripts, agricultural call center content, and SMS content platforms in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, and India, among other developing counties.[19]

Digital poetry

Parker has applied his techniques within his dictionary project to digital poetry; he reports posting over 1.3 million didactic poems, aspiring to reach one poem for each of words found in the English language.[20] He refers to these as “edge poems” since they are generated using graph theory, where “edge” refers to mathematical values that relate words to each other in a semantic web. He has posted in the thesaurus section of his online dictionary the values used in these algorithms. Genres produced include the following: acrostic, butterfly, cinquain, diamante, ekphrastic, fib or Fibonacci poetry, gnomic poetry, haiku, Kural, limerick, mirror cinquain, nonet, octosyllable, pi, quinzaine, Rondelet, sonnet, tanaka, unitoum, waka, simple verse, and xenia epigram. Genres were created by Parker to allow one genre of poem for each letter of the English alphabet, including Yoda, for Y (poetry using the grammar structure of the famous Star Wars character), and Zedd for Z (poems shaped in the letter Z). His poems are didactic in nature, and either define the entry word in question, or highlight its antonyms. He has stated plans to expand these to many languages and is experimenting with other poetic forms.[21]

Sources

Sources for the content of some books are electronic data bases. These sources are cited in the published works.[22][23]

See also

References

Notes
  1. ^ 'Method and apparatus for automated authoring and marketing', U.S. Patent 7,266,767, 4 September 2007
  2. ^ a b Cohen, Noam (2008-04-14). "He Wrote 200,000 Books (but Computers Did Some of the Work)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2010-08-03. http://www.webcitation.org/5righCQec. Retrieved 2010-08-03. 
  3. ^ a b c Ein Mann sieht Code, Financial Times Deutschland, 9 May 2008. (German)
  4. ^ "EdgeMaven Media: Automated Authoring and Content Creation". Edgemaven.com. San Diego: ICON Group International, Inc. 2010. Archived from the original on 2010-08-03. http://www.webcitation.org/5rilLoQ6H. Retrieved 2010-08-03. 
  5. ^ Strauss, Victoria (2009-06-19). "The most published author in the history of the planet". Writer Beware. Archived from the original on 2010-08-03. http://www.webcitation.org/5rifp73aV. Retrieved 2010-08-03. 
  6. ^ Parker's INSEAD web page
  7. ^ "The Editor – Philip M. Parker is the instigator behind Webster's Online Dictionary: The Rosetta Edition (www.websters-online-dictionary.org)". websters-online-dictionary.org. ICON Group International, Inc. Archived from the original on 2010-08-28. http://www.webcitation.org/5sKgwgycb. Retrieved 2010-08-29. 
  8. ^ "EdgeMaven Media – Case Studies – Web Site Creation – World’s largest multilingual dictionary: Webster's Online Dictionary (www.websters-online-dictionary.org).". Edgemaven.com. San Diego: ICON Group International, Inc. 2010. Archived from the original on 2010-08-31. http://www.webcitation.org/5sNxWfUZk. Retrieved 2010-08-31. 
  9. ^ "Fascinating facts about Philip Parker inventor of the W-O-D Project in 1999.". Ideafinder.com. Vaunt Design Group. 2006-11-01. Archived from the original on 2010-08-31. http://www.webcitation.org/5sNydiiti. Retrieved 2010-08-31. 
  10. ^ "Webster's Online Dictionary. Definition: dictionary". websters-online-dictionary.org. ICON Group International, Inc. Archived from the original on 2010-08-29. http://www.webcitation.org/5sM3Z7U4T. Retrieved 2010-08-29. 
  11. ^ "The Official Patient's Sourcebook on Spinal Stenosis – Paperback – (ISBN 978-0597831942), James N. Parker (Editor), Philip M. Parker (Editor)". Amazon.com. ASIN 0597831947. Archived from the original on 2010-08-28. http://www.webcitation.org/5sKXYJdFz. 
  12. ^ Heneghan, Michael A.; McFarlane, Ian G. (2004-03). "Book review. The Official Patient's Sourcebook on autoimmune hepatitis: Edited by James N. Parker and Philip M. Parker. 192 pp. $28.95. ICON Health Publications, San Diego, California, 2002. ISBN 0-59783-4180" (PDF). Gastroenterology 126 (3): 929. doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2004.01.050. ISSN 0016-5085. Archived from the original on 2010-08-28. http://www.webcitation.org/5sJWVI05C. Retrieved 2010-08-28. 
  13. ^ Parker, James N.; Parker, Philip M., eds (2004) (PDF). Hemoglobin – A Medical Dictionary, Bibliography, and Annotated Research Guide to Internet References. The 3-in-1 Medical Reference. San Diego: ICON Health Publications. ISBN 0597839778. Archived from the original on 2010-08-28. http://www.webcitation.org/5sKCyhj5U. 
  14. ^ "Fromage Frais wins odd title prize". Thebookseller.com. London: The Bookseller Media Group. 2009-03-27. Archived from the original on 2010-09-23. http://www.webcitation.org/5swvh8N8j. Retrieved 2009-03-27. 
  15. ^ Gibson, Joel (2008-12-19). "Puzzled publisher at a loss for words". smh.com.au. The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 2010-08-06. http://www.webcitation.org/5rnOOcU5C. Retrieved 2010-08-06.  And: "Publisher at a loss for words". Brisbane Times. 2008-12-19. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/technology/publisher-at-a-loss-for-words/2008/12/18/1229189864019.html. Retrieved 2008-12-19. 
  16. ^ Icon Group International, Inc (2008-11-26). Ducking: Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases. Icon Group International, Inc. p. ii. ISBN 0546694705. http://books.google.com/books?id=ISES7TX4TE8C&lpg=PP1&pg=PT2#v=onepage&q=&f=false. Retrieved 2009-11-27. 
  17. ^ Gomba, Joash (2010). "Authoring and editing of articles made simple". Prota.co.ke. PROTA: Plant Resources of Tropical Africa. Archived from the original on 2011-01-25. http://www.webcitation.org/5w16WpWHo. Retrieved 2011-01-26. 
  18. ^ 'Introducing Farmer Voice Radio farmervoice.org.
  19. ^ Web Profile – Philip M. Parker. insead.edu.
  20. ^ An Introduction to “Edge Poetry”. websters-online-dictionary.org. ICON Group International, Inc.
  21. ^ “Edge” Poetic Forms. websters-online-dictionary.org. ICON Group International, Inc.
  22. ^ Slocum, Mac (April 30, 2008). "Q&A: Philip Parker, Developer of Automated Authoring Platform" (web). Radar.oreilly.com. Sebastopol, California: Tools of Change for Publishing; a division of O'Reilly Media, Inc.. Archived from the original on 2011-12-28. http://www.webcitation.org/64GRomkZw. Retrieved 2011-12-28. 
  23. ^ Icon Group International, Inc (2008-11-26). Ducking: Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases. Icon Group International, Inc. pp. 87. ISBN 0546694705. http://books.google.com/?id=ISES7TX4TE8C&dq=Ducking:+Webster%27s+Quotations,+Facts+and+Phrases&printsec=frontcover#PPP3,M1. 
Further reading

External links