Information as Cheeseburger

The argument Nicholas Carr makes on the difference between printed books and their digital counterparts (see Clutter)  rests on the idea that "A change in form is always...a change in content."

There is no question that the experience of reading a printed book is significantly different from the experience of reading an ebook, regardless of the device used in the process. But is the experience of reading an ebook or any long-form online content inherently distracting?  Or is the problem simply our failure to adapt to the new reading environment?

A reader is under no obligation to click a hypertext link that appears in the middle of a sentence. Nothing prevents a reader who wants to concentrate on an ebook or long online article from shutting down email and messaging applications  and taking other measures to create an environment conducive to reading and concentration.

Distraction is distraction, digital or otherwise. So isn't the issue really about getting better at tuning out -- or turning off -- the distractions?  Is reading a book on a crowded bus, train, or plane, with the various stimuli and distractions associated with those environments, so much less challenging than reading online? 

There is indeed a great deal of information clutter in our lives, and Mr. Carr's concerns certainly have merit. But blaming the inability to concentrate or a deterioration of intellectual or cognitive abilities on the availability of information is like blaming obesity on food.  Cheeseburgers and pizza are incapable of forcing themselves down your throat. Information is similarly constrained. The selection of what, when, and how much information we consume is a matter of making healthy choices based on the individual ability to metabolize that information.

Mr. Carr closes his post with the following comment on software writer Tim Bray's plans to digitize all of his books: 

When Tim Bray throws out his books, he may well have a neater, less dusty home. But he will not have reduced the clutter in his life, at least not in the life of his mind. He will have simply exchanged the physical clutter of books for the mental clutter of the web. He may discover, when he's carried that last armload of books to the dumpster, that he's emptied more than his walls.

Swapping a collection of books for a digitized, networked library is a matter of storage and interior decoration. And while such decisions can affect one's quality of life, they are a reflection of one's taste, not of one's capacity for critical thinking or intellectual prowess.  Mr. Carr appears to assume that Mr. Bray's decision will render him incapable of the levels of concentration and discrimination necessary to take advantage of an all-digital, on-demand library. That's just unfair.

Read:  Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Clutter

 

Technorati Tags: nicholas carr,reading,ebooks,kindle,information,content

A Future for Newspapers

Amid all the recent coverage of financial troubles at various newspapers, WSJ columnist L. Gordon Crovitz offers this:

One reason most media companies suspended normal business practices online, such as seeking subscription revenues, was a misinterpretation of one of the most powerful observations of the Information Age. When author Stewart Brand coined the expression "Information wants to be free," he focused on how technology makes it cheap and easy to communicate and share knowledge. But the rest of his quote is rarely noticed. This says, "Information also wants to be expensive." The right information in today's complex economy and society can make a huge difference in our professional and personal lives. Not having this information can also make a big difference, especially if someone else does have it. And for valuable information, online is a great new way for it to be valued.

I have subscriptions to the print editions of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, though I most often read them online. My belief in and support of grassroots, social media-style journalism notwithstanding, newspapers still have a vital role to play, and I will happily pay for information that has value in my life.

Like any other business, however, newspapers must constantly strive for innovation in how they address the needs of their customers. If newspapers meet those needs, they should charge for that service. Their slice of the pie may be smaller, a factor that has already reshaped the industry and will continue to do so. But in age when we are awash in information, much of it of little consequence, the value of good information is at a premium, a premium that I'll happily pay.

 

Read the WSJ article: Information Wants to Be Expensive - WSJ.com

 

Technorati Tags: newspapers,wall street journal,L. Gordon Crovitz,new york times,cleveland plain dealer.

Social Media: Take off the Mask

A few days ago social media guru Chris Brogan posted an interesting video blog  (read my comment) on how the effective business use of social media requires an honest, personal voice, a departure from the typical business voice. (Why does the idea of putting on a business voice for social media communication remind me of Jane Jetson in curlers holding a perfectly-coiffed Jane Jetson mask in front of her face when she's using the videophone?)    

Then just this morning, thanks to a tweet from Brandon Prebynski, I read Seth Godin's post What would a professional do?, which includes this nugget:

From personal YouTube videos to particularly poignant and honest presentations or direct and true sales pitches, the humility, freshness and transparency that comes with an honest performance might actually be better than what a professional could do. Harvey Milk was an amateur politician, not a pro. If you're the only person on earth who could have done what you just did, then you're a proud amateur...You can't skate by when you refuse to mimic a professional. You must connect in a personal, lasting way that matters. That's difficult, but the professionals have no chance to compete with you.

Mr. Godin's post never mentions social media, but his message is highly, obviously relevant. Social media's ultimate impact on marketing has everything to do with the honesty, transparency and freshness that Mr. Brogan and Mr. Godin refer to in there respective posts.  That certainly doesn't mean that any of those qualities can't be faked. But I have to believe that eventually that Jane Jetson mask will become far too heavy to hold up under the weight of community scrutiny. After all, the key difference between a marketing strategy based on the effective use of social media and a more traditional strategy is all about the difference between a community and an audience.

 

Read Seth's Blog: What would a professional do?

Watch Chris's video post

 

Technorati Tags: social media,seth godin,chris brogan,marketing

Delete 10 Facebook friends, get a free Whopper | Webware - CNET

An excellent example of truly enlightened Social Media marketing. Seriously, this is brilliant stuff:

The funniest part: The "sacrifices" show up in your activity feed. So it'll say, for example, "Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper." Unfortunately, you can't delete your whole friends list and eat free (however unhealthily) for a week. The promotion is limited to one coupon per Facebook account.

Read the original post: Delete 10 Facebook friends, get a free Whopper | Webware - CNET

 

Technorati Tags: burger king,social media,facebook

ABC Pursues Television Widgets - TV Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

Here's the background: 

The concept, trumpeted for years, only now appears to be making inroads. ABC, according to Ms. Sweeney, is pursuing the technology in several ways. With a Lost widget, ABC could perhaps feed fans extra clues about the mysterious storyline as they watch the series finale next year. A cooking segment on Good Morning America could be enhanced with step-by-step instructions that can be viewed onscreen via a widget.

And here's my question:

Aside from baby boomers, more and more people are viewing television programs over the Web, on some network sites, and Hulu and similar services. Those viewers, I suspect, are more technically savvy and adept at using various Web 2.0 tools to simultaneously access multiple content streams -- using Twitter while watching favorite programs, for example.

So while the TV widgets idea sounds cool, is it really going to matter if people aren't using their TVs anyway?

And with services like Twitter, and devices like the iPhone and iPod Touch, why but the widget in the TV?

This idea has some merit in its potential to transform the TV viewing experience to make it as customizable and interactive as the personal computer. But it may be too little too late.

Of course, if people are willing to trample each other to save a few bucks on a flat-screen TV, maybe TV as we know still has a chance at avoiding the tar pit.

Read the original story: ABC Pursues Television Widgets - TV Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: ABC,television,widgets,web 2.0,twitter.

Twitter: The Water Cooler For Mobile Workers - Information Management Blog - InformationWeek

As a "cloudworker" I've learned just how isolated one can feel when your daily commute is the few steps from the bedroom to the home office, and your colleagues typically manifest themselves as lines of text in an email or IM or, at best, disembodied voices  on your cellphone.

So while I was a bit surprised that IW columnist Andrew Conry-Murray had only recently started using Twitter, I have to agree completely with his assessment of Twitter's role in keeping me connected to the world beyond my walls.

Murray writes:

Enter Twitter. I started using it before the holidays, and suddenly I don't feel so trollish any more. Via Twitter you can swap jokes with co-workers, get updates on their personal lives, and dip into a steady stream of industry gossip.

But for me Twitter is far more than a gossip channel. It's a powerful tool I use throughout the day to communicate with a growing network of people who are members of the community that is the focus of my work.  At this point, my job would be so much more difficult without Twitter.

Read Murray's post: Twitter: The Water Cooler For Mobile Workers - Information Management Blog - InformationWeek

Technorati Tags: twitter,social media,Andrew Conry-Murray,InformationWeek

Techno//Marketer - Matt Dickman on Digital Marketing and Social Media: Five big social media contradictions and how to manage them

I am frequently asked for advice on blogging and the use of other social media tools in a  corporate marketing environment. Time and again I find myself either quoting Matt Dickman or referring people to his blog or presentations on SlideShare.

Matt's recent post on social media contradictions will certainly become one of those resources  I suggest to people who need help in learning to use these new tools.

Matt writes:

What's fast to build, slow to grow and needs constant attention? No, not a Chia Pet. It's social media! I've given this post a lot of thought over the past couple of months as I talk with executives and marketers who are discussing their entry into the social media space. Some are skeptical, others are passionate. Most have incorrect pre-conceived notions that are contradictory to the way things actually are. Ironically, most of these contradictions have been used as selling points in the early days of the space.

Read Matt's entire post: Techno//Marketer - Matt Dickman on Digital Marketing and Social Media: Five big social media contradictions and how to manage them

Technorati Tags: social media,blogging,Matt Dickman,marketing

PR/Marketing Fluff in 140-character doses

Writing in Silicon Valley Insider, Dan Frommer reports on an emerging Twitter tool:

Twittertise lets you schedule Twitter messages in advance to go out at a specified time -- handy for companies that want to cue up PR-approved messages ahead of time; and track traffic to links you send on Twitter through Bit.ly, a URL shortener.

It's a cool idea that can have uses outside to PR/Marketing. I'd be bothered by the implications if receiving tweets wasn't an opt-in deal. My follow list is already too crowded with information I actually want.

 

Read the story: Twitter Marketing Tool Twittertise Catching On With Big, Small Companies

 

Technorati Tags: twitter,public relations,marketing,social computing

Obama campaign iPhone app

In yet another example of the smallification of politics, ZDNet's Apple Core column reports that the Obama campaign has released an iPhone app:

The app has a Call Your Friends feature that organizes your contacts by key battleground states and adds a field for notes on who you called, who they are supporting and if they want a reminder call on election day. The information remains private [and} doesnt leave your phone although the total amount of calls made are tallied to track progress.

Smart move.

This brings to mind concerns about the accuracy of polling data that focuses solely on landline phone service.

Technology continues to reshape the political landscape on a cataclysmic level.

Read more: Obama campaign unleashes iPhone app | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

 

Technorati Tags: iPhone,Apple,Obama,politics,election,technology

New ways to be big

Writing in his Enterprise blog on ReadWriteWeb, Bernard Lunn displays remarkable insight into how powerful forces, including social media and the changing of the guard as Boomers leave the workforce,  are changing the structure and organization of the firm:

That is huge opportunity for a lot of start-ups. There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. It also a huge challenge for the incumbents. Big companies need to re-define themselves in fundamental ways to find new ways to be big in a meaningful way.

In ten years, what will a "big" company look like?

Read: Enterprise 2.0: The Nature of the Firm - ReadWriteWeb

 

Technorati Tags: social media,business,innovation,Boomers,GenY,Bernard Lunn

Personal Innovation

The recently launched New Age of Innovation blog is obviously a marketing vehicle for the new book by C. K. Prahalad and M. S. Krishnan, but that doesn't mean that the blog or the book aren't worth reading. I first heard of Prahalad when he spoke at an IT industry event about a year ago, and his ideas on the changing nature of competition and on innovation as business survival skill are as fascinating as they are important. I can't wait to read this new book.

A recent post on the blog, by guest blogger and venture capitalist William Glynn, mixes a bit of flag-waving encouragement with some harsh but not-undeserved criticism of those who cling to dead and dying business and economic models:

If the U.S. and its people would only wake up to the fact that we are the world's largest, most sophisticated fuel supply for innovation … and it isn't stopping or running dry. It's this identity crisis that holds us back, bound to rotting unions and auto plants, the working man, farmer, steel worker, plant worker, etc. We need an FDR-level plan to get people out of the industrial-age ghettos and into the light. We have to. I think we can all agree, we don't have a choice

(Read Glynn's entire post: New Age Of Innovation | Innovate in Real Time with Me -- Billy G | C.K. Prahalad)

Remarks like that will be a bitter pill for many in Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities. But there's no denying that times have changed, the world has changed, and that change will continue at a dizzying and ever-accelerating pace. It is important to recognize that change as an opportunity, rather than as a threat.

As I write this, NPR is running a John McCain soundbyte in which the candidate warns that he can't promise that manufacturing jobs will ever return, but promises that he will focus efforts on providing people with the education necessary to move into the new economy. As campaign promises go, that one's not bad -- at least his assessment of the situation is realistic. (That's not an endorsement.) So while I agree with Glynn in principle, and I firmly believe that we need the kind of "FDR-level plan" he suggests, doesn't the ultimate responsibility for adapting to changing times rest with the individual? 

Each of us is an individual participant in the global economy, in a very real sense a one-person company, regardless of who we work for, where we work, or what we do. That carries the awesome but unavoidable responsibility of remaining individually competitive and marketable.  If the market for your particular skill set evaporates, it's time to acquire new skills.

One very important aspect of this, particularly for those of us with Rust Belt roots, is to accept that the notion of secure, life-long (or even long-term) employment is as dead as 35-cent a gallon gasoline, 8-track players, and smoking in bars.  Real, long-term financial security isn't going to be handed down from any company or any government. If you want that security, you're going to have to figure out how to remain viable and marketable participant in an ever-changing economy. 

And that comes down to personal innovation. As individual participants in a changing global economy, innovation must become a personal survival skill. It won't be enough to simply accept change. We must manufacture our own individual security by embracing change, by leveraging change, and by driving change. Each of us must become an instrument of innovation.   

 

Technorati Tags: innovation,C K Prahalad,William Glynn,John McCain,rust belt,Cleveland,globalization,jobs,unions,FDR

Innovation or Extinction

I don't make a practice of self-bloggulation, but a post I recently wrote for one of my other blogs is relevant to Smallification:

The irony is that by making it increasingly easy to do remarkable things, modern information technology is raising the bar on remarkability. Survival in the global business environment is becoming ever more dependent on the enterprise's ability to innovate at will -- on the ability to out-innovate competitors. That can't happen if, as Basu and Jarnagin observe in their Wall Street Journal article, "there is still a tendency to think of IT as a basic utility, like plumbing or telephone service."

Phone service and plumbing are important, of course. But is investment in your company's phone service or plumbing going to keep your competitors awake at night?

"That's right! Automatic flush! Boo-Yah! Who's your daddy?"

Read the rest of Be the Purple Ninja Cow

Technorati Tags: business,innovation,extinction,Wall Street Journal,Seth Godin,enterprise transformation,Web 2.0

Web 2.0 and the Evolution of Marketing

David Pogue's column in yesterday's New York Times (online) offers a concise explanation of why Web 2.0 tools are so important in a connected more transparent world.

We all know, intellectually, that no matter what image a corporation tries to project, it's made up of ordinary people with personalities, insecurities and lives. But because the marketing and P.R. teams work so hard to scrub, control and package a company's image, the public ordinarily sees none of that human side.

When a company embraces the possibilities of Web 2.0, though, it makes contact with its public in a more casual, less sanitized way that, as a result, is accepted with much less cynicism. Web 2.0 offers a direct, more trusted line of communications than anything that came before it.

Read the entire column: Are You Taking Advantage of Web 2.0? - New York Times

 

Technorati Tags: marketing,Web 2.0,innovation,transparency,communication

Separating the Medium and the Message

Maybe it's a Boomer thing (shout-out to my peeps!), but even ten or fifteen or however many years we are into the Internet Age, it can be  difficult to shake outmoded but deeply ingrained concepts that fuse and confuse content delivery with content consumption. 

I consciously understand the difference. Hell, I make my living producing content that is often consumed in a variety of formats. But the fact that the final paragraph in Randall Stross's New York Times article about Amazon's Kindle e-book got my attention says something about my unconscious frame of reference. 

Stross writes:

The object we are accustomed to calling a book is undergoing a profound modification as it is stripped of its physical shell. Kindle’s long-term success is still unknown, but Amazon should be credited with imaginatively redefining its original product line, replacing the book business with the reading business.

Stross's article brought to mind a recent Wired article in which David Byrne discusses future of the music business. In that article, Byrne offers this:

What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over.

Both articles address, to varying degrees and from different angles, how changes in the tools of content consumption continue to change the both the experience of that consumption and the business models built around that experience. What I find fascinating is that the pace of that evolution for music has been so much faster than that for books.

Market forces may be a part of that difference, given that people who buy recorded music, in any form or format, far outnumber those who buy books. But that's nothing new, is it?

The most striking difference, the reason that consumers have been far more willing to accept changes in the tools of music consumption than changes in the tools of the consumption of book content just might be that books were already well ahead of the curve.

By the time tiny, inexpensive transistor radios arrived on the scene in the 1960s, the book, as a tool of consumption, had centuries before achieved comparable levels of portability and user-friendliness. The advent of the paperback in the first half of the last century only increased the book's low-tech technological advantage.  What was the evolution of music delivery technologies, from brittle 78s to vinyl LPs to eight-track to cassette to CD and finally to today's MP3, but an attempt to catch up to the book?

So the struggle to introduce the various new technological tools for reading may have less to do with book lovers' stodgy, bespectacled refusal to let go of the familiar experience of reading a paper-and-ink book, and more to do with the idea that the format had long ago achieved some level of perfection.

Of course, that argument completely ignores the idea of storage. My collection of some 8,000-plus songs fits on one small USB drive the size of a single hardcover book, whereas my modest collection of books occupies ("overwhelms" is more accurate) three long shelves in my den, and six small bookcases in my living room.  So I can see how a well-designed reading device and a digitized library might improve my overall reading experience.

Revolution, coming around again

Nicholas Carr, in his Financial Times article , A revolution is taking shape, says this about the evolution and increasing use of "software as a service":

What is happening to computing today is a revolution, the biggest upheaval since the invention of the PC in the 1970s. But it is not without precedent. It bears a close resemblance to what happened to mechanical power 100 years ago.

True. But elsewhere in the article he adds this:

The transformation in the supply of computing promises to have equally sweeping consequences. Software programs already control or mediate not only industry and commerce but entertainment, journalism, education, even politics and national defence. The shock waves produced by a shift in computing technology will thus be intense and far-reaching.

I'm not sure that I'd agree with Carr's prediction of the extent of that impact. If anything, SaaS is IT catching up to itself, and to the Three D's -- democratization, decentralization, and distribution -- that blogs, social computing, peer-to-peer file sharing, telecommuting, and other concepts have brought to bear on long-established business models and practices, politics, and pretty much everything else. With disruptive concepts like "the long tail," "the flat world," and "the wisdom of crowds" already ingrained elements of the Web-driven global socio-economic environment, I don't see SaaS as having that much of an impact outside of the software industry itself.

Yes, it will allow devices to become smaller and more mobile by eliminating the need to install software on those devices. And yes, that will have an impact on when, where, and how we use the Web. But that's an incremental change to a landscape that is already familiar to technology consumers (which is to say, damn near everybody in the developed world).

The real issue here is that SaaS is to the software industry -- at least in one respect -- what the MP3 was to the music industry. The software industry will soon be out of the business of selling silver disks. It will be interesting to see if the software industry does a better job of adjusting to this new reality than the music industry.

CIO - Blog: Something is Happening Here

Writing in the CIO.com Soapbox blog, Michael Hugos shares some of his ideas on generational differences and the changing nature and definition of work: 

This new global economy is clearly about more than just working hard. Innovation and agility don't happen by doing the same old things over and over, harder and harder. What other things might smart people with clear eyes be able to tell me? Innovation is what happens when we integrate different views into new visions.

For as long as I've been drawing a paycheck -- a process that started during the Nixon administration -- I've heard about the importance of working smart, as opposed to working hard.  I never interpreted that as  an indictment of hard work, or encouragement to figure out how to game the system. I took it as encouragement to always have my head in the game, and to always strive to find better ways of doing what I had to do.

Nixon's dead, I'm feeling every day of my 53-plus years, and the world has certainly changed.  But it always has, and it always will. The only difference now is that the pace of change in the first decade of the 21st century is so much faster than it was in the entire last half of the 20th century.  Keeping up isn't getting any easier, but what are the alternatives?

Michael's post also includes this:

A guy named Joe observed "The baby-boomers frequently draw distinctions between 'work' and 'play'. If it's 'work', it's not fun. If it's 'fun', it's not work." He went on to say, "The notions of 'hard work' and 'paying your dues' are clearly lost on the millenials. But is that really such a bad thing? Does it not also make sense, in today's electronic world, to encourage smart, efficient and creative work? In the post-industrial era, is 'hard' work really more valuable than 'fast' work, 'good' work or 'fun' work?"

And this:

But in my more creative moments I know there are insanely great new things to be done with this new stuff. There's lots of fun to be had and there's money to be made too if we can put it all together in innovative ways. Working hard is fine but it's just as important to work fast and have fun. In a world where pensions are going away and working at the some company for your whole career is a thing of the past, we need to think about new ways to motivate people and new ways to produce value. It's time to get inspired.

Give that man a cigar.

Thanks to the Internet and the explosion of technology, we have entered an age unlike any before in human history.  The temporal, spatial, and national boundaries that once separated people have little meaning or relevance in an information economy.  This presents unprecedented opportunities for those willing to take advantage.  But that means accepting change as a constant, and accepting the perpetuity of a 90-degree learning curve.

In this new age, we all have to pay our dues, all the time, regardless of age or generation. We have to work hard at working smart.  

It's the price of participation. 

It's what drives innovation.

But it's also the price of emancipation from the old boundaries and limitations.  If you had the choice, would you really want to spend thirty years at the same job?

Technorati Tags: innovation , career , technology , boomers

When Mass Marketing Dies

From Seth Godin's Meatball Mondae (#2):

"The Meatball Sundae is an idea that's possibly even bigger than that one. When mass marketing dies, the future of the companies that embrace this approach dies too."

The bodies are already piling up: the recording industry, the movie industry, broadcast TV, radio, newspapers, are just the beginning.

A recent Wall Street Journal story (Wal-Mart Era Wanes Amid Big Shifts in Retail) offers evidence of how the giant retailer is losing ground in a rapidly evolving marketplace:

"[T]he Internet is transforming the retail definition of scale. The once-stunning compilation of 142,000 items found in a Wal-Mart supercenter doesn't seem so vast alongside the millions of products available on the Internet. At the same time, the cost of creating and sustaining a national brand is rising because of media fragmentation. Niche brands, created by Internet word of mouth, are winning shelf space and sapping profits required to fund big brands' advertising. Manufacturers such as Apple Inc. and Phillips-Van Heusen Corp., lacking the retail distribution or presentation they crave, are opening their own stores. One result is that retail giants hold less sway over their customers -- and over their suppliers."

Godin's insightful point is that it will take more than a change in marketing tools or strategy to adapt to the new business ecosystem. Companies have to actually evolve, not just change their stories.