A slightly delayed start this morning as we work through wireless access issues in the hotel.

The morning opened with a keynote from Chris Meyer, Chief Executive of Monitor Networks. His focus was discussion of the shift from the industrial economy to the information economy and what mechanisms or approaches might be adapted by scholarly publishers to survive and thrive. Meyer noted that the shift in economic paradigms meant that we are living through a period of waiting until new institutional entities and legal mechanisms emerge to smooth and simplify the economic operations. He noted that more value is created in making new markets rather than through trying to shift market share. Meyer noted that successful entities such as Linux Red Hat and Google had emerged as leaders because they had mastered Seth Godin's mantra of "You give it away until you charge for it" -- Google giving away search and discover while subsidizing it through the advertising revenue and Linux Red Hat providing the missing support services for open source software.

The key question for the audience for Meyer was what kind of incentives might be offered to encourage participation. There will be some communities where participants forge ahead in creating the value while other communities, similar in scope, languish from lack of interest. What is the magic ingredient that can gently encourage as many people as possible to actively contribute their knowledge. No sure answer has been identified.

That will have to do for now. Once I've processed the depth of his comments, I'll add an update on this.

The audience is clearly ready to interact with the speakers so the next session which will be moderated by Judith Turner will build the interest. Her speakers are drawn from the news industry, an industry that is facing increasing competition from new entrants even as they attempt to navigate the transition from a well-entrenched print product to the digital dissemination of news content.

Whoops, we're getting started; gotta' run