He is pointing attendees to the 23 Steps to learning about Web 2.0 technologies, 5 Weeks to a Social Library. http://rameyerguam.blogspot.com where you learn something new everyday (100+ projects; nearly 200). He's suggesting that we as publishers need to look at what people actually *do* with these tools and make it possible for them to use those tools with our content to do great things.
His slides will be posted to his blog, Stephen's Lighthouse. (which is really good given that Blogger hiccuped and lost all the content I had captured from his talk).
Friday, September 07, 2007
I'm going to publish much shorter entries in avoid losing anything. He's pointing to iReaders (popular in China) and the iphone. Those are indicative of growth possibilities in delivering content and then shows a cemetary of dead formats (vinyl, tapes, CDs and he says soon DVDs.) He says we need to simplify our systems.
I apologize; Blogger experienced a hiccup and swallowed all of Stephen Abrams wrap-up. My apologies. He was talking about the massive changes that are still facing us with regard to global forces, economic forces, the disruptive technologies. I'm just infuriated. I hope the other attendees using low tech got the basic gist of it. Abrams emphasizes that we cannot base tools and formats on text -- that there is a world of other learning styles that are underserved.
Bill Burger is talking about the growing public interest in copyright. It's due to the explosion of internet use and content creation. He notes the an increasing pace of technological and business innovation. The one-to-many model has broken down, replaced by niche economics. And of course content is inextricably woven into technology. Copyright is an attempt by society to balance a variety of factors to reward creators while fostering economic growth by innovation and new ideas.
Content comes in many new forms. Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Life, instances where you may get legitimate (and in the case of the Encyclopedia of Life, actually high-quality) information for free. The technology (Bill is showing a plug in that he has incorporated into his browser) allows users to share content with whomever they choose. He references the level of participation that has been made possible by all of these new technologies (Flickr, Blogger, etc.) and there are alternatives to the more formal traditional channels of publishing. However this means there is a certain amount of infringement of copyright. He's referencing something called Wolfgang's Vault. The site, launched in 2006, it offers up streams of old concerts from decades in the past. Bill asks whether an artist such as Bruce Springsteen should object to this practice and demand compensation for the content that's being disseminated without the artist receiving financial reward. He has no answer.
Talking now about the shift in the balance of power from being solely in the hands of the publisher as copyright holder and moving towards the end-user having a greater ability to share and remix content into new channels of dissemination. There's the loss of control. The technology providers have also absorbed a large part of the power in terms of making the passing around of content easier.
Bills is saying the environment will be increasingly information rich with living documents replacing static ones. Participation and collaboration will be increasingly central to our interactions with content and disruptive practices will be continuing.
Content comes in many new forms. Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Life, instances where you may get legitimate (and in the case of the Encyclopedia of Life, actually high-quality) information for free. The technology (Bill is showing a plug in that he has incorporated into his browser) allows users to share content with whomever they choose. He references the level of participation that has been made possible by all of these new technologies (Flickr, Blogger, etc.) and there are alternatives to the more formal traditional channels of publishing. However this means there is a certain amount of infringement of copyright. He's referencing something called Wolfgang's Vault. The site, launched in 2006, it offers up streams of old concerts from decades in the past. Bill asks whether an artist such as Bruce Springsteen should object to this practice and demand compensation for the content that's being disseminated without the artist receiving financial reward. He has no answer.
Talking now about the shift in the balance of power from being solely in the hands of the publisher as copyright holder and moving towards the end-user having a greater ability to share and remix content into new channels of dissemination. There's the loss of control. The technology providers have also absorbed a large part of the power in terms of making the passing around of content easier.
Bills is saying the environment will be increasingly information rich with living documents replacing static ones. Participation and collaboration will be increasingly central to our interactions with content and disruptive practices will be continuing.
Pretty full room this morning! We're starting out discussing Music, Television and New Media today. How much relevance will this have for this audience, I wonder. The description indicates that it will focus on current uncertainties and future trends in the digital delivery of media and entertainment. Redistribution of power throughout the channels of delivery should be driving new approaches in the content industries and I can't help but wonder if any of these gentlemen can demonstrate success with any of the approaches in place in the entertainment content sector. (Sorry, that was my own little editorial snark. We return you now to formal journalistic practices....)
Jim Griffin of OneHouse LLC is the first speaker. He suggests that we should learn from all of their mistakes in the music industry (for example, "don't sue your customers" would be a good beginning.). There is no one business model; you have to choose what's best for your particular clientele or customer basis. He is referencing Gutenberg as a starting point and notes a story that Gutenburg was a pirate who was ripping off the Pope (now, there's a story I want to verify for later use and/or reference).
It is now voluntary to pay for music, according to Griffin, perhaps not morally or legally but technology has changed the economics for those in this industry. Scholarly publishing may not be quite in the same boat but he suggests that it's only a matter of time. Not only is it voluntary to pay now, but it will be even more of a voluntary act next year and even more in ten years. It's just the consequence of the progress in computing.
He uses the word - bionomic -- the rising tide of change in distribution means that the flow naturally finds the shortest route through which to flow. Depending on a deus ex machina is a really bad business model. And yet the music industry is learning that there is no such device on the verge of saving them. It's an untenable situation - if payment is voluntary, there will be a detrimental impact on the creative industries. Copyright is at best what we wish were true. If you depend on copyright to save your business, you're screwed (those were his precise words). Copyright has become the concept of copy-risk; we can't empower you to stop that copying that is a running part of our world of networks. Not surprisingly the licensing segment of the music industry is growing, whereas the revenue from sales of specific discrete artifacts is shrinking.
(1) He counsels moving to service models for distribution, maximizing the size of the crowd that can hear your music but not trying to control who can hear your your music.
(2) Do not look to the government to solve your problems
(3) You'll do better to address the motivation behind piracy as opposed to trying to attach the mechanism for piracy.
(there was something else but I missed it).
He was actually quite lively and entertaining.
Next speaker up is Peter Kaufman of Intelligent Television. (1) Everyone here is a producer of screen based media, based on every computer act we perform. (2) We are all involved in peer production. We draw upon the behaviors and talents of those who have gone before. (3) The cult of the amateur is actually a sum benefit to scholarship. Everyone can contribute and should do so to the assemblage of knowledge through Wikipedia, etc. (4) TV and video statistics; 20% of all Internet users watch or download a video online everyday. This statistic will grow and the demand for video in the educational sector alone will be exploding in size. Online video is also where the money is, a ten billion dollar business in 2010. This is growing in the STM sector. (5) The most important article anywhere in the past five years was Michael Jenson's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the new metrics of scholarly authority. It's a demand for new business models. We can succeed by competing on computability, making our content feedable into and findable via the online environment. This viewpoint is confirmed by various Wall Street gurus and consulting research firms. Publishers should be spreading their content across multiple partner platforms, he references CBS as a good example of how this is done. His organization has been funded to spend the next three years in creating an educational video studio; there will be commercial stakeholders, government support, and others working to develop this. Video producers and scholarly publishers have much to learn from each other. He references a report,"Reinventing scholarly communication", from USC published last month -- track this down and see what is said. References the success of students retention of content in experiement where they had to read a paper in 8 minutes vs. watching a video cast of the same content for 8 minutes. The latter group outperformed the former in terms of retential and this has long term significance.
Next up is Charles Nesson, Harvard Law professor and founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He's discussing an experiment in Second Life, and the use of avatars by students on a Harvard Law School like island in that environment. He taught a course in a regular classroom which was taped and then subsequently streamed as a video to the students in Second Life. Had some significant advantages -- he notes that the visual judgements that get erased by the self selected avatars impacted on the group dynamics. He suggests that this is a signficant point in the creation of education communities, facilitating greater comfort levels in discussion and other exchanges. He suggests that the Second Life experience can enhance and supplement what goes on in a face to face classroom. Feedback on projects, mock trial jperformances are improved through the use of Second Life. He considers this is just a suggestion for the future. Second Life isn't scaleable in many respects at present, but the vision is there that could vastly enhance distance learning.
He now turns to online Poker games. He advises his students to learn Poker because understanding a problem from your adversary's point of view is key to mastering courtroom evidentiary skills. He has become an addict of Poker as a development and educational tool on the basis of how it drives growth on the Web. Tying the two together, he points out that learning skills employed in online poker by a widely diverse population is a way of developing strategic skills. Subtlety and perception are honed by the activity.
Abruptly he reverts to the first gentleman's presention (Jim Griffin) and calls for scholarly publishers to essentially step up to the plate and figure out a new business model. He says that the current environment of the open Web isn't suitable to real scholarship because it is so frequently ephemeral; can't rely on it, can't cite it, etc. He isn't pounding the table but I do get a sense that he feels strongly about this.
He believes that the ways in which players interact in an online game of poker may hold the keys for publishers trying to migrate their content into environments that exist in the interests of education and research.
We're over to Q&A. How does Griffin think about DRM; he says it's not about locks and keys. The players should focus on how you get paid for the cotnent; you manage rights well when you get paid for your intellectual goods. If you want to make money, start a relationship that goes on forever. (He used a very colorful presentation that is inappropriate to a written account here just on the basis of language alone. Griffin is wonderfully pungent in his delivery. But clearly he's a fairly hard-headed business man.) Granularity is the enemy of creativity and artistic content; bundling is better for the copyright industries. He suggests that the ideal is that content should not be free but it should feel free at the moment of use. Google feels free but they are pulling down bundles of money.
Professor Nesson backs Griffin up by suggesting that MIT courseware is of tremendous value even as it is given away. The courses have become better, it's a great recruiting tool, and other universities are keeping a close watch on it in order to see how they can replicate it for their own institutions.
Jim Griffin of OneHouse LLC is the first speaker. He suggests that we should learn from all of their mistakes in the music industry (for example, "don't sue your customers" would be a good beginning.). There is no one business model; you have to choose what's best for your particular clientele or customer basis. He is referencing Gutenberg as a starting point and notes a story that Gutenburg was a pirate who was ripping off the Pope (now, there's a story I want to verify for later use and/or reference).
It is now voluntary to pay for music, according to Griffin, perhaps not morally or legally but technology has changed the economics for those in this industry. Scholarly publishing may not be quite in the same boat but he suggests that it's only a matter of time. Not only is it voluntary to pay now, but it will be even more of a voluntary act next year and even more in ten years. It's just the consequence of the progress in computing.
He uses the word - bionomic -- the rising tide of change in distribution means that the flow naturally finds the shortest route through which to flow. Depending on a deus ex machina is a really bad business model. And yet the music industry is learning that there is no such device on the verge of saving them. It's an untenable situation - if payment is voluntary, there will be a detrimental impact on the creative industries. Copyright is at best what we wish were true. If you depend on copyright to save your business, you're screwed (those were his precise words). Copyright has become the concept of copy-risk; we can't empower you to stop that copying that is a running part of our world of networks. Not surprisingly the licensing segment of the music industry is growing, whereas the revenue from sales of specific discrete artifacts is shrinking.
(1) He counsels moving to service models for distribution, maximizing the size of the crowd that can hear your music but not trying to control who can hear your your music.
(2) Do not look to the government to solve your problems
(3) You'll do better to address the motivation behind piracy as opposed to trying to attach the mechanism for piracy.
(there was something else but I missed it).
He was actually quite lively and entertaining.
Next speaker up is Peter Kaufman of Intelligent Television. (1) Everyone here is a producer of screen based media, based on every computer act we perform. (2) We are all involved in peer production. We draw upon the behaviors and talents of those who have gone before. (3) The cult of the amateur is actually a sum benefit to scholarship. Everyone can contribute and should do so to the assemblage of knowledge through Wikipedia, etc. (4) TV and video statistics; 20% of all Internet users watch or download a video online everyday. This statistic will grow and the demand for video in the educational sector alone will be exploding in size. Online video is also where the money is, a ten billion dollar business in 2010. This is growing in the STM sector. (5) The most important article anywhere in the past five years was Michael Jenson's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the new metrics of scholarly authority. It's a demand for new business models. We can succeed by competing on computability, making our content feedable into and findable via the online environment. This viewpoint is confirmed by various Wall Street gurus and consulting research firms. Publishers should be spreading their content across multiple partner platforms, he references CBS as a good example of how this is done. His organization has been funded to spend the next three years in creating an educational video studio; there will be commercial stakeholders, government support, and others working to develop this. Video producers and scholarly publishers have much to learn from each other. He references a report,"Reinventing scholarly communication", from USC published last month -- track this down and see what is said. References the success of students retention of content in experiement where they had to read a paper in 8 minutes vs. watching a video cast of the same content for 8 minutes. The latter group outperformed the former in terms of retential and this has long term significance.
Next up is Charles Nesson, Harvard Law professor and founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He's discussing an experiment in Second Life, and the use of avatars by students on a Harvard Law School like island in that environment. He taught a course in a regular classroom which was taped and then subsequently streamed as a video to the students in Second Life. Had some significant advantages -- he notes that the visual judgements that get erased by the self selected avatars impacted on the group dynamics. He suggests that this is a signficant point in the creation of education communities, facilitating greater comfort levels in discussion and other exchanges. He suggests that the Second Life experience can enhance and supplement what goes on in a face to face classroom. Feedback on projects, mock trial jperformances are improved through the use of Second Life. He considers this is just a suggestion for the future. Second Life isn't scaleable in many respects at present, but the vision is there that could vastly enhance distance learning.
He now turns to online Poker games. He advises his students to learn Poker because understanding a problem from your adversary's point of view is key to mastering courtroom evidentiary skills. He has become an addict of Poker as a development and educational tool on the basis of how it drives growth on the Web. Tying the two together, he points out that learning skills employed in online poker by a widely diverse population is a way of developing strategic skills. Subtlety and perception are honed by the activity.
Abruptly he reverts to the first gentleman's presention (Jim Griffin) and calls for scholarly publishers to essentially step up to the plate and figure out a new business model. He says that the current environment of the open Web isn't suitable to real scholarship because it is so frequently ephemeral; can't rely on it, can't cite it, etc. He isn't pounding the table but I do get a sense that he feels strongly about this.
He believes that the ways in which players interact in an online game of poker may hold the keys for publishers trying to migrate their content into environments that exist in the interests of education and research.
We're over to Q&A. How does Griffin think about DRM; he says it's not about locks and keys. The players should focus on how you get paid for the cotnent; you manage rights well when you get paid for your intellectual goods. If you want to make money, start a relationship that goes on forever. (He used a very colorful presentation that is inappropriate to a written account here just on the basis of language alone. Griffin is wonderfully pungent in his delivery. But clearly he's a fairly hard-headed business man.) Granularity is the enemy of creativity and artistic content; bundling is better for the copyright industries. He suggests that the ideal is that content should not be free but it should feel free at the moment of use. Google feels free but they are pulling down bundles of money.
Professor Nesson backs Griffin up by suggesting that MIT courseware is of tremendous value even as it is given away. The courses have become better, it's a great recruiting tool, and other universities are keeping a close watch on it in order to see how they can replicate it for their own institutions.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
As the evening lengthens, I am working through the actual sense of today's discussions:
Users today have so many ways of communicating. We heard a number of references to Twitter and to Facebook and to blogs, technologies that are useful in support of certain forms of communication. There's a disconnect between in-the-trenches publishing activities and the tools that are being pushed at publishers (or that publishing professionals perceive as being pushed at them) by the mainstream.
Digital publishing is less about communication and more about creating platforms or environments that weld content and technology together in support of a goal (such as learning) or workflow (such as developing a new pharmaceutical product or solving a technical challenge). Publishers individually have to figure out what combination of content and technology those platforms or environments must provide in order to sustain value to the customer. The only questions that scholarly publishers ask about the new technologies being made available today is "Does this technology do something that scholars find necessary in the performance of their work?". If so, publishers will try to integrate that technology into a service; if not, publishers will ignore the technology as irrelevant to their own objectives (ie. sustaining a revenue stream or a business).
If publishers are being pushed to explore new technologies, it is because those who have already adopted a specific technology see in it potential for enhancing processes or efficiency. Second Life is seen as presenting new ways of connecting members of dispersed teams. It may provide a better educational experience for certain individuals geared to visual or kinetic learning. Twitter and Facebook are seen as potentially offering more attractive ways of communication between co-workers or building relationships between buyer and seller. Blogging is seen as perhaps a better way of shaping a discussion or line of thought that may ultimately morph into a best-selling book. Wikis are seen as potentially offering a better way of eliciting tacit knowledge for subsequent delivery to others needing that knowledge in the future. What will hasten problem resolution? What will enhance learning? How much more rapidly and effectively can we preserve and pass along knowledge to those who follow after?
Those are really the challenges that face scholarly publishers.
Users today have so many ways of communicating. We heard a number of references to Twitter and to Facebook and to blogs, technologies that are useful in support of certain forms of communication. There's a disconnect between in-the-trenches publishing activities and the tools that are being pushed at publishers (or that publishing professionals perceive as being pushed at them) by the mainstream.
Digital publishing is less about communication and more about creating platforms or environments that weld content and technology together in support of a goal (such as learning) or workflow (such as developing a new pharmaceutical product or solving a technical challenge). Publishers individually have to figure out what combination of content and technology those platforms or environments must provide in order to sustain value to the customer. The only questions that scholarly publishers ask about the new technologies being made available today is "Does this technology do something that scholars find necessary in the performance of their work?". If so, publishers will try to integrate that technology into a service; if not, publishers will ignore the technology as irrelevant to their own objectives (ie. sustaining a revenue stream or a business).
If publishers are being pushed to explore new technologies, it is because those who have already adopted a specific technology see in it potential for enhancing processes or efficiency. Second Life is seen as presenting new ways of connecting members of dispersed teams. It may provide a better educational experience for certain individuals geared to visual or kinetic learning. Twitter and Facebook are seen as potentially offering more attractive ways of communication between co-workers or building relationships between buyer and seller. Blogging is seen as perhaps a better way of shaping a discussion or line of thought that may ultimately morph into a best-selling book. Wikis are seen as potentially offering a better way of eliciting tacit knowledge for subsequent delivery to others needing that knowledge in the future. What will hasten problem resolution? What will enhance learning? How much more rapidly and effectively can we preserve and pass along knowledge to those who follow after?
Those are really the challenges that face scholarly publishers.
So at the close of the first day, what is that I think I heard? Between the actual presentations and the chat at the evening reception?
Well, I think the point made by Chris Meyer in the opening segment this morning is an important one. The shift from an industrial economy to an information economy is still very much in process and systems of all kinds have not yet adapted. We may not yet have determined where the value of digital scholarly content resides for users in an Information Economy. We're pretty sure that it needs to be reliable and authoritative and the pace of the workflow demands that, once vetted, it be efficiently disseminated.
But there are questions about how we establish the authority of the content. Do we do it through consensus (as in something like Wikipedia) or do we do trust experts and professionals to produce authoritative content (knowing that there have been instances where that trust has been abused as when news reporters don't do the necessary depth of research necessary to properly cover a topic or dig out the facts). That wasn't necessarily articulated in the newspaper panel, but I think it is the gist of the concern.
In the afternoon, the question (again not necessarily articulated) was "how do we package content appropriately for delivery and use and still derive profit from that activity?". Jenny Walker was talking about the transformation of reference works from massive print tomes on shelves into databases that are licensed by institutions and used by students and researchers. It isn't an area of scholarly publishing that will continue to be profitable on the basis of the old business model when the publishers' business was to deliver a physical artifact. The Credo Reference business model is similar to other online aggregator services. The business model is licensed access.
That licensed access is the same model being used in Pearson's textbook as outlined by Tobin. The deliverable is *not* a printed volume; it's the printed volume in conjunction with an online learning system. What the student pays for is the "engaged learning" environment. Again, the clear movement is toward the software licensing model. The speaker claimed that this was entirely satisfactory for the institutions and departments using the system. He claimed it was a more effective teaching tool for imparting knowledge. Indeed, he seemed to suggest that the only dissatisfied customers were students trying to "game the system" and escape without paying for any textbook. He was more open about the need to combat the mindset of "free information".
The contribution of Emlyn Koster of the Liberty Science Center was the idea that preservation, curation, and display of artifacts or collections may not be the most effective mechanism for communicating information and learning. Modern society appears to want more immersive and interactive experiences as being more conducive to natural (or painless) learning. The information is absorbed rather than mastered. Can such a model from the museum community be applicable to scholarly content?
The final discussion was perhaps aimed at determining whether the multiple offerings of magazines, events, data, online experiences and rich media of B2B publishers represented another strategy that might be employed by scholarly content providers. That is, might these publishers position themselves as the ultimate source of information about a specific niche, discipline or research activity in the same way that a business publisher might and essentially sell access to that wide variety of information delivery options?
I think the meeting organizers' actual intent was to spread a banquet of ideas before the attendees with the hope that the individual publishers would benefit by picking and choosing from a wide range of approaches in creating appropriately customized information tools suited to their particular community. Did the attendees actually get that experience?
Well, I think the point made by Chris Meyer in the opening segment this morning is an important one. The shift from an industrial economy to an information economy is still very much in process and systems of all kinds have not yet adapted. We may not yet have determined where the value of digital scholarly content resides for users in an Information Economy. We're pretty sure that it needs to be reliable and authoritative and the pace of the workflow demands that, once vetted, it be efficiently disseminated.
But there are questions about how we establish the authority of the content. Do we do it through consensus (as in something like Wikipedia) or do we do trust experts and professionals to produce authoritative content (knowing that there have been instances where that trust has been abused as when news reporters don't do the necessary depth of research necessary to properly cover a topic or dig out the facts). That wasn't necessarily articulated in the newspaper panel, but I think it is the gist of the concern.
In the afternoon, the question (again not necessarily articulated) was "how do we package content appropriately for delivery and use and still derive profit from that activity?". Jenny Walker was talking about the transformation of reference works from massive print tomes on shelves into databases that are licensed by institutions and used by students and researchers. It isn't an area of scholarly publishing that will continue to be profitable on the basis of the old business model when the publishers' business was to deliver a physical artifact. The Credo Reference business model is similar to other online aggregator services. The business model is licensed access.
That licensed access is the same model being used in Pearson's textbook as outlined by Tobin. The deliverable is *not* a printed volume; it's the printed volume in conjunction with an online learning system. What the student pays for is the "engaged learning" environment. Again, the clear movement is toward the software licensing model. The speaker claimed that this was entirely satisfactory for the institutions and departments using the system. He claimed it was a more effective teaching tool for imparting knowledge. Indeed, he seemed to suggest that the only dissatisfied customers were students trying to "game the system" and escape without paying for any textbook. He was more open about the need to combat the mindset of "free information".
The contribution of Emlyn Koster of the Liberty Science Center was the idea that preservation, curation, and display of artifacts or collections may not be the most effective mechanism for communicating information and learning. Modern society appears to want more immersive and interactive experiences as being more conducive to natural (or painless) learning. The information is absorbed rather than mastered. Can such a model from the museum community be applicable to scholarly content?
The final discussion was perhaps aimed at determining whether the multiple offerings of magazines, events, data, online experiences and rich media of B2B publishers represented another strategy that might be employed by scholarly content providers. That is, might these publishers position themselves as the ultimate source of information about a specific niche, discipline or research activity in the same way that a business publisher might and essentially sell access to that wide variety of information delivery options?
I think the meeting organizers' actual intent was to spread a banquet of ideas before the attendees with the hope that the individual publishers would benefit by picking and choosing from a wide range of approaches in creating appropriately customized information tools suited to their particular community. Did the attendees actually get that experience?
Final presentation of the day is by Rex Hammock who is a magazine publisher at Hammock Publishing but who is also well known as the author of the Rex Blog. In fact, his first slide is a joke "Oh, you're that blog guy". He's going to talk about Business-to-Business publishing and lessons applicable to scholarly publishing. They do consumer, association and B2B publications. He's encouraging his clients to embrace conversational media (wikis, blogs, podcasting, etc.). They have a small-business site (smallbusiness.com) which contains a variety of resources for that business sector.
"Business Information" is the new name for B2B; verticals dominate the sector and it entails more than publishing -- web development, research, consulting, etc. There are few publications in this sector have large circulations; less than 50 have circulations greater than 100,000. They are highly dependent on the Long Tail. Magazines, events, data, online, rich media are the ways in which they stake out a niche and establish a brand. Now however while those aspects are important, they are looking at customers and the markets of buyers and sellers and saying "Let's take the interaction that occurs at a trade show and move it online." They want to use those elements or aspects to strengthen their service to individual readers and the network of buyers and sellers. Revenue is derived and will be increased through advertising and registration data via both online and print presence.
Moderator MaryAnn Liebert is asking him how does he create that stickiness that keeps the individual on the site? He suggests that business information inserted into the workflow is high-value content because such content helps with decision-making. Hence it's not that hard to keep the visitor on their sites.
He is asked about his blogging activities and how that activity might be applied to scholarly publishing requirements -- that is, how might publishers benefit from this activity. He notes that blogging is a very personal, individual activity. He suggests that someone must have a reason for blogging. It's just a publishing platform and it can serve different purposes for different people.
Has blogging helped his business? He says that there is a correlation between the growth of his business and his blog, but again reiterates that the format of blogging is just one of many available channels for communication. (I think it's interesting that this audience is so hung up on the concept of blogging as a practice. It does seem very threatening to them, but really Rex is right -- it's just a publishing platform that is useful for communicating with some segments of the population, whether you're talking about Blogger or Facebook.) He predicts that books in five years will be published with wiki accompaniments. He is talking about adding digital components to print products; it's just a technology that may be used for successful delivery and dissemmination of information).
Steve Abram makes the point that you have to actually use these tools in order to properly grasp the function and use. Judith Turner is sitting beside me muttering in disagreement. (This really is getting to be a fun discussion.) How do you leverage the value of these tools in this business, whether Twitter, Facebook, Second Life? Geoffrey Bildur is backing Steve Abram up and noting that many businesses are blocking these services which is counter-productive.
What a pity; this was really heating up and they just called time. Time for the evening reception...
"Business Information" is the new name for B2B; verticals dominate the sector and it entails more than publishing -- web development, research, consulting, etc. There are few publications in this sector have large circulations; less than 50 have circulations greater than 100,000. They are highly dependent on the Long Tail. Magazines, events, data, online, rich media are the ways in which they stake out a niche and establish a brand. Now however while those aspects are important, they are looking at customers and the markets of buyers and sellers and saying "Let's take the interaction that occurs at a trade show and move it online." They want to use those elements or aspects to strengthen their service to individual readers and the network of buyers and sellers. Revenue is derived and will be increased through advertising and registration data via both online and print presence.
Moderator MaryAnn Liebert is asking him how does he create that stickiness that keeps the individual on the site? He suggests that business information inserted into the workflow is high-value content because such content helps with decision-making. Hence it's not that hard to keep the visitor on their sites.
He is asked about his blogging activities and how that activity might be applied to scholarly publishing requirements -- that is, how might publishers benefit from this activity. He notes that blogging is a very personal, individual activity. He suggests that someone must have a reason for blogging. It's just a publishing platform and it can serve different purposes for different people.
Has blogging helped his business? He says that there is a correlation between the growth of his business and his blog, but again reiterates that the format of blogging is just one of many available channels for communication. (I think it's interesting that this audience is so hung up on the concept of blogging as a practice. It does seem very threatening to them, but really Rex is right -- it's just a publishing platform that is useful for communicating with some segments of the population, whether you're talking about Blogger or Facebook.) He predicts that books in five years will be published with wiki accompaniments. He is talking about adding digital components to print products; it's just a technology that may be used for successful delivery and dissemmination of information).
Steve Abram makes the point that you have to actually use these tools in order to properly grasp the function and use. Judith Turner is sitting beside me muttering in disagreement. (This really is getting to be a fun discussion.) How do you leverage the value of these tools in this business, whether Twitter, Facebook, Second Life? Geoffrey Bildur is backing Steve Abram up and noting that many businesses are blocking these services which is counter-productive.
What a pity; this was really heating up and they just called time. Time for the evening reception...
Next session - Redesigning College Mathematics with Greg Tobin, president of Pearson Addison-Wesley/Prentice Hall Mathematics.
It looks like this session will also have some relation to the concept of natural learning processes. How do we deliver educational content in ways that are engaging? Apparently, based on moderator Thane Kerner's comments, Tobin has created something called MyMathLab which has proved to be a bit of a dream success within this discipline. The critical need to focus on service and support in the current environment is so different from the old world of publishing where we used to deliver a finished, static product. It was a bound issue of a journal or a book volume. Apparently Tobin has succeeded in living up to the expectation of service and support in his product.
He is talking a bit about the current state of higher education. There is a boomlet in enrollments due to peak in 2009. Career schools are booming; demographics of students are changing. The age spread ranges from 18 on up, well beyond the mid-thirties. Greater need for remediation as determined through placement exams which allow students to capture the learning that perhaps they didn't grasp in K-12 educational levels. The colleges are redesigning courses for greater effectiveness while still ensuring that students stay and graduate on time. Retention is a major concern as indicated by the Spellings report. (I'll link to coverage a little later). Institutions are also expected to cater to varied learning styles as well.
MyMathLab was launched in 2001 and was in use at 1607 colleges and universities. Today approximately 1.1 million students will be using it during the 07-08 academic year. It is an online homework and tutorial program that offers diagnostic assessment and personalized study plan. It's fully customizable by the instructor and it is available with or without a print component. Mathematics is apparently a key strength of Pearson's offerings.
He rates the value to students as being: instantaneous feedback (personalized), a non-judgmental, private learning environment, flexibility (anywhere/anytime access). Educators find value in the automation of time consuming tasks, customization, measuring learning outcomes and achieving them and ultimately higher retention rates (more effective learning in the classroom). Tobin is displaying a graphic that offers displaying the success rates at a number of institutions at various levels (4 year institution through a career commercial learning institution). High success rates at University of Alabama are what he is focusing on.
The online service is specifically tied to various textbooks; if I'm understanding him correctly, the online experience depends upon the specific title adopted by the instructor. That means it's not a stand-alone. He's got a number of screenshots that show the interface. The service includes a separate grade book functionality that he is saying is an improvement on the Blackboard service for the purposes of mathematical instruction. He's talking about higher level of engagement in student learning with the online instructional components. He's talking about bundling software in with the book (ostensibly as a supplement to the actual textbook but let's face it also as a way of combatting the used book market). They do allow students just to purchase access at $45.00 (again if I'm understanding him correctly) but will not allow blanket access to the online portion just on the basis of textbook adoption. The access codes that are part of the software sold with the book are only good for one semester/student or for however long the specific course itself lasts (two semesters). The service is not intended as a stand-alone self-directed learning product.
We're on to the interview segment now. He's talking about pouring content into the shell of a learning management system like Blackboard which saved them a huge amount of development time and costs.
They've invested alot into putting people into the field to offer support to instructors following an adoption. He considers that to be a critical aspect to the success of this product. The moderator is commenting about the precision metrics that can be offered to the instructor as a way of seeing whether the product is succeeding with students.
Apparently in the career school market, the business model is one more closely aligned with a software licensing business model. Pearson is trying to get away from selling a physical product and move in the direction of offering a service. Scaling their service support at the same rate as their adoption rate is going is challenging apparently.
Someone asks who is demanding greater levels of service support, students or instructors. He thinks that there is a steady volume of calls throughout the semester from instructors and a period of high volume of calls from students early on.
It looks like this session will also have some relation to the concept of natural learning processes. How do we deliver educational content in ways that are engaging? Apparently, based on moderator Thane Kerner's comments, Tobin has created something called MyMathLab which has proved to be a bit of a dream success within this discipline. The critical need to focus on service and support in the current environment is so different from the old world of publishing where we used to deliver a finished, static product. It was a bound issue of a journal or a book volume. Apparently Tobin has succeeded in living up to the expectation of service and support in his product.
He is talking a bit about the current state of higher education. There is a boomlet in enrollments due to peak in 2009. Career schools are booming; demographics of students are changing. The age spread ranges from 18 on up, well beyond the mid-thirties. Greater need for remediation as determined through placement exams which allow students to capture the learning that perhaps they didn't grasp in K-12 educational levels. The colleges are redesigning courses for greater effectiveness while still ensuring that students stay and graduate on time. Retention is a major concern as indicated by the Spellings report. (I'll link to coverage a little later). Institutions are also expected to cater to varied learning styles as well.
MyMathLab was launched in 2001 and was in use at 1607 colleges and universities. Today approximately 1.1 million students will be using it during the 07-08 academic year. It is an online homework and tutorial program that offers diagnostic assessment and personalized study plan. It's fully customizable by the instructor and it is available with or without a print component. Mathematics is apparently a key strength of Pearson's offerings.
He rates the value to students as being: instantaneous feedback (personalized), a non-judgmental, private learning environment, flexibility (anywhere/anytime access). Educators find value in the automation of time consuming tasks, customization, measuring learning outcomes and achieving them and ultimately higher retention rates (more effective learning in the classroom). Tobin is displaying a graphic that offers displaying the success rates at a number of institutions at various levels (4 year institution through a career commercial learning institution). High success rates at University of Alabama are what he is focusing on.
The online service is specifically tied to various textbooks; if I'm understanding him correctly, the online experience depends upon the specific title adopted by the instructor. That means it's not a stand-alone. He's got a number of screenshots that show the interface. The service includes a separate grade book functionality that he is saying is an improvement on the Blackboard service for the purposes of mathematical instruction. He's talking about higher level of engagement in student learning with the online instructional components. He's talking about bundling software in with the book (ostensibly as a supplement to the actual textbook but let's face it also as a way of combatting the used book market). They do allow students just to purchase access at $45.00 (again if I'm understanding him correctly) but will not allow blanket access to the online portion just on the basis of textbook adoption. The access codes that are part of the software sold with the book are only good for one semester/student or for however long the specific course itself lasts (two semesters). The service is not intended as a stand-alone self-directed learning product.
We're on to the interview segment now. He's talking about pouring content into the shell of a learning management system like Blackboard which saved them a huge amount of development time and costs.
They've invested alot into putting people into the field to offer support to instructors following an adoption. He considers that to be a critical aspect to the success of this product. The moderator is commenting about the precision metrics that can be offered to the instructor as a way of seeing whether the product is succeeding with students.
Apparently in the career school market, the business model is one more closely aligned with a software licensing business model. Pearson is trying to get away from selling a physical product and move in the direction of offering a service. Scaling their service support at the same rate as their adoption rate is going is challenging apparently.
Someone asks who is demanding greater levels of service support, students or instructors. He thinks that there is a steady volume of calls throughout the semester from instructors and a period of high volume of calls from students early on.
Judy Luther is up next with Emlyn Koster, President and CEO of Liberty Science Center in New Jersey. His presentation title is "Museums in Greater Service to Society and the Environment". Heritage and cultural institutions include museums, botanical gardens, zoos and aquaria and site interpretative centers. He will naturally discuss museums most specifically which he indicates have gone through three stages of evolution. Initially they just collected researched and presented artifacts and specimens to understand the past. Then in the '60's, science museums took on the job of increasing scientific literacy in the younger generation. Now they illuminate how science and technology are integral to our culture and future. They teach the community about the science underlying major issues facing our society. LSC is an innovative learning resource for lifelong exploration of nature, humanity and technology; that's part of their mission statement. They seek to serve as a new model of sustainability and relevancy for the museum community. They seek to get attendees up close and personal with science. They want to get the message across that it is within the power of the museum's attendees to take informed action on any scientific subject.
The fact that they aren't burdened by legacy collections of artifacts that must be preserved and displayed allows them to operate differently and perhaps more economically than other members of the museum community. (That to me seems significant and he is consistently referring to his institution as a science center rather than as a museum.) They don't have curators or conservators. Those aren't key skill sets in their delivery of services to the public.
They're using such technologies as video conferencing to support teaching in the classroom. They are trying to integrate Web resources into the overall discussion but in ways that perhaps influence viewers in adopting more enlightened life style choices. Clearly they see their educational mission in entirely different lights from the traditional museum. For example, how they mount an exhibit on the topic of infectious disease in an urban environment? They would do surveys to attempt to define what people don't know and why they would like to know about the topic and then design an exhibit that focuses on the experiential learning for attendees rather than a static learning experience. They don't preserve the exhibition. They want attendees to come away with a new and practical insight from their museum experience. That's more important to him than the number of people who cross their doors (ie. standard metric of attendance within the traditional museum community). He'd rather have fewer one-time visitors and more repeat traffic for laboratory experiences and multi-media theaters. He thinks science centers can be a channel for public dissemination of research results.
Judy references the shift from institutions offering snapshot views of information (as done by museums and publishers) to finding new ways of presenting information in a broader context. He responds with a comment about science pulsing all around us, not dealing with factoids but dealing with the here and now.
Funding is a continuing issue for the museum community. LSC has about 15 different sources of revenue to depend upon rather than some national museums that are strictly dependent upon a single stream of funding from the government alone. Institutions have to be both "nice" as well as necessary; they must be relevant. They must combine entertainment (painless learning) with education (intensive learning).
The fact that they aren't burdened by legacy collections of artifacts that must be preserved and displayed allows them to operate differently and perhaps more economically than other members of the museum community. (That to me seems significant and he is consistently referring to his institution as a science center rather than as a museum.) They don't have curators or conservators. Those aren't key skill sets in their delivery of services to the public.
They're using such technologies as video conferencing to support teaching in the classroom. They are trying to integrate Web resources into the overall discussion but in ways that perhaps influence viewers in adopting more enlightened life style choices. Clearly they see their educational mission in entirely different lights from the traditional museum. For example, how they mount an exhibit on the topic of infectious disease in an urban environment? They would do surveys to attempt to define what people don't know and why they would like to know about the topic and then design an exhibit that focuses on the experiential learning for attendees rather than a static learning experience. They don't preserve the exhibition. They want attendees to come away with a new and practical insight from their museum experience. That's more important to him than the number of people who cross their doors (ie. standard metric of attendance within the traditional museum community). He'd rather have fewer one-time visitors and more repeat traffic for laboratory experiences and multi-media theaters. He thinks science centers can be a channel for public dissemination of research results.
Judy references the shift from institutions offering snapshot views of information (as done by museums and publishers) to finding new ways of presenting information in a broader context. He responds with a comment about science pulsing all around us, not dealing with factoids but dealing with the here and now.
Funding is a continuing issue for the museum community. LSC has about 15 different sources of revenue to depend upon rather than some national museums that are strictly dependent upon a single stream of funding from the government alone. Institutions have to be both "nice" as well as necessary; they must be relevant. They must combine entertainment (painless learning) with education (intensive learning).
This next session is The Changing World of Online Reference; Alma Wills of Kaufman-Wills Group, Inc., is moderating and interviewing Jenny Wakler, currently Executive VP of Marketing with Credo Reference.
Walker opens with a discussion of the various types of reference content -- subject dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, books of quotations -- all of which are intended to save the time of busy people who need verification, explanations of jargon and/or acronyms, or a general overview of a core concept. Directories (which is what she says the Washington Post initiative is closest to) is another service. Users are trying to answer a quick question but with a desire for something definitive. Other times users are trying to figure out where to start in exploring a subject, whether with the help of a guide or without that intermediary. They browse, following whatever appears intriguing or relevant -- serendipity. The final category she references is games and puzzles (crosswords or a game of Scrabble).
Reference rooms serve as a gateway to a specific arena of knowledge; Credo Reference (her organization) is an online aggregated collection of reference works, launched in 1999 as Xrefer. The online environment encourages tight linking between various sources. She notes that her service must support both textual and visual learners. They have had to move from an existence as a free service to a subscription service over the course of the past eight years (hence the name change to Credo Reference in 2007). Key concerns are accessibility and findability of this information.
Q&A - Wills starts out making reference to the threat that Wikipedia may represent to a service such as Credo Reference. Walker notes that there are different types of reference works as previously mentioned and the currency possible in Wikipedia is not necessarily as critical as aspect of other types of reference content. Reference works don't always require constant updating, depending upon the type of content and/or subject matter covered.
What are the trends in this sector of publishing? It's all moving online and much of it is free. Walker notes that at one point, reference publishers could count on selling 2000 copies of a particular edition of a reference work and now that number seems to have fallen to 600-700 copies; the break-even point for a publisher may well be at the 1000 copies level. So many publishers are having to reconsider their activity in this arena. On the other hand, publishers have been able to repurpose their electronic content so many are finding subsets in niche areas to be profitable product options. She stresses however that the aggegator platforms are frequently valued in the marketplace because users really don't much care about publisher brand name. They just want the information without regard to whose product or service the item was pulled from.
Wills asks what criteria librarians use in making a decision to acquire a specific work or license a particular aggregation of content? Walker mentions suitability for a particular library in terms of the scope of the collection and the community being served. Usage of course is important but there aren't necessarily statistics gathered for books and reference works in the same way that gathering of statistics for journals has achieved. Walker references Project Counter as doing a lot of work in this area.
Reference works are sense-making tools for users? That's not sounding familiar to me from my coursework in library science. I suppose you could make a case for it but it isn't the way I usually think of reference publishing.
Value for publishers in allowing their content to be contained in an aggregated service such as Credo Reference? She suggests that publishers who have never particularly focused on selling into libraries (rather selling into a specific geographical region) might find Credo's service to be of value. She notes that publishers may benefit from linked content to a wider variety of resources that also reside on the platform, including those citations that appear at the end of an article in a reference work. So the value is in allowing the user to navigate across a broader body of information in fulfillment of pinpointing a good answer.
What about the way that the younger generation tends to depend on friends on a social network in locating an answer? Walker points out that using a Web-based resource is like shouting out to a whole new community of knowledge.
Publishers get compensated through royalties based on actual usage. If a publisher's database is included on the platform but never gets used, it would appear then that the publisher would not be paid a royalty from presence on that library's platform.
October Ivins inquires about inclusion of images in publisher reference works that have been migrated onto an online paid service. Walker says that isnt as much of a problem these days as it had been ten years ago.
Their links are generated through logical inference in many instances.
Change of speakers.
Walker opens with a discussion of the various types of reference content -- subject dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, books of quotations -- all of which are intended to save the time of busy people who need verification, explanations of jargon and/or acronyms, or a general overview of a core concept. Directories (which is what she says the Washington Post initiative is closest to) is another service. Users are trying to answer a quick question but with a desire for something definitive. Other times users are trying to figure out where to start in exploring a subject, whether with the help of a guide or without that intermediary. They browse, following whatever appears intriguing or relevant -- serendipity. The final category she references is games and puzzles (crosswords or a game of Scrabble).
Reference rooms serve as a gateway to a specific arena of knowledge; Credo Reference (her organization) is an online aggregated collection of reference works, launched in 1999 as Xrefer. The online environment encourages tight linking between various sources. She notes that her service must support both textual and visual learners. They have had to move from an existence as a free service to a subscription service over the course of the past eight years (hence the name change to Credo Reference in 2007). Key concerns are accessibility and findability of this information.
Q&A - Wills starts out making reference to the threat that Wikipedia may represent to a service such as Credo Reference. Walker notes that there are different types of reference works as previously mentioned and the currency possible in Wikipedia is not necessarily as critical as aspect of other types of reference content. Reference works don't always require constant updating, depending upon the type of content and/or subject matter covered.
What are the trends in this sector of publishing? It's all moving online and much of it is free. Walker notes that at one point, reference publishers could count on selling 2000 copies of a particular edition of a reference work and now that number seems to have fallen to 600-700 copies; the break-even point for a publisher may well be at the 1000 copies level. So many publishers are having to reconsider their activity in this arena. On the other hand, publishers have been able to repurpose their electronic content so many are finding subsets in niche areas to be profitable product options. She stresses however that the aggegator platforms are frequently valued in the marketplace because users really don't much care about publisher brand name. They just want the information without regard to whose product or service the item was pulled from.
Wills asks what criteria librarians use in making a decision to acquire a specific work or license a particular aggregation of content? Walker mentions suitability for a particular library in terms of the scope of the collection and the community being served. Usage of course is important but there aren't necessarily statistics gathered for books and reference works in the same way that gathering of statistics for journals has achieved. Walker references Project Counter as doing a lot of work in this area.
Reference works are sense-making tools for users? That's not sounding familiar to me from my coursework in library science. I suppose you could make a case for it but it isn't the way I usually think of reference publishing.
Value for publishers in allowing their content to be contained in an aggregated service such as Credo Reference? She suggests that publishers who have never particularly focused on selling into libraries (rather selling into a specific geographical region) might find Credo's service to be of value. She notes that publishers may benefit from linked content to a wider variety of resources that also reside on the platform, including those citations that appear at the end of an article in a reference work. So the value is in allowing the user to navigate across a broader body of information in fulfillment of pinpointing a good answer.
What about the way that the younger generation tends to depend on friends on a social network in locating an answer? Walker points out that using a Web-based resource is like shouting out to a whole new community of knowledge.
Publishers get compensated through royalties based on actual usage. If a publisher's database is included on the platform but never gets used, it would appear then that the publisher would not be paid a royalty from presence on that library's platform.
October Ivins inquires about inclusion of images in publisher reference works that have been migrated onto an online paid service. Walker says that isnt as much of a problem these days as it had been ten years ago.
Their links are generated through logical inference in many instances.
Change of speakers.
Lunch was lively with discussions about peer review, the Ithaka report and the divide between book and journal publishing divisions. It's a good crowd with representation from such diverse organizations as the Massachusetts Medical Society, ProQuest, Sage Publishing, Thomson Scientific, Amigos and many more.
We're starting again; got to start a new session post!
We're starting again; got to start a new session post!
Representatives from the New York Times, Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group (WSJ), and the Washington Post are here. We're hearing from the Times guy first.
Change is daunting for the "Grey Lady" but they are moving in new directions. Users want customization, they want to interact and comment, and they want exposure to diverse views. They began in 1996 with a very simple home page. Eleven years later, they've made some progress albeit probably not as rapid as the critics would think necessary. Initial years were fraught with battles; would the print side or the electronic side of the divided news staff predominate? Editors loathe to free up resources from print for the sake of digital enhancement. This divide has however diminished in size. Journalism online can be fun and perhaps even invigorating. The most immediate and compelling news in a 24/7 digital environment is demanding and has its own rules.
The Times launched six months ago a mobile site which is up to 7 million views (per month?). Other adversaries outside the standard news environment include CraigsList and Wikipedia as well as the now more generally accepted news bloggers. The Times has therefore partnered with outside providers to enhance the content they offer whether dealing with illness or dealing with leisure travel. He can't foresee the nature of the next five to ten years but he ends on a highnote with regard to the "aircraft carrier" that is the Times should be well positioned to respond.
Simon Alterman of Dow Jones is next up. They have of course just been acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which is supposed to be finalised by years end. An Evolving Concept of Information Usage is where he is beginning. Information got stored, users had to go somewhere to find it and access it but at present exponential growth of the digital information is making discovery of relevant information increasingly different. One used to search headlines for customer news, but of course, there significant issues with that approach. But nobody has that has their sole job. They seek information within a specific context. Access needs to be in the place where that information is needed in the workflow. Currently, we think of information more in the sense of "Is one of my clients in the news?" or "Might that company in the news be interested in my services?" How can I apply the news to the goal I need to achieve for my organization. PR professionals want to use text mining and visualization to display themes of interest and drill down to underlying content. So the current focus is to put the news where it is needed. How can Dow Jones use new technologies to create new value? Of course, you don't want the user to have to do all the work, particularly as customization and personalization add huge value. That's how he sees his organization surviving and thriving.
Jonathan Krim from the Washington Post is the third speaker. All the parrots within the Beltway community have mastered the same phrase which is "To the best of my knowledge" which is a light way of saying that they too are in the midst of change and have no hard answers or guaranteed paths to success. There are 3 things they try to be (#1 in providing local news, they want to be the main reference source for information on what's happening locally and the third is that they want to be the main hub for community exchange and debate).
They offer a service known as Local Explorer. First thing that you get is a map thathighlights local services but then you can also move into local home sales which offers the sale price, details about the property and then they direct you to the Wash Post real estate section. Local Explorer is something of a research tool that newspapers are positioned to offer. They can also point you to local crime reports, particularly difficults as jurisdictions frequently try to sit on this type of data. If a particular form of data lends itself to mapping, then the journalists want to provide the platform that will serve the community as a reference tool. It's a legitimate approach for a news organization to provide to its community. Get outside of just the data you're used to working with and try to add value through maximizing the depth of the data offered to the community you serve. The Post will add a local Blog directory because citizens see them as a reference source. Recently updated blogs, new blogs that have been created -- the Post will be giving publicity to the blogosphere. The Post will drive traffic to them and eventually the traffic will then be returned to the Post.
The Post will be working in the hyper-local space by offering in-depth coverage by local individual who actually lives in a particularly suburb or county (he shows the Loudoun country segment of their site which is particularly successful). That individual covers restaurants, places of worship, and school systems with depth of understanding previously not possible by low-level reporters (the most junior on staff usually) who were never really committed to the local community. He references the pain of trying to offer personalization to the individual; they've been banging their heads against this wall for years. However, he believes that this is the area that will offer the most opportunity for the news industry and they do have to figure it out. It just makes perfect sense.
Now we have the question and answer period; this year's format has allowed far more time for open discussion than others. One question is whether the local coverage that's done by individual local talent is getting much in the way of editorial oversight. Krim admits that the level of editorial input isn't as great for that local service as it might be for something that was actually going into the print edition. The guy from the Times admits that it is a problem for them as well (which was why he asked the question). Perhaps (and this is my own editorializing) we have to recognize that levels of editorial quality will fluctuate and will not necessarily be considered a value-laden activity?
Quickest engine of revenue is Internet advertising says the Washington Post representative when queried about monetization and economic models. You can't however get the same rates for Internet ads that you get for print ads and that's an issue. The Times representative agrees that they're growing revenue through that advertising stream but still about 86% of the Times' revenue is derived from the print advertisements. As internal budgets shift within the organization, that is going to be increasingly an issue as units have to compete. The Dow Jones representative mentions that they are likely to be testing whether ads in an online subscription product will be an acceptable revenue option for them. For all of these gentlemen, they have to combat the perception that the public has that news on the Web should be given out for free.
Now someone is inquiring about how newspapers drive usage in an online environment. What strategies are used in order to build the ad revenue necessary? If the little e-alerts are the only thing users are seeing (as opposed to scanning a printed front page), then what's the answer? One guy on the dais quips "Send out more of the little alerts". Another speaker indicates that they are working actively on building the interest fed to them through the blogosphere; additionally, he admits that they are looking into learning from experts in search engine optimization. He also talks about targeted behavioral marketing which he admits is a little creepy but it's definitely going to be part of the overall equation.
What's the role of email? The Times representative says it's a big one; they've been successful with the Times Today email which highlights the day's stories in a particular email format. It is hugely valuable to them, but resources devoted to it are inc omparison rather small. Pushing the news to people is important.
Someone asks about whether the brand identity is changing, noting that the Post talks about becoming a reference source-type site rather than talking about being primarily a news source. That may be happening to some extent but the paper doesn't want to lose either.
Hugely more costly to produce a print paper than it is to run a web site, says the guy from the Times. Much of what a print product requires is labor intensive (truck delivery as an example) but gauging the costs of producing the Web site are perhaps under-estimated if you consider the value of human contribution. Lots of people programming the code and that makes a difference; people used to print have to adjust to the idea that the code creation and technical elements of putting up the paper online is not necessarily immediate. Sometimes the coding takes alot of time and alot of money although the impression is that you're just moving around pixels.
Steve Abram asks about generational shifts; have we yet reached the tipping point where the digital is the primary vehicle as opposed to the supplement that one of the speakers suggested it might be. The speaker asks for the next question [laughter erupts]. The revenue lines are approaching each other much more rapidly than the readership lines apparently; they know it's coming but no one knows when. He believes in the utility of the print product but the younger generation will use the digital as their primary feed source. A little later, Abrams notes that none of the speakers referenced the importance of non-traditional news sources such as The Colbert Report or the Daily Show as a source of information for the younger generation.
What about multi-media in this environment? Are the papers hiring people with the specific skills necessary to produce high-quality multi-media content. Video, flash, other formats need to be incorporated into the systems but the training of the rising generation is lagging just a bit. We produce new journalists trained in silos (print, web, multi-media) and the cross skill set building isn't occurring as rapidly as perhaps might be necessary. Training on the job is taking place to help navigate them through the transition. Saying "I only type" or "I only do Web stuff" is not going to be an adequate response from their staff. A certain amount of partnering between newspapers and broadcasting organizations goes on to exchange content for online purposes.
Geoffrey Bildur follows up with a question about establishing authority or credibility in creating content. Again, "Next question, please?". What is the balance between authoritative and authenticity? This is a really difficult question for the panel. Point of view journalism is more valued than perhaps the professional journalistic community has previously been willing to grant. As the gentleman from the Post indicates, "This is going to be interesting to work out."
Another discussion erupts about the value contributed by the bloggers as opposed to the work of the professional journalist.
Change is daunting for the "Grey Lady" but they are moving in new directions. Users want customization, they want to interact and comment, and they want exposure to diverse views. They began in 1996 with a very simple home page. Eleven years later, they've made some progress albeit probably not as rapid as the critics would think necessary. Initial years were fraught with battles; would the print side or the electronic side of the divided news staff predominate? Editors loathe to free up resources from print for the sake of digital enhancement. This divide has however diminished in size. Journalism online can be fun and perhaps even invigorating. The most immediate and compelling news in a 24/7 digital environment is demanding and has its own rules.
The Times launched six months ago a mobile site which is up to 7 million views (per month?). Other adversaries outside the standard news environment include CraigsList and Wikipedia as well as the now more generally accepted news bloggers. The Times has therefore partnered with outside providers to enhance the content they offer whether dealing with illness or dealing with leisure travel. He can't foresee the nature of the next five to ten years but he ends on a highnote with regard to the "aircraft carrier" that is the Times should be well positioned to respond.
Simon Alterman of Dow Jones is next up. They have of course just been acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which is supposed to be finalised by years end. An Evolving Concept of Information Usage is where he is beginning. Information got stored, users had to go somewhere to find it and access it but at present exponential growth of the digital information is making discovery of relevant information increasingly different. One used to search headlines for customer news, but of course, there significant issues with that approach. But nobody has that has their sole job. They seek information within a specific context. Access needs to be in the place where that information is needed in the workflow. Currently, we think of information more in the sense of "Is one of my clients in the news?" or "Might that company in the news be interested in my services?" How can I apply the news to the goal I need to achieve for my organization. PR professionals want to use text mining and visualization to display themes of interest and drill down to underlying content. So the current focus is to put the news where it is needed. How can Dow Jones use new technologies to create new value? Of course, you don't want the user to have to do all the work, particularly as customization and personalization add huge value. That's how he sees his organization surviving and thriving.
Jonathan Krim from the Washington Post is the third speaker. All the parrots within the Beltway community have mastered the same phrase which is "To the best of my knowledge" which is a light way of saying that they too are in the midst of change and have no hard answers or guaranteed paths to success. There are 3 things they try to be (#1 in providing local news, they want to be the main reference source for information on what's happening locally and the third is that they want to be the main hub for community exchange and debate).
They offer a service known as Local Explorer. First thing that you get is a map thathighlights local services but then you can also move into local home sales which offers the sale price, details about the property and then they direct you to the Wash Post real estate section. Local Explorer is something of a research tool that newspapers are positioned to offer. They can also point you to local crime reports, particularly difficults as jurisdictions frequently try to sit on this type of data. If a particular form of data lends itself to mapping, then the journalists want to provide the platform that will serve the community as a reference tool. It's a legitimate approach for a news organization to provide to its community. Get outside of just the data you're used to working with and try to add value through maximizing the depth of the data offered to the community you serve. The Post will add a local Blog directory because citizens see them as a reference source. Recently updated blogs, new blogs that have been created -- the Post will be giving publicity to the blogosphere. The Post will drive traffic to them and eventually the traffic will then be returned to the Post.
The Post will be working in the hyper-local space by offering in-depth coverage by local individual who actually lives in a particularly suburb or county (he shows the Loudoun country segment of their site which is particularly successful). That individual covers restaurants, places of worship, and school systems with depth of understanding previously not possible by low-level reporters (the most junior on staff usually) who were never really committed to the local community. He references the pain of trying to offer personalization to the individual; they've been banging their heads against this wall for years. However, he believes that this is the area that will offer the most opportunity for the news industry and they do have to figure it out. It just makes perfect sense.
Now we have the question and answer period; this year's format has allowed far more time for open discussion than others. One question is whether the local coverage that's done by individual local talent is getting much in the way of editorial oversight. Krim admits that the level of editorial input isn't as great for that local service as it might be for something that was actually going into the print edition. The guy from the Times admits that it is a problem for them as well (which was why he asked the question). Perhaps (and this is my own editorializing) we have to recognize that levels of editorial quality will fluctuate and will not necessarily be considered a value-laden activity?
Quickest engine of revenue is Internet advertising says the Washington Post representative when queried about monetization and economic models. You can't however get the same rates for Internet ads that you get for print ads and that's an issue. The Times representative agrees that they're growing revenue through that advertising stream but still about 86% of the Times' revenue is derived from the print advertisements. As internal budgets shift within the organization, that is going to be increasingly an issue as units have to compete. The Dow Jones representative mentions that they are likely to be testing whether ads in an online subscription product will be an acceptable revenue option for them. For all of these gentlemen, they have to combat the perception that the public has that news on the Web should be given out for free.
Now someone is inquiring about how newspapers drive usage in an online environment. What strategies are used in order to build the ad revenue necessary? If the little e-alerts are the only thing users are seeing (as opposed to scanning a printed front page), then what's the answer? One guy on the dais quips "Send out more of the little alerts". Another speaker indicates that they are working actively on building the interest fed to them through the blogosphere; additionally, he admits that they are looking into learning from experts in search engine optimization. He also talks about targeted behavioral marketing which he admits is a little creepy but it's definitely going to be part of the overall equation.
What's the role of email? The Times representative says it's a big one; they've been successful with the Times Today email which highlights the day's stories in a particular email format. It is hugely valuable to them, but resources devoted to it are inc omparison rather small. Pushing the news to people is important.
Someone asks about whether the brand identity is changing, noting that the Post talks about becoming a reference source-type site rather than talking about being primarily a news source. That may be happening to some extent but the paper doesn't want to lose either.
Hugely more costly to produce a print paper than it is to run a web site, says the guy from the Times. Much of what a print product requires is labor intensive (truck delivery as an example) but gauging the costs of producing the Web site are perhaps under-estimated if you consider the value of human contribution. Lots of people programming the code and that makes a difference; people used to print have to adjust to the idea that the code creation and technical elements of putting up the paper online is not necessarily immediate. Sometimes the coding takes alot of time and alot of money although the impression is that you're just moving around pixels.
Steve Abram asks about generational shifts; have we yet reached the tipping point where the digital is the primary vehicle as opposed to the supplement that one of the speakers suggested it might be. The speaker asks for the next question [laughter erupts]. The revenue lines are approaching each other much more rapidly than the readership lines apparently; they know it's coming but no one knows when. He believes in the utility of the print product but the younger generation will use the digital as their primary feed source. A little later, Abrams notes that none of the speakers referenced the importance of non-traditional news sources such as The Colbert Report or the Daily Show as a source of information for the younger generation.
What about multi-media in this environment? Are the papers hiring people with the specific skills necessary to produce high-quality multi-media content. Video, flash, other formats need to be incorporated into the systems but the training of the rising generation is lagging just a bit. We produce new journalists trained in silos (print, web, multi-media) and the cross skill set building isn't occurring as rapidly as perhaps might be necessary. Training on the job is taking place to help navigate them through the transition. Saying "I only type" or "I only do Web stuff" is not going to be an adequate response from their staff. A certain amount of partnering between newspapers and broadcasting organizations goes on to exchange content for online purposes.
Geoffrey Bildur follows up with a question about establishing authority or credibility in creating content. Again, "Next question, please?". What is the balance between authoritative and authenticity? This is a really difficult question for the panel. Point of view journalism is more valued than perhaps the professional journalistic community has previously been willing to grant. As the gentleman from the Post indicates, "This is going to be interesting to work out."
Another discussion erupts about the value contributed by the bloggers as opposed to the work of the professional journalist.
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
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
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
I'm so looking forward to again blogging the SSP Top Management Roundtable. Just look at this year's program. Differing from previous years is the format for presentations which will make the blogging perhaps more challenging as it sounds as if there will be few if any powerpoints! The format, as I understand it, is largely given over to individual interviews with such outstanding speakers as Stephen Abram, Rex Hammock, and Jenny Walker with an eye to investigating the approaches adopted by other content industry sectors (news, television, B2B publishing, etc.). It should also make possible livelier interaction by attendees. The venue is once again Philadelphia's own Four Seasons, certainly one of the Northeast's great hotels. The weather is outstanding at the moment -- a sunny 85 degrees without too much humidity.
Wonderful!
Wonderful!
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