Posted by: Luke in Wikinomics, Web 2.0, Online Social Networking, Mashup, Knowledge Management, Community ideas, Collaboration on Aug 29, 2009
I had been waiting in anticipation for the show since I booked it a month ago. Silly pun and unintended there, as the booked show I'm referring to was an event "The future of the Book" held as part of the Melbourne writers festival this week. Straight off the bat I'll let you know that I'm mildly dyslexic and even though I have always had a massive respect for books I'm not the type to plunder my way through a glorious stack of books in a weekend. My mother used to take me by the hand around the library with a basket which she piled high with her weeks reading so it wasn't for lack of being shown the way that I didn't do the same. I am an Audio book person and Audible.com is my friend. Friend in the way it points out what other books I would probably like if I enjoyed the one I just listened to and friend in the way that it takes me to reviews by other people who share my interests. I know you're all probably laughing, yes at me and not with me, thinking you probably have no real friends. We'll get to that in another Blog post when we discuss what a friend really means to us but here's a little insight by Cameron Marlow about Online Social Media and friends in Facebook http://tinyurl.com/aapjq2
While your laughing though please take a look up at your book shelf and think about all those sitting up there with an earmarked page about 140 pages into the book which you are still finding the time to get back to. Listening to books typically encourages you to get through the whole thing. It's been proven that we retain 10% of what we read on average as against 20% of what we listen to. I usually buy the book afterwards for reference if I felt it was a great read.
Back to the point of this Blog and less about me.
Bob Stein the director of the "Institute for the Future of the Book," spoke at RMIT's Capital theatre on "The future of the Book," which started late. Why did it start late well there was no Internet connection or wireless in the auditorium and Bob needed it for the presentation. Gosh the fragility of the Internet. No worries, Bob went out into the street and scraped the screen shots he needed as I sat in row C waiting and studying the other members of the audience. No conversation would be complete without a generalisation so here goes; They all looked like book lovers in the traditional sense of the word.
I think Bob had a good idea as to the audience as he pitched a desperate plea. Going way back in time to the 1970's when he first saw the way we see text now on a screen with dark text on a light background. This was a time for him when the light switched on and he realized the book had multiple forms and that it was no longer only a paper medium. He let us know that in a bygone era books had a wide margin in which readers would write their notes and that this was no longer the case in paper books we see today. He showed us technology with rich media video from the 80's (pre-internet) where Web like pages allowed you to press a button while reading and have a set of instructions play out in black and white video on the same screen/page.
It was at this point that my interest piqued with him describing that in the future the book will be a "user driven media." He introduced the concept through experimental exercises he has carried out with groups who read the same book and participated in Online Social Media in the wide margins next to the text they were reading. In many ways he said we were going back to that bygone era of wide margins, yet now we could participate and share our thoughts in the single book (screen) together over time. In a rudimentarily form we can picture this now with a Blog post just like this one where a community of interest could comment down the right or left hand side in relation to the relevant points brought up in the text (roll on Google Wave). I was revisiting a lot of traditional concepts in my mind as he said this. Being a knowledge management practitioner I started to build ideas in my head as to how these concepts could be applied to the better sharing of knowledge. I believe in the narrative as a powerful way to capture and disseminate contextual relevance and I now pictured; blending rich new media into a non invasive push technology taking advantage of the power of loose social ties and my head started to ache. Like any new concepts we visit if we are open to change they will take time to settle down and make perfect sense. I need a few weeks to let these take shape.
There were a few interesting points which Bob brought up one of which was that when the author is taking part in the Online Social Media community and they participate in the dialog in the area on the left or right of the text there is a lot more respect shown in the conversations.
This will become the age of the "celebrity editor."
"The great publisher will be the one who is able to build a community around the book or work." This was a wonderful point and it made me realise how important the nurturing of such a community would be. It would also be a self selecting and transient community with some who would stay longer than others. The greatest value in my view would be when the community began to connect with each other and not only directly with the book or author. We see this already happening in our Online Social Media world as it has happened offline for ages but not at the same lightening fast pace its happening today. Joel Comm the Social Media expert and author of The Power of Twitter said, referring to Twitter, that not in the history of communication had so many people been put in touch with so many others in such a short period of time.
Bob went on to describe that books being written by players of the "World of Warcraft" game. This is an internet driven game where the participants group together and move through an adventure communicating as they go. As they communicate in actual fact what they are doing is writing a story as they describe what they see in the journey. They are not intending to write a book but in actual fact this is what is happening.
The Book will become a place and not an object as we see multiple platforms from which is can be launched. He reached out to us and asked, "If a book is a place then what it the place for books?" This is something to think about.
In the future many books will not be completed. They will be published and completed through the questions asked of the author by the community. We will no longer see multiple editions to a book as it will simply evolve over time through conversation and collaboration.
I went down and introduced myself to Bob afterwards as he walked off the stage. You see, I have a book which is two thirds completed and I wanted to let him use it in his quest to develop the future book. He was being ushered out into the foyer by a very pushy woman who kept telling me he would take questions once in the lounge outside the auditorium. Well no one else asked him any questions once we got outside and he stood there alone. He struck me as a brilliant person who wondered when he would be taken more seriously. I take you very seriously Bob and I know many others do too and your ideas will sweep the world and come true.
I watched Don Tapscott the author of The Digital Economy, Wikinomics and a number of other future focused best seller's, standing up on stage at a conference in San Francisco in 1997. He said in 10 years time most people will be using a digital camera. Everyone laughed, including me and that was a room of technologists who thought we were forward thinking open minded individuals. It came true.
The final chapter of the Book Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams was written by the community of interest. It's called the "Wikinomics playbook" and you can see it at http://tinyurl.com/6aey6z . In February of 2008 the final version of this book was locked down and released as one of the first books/chapters written/completed by the community of interest through collaboration. It's already happening people so let's take part and celebrate the book with Bob. This collaborative Wikinomics playbook was on a creative commons license which allowed me to add value to it. I turned it into an audio book/chapter and it's free to listen to with me asking for a $2 donation if anyone finds it useful. http://tinyurl.com/59qk2d I simply wanted to take part in the new world of Open Innovation by being part of the value added economy and build on top of what was already there.
If all this Blog does is let you stop for a minute and imagine reading a book in an online social setting then that's great.