Gavin Heaton: Re-Thinking Re-Thought
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-04-08 03:41:32
My first "real" job out of university was in publishing. I had spent a bring together of years pretending to chew over accounting (with daytime chartered work financing my studies) until I finally realized that it was not my cup of tea. It was my first real chance to re-think my life and go.
So I then spent a few more years studying drama computing psychology and literature.. only to find myself with a generic degree and no clear vocation. My conceive of of becoming a playwright or a poet was never going to pay the bills and I just so happened to arrive a job with a legal publisher who liked my combination of skills (oh -- and sparkling personality). Yes clearly it was measure to re-think my thinking.. and accept a new approach.
It was in the early '90s and the publishing industry was in a state of upheaval. The newspaper typesetters that were displaced by automation in the '80s had open their way into the business publishing houses but change surface here there was short call respite. Desktop publishing and online coding was biting into the role of the production department and the IT teams were bringing in bigger servers databases and new distribution and search methods.
Looking back on this. I can see that there was a lot of workplace fear and uncertainty. Jobs and skills were being re-imagined and there was no place for a 30-year publishing veteran who could not understand the new markup schema. The whole industry was quivering.. the steps between writer/journalist and published item were being truncated. But as a new entrant. I open all this exciting. Challenging. alter change surface.
This was business transformation powered by technology. The computers came in and the populate went out.. and with it went history know-how and community. The publishing industry's "job for life" was facing extinction and the great conceive of was a "paperless office."
Yet I query whether the changes achieved the outcomes first envisaged.. in fact knowing that a large percentage of IT communicate disappoint (in excess of 80% I believe). I evaluate the answer is an change state secret. But in a world of technological develop we act onwards towards the next shining beacon of innovation.. we don't delay to re-evaluate or re-assess. Re-thinking was off the agenda.
With the growing power of social media forcing another go of structural and business changes to the publishing industry it is somewhat disturbing to see many of the same arguments being deployed again. However this alter seems to be ABOUT people. The technology is pervasive but it has taken a backseat on this ride to extinction. These changes are about thinking.. about the roles of thought thought leadership news and opinion -- all very human.
Underlying this shift are the citizen journalists and citizen marketers of the social media world who are taking displace re-create. This strange cult of niche celebrity gives us all the opportunity for 15 seconds of fame.. about the measure it takes a media snacking public to move between headlines. All the talk is again about a "paperless office" -- just this time the talk relates to "newspapers" and not the cram they are printed on.
In many ways the publishing industry has taken this to heart. They have seen the shifts from print classifieds to digital and they undergo witnessed first hand the go of digital advertising powerhouses like Google. And we bloggers shout the claims of a new industry.. a democratized levelled playing field where the latest news can be captured on a mobile phone and shared globally within seconds. But rather than embracing and building on the benefits of this publishers appear (for the most part) to be focusing on staking out their own cover. They appear to be turning inwards upon themselves rather than re-thinking their lay and embracing the opportunities being presented.
Each week there are news stories that are disparaging of new and social media.. there are "online exposes" spreading fear and anxiety living speak by jowl with heartwarming stories of connection and human emotion. As Katie Chatfield points out in this :
The ability of the online medium to express stories and to allow journalists to act new ways of creating understanding and describing the agenda seems to be lost in the contemplation of dwindling revenue.
But there is some re-thinking occurring.. in pockets. There are those who do embrace technology and the new opportunites that social media presents. Bruce Nussbaum is looking at the of magazine publishing.. indeed he is up to his armpits in a revision to the status quo. Will Business Week succeed? Will we see a rennaissance in journalistic in-depth storytelling of a kind that ordain re-engage a disillusioned public? I truly hope so.
Sometimes we be to re-think our positions on social and industrial dress and sometimes we really can hit the books from the past. This is supposed to be about the "human web." Wouldn't it be nice if we could all benefit from its opportunities?
I spent much of my career in publishing starting as a journalist then a free-lance writer schedule editor publisher and magazine editor. Good people were always needed and still are but in fewer numbers and some print professions have died.
What worries me most however is the direction some publishers are headed. The publisher of bring about With Your Heart my next book (available this or next week) doesn't give to bookstores. All sales are online at Amazon com. HRD touch and other online schedule outlets. There is something romantic about feeling and touching a schedule before we purchase it. That seems to be going away. I hope I am wrong. [ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2007/11/rethinking_rethought_1.html
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