Manage To Change

Perception, Reality, & Rory Sutherland

My husband recently pointed me to an interview with Rory Sutherland and the following video of his TED Talk.

Similar to Predictably Irrational and Nudge, Sutherland's view is that people don't make decisions on pure economic value alone.  Intangible value plays a large role, although many are loathe to admit it.

"There is a basic view that real value involves making things, involves labor.  It involves engineering.  It involves limited raw materials.  And that what we add on top is kind of false.  It's a fake version and there is a reason for some suspicion and uncertainty about it." [Quote transcribed from the video.]

Sutherland believes that 1) all value is relative, subjective, and 2) persuasion is better than compulsion.

"...how many problems of life can be solved by actually tinkering with perception rather than that tedious, hardworking, and messy business of actually trying to change reality."

While his extreme (and tongue-in-cheek) example of "placebo education" may seem dangerous and General Mill's approach to selling Shreddies (a cereal sold in Canada) may seem ridiculous, there is an element of value here - and some plain common sense.

"It's not that marketing-driven or advertising-led solutions can solve everything. That's absolutely not true. What seems strange to me, though, is that people don't at least try them first. Instead, governments try to solve their problems by compulsion. My view is that we should try and solve the problem by persuasion, and if that fails we can try compulsion or harder-level nudging."

It's worth the 16+ minutes to watch the video.  His examples are both brilliant and incredibly entertaining.

(Kent Anderson, from the Scholarly Kitchen, also wrote about this in his post Can the Creativity of Social Persuasion Cure "Corporate Asperger's Syndrome"?)

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Google Wave: When More is Too Much

We're talking about Google Wave over on the Scholarly Kitchen.

Google Wave was built to answer the question, “How would email look if it were invented today?”  But Wave goes far beyond email-like functionality and tries to get to the heart of communication in all the forms that we’ve come to know.  Wave is part email, part IM, part Wiki, and part document management, to name a few.Ann Michael under, The Scholarly Kitchen, Oct 2009

Come join us!

Sci Foo Camp 2009: Nature Video

After Michael Clarke's coverage of Sci Foo Camp on the Scholarly Kitchen, I thought there was nothing left to say.

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3

I was wrong.

NatureVideo just posted a Science Foo Camp 2009 video on YouTube.  From DNA, to skulls, to puzzles, it seems like Sci Foo had it all.

It was interesting to see how most of those interviewed contrasted the open and informal nature of Sci Foo with traditional science research and discovery.

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• Photos: Foo Camp 2009 (laughingsquid.com)

reBlog from Ann Michael under: The Scholarly Kitchen

Attending SSP IN!  Here's a post I wrote on the Scholarly Kitchen:

Fifteen years ago would anyone have imagined that Apple, a dying computer company, would come back to life by gaining control of the music business?Ann Michael under, The Scholarly Kitchen, Sep 2009

Read all the coverage of the Society for Scholarly Publishing IN Meeting on the Scholarly Kitchen.

Google Buys reCAPTCHA

Aside from the topic, which is interesting, I love the idea that Silicon Alley Insider is facilitating the proliferation of their content.

Embedding text.  Why wasn't this done years ago?

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SSP: Are you IN?

Why haven't I been blogging regularly?

One big reason is the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) IN Meeting.

Richard Newman, from the American Medical Society, and I are the co-chairs of the SSP IN meeting.

SSP IN will take over the entire Hotel Providence from September 23rd - 25th. I could tell you all about IN here, but everything you need to know is on the SSP website:

IN is a different kind of conference. It is part symposium, part seminar, and part un-conference. Most of all, it's an opportunity to learn from your colleagues by participating in small groups lead by industry innovators like Kent Anderson (Massachusetts Medical Society, New England Journal of Medicine), Chris Beckett (Atypon Systems), Alex Frost, Thane Kerner (SilverChair), Howard Ratner (Nature Publishing Group), and John Sack (HighWire Press). During IN you'll be the student, the collaborator, and the instructor!

IN was created to address the unprecedented change taking place in today's scholarly publishing industry. Disruptive technologies and business models are changing the market at the same time the global economy presents the most challenging fiscal climate in nearly a century. IN is designed to help you formulate strategies and tactics to take advantage of the opportunities and successfully negotiate the challenges of today's publishing landscape.

If your interested in a highly interactive program and you care about the future of publishing and media, think about coming to IN!!!

SIIA: New Rules for Licensing, Building & Aggregating Information

Earlier in the spring, while attending the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) NetGain conference, I was asked to answer a question as part of a series for the SIIA Content Division. 

As the result of sheer coincidence, Chris Anderson was a keynote at the conference and was also asked the same question.

Several people were interviewed and the SIIA has posted all of the interviews as well as all of the sessions from NetGain.

The question?

What are the new rules for licensing, building and aggregating information?

Chris' answer was brief and pointed to Freemium as the new model.

My answer was a little longer and is included here just for fun!

Anderson, Gladwell, and Godin - Oh My!

Image via CrunchBase

As many of you know, there has been an interesting and spirited debate going on around Chris Anderson's (pictured) new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Malcolm Gladwell's review of that book, and Seth Godin's rebuttal to Gladwell's review.

Those arguments speak for themselves and you can see them on this Squidoo lens started by Seth Godin.

What I find interesting are that the tactics being used and the roles being assumed look very much like those employed during a change management effort within an organization.

There are people advocating, recognizing, and interpreting change (Anderson and Godin) and there are those seemingly resisting change or debating its impact (Gladwell).

Those that bring up alternatives or poke holes at the new direction are regarded by the "change visionaries" as resistant, threatened, or sometimes, simply ignorant.  Often, while some are truly resistant to change, many are simply raising issues and perspectives that haven't been fully considered by the change management effort.

On the other side, change visionaries are often resistant to considering anything contrary to their position. Adaptation or adjustment of the change being implemented is viewed as selling out or lacking faith.

It's the healthy debate between these groups, and the shades of gray between them, that allows the organization to find its way and avoid some costly mistakes in the process.

As General George S. Patton said, "If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking."

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Boring Technology & Convening Supporters

Kent Anderson from the Scholarly Kitchen linked to this Clay Shirky video filmed at the State Department by TED.

It's 17:03 minutes of insight!

"What matters here isn't technological capital, it's social capital.  These tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring...when everybody is able to take them for granted."

"They had understood that their role with my.barackobama.com was to convene their supporters, but not to control their supporters."

The Evolution of Content

Take a look at this video created by Mark Logic.

It's a fabulous summary of where we've been and the challenges and opportunities facing us in media and publishing.