The Digital Futures Divide
Charles Leadbeater (author of We-Think- the power of mass creativity) and David Edgerton (author of The Shock of the Old) consider how the book trade might position itself in a ‘digitally uncertain age’.
Leadbeater video:
This session is an interesting one and both speakers are well known experts – what I do get the feeling however is that some of the independents here are growing increasingly uneasy with more and more digital discussions with little practical outcomes – it’ll be interesting to see if this session is as ‘content – producer’ oriented as some of the others, which is a hot topic for publishers at the moment but can leave booksellers feeling a bit powerless.
One of the results of the polarisation of the trade in recent years between the very small independents and the large chains is that few outside Waterstone’s & Borders really have the ability to engage online utilising the ‘web 2.0 tools’ that many have talked about in the last two days – we have been in a lucky positon with BookRabbit to get the funding to do this, but to do it well isn’t cheap. We’d like to get all the independents using the site and benefiting from it – which is one solution! [end ad!]
Charlie – talked about the Microsoft ‘I love bees’ campaign for Halo 2. This ARG (Alternative Reality Game) to promote a game showed the potential engagement (in this case of 600,000) to use collaboration and sharing as part of our relationships. Interactions with customers – should also include participation, content generation as well as consumption. More and more content creation tools will become available – the book trade should look at things like open access science to see the future.
Talks about how well the promotional video has done (at the top of this page), and how books have to add value in new ways. Industries like bookselling won’t prosper without asking the difficult questions, look to the music industry’s position, the book trade is just an interface. Interfaces will grow so the potential is that there will be ‘more’ of everything – but those who benefit will be those who engage with new methods and forms. Get stuck in.
David – even Amazon sends out physical books out in cardboard using good old physical post. Why do internet gurus also still write physical books? Why if we live in this new age do books still get so much attention? Well we underestimate the book. The good bits of Wikipedia mostly comes from books – today we’ve been encouraged to believe we are entering a de-materialised digital age, yet we burn more carbon than ever before, ships carry more trade than the web, we’re hearing about a food crisis. The world is changing but the ‘old’ keeps coming back to upset the predictions of the web evangelists.
A great danger of overestimating the novelty of the present, danger in thinking new technologies associated with new thinking, digital better than book knowledge. The idea of a digital divide where people are left behind is a powerful one. But these stories get the underlying story wrong, the digital divide is between those who only have access to rubbishy digital information rather than quality information. The quality stuff needs to be paid for.
The book is still here, in ever larger numbers. Given the prediction that the book was doomed we could celebrate its survival – but it like many other things that should be ‘done for’ are still around. We should look with confidence to the future, we don’t know what it will bring, but it will be more complicated and richer than the futurists can say.
