Home From New York. Excellent Trip, But Sometimes Frustrating Conference.

[Aaron Stanton]

We're back from the conference, now - we arrived late on Thursday night, and I think everyone is glad to be home.  Dan has returned to Florida, and I'm pretty sure everyone on the team is going to basically hibernate for the weekend.

Due to an inconsistent Internet connection at the hotel, the BookLamp Flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/34630053@N04/) and Twitter feeds (http://twitter.com/AaronStanton) ended up being our friends.  Hopefully you knew they existed (the next iteration of CGHM will feature them more obviously).

I'll talk about the Tools of Change conference in more depth next week, but it was both interesting and very positive.  Every private meeting was simply excellent.  The actual panels, though, gave me very mixed feelings.  There is a very specific focus in the publishing industry that seems to be all about books, and about virtually nothing else.  I watched a panel discussing why video games such as World of Warcraft have such strong online retention rates compared to reading, and it drove me up the wall.  After working in the game industry for seven years before starting BookLamp in earnest, many of the questions that they're asking have been studied and answered before.  But when asked the questions about the online role and delivery of content, too often the answer was, "We don't know.  No one knows."

Which is not true at all.  Many of the panels themselves seemed to have great knowledge of publishing, but only peripheral knowledge of the other fields that are being successful in these areas.  For example, I was at a conference a few years ago that focused on video game addiction with games like WOW, and the conclusion was that there is no such thing as "game addiction" specifically.  If you removed the social, online element of games, the addiction virtually disappeared. Game Addiction is much the same thing as other online addictions - chatting online, cell phone addiction, these sorts of things.  So in answer to the question, "Why does WOW attract and retain people when reading online doesn't," the answer is not, "No one knows."

I think the event could be improved a bit by spreading the expertise out from simply publishing.  Instead of bringing in publishers and asking them about the technology they're using, maybe they should bring in some technology people and ask them what they would do in publishing.  But enough about that for now.

The Internet at the hotel was extremely iffy, sometimes unusably slow.  The Flickr feed for photos (and at the end, videos) was extremely useful, as was the Twitter feed.  I think they'll play a bigger role in the future.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.  See you on Monday.

Aaron

Paul, Tony, and Aaron in the lobby of the hotel in New York:


Sort of an odd picture.  Paul, Dan, and Tony in Times Square (what's up with Dan's eyes? - I took the picture when they were not ready):

[Daniel Bowen]

Yeah, I think I did that in various other pictures.  I don't know why... surprise sounds like a good excuse.

[Mandi Taylor]

So it's the social aspect that makes online activity so addicting...  Then why does no one get addicted to talking to people in person?  (Or do they, and we just don't label it as such?)

[Therin]

Well, see, talking to people in person is a socially acceptable activity and so we don't monitor it and count every second that a person spends undertaking it.  Unlike computer gaming, internet chatting etc etc...

And yes, people do get addicted to talking to others.  Spend a few days alone and you'll see...   

[Daniel Bowen]

Can't some forms of isolation be considered torture?  Maybe we are meant to be "addicted" to social interaction... an innate evolutionary advantage, possibly.  But we've never had the ability to interact to the extent that we can today, so social addiction may take on a new meaning.

I'm just generalizing, but society is more valuable than the addition of its individual parts.  You just don't want to "abuse" any of the various forms of social interaction.  Anyway, with regard to books, there were a couple of talks at TOC that considered what they called "public reading," which considered some social dynamics that could be realized from the act of reading with others.  That's not exactly what I mean, but it's a little difficult to write out.  Here's a couple of examples:

1)
So, the text of a book is available online for the world to read and comment about.  When we see things like this now, usually the comments are placed at the boottom, under the book's text (or article or whatever).  Consider if the comments are placed directly next to the line which is being commented on, for example.  The reader is given an alternative perspective in which to read the passage, and is thus "more informed."  Whether or not he/she decides that there is additional information in the comment is up to the reader, but the simple fact is that there is more information to draw upon.  A sort of "collective" reading.

2)
Another example considered text books.  The thought was, "Could a used text books actually be worth more than a new one?" - this was brought up just abstractly, but maybe consider textbooks in electronic form where the student can apply notes to the e-textbook.  So, when a student buys a text book, the basic information about the material is in the text, but after a semester there is a load of notes about the text of the book that can be collected and used a material for the books next owner.  This next thought is my own, but now consider the collection of notes from every owner of that text book... that's a lot of perspective, and matrix algebra may be a bit easier to comprehend if you have more than just a single author's/teacher's perspective to learn from - you have other student's thoughts and mnemonics, etc. from people in the same position as you.

... interesting ideas.

[Jo Red]

Just seen the Flickr photos of the team. Who's the new girl in the goup ?

Cheers,
Jo

[Daniel Bowen]

If we're thinking of the same picture, then there's eileen with light brownish/blond hair and the other is Maryem (wow! I'm sorry Aaron if that's spelled incorrectly, which I'm about 80% sure it is), Aaron's wife.

[Jo Red]

I always thought Aaron has a girlfriend (whom he lives with), but not exactly married. When did they tie the knot ?  I've been following this thread ever since it started and there was never any mention of a wedding.

[Aaron Stanton]

*cough*  Yes, well, we were married in a civil ceremony last year.  We kept it pretty quiet because Maryam is a bit shy, and wasn't thrilled with being on the site.  Though she's been a part of the adventure from the start - she was the cameraman (camerawoman?) for the very first videos back in the day.

She was in the office visiting me when we took that picture - sort of photographed by proxy.  It's not a great picture of her - I should put up a better one. 

But that's why you didn't hear a mention of the wedding - there really hasn't been one yet.  Our plan is to have a full ceremony for friends and family down the road.  But until then, we really don't talk about it much publicly.

Thanks, Dan.    JK.

Aaron

[Stephen Rollins]

So, what I'm learning here is, I need to start following the Twitter/Flickr feeds in order to hear everything that's going on? XD

[Jo Red]

*cough*  Yes, well, we were married in a civil ceremony last year.  We kept it pretty quiet because Maryam is a bit shy, and wasn't thrilled with being on the site.  Though she's been a part of the adventure from the start - she was the cameraman (camerawoman?) for the very first videos back in the day.

She was in the office visiting me when we took that picture - sort of photographed by proxy.  It's not a great picture of her - I should put up a better one. 

But that's why you didn't hear a mention of the wedding - there really hasn't been one yet.  Our plan is to have a full ceremony for friends and family down the road.  But until then, we really don't talk about it much publicly.

Thanks, Dan.    JK.

Aaron

Cool. This is definitely news worth mentioning in your blogs !  Interesting indeed.

Congratulations then ~

Jo

[Mandi Taylor]

So, what I'm learning here is, I need to start following the Twitter/Flickr feeds in order to hear everything that's going on? XD

Yes, you should!  I noticed that there's something about an iPhone app on the first picture of the whiteboards...  The later pictures are conveniently blurred out.  Is that just an idea at the moment, or are you actually working on something?

[Daniel Bowen]

Mandi,

   I'm not sure about the iPhone app, but I trust your vision - I also, probably, would not hear about that unless it was more than just an idea.  Anyway, I'm sure the other whiteboards are blurred out for good reason.  To be honest, I was surprised that the other whiteboards weren't.

  I like the iPhone app idea, and I know it's crossed the minds of Aaron and Paul - Dustin owns one, so...

I like the attention to detail,
-Dan

[Stephen Rollins]

Hmm, not to be a nag or anything, Aaron, but you're down a week since your last post.  Keep up updated!   

And, maybe I'll get around to viewing the other feeds for Booklamp info when I have the time...  I really shouldn't be giving Aaron a hard time for not posting if I can't go out and look at all the information that's available myself.  Maybe I'm just lazy.  >_>

[Therin]

Is it too late to say congratulations?  Well done and every happiness.      And shall we now let her fade back into the background as per her expressed desire?   

It is good to see everything in balance though. 

And maybe, Stephen, they're moving along at a great rate of knots, too busy to communicate to us nosy people...  Here's hoping.