Digigen & The TinMan

I’m doing research into modern publishing models and how they can affect the way magazine brands distribute content. Although there isn’t alot of exciting stuff apart from the standard – treat digital as its own publishing channel, I did find this interesting piece from Sourcebooks. They refer to what they are trying to do as The Agile Publishing Model and it is quite new, although actually I think Guy Kawasaki tried to do this with his recent books.

The Agile Publishing Model is based on Dominique Raccah’s theory that:

“building audience participation before the writing and publication of a book was a way to help readers discover new work, as well as leading to greater sales”

This seems to make sense and of course feels true. Build partcipation before you launch is smart and means when you hit activation stage, you already have a willing band of followers. This applies to most industries really, but the publishing industry does always seem slow to keep up.

Raccah told the audience: “We’re going to develop the book and build a community [around it] and the community is going to influence how the book is developed.”

I think it is smart, modern behaviour. So we shall see how it pans out.

You can also see Futurist David Houle talking about it below (poor sound quality but you get the idea)

<iframe width=”529″ height=”269″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/D9PY7EMlfl0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

Although Google have gone way beyond challenger status into a market leader across all their products, they still remain incredibly obsessed at the core of their business. Obsessed with delivering technology which enables users to use the web more effectively and efficiently. Obsessed with uniting up all their platforms to give seamless consumer movement across all of them.

This obsession runs deep. I found an interesting article on the Daily Mail which showed Eric Schmidt’s obsession with things which are sadly way beyond his control. (yes – interesting + Daily Mail together in one sentence) In a speech which he made in August 2011, Eric Schmidt criticizes the UK education system for focusing on “luvvy” subjects rather than the nerdy ones. His points are smart though, when we are increasingly in a world which has devalued the written word and revalued technology, why are we ignoring sciences and engineering to focus on the written or spoken word.

According to a recent article in The Guardian, it is actually only England that has fallen drastically behind. In Scotland, computers are linked into every subject and some schools are even giving lessons to takeaway as downloadable podcasts. Smart stuff.

Schmidt is right in his assessment of our educational system. Computer Science, the thing that drives culture today, is sadly missing from the majority of schools. This means our children are missing out on learning really simple programming skills something which every 12 and 13 year old in South Korea has access to.

In recent months, the UK government has indeed started to think about how they do this and it is great to see Michael Gove pick up on this necessity.

“One of the problems we’ve had is that the ICT curriculum in the past has been written for a subject that is changing all the time. I think that what we should have is computer science in the future – and how it fits in to the curriculum is something we need to be talking to scientists, to experts in coding and to young people about.”

Perhaps now as places like the Silicon Roundabout and Silicon Fen boom in terms of new start-ups, we’ll see a nation obsessed with teaching not just computer literacy, but coding, app development and computer expertise. That is surely a good thing.

I don’t think you can start any understanding of obsession without looking at the people that are driven by it. Although it may seem obvious to some, it is also completely right to start this theme of obsession with a quote from a man that was driven by it, Steve Jobs.

Digigen & The TinMan is going to take on a new format. Over the next few months you will see the blog evolve into a magazine blog. Although look and feel won’t change drastically, what I will be doing is focusing on a monthly theme which will help guide content throughout the period.

Each monthly theme will be dictated by three things:

- Being Topical. It might not be a subject people are talking about, but it may be a trait that has been shown through someone or something. For example, I chose “obsession” for January, because it feels like having found myself deep into Steve Job’s biography, that obsession is something we could all learn from.

- Driving Discussion. Themes will be picked for their controversy, but also their ability to drive discussion.

- Availability of material. For whatever theme I pick this shouldn’t be a problem, but each month I will discuss why I chose different themes and what made them interesting.

I hope you like it. Its a new start if you like…

Thanks. Matt

Found this interesting video on the eatbigfish.com website. If you haven’t read the book by Adam Morgan and are interested in setting up your own brand, which I am, then you should read it. It is packed with great ideas and examples of how to build a better, more exciting brand.

The video from Willem Van der Hoven talks about the creation of great work, which he believes can be broken down into three areas;

1) Surround yourself with great consumer planners
2) Create a team who live the brand journey
3) Be courageous and work for courageous people

Creating Great Work – 3 Bits of Advice from eatbigfish on Vimeo.