C(SQ)>R(C)

I was watching The Today Show a few days ago and an expert was recommending to a viewer that the answer to changing her bad eating habits was to start by eating one healthy item every day starting January 1st.

Most of the research shows that stopping cold turkey and cleaning out the cupboards leads to your best chance for success. Get rid of anything in your house that you can pick up and eat now. Fruits and vegetables are the obvious exceptions.

But the expert's answer is so much easier to hear. The small step. The doable step.

Alan Webber says change is a math formula. When the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change, movement starts to happen.

With that time of year upon us and everyone readying their resolutions for the New Year, don't make a promise to yourself. Find a way to raise the cost of something in your life that needs to change.

For me, I am raising the cost of not writing. I started hiding the Dock on my Mac to eliminate the temptation to check to Mail or Tweetie. I have gotten back to using WriteRoom to create a clean workspace for writing (OmmWriter is also good). Before the New Year, I am going to remove all the clutter from my desk to remove more distractions. This is my version of cleaning the cupboards.

Nothing changes the fact I have to put my fingers on the keys and start typing.

⁂

Check out Alan's book Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self; C(SQ)>R(C) is Rule #5 

Posted onThursday, Dec 31, 2009 in You | Permalink | Comments Next »

What is a Book?

Michael Shatzkin ended his 2010 predictions for the publishing industry by saying, "The big meme coming out of 2010 will be 'what is a book?'"

I have been thinking about that question a lot in 2009. I pulled together some of those thoughts for a Pecha Kucha presentation I gave in August. Shatzkin's post pushed me to pull the slides back out, record the audio, and get it posted for everyone.

What is A Book? from Todd Sattersten on Vimeo.

The executive summary: We don't all agree on what a book is anymore, and 500 years of meaning is colliding with 21st century advances. I wonder out loud about the need for new vocabulary to describe the book. Until we figure it out, there is going to be confusion, angst, and missed opportunities.

Interestingly, Don Clark at The Wall Street Journal write today about potential market confusion heading into the Consumer Electronics Show about what the difference is between a netbook and a smartbook.

Publishing isn't the only industry having problems with the words they use.
Posted onWednesday, Dec 30, 2009 in Media | Permalink | Comments

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Book Review - The Four Conversations by Jeffery Ford and Laurie Ford

Lately, I have become fascinated with the questions words:

Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?
How?

We use those queries to navigate the world. Dan Roam showed us a great example of that in The Back of the Napkin by connecting those questions with natural pictures you should draw to answer them (page 141 is worth the entire price of his book and there is a new, expanded edition of TBotN coming out this week).

Jeffrey and Laurie Ford did the same thing in The Four Conversations but through the lens of management and with the interchanges that should be taking place in the workplace.

The Fords believe conversation can be classified into four types. Initiative conversations set the vision and direction, like John F. Kennedy's 1961 speech that committed putting men on the moon. If initiative conversations are about what, when, and why, understanding discussions answer the who and the how. These conversations ground individuals at the start of a project by laying out the roles they will play, and reinforce the value of the initiative. Understanding conversations do not create action, however; that's the purpose of performance conversations: ask that something be done and obtain a promise for completion. Closure conversations mark an ending and create the opportunity for new beginnings.

The authors also point out that we favor some kinds of discussion. Most of us overuse understanding conversation thinking we need to spend extra time getting buying, when managers would get better results with a balanced and intentional approach to the conversations we use with reports.

Reducing tardiness on projects comes from using all four types of conversation effectively. Closure conversations heal wounds. Interrogating excuses through performance discussions can reveal whether individuals did everything they could. Altering the rate of progress toward a goal is as simple as increasing the frequency and the magnitude of what you ask for.

"Of course." is what I kept thinking as I read the book. The Four Conversations is a good book for new managers and even better book for long time managers, as they'll easily recognize the power of the conversations prescribed.

Posted onTuesday, Dec 29, 2009 in Management | Permalink | Comments Next »

Book Review - What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

In 1995, Robert Spector wrote a book about a Northwest upscale department store chain that embraced the idea of customer service. Spector popularized the famous story of a customer returning a set of tires to a store and the associate happily accepting the return even though the chain didn't sell tires. The Nordstrom Way was a defining title for the customer service trend of the 90's. The bestselling business book used the teach-by-number format made popular by In Search of Excellence, but what Spector really did was use Nordstrom as a metaphor to remind companies how customers (and they themselves) want to be treated.

Jeff Jarvis does the same thing in his book What Would Google Do? He uses the Internet giant as a metaphor for what is to come and again what is so successful about this device is that we recognize instantly the point and how familiar it feels. The temptation with WWGD? is to think that Jarvis is describing some far-off future. He's not. The foundation has already been laid and somehow we are waiting for everyone to catch up.

If I have already lost you, read the first 225 pages carefully. Networks and platforms are the new game. And it's not mimics of the closed, monopolistic telcos and mass-media operations of the past. Open-source creation and abundance-based thinking feed a whole new set of platforms. Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter are the headliners of the next act. "Can I use your platform to build my own business?" says venture capitalist Fred Wilson when Jarvis brings a business associate to visit. "And before you answer, let me tell you, the right answer is 'yes.'"

Transparency is part of this new game whose power source is everything being linkable, clickable, and searchable. Again, the digital native believes these actions to be inalienable rights alongside life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A moment of reflection on how one's company lives up to these 21st century declarations is required. Go ahead. Take a moment.

Jarvis takes the final 100 pages to do thought experiments of what industries would look like if the terraforming nature of these forces come to pass. GoogleEats would provide menu with what was popular with prior customers and how much they turned out liking it. GT&T would provide ubiquitous service no matter where we were and if there was trouble they would use their own tools to help solve the problem (i.e. a Google Map for us to plot where we were having trouble). Imagine your Google Calendar tracking the tasks you had over the coming week suggested with best form of transport with pricing and schedules.

When executives asked me what book they should assign for their corporate retreats, my recommendation this year was What Would Google Do? The book is not about Google, but rather a new set of rules that changes what is possible.

Posted onMonday, Dec 21, 2009 in Books, Strategy | Permalink | Comments

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The Future of Magazines (and Books and Newspapers)

Time Inc. has been dazzling everyone with the Sport Illustrated demo they released a few weeks ago, giving people a taste for what their reading experience could become:

Bonnier R&D and BERG provide another view that feels more thoughtful and considered, versus the previous eye candy.

This There Is No Page Fold meme says the same thing that BERG is getting at (ie not everything need to be on the first screen and I think this design brief could influence the future of web development as well.

Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt wrote a great post in response to the SI video and laid out six conclusions for what these developments mean for book publishing:

1. The line between newspapers, magazines, and books is about to become blurred.
2. Publishers will need to envision multimedia content from the beginning.
3. Consumer expectations are going to skyrocket.
4. The cost of producing digital books will get more expensive.
5. Digital content creation and distribution will become our primary focus.
6. People will be reading more than ever.

Logos CEO Bob Pritchett wrote a wonderful response to Hyatt's piece laying out what his company has done as media converges in digital space. He ends the post by asking publishers about the competencies they currently have (and what they are really going to need):

• Graphic design is a core competency in-house, not an outsourced project.
• I have unrestricted global rights to the content I publish.
• I employ an Information Architect.
• My content is always designed for use in multiple media or formats.
• Everything we own or license is thoroughly indexed and stored in a database.
• I employ an Interaction Designer.
• Software development is a core competency in-house.
• I have an experienced digital publishing partner, not a project-based contractor.

Pritchett has always been very forward looking.I strongly recommend his presentation on methods his uses to price digital products. I originally saw him present it at O'Reilly Tools of Change a few years ago and has yet to see anyone adopt a similar approach.

⁂

New technologies. New competencies. New pricing methodologies. New business models.

2010 is going to be awesome.

Posted onFriday, Dec 18, 2009 in Media | Permalink | Comments Next »

Would you buy a 1 Mega-Pixel Digital Camera?

Close to a million ereaders are going to be sold this holiday season.

Don't buy one. They are not ready yet.

Do you remember when you bought your first digital camera? That one megapixel or so resolution left you thinking you should have stuck with film. Remember struggling to figure out what to do with the images.You are going to find the same thing with the Kindle or nook or Reader.

Like I said last week, we have simulated the function of reading on a electronic device, but we have yet to re-envision of the form.

Posted onWednesday, Dec 16, 2009 in Media | Permalink | Comments Next »

The Topics You'll Find in "What Matters Now"

There is no doubt you should read all of What Matters Now, the new ebook from Seth Godin and 66 others.

I am very excited to have been offered the opportunity to contribute a piece on Focus. You can find my ode to Mr. Miyagi on page 63.

If you are not sure about wading into it, I put together a title index of the pieces you'll find inside. That way you can download the ebook and do a search find the ones that interest you.

Title Index for What Matters Now

1% 17,
Adventure 42,
Analog 45,
Atoms 19,
Attention 48,
Autonomy 25,
Celebrate 40,
Change 50,
Compassion 33,
Confidence 54,
Connected 12,
Consequence 28,
Context 49,
Difference 60,
Dignity 8,
(Dis)trust 74,
DIY 41,
Dumb 43,
Ease 11,
Empathy 38,
Enrichment 16,
Enough 73,
Excellence 20,
Expertise 58,
Facts 7,
Fascination 59,
Fear 6,
Focus 63 (that's me),
Forever 37,
Generosity 5,
Government 2.0 79,
Gumption 81,
Harmony 30,
I'm Sorry 76,
Independent Diplomacy 46,
Iterative Capital 69,
Knowing 78,
Knowledge 34,
Leap 64,
Magnetize 53,
Meaning 10,
Mesh 71,
Momentum 27,
Most 21,
Neoteny 39,
Nobody 44,
Open-Source DNA 56,
Parsing 35,
Passion 51,
Poker 26,
Productivity 68,
Re-capitalism 14,
Ripple 23,
Sacrifice 62,
Sleep 77,
Slow Capital 55,
Social Skills 75,
Speaking 18,
Strengths 22,
Technology 57,
THNX 47,
Timeless 66,
Unsustainability 24,
Vision 15,
Willpower 70,
Women 65,
World-Healers 61,
You Can't 80,
.eDO 67

Update: I added page numbers to make it a little easier to find essays. I still encourage looking through the whole ebook.

What Matters Now

Posted onMonday, Dec 14, 2009 in Big Ideas | Permalink | Comments Next »

When We See What's Truly Possible

I studied mechanical engineering in college and in my senior year, I took an elective course in plastics.

In the mid-90's, there was a big push to use plastic for everything--bottles, trash cans, lawn chairs. No one understood well how to design in these new materials and the answer normally was to make "it" thicker or add a gusset here or there for strength and support.

I remember vividly one of the final lectures of the class when the instructor talked about what the evolution of design would be like.

First, we mimic what was done before. We take what was metal and do the same but in plastic. The object looks the same. The object functions the same. And we likely save some money.

The second evolution is when we truly understand the characteristics of the new material. The object's function remains, but the form is something completely different from what we could have imagined before.

Cool Hunting yesterday highlighted the Foodpod. Think about the evolution of colanders. Only fifteen years later are we getting around to seeing what it truly possible in plastics

You can see the same thing in the touchpad mock-up of The Sports Illustrated that has been circulating. We are almost to the point that we can envision a new form of media that will inherently function better than what existed before.

Posted onFriday, Dec 11, 2009 in Design, Media | Permalink | Comments Next »

The First Mistake

Yesterday was the day book publishers made their first mistake in the new digital world.

Many in the digerati will say the first mistake was digital right managements that publishers allowed to pollute the distribution channels. While that is bad, it was also expected as they followed their media cousins in creating artificial scarcity with code wrapped in code.

No, the first misstep is Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and now HarperCollins announced they are delaying the release of their ebook edition until after the hardcover edition has been on the market for three to four months.

This response is a frontal attack on Amazon's $9.99 ebook pricing strategy. No one in publishing likes Amazon establishing the price for digital goods so far below what the physical copies are currently priced. The only real competitor Barnes & Noble has been forced to follow on that pricing scheme as they rollout of the Nook this week.

Creating the digital window in the publishing release process in theory protects the higher margin hardcovers from customer's choice of cheap bits or expensive atoms. This is the same strategy of price discrimination that movies studios use in staggering the releases in theaters, DVD, premium cable, and mainstream TV over three years. These release windows maximize profits with high margin products or venues first followed by ever decreasing editions until, in the case of movies, you can watch it for free on ad-supported TV.

Now, this may be a tactic to get Amazon to back off their loss leader strategy that is collapsing the pricing on digital products.

Delaying ebooks is going to make the folks in Seattle very unhappy. The current Kindle tagline of "Books in 60 seconds" certainly suffers. Maybe this brings the retailer to the table to talk about a better compromise of pricing and timing.

Two big problems exist with the delay release tactic that publishers have decided to employ in the battle to regain control of their markets.

The first problem is all the people with new e-readers. Forrester Research estimates that three million e-readers will be sold this year and six million units will be sold next year.

I don't think it is a big jump to call these customers important. They read lots of books. These individuals are the early adopters who are investing in the technology that the future of the industry is going to be based on. You want to treat these people right.

These publishers have told these nine million potential e-reading customers that they are going to have to wait months to read the newly released books they want to read. This would be like saying in the music industry, "We will be releasing the vinyl first and anyone with an iPod can expect to see the mp3s in ninety days." What?!

Publishers have lost sight of the customers who are actually buying the books as they battle with Amazon over when things will be sold and for how much.

Their response also creates a second problem. Publishers are creating the exact conditions for piracy to expand. Giving customers the single choice of a $25+ hardcover at release will encourage people to search out pirated files. Millions of people have e-reading devices, they are going to want to use them, and they have plenty of experience filling portable digital devices with pirated content.

People have told me you can't just rip a book and start sharing the files. And that is true. The trouble is the books being delayed for digital release are exactly the ones with large enough demand that someone will go through the time to scan the pages or crowdsource the transcription or get the actual digital file that is being increasingly passed around during the publicity phase of the book launch.

***

I know about the incredible financial implications that digital is bringing to bear on book publishing. That doesn't not change the fact that it is coming. Delaying releases will not delay its arrival.

The answer here is pretty simple: release the hardcover and digital at the same time. Let customers choose what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. If you help them with those things, they'll buy from you. If you don't they'll find another way to satisfy that need.

Update: MacMillian CEO John Sargent says in the New York Times that his company already delays ebooks and will likely do so in the future.

Posted onWednesday, Dec 9, 2009 in Books | Permalink | Comments Next »

The Rise of Digital Books

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was interviewed in the New York Times this past weekend.

Q: Of all the books that Amazon sells, what percentage are digital books?

Bezos: For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition. It won’t be too long before we’re selling more electronic books than we are physical books. It’s astonishing.

Amazon has been floating that number since October, when the company also offered that in May the ratio was 35 electronic copies for every 100 physical copies.

The number shocked me when I first heard it, but then we got our first royalty statement for The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. For every 100 copies of the physical book we sold through Amazon, 20 copies of the electronic version were sold. The statement also showed that Amazon is really the only game in the electronic book town.

Let's make sure to put these numbers in perspective. Amazon only controls about 10% of the overall book market, which means that 3% of the overall book market has gone digital.

The introduction of more devices like Barnes & Noble's Nook (which is getting warm to lukewarm reviews today) and more vendors like Smashwords will certainly change the marketplace dynamics. Let's not also forget that Amazon is losing about two dollars on every book is sells right now.

The adoption of digital books is a very real phenomenon. I keep saying we in the middle of a five year disruptive cycle for book publishing. 2010 will be Year Four of the cycle and this is when we will really start seeing measurable effects in the book market as a whole.

Posted onMonday, Dec 7, 2009 in Books, Media | Permalink | Comments Next »