OUT OF THE ORDINARY

Digital Publishing Innovation

Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel about digital publishing innovation at the Digital Matters 2011 conference in Singapore. It was a lively and interesting discussion that was captured on video. So here it is:

 

A book that will change the way you think about books that change the way you think

Too many books claim that they will change the way you think about the world so it’s invigorating to read one that really has the potential to do it rather than just talk about it as a means of generating sales. In Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives academics Christakis and Fowler explore the way in which social networks influence the spread of everything from  suicide rates, sexual practices, politics, back pain, happiness and most interestingly to me obesity.

While six degrees of separation, the idea that we are linked to every other person on the planet, including Kevin Bacon, by only six steps is increasingly familiar this fascinating book demonstrates the way that our individual behaviour is affected by three levels of influence; our friends, their friends and their friends. In this context if a friend’s friend’s friend, whose existence you may not even be aware of, gains weight you are more likely to gain weight. While, if they lose weight, then conversely you are more likely to lose weight.

While the idea that obesity could be in some way contagious may seem controversial. When you think about the way social norms are established through peer pressure and the way that social acceptance of certain types of behaviours spreads it suddenly becomes much more plausible, if not like so many transformational insights, almost obvious.

As the New Scientist points out in it’s review of the book this insight raises some profound questions for public policy:

“Given how triggers for illness (smoking and eating habits, for example) and for well-being (positive moods) radiate through social networks, should health authorities consider the effect of treatments on whole networks rather than on individuals alone? More particularly, given that well-connected people are likely to pass on health benefits to a greater number of people, should medical interventions be directed preferentially at social "hubs"?"

Although, understandably Christakis and Fowler avoid over emphasizing the importance of online social networks, after all social networks have existed for as long as human beings have, they do recognise that the role of technology within the public policy area is potentially huge:

“Our interactions, fostered and supported by new technologies, but existing even without them, create new social phenomena that transcend individual experience by enriching and enlarging it, and this has significant implications for the collective good. Networks help make the whole of humanity much greater than the sum of its parts and the invention of new ways to communicate promises to increase our power to achieve what nature has foreordained.”

Inspiring stuff indeed which not surprisingly given the subject area is well supported by an interesting website.

TweetEnders

Twitter is most definitely the media’s flavour of the month right now. Newspapers, TV programmes and blogs are awash with the ‘latest craze to grip the nation’. While the hyperbole that always characterises these debates will undoubtedly pass as quickly as it arose, it does raise some interesting questions about the compelling nature of Twitter.

Beyond, the obvious fact that humans have always been social beings and that Twitter is yet another example of an advance in digital technology that makes it easier for us to satisfy our underlying human need to feel connected with each other, there are some interesting parallels to be drawn from the traditional media world to help explain why the average Twitter user is so interested in the minutia of the lives of some many people beyond their immediate social circle.

First and most obviously the fact that Stephen Fry has over 250,000 followers on Twitter, and counting, can easily be explained by the obsession with celebrity which fuels the modern media and specifically by looking at the success of magazines like Hello which provide their readers with an insight into the daily lives of their ‘heroes’. In that regard Twitter can be seen as just Hello magazine in real time.

But that doesn’t explain why so many of us are as equally interested in the vicissitudes of the lives of those who we know but wouldn’t necessarily buy more than one beer for on a big night out. In my view this is more akin to the fascination in the details of everyday live that has sustained soap operas like EastEnders and Coronation Street for so long. Yes these soap operas have the occasional 'big' story' lines but for the most part they are focused on the detail of the ordinary lives of everyday folk. Just like Twitter.

It’s not rocket science but it is life Jim, only just as we know it.

Tache love from Remington

As those of you who had the misfortune to bump into me over the last four weeks can testify for the month of September I have been growing a less than glorious mustache to raise sponsorship money for the Everyman charity as part of their annual Tacheback campaign. Its a fantastic event which since 2003 has raised over £700,000 for Everyman's life saving vital research into testicular and prostate cancer. This year Tacheback is being supported by Remington which is a great brand fit given the need to trim even the most unimpressive of taches (trust me I know). So it was with great pleasure that I unwrapped my High Precision washable grooming kit courtesy of Remington for the ceremonial shaving off of my tache yesterday. Of course having provided me with the tools for the job they did not put me under any obligation to write about it here but it certainly served its purpose well and as its so rare to see brands engaging with the community in such a positive fashion I am delighted to give credit where credits due. I just hope that now I am so well tooled up I can avoid the temptation to grow a goatee.

Although the taches all came off at the end September donations can still be made here so please feel free to dig dip.

Google @ Ten

At ten years old this month it is hard to imagine a better mirror for the vacillations of digital’s rise than the growth of Google. For better or for worse, the West coast search giant is the defining narrative of the Internet age. From ambitious, altruistic start-up and poster-child of digital cool, determined to democratise the world’s information – motto: “Don’t Be Evil” - to publicly-listed media behemoth, Google’s maturation reflects all that is right, and for some, wrong, about the digital era and the world that has evolved around it.

For an industry that, arguably, struggled for credibility in its embryonic days, battling for space alongside the slow-moving giants of traditional media, Google bought a level of business, and financial, maturity that other dot.coms conspicuously failed to muster. With admirable determination, interpreted by many from the old-school as a dangerous bravado - a characteristic that to many epitomised the dot.com boom of the late 1990s - Google has been built with what now feels like fearless, and fearsome, calculation into conversely one of the most respected and most formidable brands in the world. What is indisputable is that during this evolution they have dragged digital with them from precocious upstart to a major player at the high table of media and marketing.

That this has all happened in such a short space of time only serves to make the story more remarkable. In the time it takes most corporations to squeeze their latest widget through development, Google has revolutionized a whole market, if not an entire generation. It now reaches deep into every recess of modern life and, in the developed world, and much of the developing one, there is no brand that wields such an overwhelming influence. Even language is not immune, with billions around the globe now “googling” every day, as the OED will attest.

And yet, perhaps, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to get too worked up over the Google-isation of modern life. For, really, how different are co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page from the newspaper, industry and even technology barons of yesteryear? Our own, real life Charles Kanes and Daniel Plainviews? Or just two more Bill Gates’? Is this not merely the latest manifestation of centuries old Capitalism, one that like our forbearers we must and inevitably will, however reluctantly for some, embrace?

Amidst all the fog, controversy and divided opinion, in just a decade, Google has transformed the way we live. Hyperbole? Absolutely not. In an age saturated by information, billions of images, sounds and data-bytes circulating cyber-space, only one company has the ability to harvest what we need, and what we don’t, whenever we want it. Now resolutely in every corner of the planet, it may not necessarily be the vision of philanthropy that many expected, but it is here to stay. And as each day passes there seem to be fewer and fewer companies able to challenge its dominance.

The challenge for Google over its next ten years will be to remain true to the values that have driven is astonishing growth over the last ten years.