Print in the Communication Ecology

2011-12-31T07:21:00.003-05:00

The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription Note: The following text is a transcription of the Constitution in its original form. Items that are hyperlinked have since been amended or superseded. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and

Playing with different formats 1.0

2011-12-31T06:58:00.001-05:00

Copy and Paste from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html The Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Because the delegations from only two states were at first present, the members adjourned from day to day until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25. Through

Print and Education from TwitterTennis

2011-01-22T12:50:00.007-05:00

@TeacherSabrina Nice for you drop by, just having a convo with @mbossed at #printalk about newspapers, new Print tech and writers. @ToughLoveforX Yes but their focus is direct marketing. Think we are thinking beyond that application, no? #printalk @TeacherSabrina What I was just about to say is if good newspaper writers did replacement for textbooks, it would be cool. #printalk

Is this what an Rtube looks like?

2010-12-10T06:27:00.006-05:00

If we are the stories we tell ourselves then an Rtube might be folded Narrative Fractals.And the following might be a vid of an Rtube moving through Bplace on ECwaves.

Is this what a Narrative Fractal looks like?

2010-12-06T08:56:00.008-05:00

Yesterday @emergentinsight posted the first #ebDish vid to Youtube.R, Omega, K and Alpha are taken from the metaphors that have emerged to describe Panarchy .Credit : Noah Raford Large Scale participatory Future Systems

#ebdish Glossary v.1.0 Nouns

2010-10-02T09:00:00.010-04:00

CoCreatr @rotkapchen seconded! @ToughLoveforX, we need #ebdish glossary, please.And so the following:The point is find the glyphs that enable the construction of sensible word strings about complex systems in 140 characters or less.eg. ddrrnt @ToughLoveforX Yes! a stock market of conversational particles, witnessing

#EBDish as of Sept 16 6:03 pm

2010-09-16T18:03:00.005-04:00

After much debate on twitter, with some wonderful tweeps. Not listed now as I want to get this done quickly. Here's where I think we stand.1. The hope is that #EBdish will evolve into a code translator between many of the disciplines that seem to be moving to "Network Science" as a new paradigm.I think a quick look at Cognitive Sciences: 3D Mind Map http://twurl.nl/4ywban . put into the stream by

#ebdish Notice. Focus. Mull. Engage. Learning and Teaching

2010-08-23T08:12:00.002-04:00

The teacher needs to base teaching on how she believes learning occurs.I guess where I'm trying to get to is evidence based knowing instead of believing. That's what "ebdish" is all about for me.From educational research side I'm quite impressed with http://ilnk.me/3778 . The problem is to put it into practical language.I'm hoping that segmenting the process into four stages Notice. Focus. Mull.

Some #edbish Tweets August 20

2010-08-22T20:13:00.002-04:00

openworld Acute insights on #emotionaldesign http://bit.ly/at5D74 Thx @trevvg (via @boxesandarrows @frogdesign @matttrichards) #lumenes #ebdish @openworld http://ilnk.me/3e8d "Emotions employed by the mind" "education allows us to judge" Sounds like Descartes so far. #ebdishhttp://ilnk.me/3e8d "Emotions act as triggers that start mental processes" #

What is #ebdish good for, anyways.

2010-08-21T09:39:00.001-04:00

Maybe the following:Connectors move #NF from @ and @RT and RT to @ and #. I know I'm a disinterested and highly intentional A/st. My hunch is when a Bounded A/st has a W2 day job, prblty of disinterest is low. On the other hand, when a bounded A/st has an entrprenurial or freelance day job disinterest is an evolutionarily

#ebdish as a Biomimicry approach to the Communication Ecology

2010-08-17T14:19:00.003-04:00

http://ilnk.me/3d98 <- I have a feeling it's the visualization of #ebdish @openworld @Spirospiliadis @nedkumar @wwjimd the energy currency of biology systems 1:38/17:08 http://ilnk.me/3d99 in #ebdish info tokens emitted by A/st are "energy currency"How bout? http://ilnk.me/3d99 is a Bizarre activity.[ #ebdish ] Process is

#Edbish as of August 15

2010-08-15T11:18:00.000-04:00

Basic Unit is the Activity Space which is always moving through time. Denoted As/t. It's like a network node in network science.The notion is that an A/st is nested in a network of similar As/t. eg. The student in the classroom in the school in the community.The actions of each As/t immediately effects the environment of the all the others. And thus changes their likely responses.There 3 elements

#Ebdish as of Father's Day 2010

2010-06-20T11:53:00.002-04:00

#ebdish is an evolving "language" to capture the realities of information systems, what I prefer to call Communication Ecologies, in a form that is both precise and general enough to be "scale independent."The hunch is that life is best visualized through a fractal framework, with simple rules creating emergent networks.I think we are are as of today is the kernel is an "Activity Space Time"

Towards a Visual Representation of Activity Space

2010-05-28T19:05:00.002-04:00

I did a image search at Google for Fractal Images. Selected one. Opened in iPhoto. Played around with couple of adjustments and got the following. Number 1 is the original. My hunch is that be using color separation and color correction techniques it should be possible to do useful "scientific visualizations" of Activity Space and the Flows of Emotion , Cognitive and Physical spaces.In EBdish -

LAUSD in EBdish v 0.1

2010-05-28T16:49:00.004-04:00

The hypothesis underlying EBdish is that learning, whether in a community, an enterprise or in a school have the same basic elements. The further hypothesis is that the most elegant ( in the sense of the least unanticipated consequences) interventions are in reorgranizing time and space.Today I came across what seems like a very successful operation in Los Angeles. Not only have they been able

Translating Tainter to EBdish

2010-05-22T08:10:00.002-04:00

It started this morning as I was playing in the twitterverse. After a while, I tweeted:@openworld @spirospiliadis When you next have some time to play, wanna twittertennis to translate Tainter http://ilnk.me/2afe to EBdish?Since I didn't get a response while it was top of my mind, the following post:The point is : It is not the strongest nor the most intelligent of the species that survives, It

Some thoughts about EcoSys P.6

2010-04-29T05:48:00.001-04:00

I tried to post this comment at the Ecosys wiki. For some reason, computer wouldn't let me. So I post it here.I think this problem is easier to clarify if we look at using the lens of Time and Space. In that framework, one can argue that traditional education had little to do with teaching or learning, but in fact was a way to time train agricultural workers to enable them to integrate into a

For a friend

2009-12-13T06:21:00.000-05:00

It's all how you look at it.Time and space are the independent variables.Matter and energy are the dependent variables.Space/time tells matter/energy how to look.Matter/energy tells space/time how to act.Humans are animals.Like all animals they can be seen as actors in activity spaces.Activity space is made of information space and physical space.For humans, their information space is also their

An academic, relatively boring, description of the Printernet

2009-12-11T09:02:00.001-05:00

The Printernet is the Cloud based network that connects printing enterprises around the world.It is massive parallel manufacturing with standards-based interfaces, real time production information and easy access for everyone. Each printer — the combination of the machinery and the intelligence that manages the machinery — is a print output node. Each node is both part of the network and

Stop the Drama. Newspapers should forget about "breaking news". . . or is that breaking noise.

2009-12-10T06:12:00.000-05:00

Originally Posted Thursday, February 26, 2009This morning I found a post by Martin Langeveld, over at Nieman Journalism Lab. It's in the form of a "MEMO TO: Steven Swartz (CEO, Hearst Newspapers) and Dean Singleton (CEO, MediaNews Group):" It's most definitely worth the click.But there was one sentence that I want to highlight here.They should drop all breaking news and focus on analysis and

A day in twitter October 12.

2009-10-12T09:32:00.002-04:00

It's been a little quiet over here because I keep laying with twitter to see what might be possible. My hypothesis is that twitterstreams in print create many new possibilities for learning. Below are this mornings tweets. "The concept of an 'average American' is gone, probably forever," Ad age http://ilnk.me/254 | Go #transpromo! Go transinfo! Mon Oct 12 12:54:28 +0000 2009

Thinking about Print and Education with Twitter

2009-09-02T09:00:00.002-04:00

Is learning how grape vines spread a key to education informatics? #biomimicryDo grape vines "publish" grapes? and Triffids - by adding motion - "produce" videos? #biomimicryThe Day of the Triffids video clip http://bit.ly/2ywkUfFrom @newscientist "Gardening goes all hot and steamy" http://bit.ly/Cdr0C #biomimicryIf #education=communication, then sustainable #education=sustainable

Twitter as a Communications Research Tool

2009-08-30T08:52:00.001-04:00

Duplicate of post at Tough Love for Xerox.For the last few weeks, I've been playing with twitter and finding interesting-to-me tweets. The observable behavior that indicates "interesting-to-me" is if I bother to tweet about it. To manage learning observable behavior is more reliable than speech acts, either in the form of standardized tests or traditional surveys.From time to time, it's also

Growing a theory of Communication Ecology. 140 characters at a time.

2009-08-26T06:24:00.001-04:00

This morning's tweets from ToughLoveForX.RT @dokodare skin.etc.. http://bit.ly/ij32M + http://bit.ly/j5SwU "nature; its slow throb of multi, dcy, regnrtn, symtry, disordr" . Nice.RT@EvidenceMatters Matthew effect .. bibliometrics http://tr.im/x8QA MJ: if memes = genes, is bibliometrics a mimetics specialisation? RT@twittor_groups RT @trinamilan Twubs are Twitter groups built around #hashtags:

A Twitter approach towards a theory of sustainable communication ecology

2009-08-22T06:37:00.004-04:00

I started "twittering" about a month ago. As of today, I consider myself a born again twitt. A twitter stream from this morning, follows:RT@OpenHQR What is Holistic Quantum Relativity? http://ow.ly/kW2D Me: demographics+genetics+mimetics = #education informatics.Australian academic S.J. Whitty .. "project management is a memeplex" http://bit.ly/1jFEnIS.J. Whitty "In this paper I will . . argue .

Thread started in 2008 gets back on my radar. @CoEvolving Innnovations

2009-08-21T08:33:00.002-04:00

This is a most rigorous discussion with lots of charts and footnotes. Pretty interesting, but I still haven't had a chance to print it out. I can't do rigorous reading on the screen. That's why I love Print. If you are interested, the link.Here's how it starts:As Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME) has been developing, I’ve noticed a refinement of language. Rather than just

Twitter: "pointless babble" or peripheral awareness social grooming? or not a "media" as commonly understood?

2009-08-21T06:33:00.002-04:00

Since my day job is nurturing my IRA and I love a good argument, I've been spending most of time blogging at the Print industry over at ToughLoveForXerox. Recently I started playing with twitter as ToughLoveforX. Not surprisingly, that leaves very little bandwidth for more theoretical discussions about how print fits into the communication ecology.Luckily, as most things happen in the world, I

Another visualization of the communication ecology

2009-08-04T06:41:00.002-04:00

A Sketch for an Evolutionary Approach to Print in the Communication Ecology

2009-07-26T15:49:00.009-04:00

A gene in biology is like a meme in culture. They are both self replicators. As the self replicators looking at the evolution of the systems from the point of view of the gene or the meme is a good way to generate assertions than can be disproved by emprical evidence."Evolves to a collection of," shortened to ETACO to make it easier to write, is the area where the mechanisms of evolution happen.

How My 6-Year-Old Became a Citizen Journalist | PBS

2009-06-16T09:36:00.001-04:00

from MediaShift Idea Lab . How My 6-Year-Old Became a Citizen Journalist But it wasn't until a wave of tornadoes went through my hometown of Denver this week that I realized just how far the revolution has come. A confluence of inexpensive, accessible consumer technology, and microblogging sites like Twitter and Facebook, has lowered the barriers of entry so far to make me think we're

The end of textbooks in California could be a Golden Opportunity for Newsapers

2009-06-11T08:20:00.001-04:00

Reposted from Tough Love for Xerox.additional editing by Mike Rosen-MolinaMy CaliforniaMy California 21 is a unique history curriculum developed specifically to meet the needs of upper elementary and middle school students.Newspaper format: 32 chronological issues resembling small newspapers present the story of California in a student-friendly, informal style that does not intimidate or repel

A solution for the Newspaper Revenue Problem: Clickable TV Listings in Print

2009-06-07T08:11:00.004-04:00

edited version reposted from Tough Love for Xerox blog.Clickable print is print + 2d barcodes that take the user to a website. 2D barcodes can be in the form of QR codes that allow the connection to be made through a cell phone or PC camera or a traditional bar code that allow the connection to be made by a scanning pen.More at PBS. MediaShift and at the Clickable Print Blog.It's now clear that

Free Textbooks for High School are now possible

2009-06-05T07:27:00.002-04:00

reposted from Tough Love for XeroxThe trick is ad supported textbooks. The other trick is that sometimes they are books, sometimes newspapers, sometimes posters and sometimes a deck of cards. Whatever form they take, they are just the right information, in just the right form at just the right time.Bookboon.com + Printernet + CodeZ QR + Navify.com + Clickable Print The reason this fixes

Finally the New York Times gets it right!

2009-06-03T16:23:00.000-04:00

Why The New York Times Doesn't Call Its Readers 'Readers' - @Advertising Age - Digital: "NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In a world of near-ubiquitous computing, where an ever-expanding collection of devices turns readers into an army of co-creators and news distributors, The New York Times is trying to figure out its place. And the venerable Gray Lady's place in this world, increasingly, rests squarely

Clickable Print in the service of Transparency and Democracy

2009-06-03T07:17:00.003-04:00

reposted from Clickable Print + Printernet Publishing.The printernet = up to 50,000,000 Print pieces delivered over night around the USA with a minimal carbon footprint. Imagine the following on an full color 8 1/2 by 11, printed 1 side. Or an ad in a newspaper.Read the WordsThe President discusses the breadth and depth of experience held by his nominee for the Supreme Court. In the course of a

It's not interactive Print. It's clickable Print. It's not VDP. IT's VQRP.

2009-05-31T08:45:00.002-04:00

QR stands for QR code.Codez QR Home |"CodeZ QR generates QR codes from simple desktop word processors all the way up to the publisher’s data center document composition engines for printing on every printer in the enterprise. CodeZ QR’s support of variable data publishing engines allows publishers to encode a subscriber’s demographic data in each ad for ever more informative analytics reports."

Fixing High School Education with Wireless Connected Print

2009-05-27T10:43:00.002-04:00

First posted at Tough Love For Xerox: Here's one way Print will go wireless and eliminate textbooks from Pongr.comHere's how it works: Take a picture See a print ad, billboard or logo and want to learn more?Capture it with your camera phone.Here's the textbook part:If you see something in your non-textbook and want to learn more

Fixing Education, Evolution in Virus, Human and Business

2009-05-24T08:25:00.002-04:00

Duplicate post from Tough Love for Xerox where I blog about the Print industry, as opposed to how Print fits into the Communication Ecology.The question is "Why do smart/good people do stupid/evil things?Given that smart-stupid and good-evil is most likely similarly distributed at all levels of the pyramid attributing smart-good to just the top is frankly stupid. Likewise attributing stupid-evil

I wanted to call it The Newspaper Printernet Emerges on the Iberian Pennisula.

2009-05-11T19:11:00.003-04:00

My editor at PBS went with PressTerra Tests Newspaper 'Printernet' on Iberian Peninsula

Goethe and the Printernet

2009-05-11T16:58:00.004-04:00

From The Book Report There is a delightful moment in Goethe’s The Man of 50 where the man of fifty enters into the beautiful widow’s salon and she tells him she was just having a debate with a friend about whether anyone can make a work of art without some audience in mind. Josefowicz’s point, I think, is a continuation of Goethe’s thought experiment.The author of the The Book Report:. . .

This might work for some newspapers: Micro-payments considered for WSJ website

2009-05-11T08:31:00.000-04:00

@ FT.com Micro-payments considered for WSJ website"News Corp is planning to introduce micro-payments for individual articles and premium subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal’s website this year, in a milestone in the news industry’s race to find better online business models.“A sophisticated micro-payments service” will launch this autumn, Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and

Why Darwin? The article is a bit dense, but most definitely worth the read

2009-05-09T11:46:00.001-04:00

Why Darwin? - @The New York Review of Books:By Richard C. Lewontin

It's not the economy blablabla. It's bad management

2009-05-05T10:23:00.000-04:00

from Economic Principals Blog Archive The Newspaper that Fired Its Readers: "A newspaper’s authority derives ultimately from its prosperity. So it was more bad news last week that among the 25 largest US newspapers, only The Wall Street Journal managed to eke out a small gain in circulation during the six months of the financial crisis. The general gloom, however, may be somewhat overstated. A

Blog = Newsletter. One is published on the screen. The other is published in Print.

2009-04-29T08:00:00.004-04:00

A "blog" can also be a wiki. Either is a great way to have a conversation with real people. If a blog is managed correctly, it is also a very inexpensive way to get into a conversation with powerful and sometimes quite intelligent people.But, you can't make enough money from a blog.So moderate the content. Get really smart and/or powerful people to take part. If you can't find that, then get

I wanted to call it "The End of the 'End of Print' "

2009-04-28T07:12:00.004-04:00

In my column , just up at PBS/Mediashift.org, I try to directly take on the blablabla about the End of Print. Given the blabla when this position is publicly asserted, it could get interesting.The short story is the "End of Print" meme is very similar to the "Don't Trust Anyone over Thirty" meme that I was guilty of propagating back in the 60's. It's less about Print than it is about a new

The formula for educating the customer . . . and everyone else, including yourself

2009-04-26T08:18:00.004-04:00

Data points + thinking points = growth of a better responsive mechanism for filtering out the signal from the blablabla.The problem is that people think blablabla works. It doesn't. Usually it's just more noise.So . . . keep getting data points and thinking points on their (your) radar. Then as you get closer to the deadline, you'll be able to more quickly separate the signals from the blablabla

The Value of Print. It's about space/time.

2009-04-25T21:32:00.001-04:00

Learning is defined as the emergence of new behavior. Learning increases when just the right content in just the right form is inserted into just the right space/time. The right space/time for learning is defined by the yellow circles in the second illustration.Print is the best artifact for learning, and thus the right from, for a specific space/time.Thanks to ed4wb the illustrations.Learning in

The Pardox of Consultative Print Sales

2009-04-21T06:04:00.003-04:00

The better you are, the less they need you.If you focus on being an unpaid consultant to your customer and plan on being rewarded by the purchase of X, you are in a paradoxical situation. I did a longer post over at Tough Love resolving this paradox. But the short story is that your customer has to see you as a source of quick fixes the next time they need a quick fix. The issue is not to be a

Important Reading to see where Newspapers are heading

2009-04-14T06:53:00.001-04:00

Newspapers are afraid they will go out of business if they don't find a new revenue source. Everybody, including printers and newspaper people, are blind to the value of print to earn money going forward.They say people make decisions because of fear or greed. The reality is that big decisions are made by going businesses on the base of fear. But they call it "risk management" because nobody

This is a very big deal. Worth the click.

2009-04-09T13:08:00.000-04:00

Major news outlets to sell multipart investigations as “digital newsbooks” Nieman Journalism Lab: "At more than 24,000 words, Steve Fainaru’s Pulitzer-winning reports on American mercenaries in Iraq were nearly as long as Heart of Darkness and just as eerie. But spread over nine installments in nine months, the Washington Post series could hardly be read as literature.Later this month, a

The opportunity for printernet publishing.

2009-04-07T07:14:00.003-04:00

Printernet publishing would allow message makers to speak directly to their audiences without the intervention of the media. There is no technical reason to stop a PDF file or a data stream being distributed to a network of PSPs and produce millions of copies distributed around the globe or 3000 copies for a neighborhood, with a minimal carbon footprint.It might first appear that this is a

To my visitors..

2009-04-03T09:44:00.003-04:00

Given what's going on the Print industry, for the last couple of weeks, I've been doing most of my bloviating over at Tough Love For Xerox.. The conversation is directly to the vendors and the other players in what I've been calling the printernet. The visitors there live in the digital print sector of the Print industries. It gets a little technical with lots of acronyms that might seem like

The emperors (Publishers) have no clothes

2009-03-27T08:07:00.001-04:00

The real problem for publishers is that they don't want to face they fact that their power is disappearing. Nobody likes to admit their day in the sun is over. They make up all kinds of blablabla to explain why it is the end of days.In a sense, they're right. It is the end of their days.from William F. Aicher:. . . I want to discuss a bit the bigger point the publishing industry doesn’t seem to

Why some newspapers are toast, but mass customization is ready for Prime Time to save the day!

2009-03-26T07:01:00.004-04:00

I followed some links starting at newsless.org and got to Transforming American Newspapers @digital deliverance. The 2 part essay, written in 2008 is the most useful thought model I've yet found to understand the fundamental "newspaper" problem. It is most definitely worth investing the time to read it.Turns out is not the internet, nor Web 2.0 or lots of other things that buzz around the

ToC to the "Newspaper" buzz @ Text Technologies

2009-03-25T05:54:00.004-04:00

I found a great annotated table of contents to the recent buzz about Newspapers at Text Technologies. posted by Curt Manash. Nice work!Without comment, here it is:Clay Shirky asserted that it is time to think the unthinkable about the collapse of the newspaper industry.Zachary Seward argued that most of the questions and challenges had been figured out already in the mid-1990s, but answers have

The Reading Eagle doesn't know print is dying

2009-03-24T17:06:00.002-04:00

In fact, it seems commercial work adds to the revenue stream. I wonder if any print salespeople will give them a call to see if you could sell print/web adds + commercial collateral all at the same time.Reading Eagle spreads wings:"The Reading (Pa.) Eagle last month went on-edition with its new Koenig & Bauer AG Colora Berliner press, becoming the second North American paper to embrace the

Newspapers should seriously consider the Education Business

2009-03-24T08:35:00.002-04:00

The opportunity is that newspapers are starting to organize their content in wikis, the textbook business is very broken and lots of money and focus is going into making education more predictably successful.Imagine textbooks and supplementals being replaced by Wiki Newspapers and Wiki Books. It's just My Weekly Reader on steroids.To see what I see check out Curriki and PediaPress.com.It's the

Consider Contributing to Saturday Classes for High School Kids in NYC

2009-03-23T09:57:00.002-04:00

I got this in an email from Steven Kennedy. I worked with Steve when I was at Parsons. He's an awesome teacher who gets amazing stuff from his students.Here's the deal:The Scholars Program is a scholarship program designed to allow talented New York City high school students to take classes at Parson's School of Design Pre-College Academy's Saturday Art Program. The cost is $3000 for three years

Printernet for Education: Journalists and Teachers

2009-03-23T07:04:00.004-04:00

The printernet is the subject of my latest column at PBS MediaShift.(posted sometime this coming week.) The subheads in the story are the Printernet for Newspapers, The Printernet for Magazines, The Printernet for Wikis.But what I really wanted to write about is the Printernet for Education. Maybe I'll find some embryonic form before the next column in two weeks.My personal goal is to help fix

Journalists, the PRinternet, and fixing education

2009-03-19T07:17:00.005-04:00

Since new developments in Print tech are coming fast and furious, most of my focus the last two weeks has been at Tough Love for Xerox, where I blog for the Print industry. But I think today's post would be interesting for printers on the ground and newspaper people. So I'm reproducing it here.The post follows:This has been a very interesting week and it's only Thursday.The outlines of the

Digital News-on-Paper emerges in Spain

2009-03-18T07:37:00.001-04:00

Consider that 6,000 80 pages = 24,000 20 page papers.from http://www.graphicrepro.co.za"Oce strengthened its prime position in the emerging short-run digital newspaper print market by signing an agreement with Imcodavila, one of the leading Spanish publishers, where six thousand colour newspapers are to be printed digitally every day.Imcodavila, located 100 kilometres outside Madrid, will be the

Listen to the Printer. Fix the ad sales process.

2009-03-18T06:46:00.003-04:00

In my most recent column at PBS.Media Shift I said, As journalism is going through fundamental changes, the system for selling print ads is mired in the past. For print ads to activate the presently under-served large market of small business, it means ad sales people will need to be accessible to small and micro-business people for a quick conversation to do the deal. Few small and

Print Dead? It depends on who you ask.

2009-03-16T07:53:00.000-04:00

I read my Dr Joe Webb on Mondays and found this:"The New York Daily News didn't like it the other day when Time listed it as one of the ten most endangered newspapers. The other newspapers were Philadelphia Daily News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Miami Herald, Detroit News, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Cleveland Plain Dealer.After saying,

Newspapers, Education and the PRinternet

2009-03-15T08:03:00.003-04:00

Full disclosure: This is the same post as I did this morning at ToughLoveForXerox where I follow the printing industry. Only the title has been changed. Over there it's called Lessons from the Past and the "PRinternet."This morning I found an unusual post by Tim Windsor at the Neiman Journalism Lab. He said, I try not to do too many of those “You’ve got to read this” posts. But you’ve got to read

The future appears in Eastern Iowa

2009-03-12T16:54:00.003-04:00

Not suprisingly it comes from a privately owned media company, away from the blablabla of the Coasts.No comments from me. Click on the link to see why it's exactly the right solution, in my not-so-humble opinion.Below is a snippet from: Transforming the Gaz: "Unlike other newspaper editors, Lyle doesn’t supervise a single reporter or photographer. The reporters and photographers still work for me

If you ignore the blahblah-o-sphere, Print is doing fine

2009-03-12T09:41:00.000-04:00

Print was a monopoly market. Some publishing companies took on too much debt. But a lot of private companies didn't.ATT used to be a monopoly market. Verison, Bell South, and the other Baby Bells are doing pretty well.It's worth the click to read the whole story @MediaPost Today 03/12/2009: "Other survey findings: * 29% of respondents say a news website is the most indispensable news source,

David Carr gets one out of four right

2009-03-09T11:23:00.002-04:00

In today's NYTimes, David Carr offers four solutions to the "Newspaper Meltdown." As Carr, himself suggests one, two and three are in the realm of fantasy. Number four makes good sense.1. No more free content.2. No more free ride to aggregators.3. No more commoditized ads.4. Throw out the Newspaper Preservation Act. Regulatory reform will allow the industry to consolidate to an economically

Print Delivery is Like Food Delivery

2009-03-05T08:24:00.002-05:00

A great thread is spinning along at Print CEO blog. The starting point is a post by Andy Tribute called, Does the Print Industry Exist?This morning I saidRyan, Exactly! When you say “.. it’s such a commodity that it’s been incorporated into other companies internally, just like IT,…” Here’s how I think about it. Print is a commodity business. The better the tech, the more automated, the more

Newspaper Ad Sales + Commercial Print Sales = MultiChannel Marketing Programs for Small Business

2009-03-04T09:05:00.003-05:00

I did a longish post this morning over at Tough Love for Xerox where I follow the Print Output Industry. Here's the part that concerns newspapers. Consider:What might happen if local newspaper ad sales people are brought into the mix with the proper incentives. Then there is the real possibility of offering true multi channel marketing campaigns to Jane and the millions like her.One trusted

The Newspaper solution is emerging from the mist

2009-03-03T07:36:00.006-05:00

Sooner or later, education will be defined as a hyperlocal community. Replacing textbooks with a new product, which I've been calling textbooklets, should help fix education. Fixing newspapers or the Print industry is some people's problem.Fixing education is everyone's problem.Most likely that "hyperlocal" will continue it's rise to number 1 in the blahblah-o-sphere. What is new is that real

Personalized Newspapers?

2009-03-02T09:02:00.000-05:00

Kindles, epaper from Hearst Corp and Paper, now that's a multichannel market platform. The next item on the agenda is to figure out how to sell it.The answer is something about combining newspaper ad salespeople with commercial print salespeople with local TV and radio sales people.The pitch is multi channel marketing campaigns for local enterprise. Every body needs it. Not one of the separate

The Sky was NOT and is NOT Falling

2009-02-28T08:07:00.003-05:00

GM's problems are not the end of the Auto. AIG's problems are not the end of Insurance. Citicorp's problems are not the end of Finance. Newspaper company problems are not the end of either Print or Newspapers.It might be the end of commercial models based on value chains instead of facilitated user networks. That's a big problem for the people and companies with legacy commercial models that

Just when you thought it couldn't get more complicated

2009-02-28T06:34:00.005-05:00

My recent post was about the most recent discussion at Harvard's NiemanJournalismLab. At 8:03 last night, Rudolph posted Martin: Hearst is inventing the future, and one better than the one you describe.http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/27/technology/copeland_hearst.fortune/index.htm To which I said, Wow! Thanks for the point. I just got my first Kindle. Short story is that in three days, it’s

Revealed: Why K - 12 Textbooks are going to TIP. And the new opportunity for newspapers.

2009-02-27T10:48:00.003-05:00

You can get the argument in Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation WIll Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton Christensen (Author), Curtis W. Johnson (Author), Michael B. Horn. You can buy the hardcover at Amazon for $21.75 or the Kindle version for $18.12."As products and their markets mature, technology grows more sophisticated, as do customers. They begin to understand their

Revealed: The internet is lame. Print is cool. Newspapers and start ups can grow by replacing Texbooks with Textbooklets. The short story.

2009-02-25T17:45:00.003-05:00

As Print Correspondent for PBS.Mediashift.org, I get a chance to get on a little bigger soapbox every two weeks or so. Today's post is called Read for Free, Pay for Print or Stuff. Over there, I am a guest in someone else's house. It was not appropriate to use the headline as above.But it is what I really believe. The web is Telephone + TV + Search + a big filing cabinet + the best way to buy

Or Maybe this is the Next Big Thing?

2009-02-24T07:44:00.000-05:00

ProPublica and NYT seek $1M to put everyone’s documents online @ Nieman Journalism Lab "Two of the biggest names in journalism have applied to this year’s Knight News Challenge: The pioneering investigative-reporting non-profit ProPublica and The New York Times are seeking $1 million from the Knight Foundation to launch an online repository of primary-source documents. The project could lead to

Maybe this is the Next Big Thing

2009-02-20T05:38:00.001-05:00

read at newsbreaks,infotoday,comA New “Gutenberg” Site Launches as an Ebook Resource:"A new ebook resource has launched with a familiar sounding name—Gutenberg.com (www.gutenberg.com). It bills itself as 'a central resource for ebook lovers, ebook newbies, and the ebook industry.' Note the .com domain—it is important. The site is not linked in any way to the well-known Project Gutenberg at

The Next Big Thing for Editors and Journalists

2009-02-19T12:45:00.001-05:00

read at Etaoin Shrdlu: How will smaller news staffs cover the giant stimulus story"Before long, hundreds of billions of dollars will flow out of Washington and wash across every community in the country. This stimulus spending represents an unprecedented response to an unprecedented crisis, and defines one of the biggest stories of our generation.How can today's news organizations possibly cover

Publishing Centers and Pockets of Social Capital

2009-02-17T05:43:00.011-05:00

Back in dot.com days, I was part of a team that did a start up called Chapbooks.com. We enabled student publishing with what was state of the art technology in 1998. That was then. This is now. Software that cost many 100's of thousands to build then, are readily available now. Very expensive sales channels then, have been eliminated by the Internet now. Then, back in the day, just as the

Newspapers and textbooks. . or should it be Textbooklets

2009-02-16T08:03:00.009-05:00

Newspapers are trapped by the idea that the only way to go forward is advertising. No doubt local advertising in Print and/or on the web is the at-hand solution to the "sky is falling," "Print is dead" conventional wisdom.But once this all settles down, the newspaper companies left standing will need additional revenue streams. They should consider looking at the textbook, or better the

WSJ Editor Claims Google Devalues Everything | Techdirt

2009-02-14T08:45:00.000-05:00

@ Techdirt:thanks to Jim Lyons for putting the link on his blog."WSJ Editor Claims Google Devalues Everythingfrom the no-wonder-no-one-uses-it deptThis has been clueless newspaper guy month around here, and it's kept up with the appearance of Walter Isaacson (yet again), Mort Zuckerman (owner/publisher of both the NY Daily News and US News & World Reports) and Robert Thomson (managing editor of

Kindles? Newspapers? Textbooks? . . . "I’m a writer. I work at Harvard"

2009-02-14T05:21:00.006-05:00

People get very excited when arguing about the Kindle.On February 11, Joshua Benton posted Why Kindles Will Fail at The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard. I assume Joshua choose his words in the service of stimulating an active response. It worked. Three days later there were 58 comments. This will give you a flavor of the post that started it.The Kindle is going to fail. It is not “the iPod of

Context Is King. Long Live the King! Part 2

2009-02-13T05:24:00.008-05:00

To be clear, my passion is not newspapers. My mission, as I take on my new role in life as a Cranky Geezer, is to fix high school education. Since context and focus are the missing links in high school education, both fascinate me.The purpose of a newspaper from the business point of view is to make money. An interesting ish problem. The purpose of journalism from civil society's point of view

Content was King. Context is King. Long live the King!

2009-02-11T06:50:00.005-05:00

The best solutions have always come from the best people using the best tools to solve the most interesting problems.About 5 years ago, I had a brief conversation with a smart person. He said in "Web 2.0, Context is king." It sounded really smart at the time and kept rumbling around my head.Recently there has been lots of buzz about newspapers getting people to pay for content. Even in the face

It's the Paper, Stupid!

2009-02-10T08:23:00.002-05:00

read the Op-Ed by Michael Kinsley @ NY Times.com It (NYT) might even have a viable business model if it could sell the paper with nothing written on it. "Micropayments are systems that make it easy to pay small amounts of money. (Your subway card is an example.) You could pay a nickel to read an article, or a dime for a whole day’s newspaper.Well, maybe. But it would be a first. Newspaper readers

That discussion at Harvard is winding down...

2009-02-07T10:19:00.006-05:00

Martin Langeveld did a great post called A cafe shaped conversation nicely summing up what we learned. Here's the lede. Click to read to rest.A great conversation has been going on at my previous post, with participants including: A musician/entrepreneur who runs a hyperlocal social network in Fort Dodge, IowaA mountaineer/futurist who speaks and consults globally on new media mattersA

The discussion at Harvard continues

2009-02-05T05:55:00.007-05:00

My friends always wanted to go to Harvard. But I didn't want to leave New York City. So I went to a better college. But then I really confused everyone and became a Printer.At any rate, the discussion is taking place on the thread that grew out of a post about the recent meeting of newspaper publishers. To set the context,So, “a group of newspaper executives” has launched NewspaperProject.org,*

Here's what "news" feels like on the Ground.

2009-02-04T12:18:00.006-05:00

I do another blog called Tough Love for Xerox and posted the quoted part over there. But I thought it might help our newspaper folks to view it.So while I was trolling the internets I had C Span in the background. Here's what I think I heard. The whistler blower on Madoff spent 4 hours, figured out it was a scam, and tried to get the SEC's attention. He had all the stuff except for access to

People Keep Talking at Harvard

2009-02-04T06:03:00.008-05:00

Another interesting discussion at the Nieman Journalism Lab.The topic for discussion is "a group of newspaper executives” has launched NewspaperProject.org, which “will be devoted to insightful articles, commentary and research that provide a more balanced perspective on what newspaper companies can do to survive and thrive in the years ahead.” After 30 years making and selling print and seven

Looking for a New Business Model

2009-02-03T15:05:00.002-05:00

thanks to Jeff Mowatt for the point..Usually when printers or newspapers talk about a new business model, they mean "how do I keep making money doing what I'm doing, only better." Maybe that's not going to work as well going forward. Here's what Richard Branson said at Davos,Worth the click @Victor Pinchuk Foundation:"Business must achieve its goal - making profit. But at the same time it should

Its not about saving journalism. It's about inventing journalism.

2009-02-03T05:00:00.008-05:00

Good discussion over at the Nieman Journalism Lab - A Project of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University.It got started yesterday with a post headlined Newspaper Staff Cuts. Good News? by Mathew Ingram, . There were 30 replies as of this morning.In Comment 23 I said,I think the issue is not how many editors or how many journalists, but what they do. I’m a Print evangelist so to me the idea

Newspapers and/or Textbooks

2009-02-02T06:56:00.004-05:00

I've been on my little soapbox about textbooks since 2006. In January 2006, I did a column at What They Think.com called Ipods and Textbooks. A while ago I did a post here called Watch Out Textbooks. For the folks in digital printing and POD, the version at my other blog is for you.For our newspaper viewers, here's the argument about newspapers going into the textbook business.NW Missouri

What business are you in?

2009-02-01T09:25:00.006-05:00

At the most abstract level there are only a limited number of businesses.SexDrugsRock'n'RollThe Rag TradeInfrastructure.The best business for the long term is infrastructure. You collect rent.The best business for the short term is Rock 'n Roll. Big risks, big rewards.The best business for fast growth is the drug business.The lowest cost of entry is the sex business.Most people are in the rag

What's the right head count for a newsroom.

2009-01-31T22:48:00.002-05:00

Three for every beat. How many beats can you cover? Multiply by three.It came up in an good conversation at the NiemanJournalismLab at Harvard. The opening post was titled Endowing every U.S. newspaper: $114 billion. Innovation: Priceless. Productive discussion. About 20 comments last time I looked.Someplace in the middle of it, I said (this version is slightly edited) “With those assumptions

People Talk about USPS and EHG @ PrintCeo.com

2009-01-30T21:20:00.010-05:00

There is still one more interesting conversation at PrintCeo.com. Based on the last couple of weeks, I recommend that folks with a passion for the Print industry should add PrintCeo to your RSS feed.The conversation moved through a number of areas, the part about EHG - Education, Health and Government - is at the bottom. As of 9:30 PM on Saturday night there are 25 comments.Following are

For Print Production Geeks Only

2009-01-30T07:22:00.000-05:00

I "taught" production to designers at Parsons for 6 years. I say "taught" because I have since learned that you can't "teach." The best you can do is to create an environment in which learning occurs.At any rate, it was really hard to get stuff for the three or four students every year that were true Print geeks. Since I'm a Print Geek wannabe, it was really frustrating.Two years after leaving

How to Fix Education by spending less money

2009-01-29T13:09:00.004-05:00

Listen to this episode of the Brian Leherer show on WNYC. I did have the audio embedded, but it took forever to load. Scroll down to the "Life without Lawyers" link.Or buy this Or on the web, read thisIf that doesn't work, google "Life without Lawyers."If you are interested in why I think this is so cool, stop back tommorow.Hint: It's about de constructing "formal organizations," the role of

Why most of the "News" Sucks, most of the time.

2009-01-29T08:07:00.010-05:00

Because newspapers are just emerging from chasing after eyeballs. And people always do what is easiest for them to do. So most of the news hole is filled with rewrites from PR releases and the various wire services. It worked when newspapers were the cheapest , fastest eyeball catchers on the planet. Now there are cheaper, faster eyeball catchers on the Internets.Recently I've been focused on

How to Fix Graphic Design and Career Education

2009-01-28T09:06:00.014-05:00

Read about it here and here and here. Or if that doesn't work for you, read this.It would be way cool if you could get a Print version so you wouldn't have to waste all the time clicking. But keep in mind, the Internet = Search + Telephone + TV + A big filing cabinet + the best way to buy stuff in the history of the world. It's a better, faster, cheaper way to do those things.Not so good for

iPhones: Good News for Newspapers + Printers + Designers and Local Economic Development

2009-01-27T05:51:00.019-05:00

SMBs (Small Medium Business) have become the growth engines of the economy. As the global corporations get lean to stay competitive, jobs are being created much closer to the ground.Every small business wants more business. They all want marketing they can afford. If the marketing works, they buy more marketing. If the price is based on a flat fee + a price per new prospect, it's a nice