Looking for More Distractions?

Google Plus

I am fairly agnostic when it comes to social media. I have tried a good number of them and found most of them wanting in one way or another. Typically, small things that imposes a time tax which, after some good-intention'd efforts, my usage starts to drift.

Hoopla over its growth and its demise (how time flies in the social media scale), aside. I like Google Plus for its open environment instead of being a walled garden. I also like the Twitter like capabilities.

Prometheus Reconsidered on G+

Prometheus Reconsidered now has an open curated stream on G+. It is updated almost daily but features articles that are related to technology, innovation, and business.

Please join the fun: Prometheus Reconsidered on Google Plus.

WDP Free Download (until June 28th)

The Leader's Checklist

Wharton Digital Press (WDP) first book is out. It is a collection of principles to help leaders do the right things by Wharton management professor Michael Useem. This book will be available as a free download until June 28, 2011, see the link below. (I don't think there is a POD, Print on Demand, option for this eBook)

Mission Critical: 15 Principles to Help Leaders Meet Their Toughest Challenges: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2799

Digital Insight

It is good to see that WDP is able to leverage assets like Knowledge@Wharton, which I am a faithful reader since inception, as a way to promote the book. On the other hand, it would be nicer for WDP to offer an "one-click" download process to make things simple. But, these are details.

What I really love to know more about is how has this digital publishing process impacted the data collection and analysis given the new level of interactivity. WDP could potentially be a new value-add data broker.

Digital Publishing as a Platform

A New Platform

After talking with Steve Kobrin about Wharton Digital Press (WDP), it really got me thinking about what this could mean as a platform. More specifically, what are the areas of "experimentation" that may be worth trying.

Some Experiment Ideas

Hardware design: Since Kindle last much longer than iPad, but iPad can do the razzle-dazzle graphics, what makes for a better consumption experience and what are the trade-off's. It would be interesting to see if there are logical segmentation in terms of who would find which device "better" under what circumstances. And, most importantly, why.

Hardware business-model: since majority of cost comes from physical distribution, a national news-media firm is thinking about giving subscribers fancy tablet to cut cost over the mid/long term. A major financial firm is thinking about giving their bankers tablets as a way to eliminate the $10k average spend per year per banker in printing. With PoD, printing and distribution may not be a pain point for WDP per se, but this could be an opportunity to explore alliance with organizations who may be interested in providing subsidized hardware.

Software: interactivity is clearly one of the major benefits of going digital. It would be interesting to explore what are the key aspects that are important to readers and authors. The result could be fed into a process to create a framework/suit that makes the process easier in the creation chain.

Immersive relationship: with the hardware and content having interactivity through sensors and data trail, this is the first time that a publisher/author can have an on-going relationship with the readership. How should this work? For example, with the machines understanding what readers prefer in actual consumption, this could provide a venue for recommendation not unlike what Netflix Challenge has done but for reading.

For readers: I take a lot of notes when reading. Until now, this has been a very cumbersome process especially for retrieving specific detail and consolidating across volumes. Some sort of vault would be nice. Better yet, a way to automate cross referencing as I search for past notes would be sweet.

I could go on. This is going to be an interesting space to watch in the years to come.

Wharton Publishing Gone Digital

Wharton Digital Press (WDP)

I learnt the rudimentary of the publishing business from Dr. Steve Kobrin, Wharton Professor and Publisher of Wharton Press, when I was exploring the possibility of creating an Imprint. Having also worked with technologists and social scientists on ubiquitous computing's role in morphing the contemporary content consumption process, I was particularly intrigued when Wharton announced that Wharton School Publishing is now Wharton Digital Press in the London Book Fair on April 11.

Wharton Digital Press: http://wdp.wharton.upenn.edu/

Publishing as an innovation platform

With PoD, Print on Demand solutions, in the US, UK, and EU, being digital does not mean that you cannot touch a physical copy anymore. As a matter of a fact, with both physical and digital copies available, the distribution model and global reach is significantly enhanced as a result.

Beyond innovation on the distribution front, potential authors may like to find out the rates arrangement which would be different from the traditional "advance + running royalty" structure.

Basically, after talking with Steve about WDP. This looks like a really exciting platform for publishing innovation in distribution, content creation, technology, and who knows what else.

Very cool!