You say provide people with the tools they need and let them do their job. In order to do that, I gotta look ahead six months to see what direction the department is moving. I have to anticipate the systems and software that might be in place, beacuse the training and tools take a few months to set up. This direction may not always bee clear, so I have to pay attention to rumor and politics to somehow derive an answer.
Then there is the matter of the people under me. Everyone uses different tools. Everyone has different levels of training. I have to know all this, realize who needs additional training, and provide the RIGHT kind of training (some people use books, some people prefer classes).
There is nothing, NOTHING, in my current job as a programmer that prepares me for this. You know why? Because my job is about ME, right NOW! Only me. Only now. I don't have to worry about what other people need, I don't have to worry about what other people want. I don't have to care about their training or their goals or their skills. I don't have to look ahead any further than the end of the week and my progress report at the staff meeting. I do my job and I go home.
Basically, most people don't care about the physical book. They only THINK they care, because there is nothing better at the moment. I LOVE to read, but I care nothing about the romance of the paper, and most other people don't either.
People learn to use different techniques with different technologies. With paper books, you remember where you were based on the location on the page and in the book. With Ebooks, you will learn something different.
people learned to use the graphical user interface instead of the command line interface. There are advantages to both, but when GUI came along I bet people said "I don't want to have to point and click. I just want to type what I want to do!".
Just because it's different doesn't mean its not as good.
I am a computer programmer, so I guess that could be interpreted as a professional association to the topic. I am not involved in the publishing industry, electronic of otherwise.
However, I do know a lot about how people react to new technology. Quite often they try to see the new technology in terms of the old technology. At best, this portrays the new technology as inefficient. At worst, it appears worthless.
Let me offer a related example, then I'll talk about electronic books. Take newspapers for example. News stories are written by journalists, printed overnight, and delivered to your door or newsstand every morning. People have built up routines around reading the newspaper in the morning, because that's when it arrives. Past speculations about the future of newspapers involved newspapers that was faxed to your house, or downloaded into your PC, or downloaded into a portable reading device. But one thing that never changed was that you always got the news in the morning. People could not get away from the idea that the news was delivered in the morning.
However, the only reason for receiving the newspaper in the morning was that it took overnight to print the news on paper and deliver it to the public. But once you take the paper away, this all changes. Just look at the news on the Web, and news headlines on pager networks, and you'll see what I mean. Printed news can be available as soon as it happens, once it is delivered electronically (I'm ignoring TV news for the moment).
People have built up this habit of reading the newspaper in the morning. But they did this because that's the only way it could be done! You got the newspaper in the morning; that was the best time to read it. You didn't read it in the evening because it was old news. You couldn't read it earlier because you didn't have it yet. But when you can get the news anytime, this habit goes away eventually. You stop looking at the new technology in terms of the old technology.
(You may want to research how radio got it's big push when someone thought of broadcasting instead of 'narrow' casting from station to station. This is a good example of a new technology opening a whole new frontier, once people stop thinking in terms of old technology, such as comparing radio to telegraphs.)
Ok. Now how does this relate to electronic books?
People may seem to have this attachment to paper. But this is only because they can't conceive of reading books in any other way. They have built up habits that involve dealing with the way books are marketed, printed, and bound. People thumb through books because that is the only way to scan the information inside. People browse bookstores because that's the only way you can tell what titles the store carries. People buy bookmarkers because that's the only way to mark your place. We have all these habits involving the act of reading, but all we really want to do is read. I'm sure you have been involved in a really good story, only to look up and realize that hours have passed by. I doubt that you were noticing anything but the story. Certainly you did not care about the feel, smell, or sound of the paper the story was printed on. You were caught up in the story behind the medium. (True bibliophiles are exempted from this argument, because they really do care about the smell/sound/feel of the paper book. But most of us are not bibliophiles)
Of course, if the medium inhibits one from getting involved in the story, then the medium is not as good as a paper book. Bad electronic displays, awkward sized reading devices and short battery lives all plague the current crop of electronic books. People who turn up their noses at electronic books always seem to focus on the problems with the current devices. Then they extrapolate and say "Something like this will never replace a real book". They are right, because the first devices are always clumsy and expensive, and rarely as good as they could be. But I believe all these problems can be solved. Future devices will be cheaper, lighter,
Slashdot Mirror
It's not that easy.
You say provide people with the tools they need and let them do their job. In order to do that, I gotta look ahead six months to see what direction the department is moving. I have to anticipate the systems and software that might be in place, beacuse the training and tools take a few months to set up. This direction may not always bee clear, so I have to pay attention to rumor and politics to somehow derive an answer.
Then there is the matter of the people under me. Everyone uses different tools. Everyone has different levels of training. I have to know all this, realize who needs additional training, and provide the RIGHT kind of training (some people use books, some people prefer classes).
There is nothing, NOTHING, in my current job as a programmer that prepares me for this. You know why? Because my job is about ME, right NOW! Only me. Only now. I don't have to worry about what other people need, I don't have to worry about what other people want. I don't have to care about their training or their goals or their skills. I don't have to look ahead any further than the end of the week and my progress report at the staff meeting. I do my job and I go home.
Don't tell me I can learn to be a manager.
People actually read in bathtubs? Who has time to take a bath? Take showers like everyone else! :-)
I sent a letter to Wired magazine back in October of 1998, regarding an article they wrote about ebooks. You can see it here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.10/rants.html
Basically, most people don't care about the physical book. They only THINK they care, because there is nothing better at the moment. I LOVE to read, but I care nothing about the romance of the paper, and most other people don't either.
People learn to use different techniques with different technologies. With paper books, you remember where you were based on the location on the page and in the book. With Ebooks, you will learn something different. people learned to use the graphical user interface instead of the command line interface. There are advantages to both, but when GUI came along I bet people said "I don't want to have to point and click. I just want to type what I want to do!". Just because it's different doesn't mean its not as good.
Check out my rant about Wired's article on ebooks http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.10/rants.html
Originally publish in October of 1998.
I am a computer programmer, so I guess that could be interpreted as a professional association to the topic. I am not involved in the publishing industry, electronic of otherwise. However, I do know a lot about how people react to new technology. Quite often they try to see the new technology in terms of the old technology. At best, this portrays the new technology as inefficient. At worst, it appears worthless. Let me offer a related example, then I'll talk about electronic books. Take newspapers for example. News stories are written by journalists, printed overnight, and delivered to your door or newsstand every morning. People have built up routines around reading the newspaper in the morning, because that's when it arrives. Past speculations about the future of newspapers involved newspapers that was faxed to your house, or downloaded into your PC, or downloaded into a portable reading device. But one thing that never changed was that you always got the news in the morning. People could not get away from the idea that the news was delivered in the morning. However, the only reason for receiving the newspaper in the morning was that it took overnight to print the news on paper and deliver it to the public. But once you take the paper away, this all changes. Just look at the news on the Web, and news headlines on pager networks, and you'll see what I mean. Printed news can be available as soon as it happens, once it is delivered electronically (I'm ignoring TV news for the moment). People have built up this habit of reading the newspaper in the morning. But they did this because that's the only way it could be done! You got the newspaper in the morning; that was the best time to read it. You didn't read it in the evening because it was old news. You couldn't read it earlier because you didn't have it yet. But when you can get the news anytime, this habit goes away eventually. You stop looking at the new technology in terms of the old technology. (You may want to research how radio got it's big push when someone thought of broadcasting instead of 'narrow' casting from station to station. This is a good example of a new technology opening a whole new frontier, once people stop thinking in terms of old technology, such as comparing radio to telegraphs.) Ok. Now how does this relate to electronic books? People may seem to have this attachment to paper. But this is only because they can't conceive of reading books in any other way. They have built up habits that involve dealing with the way books are marketed, printed, and bound. People thumb through books because that is the only way to scan the information inside. People browse bookstores because that's the only way you can tell what titles the store carries. People buy bookmarkers because that's the only way to mark your place. We have all these habits involving the act of reading, but all we really want to do is read. I'm sure you have been involved in a really good story, only to look up and realize that hours have passed by. I doubt that you were noticing anything but the story. Certainly you did not care about the feel, smell, or sound of the paper the story was printed on. You were caught up in the story behind the medium. (True bibliophiles are exempted from this argument, because they really do care about the smell/sound/feel of the paper book. But most of us are not bibliophiles) Of course, if the medium inhibits one from getting involved in the story, then the medium is not as good as a paper book. Bad electronic displays, awkward sized reading devices and short battery lives all plague the current crop of electronic books. People who turn up their noses at electronic books always seem to focus on the problems with the current devices. Then they extrapolate and say "Something like this will never replace a real book". They are right, because the first devices are always clumsy and expensive, and rarely as good as they could be. But I believe all these problems can be solved. Future devices will be cheaper, lighter,