MediaWeek (Vol 4, No 36): Amazon Digital Library, Piracy, Newspaper Disruption, Private Blackboard + More

Jeff Trachtenberg of the WSJ reports that Amazon may be looking to launch a digital lending library for books.

It's unclear how much traction the proposal has, the people said. Several publishing executives said they aren't enthusiastic about the idea because they believe it could lower the value of books and because it could strain their relationships with other retailers that sell their books, they said. Amazon didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday. The proposal is another sign that retailers are looking for more ways to deliver content digitally, as customers increasingly read books and watch TV on computers, tablets and other electronic devices. Seattle-based Amazon makes the popular Kindle electronic reader and is expected to release a tablet to rival Apple Inc.'s iPad in coming weeks, people familiar with the gadget have said

Spotting The Pirates from The Economist and like most things piracy isn't simple:

Media piracy is more common in the developing world than in the rich world (see chart). The most piratical countries are places like China, Nigeria and Russia, where virtually all media that is not downloaded illegally is sold in the form of knock-off CDs and DVDs. But there is also great variation among rich countries. Piracy is far more widespread in the Mediterranean than it is in northern Europe, including Britain. America may be the least piratical country of all—oddly, since Napster was born there.
...
The result is that big labels have pruned their Spanish operations. Universal Music has shed a third of its Spanish staff. Max Hole, who runs Universal’s businesses outside America, says the firm is “holding out” in Spain, but largely in the hope that it will discover an artist who appeals to Hispanics in the United States. Mr Kassler says EMI is spending five or six times as much in Germany, a low-piracy market where music sales are declining more gently—by 11% between 2006 and 2010.

Again from The Economist their last essay in their recent special section on the Newspaper industry (Econ):

In the past decade the internet has disrupted this model and enabled the social aspect of media to reassert itself. In many ways news is going back to its pre-industrial form, but supercharged by the internet. Camera-phones and social media such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter may seem entirely new, but they echo the ways in which people used to collect, share and exchange information in the past. “Social media is nothing new, it’s just more widespread now,” says Craig Newmark. He likens John Locke, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin to modern bloggers. “By 2020 the media and political landscapes will be very different, because people who are accustomed to power will be complemented by social networks in different forms.” Julian Assange has said that WikiLeaks operates in the tradition of the radical pamphleteers of the English civil war who tried to “cast all the Mysteries and Secrets of Government” before the public.
News is also becoming more diverse as publishing tools become widely available, barriers to entry fall and new models become possible, as demonstrated by the astonishing rise of the Huffington Post, WikiLeaks and other newcomers in the past few years, not to mention millions of blogs. At the same time news is becoming more opinionated, polarised and partisan, as it used to be in the knockabout days of pamphleteering.
Not surprisingly, the conventional news organisations that grew up in the past 170 years are having a lot of trouble adjusting. The mass-media era now looks like a relatively brief and anomalous period that is coming to an end. But it was long enough for several generations of journalists to grow up within it, so the laws of the mass media came to be seen as the laws of media in general, says Jay Rosen. “And when you’ve built your whole career on that, it isn’t easy to say, ‘well, actually, that was just a phase’. That’s why a lot of us think that it’s only going to be generational change that’s going to solve this problem.” A new generation that has grown up with digital tools is already devising extraordinary new things to do with them, rather than simply using them to preserve the old models. Some existing media organisations will survive the transition; many will not.

From New York magazine and Boris Kachka on Why Debut Novels are Big Business Again:

But a funny thing happened on the way to austerity: growth. Book-publishing revenue is up almost 6 percent since 2008, and the monster advances are back, too—seven for first novels in the past year. “They’re coming back in a big way,” says Eric Simonoff, an agent at William Morris who sold a debut for more than $1 million in February. It may be that overspending isn’t such a luxury after all but a publicity pre­requisite, the only marketing gesture anyone believes anymore. HarperCollins’s Jonathan Burnham, who bid in the Harbach auction, often makes news by dropping seven figures on debuts, like Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones, which posted disappointing sales, and S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep, which was more of a success. Burnham acknowledges the power of “measured overpaying”—“if it’s the right fit for the list, and it makes the right statement,” he says. “It creates a sort of sense of destiny, and in most cases, that’s a huge advantage. It becomes a source of gossip and excitement in the trade. Everyone’s twittering away about it—in the old-fashioned sense of twitter

Kachka refers to a Slate article entitled MFA vs NYC written by Chad Harbach (Slate)
The IHE hosted Digital Tweed blog has poses interesting set of speculations regarding the consequences of the privatization of Blackboard. This clip is from the intro of a long post: (DigitalTweed);

It’s been 20 days since the announcement that Providence Equity Partners would acquire Blackboard. The acquirer became the acquired in this transaction: Blackboard, which has spent more than a half a billion dollars over the past five years to buy a range of technology firms that focus on the education market (Angel Learning, Elluminate, iStrategy, NTI, Presidium, WebCT, and Wimba, among others) agreed to be purchased for approximately $1.64 billion.

Not surprisingly, the message from Blackboard, as reflected in a public letter from Blackboard CEO Michael Chasen, a blog post from Blackboard Learn president Ray Henderson, and an accompanying set of FAQs – is, in essence, that the sale to Providence will have little impact on the company’s relationship with clients. Chasen’s letter announced that he and the current management team “will remain in place and we do not anticipate any changes [in Blackboard’s] day-to-day operations.” Henderson’s blog provided some additional rationale for the financial deal, suggesting that private ownership frees management from the quarterly pressures to report continuously rising revenue and profits: “private equity now provides an alternative ownership model that’s more agile…firms like Providence include very long-term investors…willing to take longer-term perspectives.” Henderson also proclaimed that that the new owners “share our vision of improving the education experience for our clients, and of the mission critical role [Blackboard’s] platforms play in teaching and learning today.”

Repost from The Chronicle of Higher Ed: An Era of Ideas.

To mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, The Chronicle Review asked a group of influential thinkers to reflect on some of the themes that were raised by those events and to meditate on their meaning, then and now. The result is a portrait of the culture and ideas of a decade born in trauma, but also the beginning of a new century, with all its possibilities and problems.

From the twitter this week:

Google to Buy Zagat: http://nyti.ms/rgpjIb

Elsevier's Scopus Data Drives Visualization of International Collaborative Research Networks for Max Planck MarketWatch http://bit.ly/pp9Bsv

HathiTrust full-text index to be integrated into OCLC services [OCLC]: http://bit.ly/oG4FxL

Amazon’s Future Is So Much Bigger Than a Tablet | Epicenter | Wired.com http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/amazon-bigger-than-tablet/

World Trade Center August 1991

Another weekly image from my archive. Click on it to make it larger.

There was never a reason to think the towers weren't permanent.

Flickr Set

In addition to the images I've posted on Flickr and those I've periodically posted on PND, I have now produced a Big Blurb Book: From the Archive 1960 -1980 of some of the images I really thought were special.

I now have an iPad version of this book for sale ($4.99) on the Blurb site which you can find here: STORE

I have to say, even on the iPad the book looks pretty good.

Setting the Data Strategy Agenda

The following post represents the second installment of my data strategy presentation.
Once a company has recognized the tangible value of its data, the CEO will assign the role to a direct report making this initiative his or her sole responsibility. As noted in my first post, managing data as an asset is so important that it requires direct senior management responsibility and should not be delegated to the head of marketing & sales or IT (in each or any case, both bias and conflict with their ‘real’ responsibilities will prevent the program's benefits accruing to the entire business). In addition, the ability to break down silos, confront the assumed internal politics and impose a solution will be greatly diminished if the executive in charge already has other functional responsibilities. In my view, if this is the approach of the CEO, the initiative will fail. By way of example, the Chief Data Officer at Dun & Bradstreet sits at the highest levels of the company in recognition of the importance of data to that organization and is evidence of the strategic importance of that data.

The first task of the “Chief Data Officer” (CDO) and their team would be to conduct a business-wide data audit to determine where data is being collected, both through internal efforts as well as externally by customers, vendors and other partners. This is an important first step and should be as expansive and specific as possible. Things to look for include not only the data sources themselves but their quality (perceived or explicit), frequency of update or creation, source/owner, format, whether the data conforms to any particular standard and whether the data is ever validated against this standard. Reviewing standards might also include not just the data’s technical framework but also whether it is subject to normalization – to a specific categorization method such as BISAC, for example. I once undertook an effort like this at a large educational publisher and the process took about six weeks and required site visits, interviews and the reviews of policies and procedures.

During this exercise, it is more than likely that some amount of ‘visioning’ will take place and this feedback should be captured during the analysis; however, at this early stage, the only really important aspect of this effort would be where someone might say ‘we currently make use of this particular data source, but we would really like to use this other one and can’t because our systems can’t handle it’. Questioning and challenging the current state should be the focus during this evaluation stage. There will be ample opportunities to focus on the ‘to be’ environment as the project evolves.

Out of this ‘baseline’ analysis will come several recommendations concerning how the data strategy initiative will roll out. The baseline analysis will define all existing data sources, the resources required to manage each effort, the tools deployed in support and perhaps an estimate of what would be required to centrally manage the data operations. In turn, this analysis will form the basis of the business operating plan for the data strategy program and, in common with any business plan, it will include a set of objectives, suggested approach or tactical plan and the requirements or measurements for success.

It is likely the initial plan will be progressive in terms of scope and complexity for several reasons: Firstly, this initiative is likely to face significant internal skepticism and, therefore, early observed success will be important in retaining support. Remember, the CEO has also placed his or her ‘reputation’ behind this initiative, and for this reason, the initial roll-out should be modest. Secondly, taking a full-scale approach is unlikely to result in benefits that anyone will support, and finding and assigning an appropriate level of resources to an initiative of that breadth would be cost prohibitive. As often happens, trying to ‘boil the ocean’ will fail. Thirdly, starting the project on a relatively small scale will enable the project team to select a project scope they feel they can comfortably deliver on.

There are likely to be varying approaches to initiating a corporate data strategy but, for my money, I would start with product meta-data, which I will discuss in my next post.

The above is the second of several posts (1) on data strategy which I have completed for a presentation later this year.

Corporate Data Strategy and The Chief Data Officer

Are you managing your data as a corporate asset? Is data – customer, product, user/transaction – even acknowledged by senior management? Responsibility for data within an organization reflects its importance; so, who manages your data?

Few companies recognize the tangible value of the data their organizations produce and generate. Some data, such as product meta-data, are seen as problematic necessities that generally support the sale of the company’s products; but management of much of the other data (such as information generated as a customer passes through the operations of the business) is often ad-hoc and creates only operational headaches rather than usable business intelligence. Yet, a few data aware companies are starting to understand the value of the data generated by their companies and are creating specific business strategies to manage their internal data.

Establishing an environment in which a corporate data strategy can flourish is not an inconsequential task. It requires strong, active senior-level sponsorship, a financial commitment and adoption of change-management principles to rethink how business operations manage and control internal data. Without CEO-level support, a uniform data-strategy program will never take off because inertia, internal politics and/or self-interest will conspire to undermine any effort. Which raises a question: “Why adopt a corporate data strategy program?”

In simple terms, more effectively managing proprietary data can help a company grow revenue, reduce expenses and improve operational activities (such as customer support.) In years past, company data may have been meaningless in so far that businesses did not or could not collect business information in an organized or coordinated manner. Corporate data warehouses, data stores and similar infrastructure improvements are now commonplace and, coupled with access to much more transaction information (from web traffic to consumer purchase data), these technological improvements have created environments where data benefits become tangible. In data-aware businesses, employees know where to look for the right data, are able to source and search it effectively and are often compensated for effectively managing it. Recognizing the potential value in data represents a critical first-step in establishing a data strategy and an increasing number of companies are building on this to create a corporate data strategy function.

Businesses embarking on a data-asset program will only do so successfully if the CEO assigns responsibility and accountability to a Corporate Data Officer. This position is a new management role and not additive to an existing manager’s responsibilities (such as the head of marketing or information technology). In order to be successful, this position carries with it the responsibility for organizing, aggregating and managing the organization’s corporate data to better effect communications with supply chain partners, customers and internal data users.

Impediments to implementing a corporate data strategy might include internal politics, inertia and a lack of commitment, all of which must be overcome by unequivocal support from the CEO. Business fundamentals should drive the initiative so that its expected benefits are captured explicitly. Those metrics might include revenue goals, expense savings, return on investment and other, narrower measures. In addition, operating procedures that define data policies and responsibilities should be established early in the project so that corporate ‘behavior’ can be articulated without the chance for mis- and/or self-interpretation.

Formulating a three-year strategic plan in support of this initiative should be considered a basic requirement that will establish clear objectives and goals. In addition, managing expectations for what is likely to be a complex initiative will be vital. Planning and then delivering will enable the program to build on iterative successes. Included in this plan will be a cohesive communication program to ensure the organization is routinely made aware of objectives, timing and achievements.

In general terms, there are likely to be four significant elements to this plan: (1) the identification and description of the existing data sources within an organization; (2) the development of data models supporting both individual businesses and the corporate entity; (3) the sourcing of technology and tools needed to enact the program to best effect; and then, finally, (4) a progressive plan to consolidate data and responsibility into a single entity. Around this effort would also be the implementation of policies and procedures to govern how each stakeholder in the process interacts with others.

While this effort may appear to have more relevance for very large companies, all companies should be able to generate value from the data their businesses produce. At larger companies the problems will be more complex and challenging but, in smaller companies, the opportunities may be more immediate and the implementation challenges more manageable. Importantly, as more of our business relationships assume a data component, data becomes integral to the way business itself is conducted. Big or small, establishing a data strategy with CEO-level sponsorship should become an important element of corporate strategy.

In my next post later this week, I’ll comment on ways to approach a data strategy initiative.

The above is one of several posts on data strategy which I have completed for a presentation later this year.

The following are the other articles in the series:

2: Setting the Data Strategy Agenda

3: Corporate Data Program: Where to Start?

4: Strategically Managing Data for Long Term Benefit