Working Smart

Could This Be the iPod for Books?

The future may have arrived sooner than even I expected. According to BusinessWeek, Sony is set to introduce a new portable e-reader device at this week’s Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas that they hope will be to reading what the iPod is to music. Supposedly, they are proposing a complete, end-to-end solution, including a hand-held device and a software application similar to iTunes that provides downloading and syncing.

Sony has lined up major publishers to participate in the launch, including Simon & Schuster, Random House, and HarperCollins. Jane Friedman, CEO of HarperCollins, says she plans to digitize her entire catalog and make it available through Sony’s online store. This will happen as soon as HarperCollins finishes negotiating royalty rates with authors.

The thing that caught my eye in the BusinessWeek article was the description of the display:

According to sources who have seen the device, it is similar in many ways to the Japanese Librie. Both devices use E Ink, a display technology developed by E Ink Corp. in Cambridge, Mass.

E Ink forms text by electronically arranging thousands of tiny black and white capsules, creating an experience remarkably similar to reading a printed page. Unlike the liquid-crystal display screens used in personal digital assistants, there is no backlight to strain readers’ eyes, and characters show up sharp and clear, even in full sunlight. And since the gadget requires power only to “turn” pages, users should be able to read more than 15 books between charges.

Even if this doesn’t become the device that I predicted in my first post on this topic, this is definitely a story to watch. I think we are seeing the convergence of multiple interests that will eventually result in the right device.

Again, traditional books will not disappear any time soon, but a shift is coming. Count on it—and get ready.

Technorati Tags: books, ebooks, future, publishing, reading, technology

iRex Announces an ePaper Device

iRex has announced an ePaper device that moves us one step closer to the device I envisioned in my first and second posts on digital publishing.

In my opinion, this is still a long way from “the tipping point.” However, this is the third such device I have seen in the last two weeks. I think this reflects an acceleration in this kind of hardware development. It will likely take several more attempts, but eventually someone will get it right. It’s only a matter of time.

Technorati Tags: books, ebooks, future, publishing, technology

More Thoughts on the Future of Book Publishing

By the comments I have received to my last post, I think it might be helpful to clarify a few items.

First, despite my attention-grabbing title, I do not actually anticipate the death of traditional book publishing—at least not anytime soon. However, even a 5-10 percent reduction in sales would have a significant negative impact on the publishing industry as we know it today.

Remember, legally downloaded music sales are only 6% of the total music industry, yet the record companies are reeling. But, it’s only going to get worse for those who refuse to embrace the future. Consider the fact that total music sales (physical and downloaded) for the first half of 2005 were $13.2 billion. Legal downloads accounted for $790 million or nearly 6 percent of this total. However, download sales increased by 350% over the prior year. This is the really big news. Do you see where this trend is going?

Yes, traditional books will be available to bibliophiles for the foreseeable future. All I am arguing is that a shift will occur. A big enough slice of the book reading public will opt for digital delivery and that will have a significant, disruptive effect on the entire industry. Trust me, it won’t take much. This is not an industry awash in profits. A 5-10 percent reduction in sales would wreak havoc. It’s already happening with newspapers and magazines. On the other hand, publishing companies that anticipate this shift and prepare accordingly will prosper. But this must happen now, not after the shift occurs. By then, it will be too late.

Second, I don’t think it’s valid to argue that the current technology doesn’t replicate the user-interface of a traditional book. This is obvious—and irrelevant. Technology is changing exponentially. We are not that far away from displays that closely resemble paper and are more readable and easy on the eyes than paper. We can’t try to envision the future by merely extrapolating from the present. We have to think “outside the box.”

Similarly, we can’t afford to make the mistake of assuming that what is familiar to us will be familiar to our children and grandchildren. Yes, I too love books. I have rooms full of them. (That’s one of the reasons I got into the book business!) But my daughters are more comfortable with computers. Just walk into a room full of teenagers and watch what they are doing. You won’t find many reading books (to my dismay). They are more comfortable with computers and other electronic devices. That’s really all they have known.

In addition, the technology does not have to be better than the traditional book. The quality of MP3 files is not as good as the quality of CD tracks. Yet, customers are switching in unprecedented numbers. Why? Because MP3 (or AAC) is good enough. In addition, iPods offer something intangible. It is something that delights consumers and makes them feel hip and powerful. The thought of having 10,000 songs at your fingertips in a device that can fit in your pocket is intoxicating—at least to millions of people. All I am arguing is that a similar device will come along that makes books as readily accessible—and as fun—as an iPod does for music. It will be cool beyond what we can imagine today. It will be simple and elegant, and, like iTunes and iPod, provide a seamless, end-to-end solution that doesn’t exist in today’s eBook world.

Third, Amazon.com has proven that millions of consumers are willing to buy books online without the benefit of browsing through a physical copy in a retail store. No, this doesn’t mean that retail bookstores will go away. But they will have to prepare to compete with a new kind of online store (think iTunes) that will give them a run for their money. Five years ago, no one could have imagined a new startup competitor who could sell more music than either Tower Records or Borders. Yet, it happened. Seemingly, out of the blue. And it is growing beyond what anyone, perhaps even Apple, could have imagined.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who commented on my last post. I may well be wrong in the particulars of my vision about the future. All I am hoping to do is stimulate discussion and get us thinking about a change I believe is inevitable.

Technorati Tags: books, ebooks, future, publishing, reading, technology

The Death of Traditional Book Publishing

In 2000 or so, Microsoft launched Reader, a simple software application designed to enable users to read books on their computers. Most of us in the book publishing world braced for what we thought would be a major shift in our industry. It didn’t happen.

In recent years, it has become fashionable to defend the traditional book. Many have argued that you would be hard-pressed to improve on the user-interface and ergonomics of a book. Jokingly, I have said, “You just can’t beat the battery life of the traditional book!”

While most publishers will admit that reference content is better accessed on the computer, almost all believe that the traditional non-fiction book or novel will never be replaced with a digital equivalent. I say, “baloney.” It's coming. The sooner publishing executives get their collective heads out of the sand and face the future, the better prepared they will be to meet it.

I am convinced that we are only one device away from a digital publishing tsunami. Consider what happened when Apple launched the iPod in October of 2001. They provided an end-to-end solution that made downloading music easy, portable, and fun. Now, 30-plus million iPods later, iPods are everywhere.

Apple owns 84% of the legal download market. They have sold more than 600 million songs to-date. In fact, with over 10 million customers, Apple's iTunes music store now sells more music than Tower Records or Borders. Who could have envisioned this five years ago?

Yes, I know that digital downloads represent less than 5% of all all music purchases. But “the genie is out of the bottle.” Subscription-based music services like Rhapsody, satellite radio, ring tunes, and other mobile technologies have continued to erode the market share of the traditional record industry giants. The fact is, they didn’t see it coming, and they hung onto their “old media” business model for too long. As a result, they have continued to see their revenues—and stock prices—decline each of the last four years.

I don’t want this to happen to the book publishing industry. However, in my opinion, it is inevitable if we don’t try to peer into the future and speculate on what may be coming. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Unfortunately, the alternative is to assume that nothing will change and books as we know them will be around forever. In my opinion, this is a very risky assumption.

So if, as I stated earlier, we are only one device away from a digital revolution in book publishing, what might such a device might look like? Here’s what I envision:

• It looks similar to a tablet PC slate. No keyboard, no monitor, and it folds in half.
• It is the same size and thickness as a hardcover book, say 6" by 9" by 1/2". Unfolded, it is 12" x 9" by 1/4". It feels great in your lap. It can even be bent slightly like a book, so you can curl up on the sofa and read away.
• It uses a tablet PC interface with a built-in stylus that feels like a high-end pen. You can use it to make menu selections, enter text (via handwriting recognition), or highlight passages in books.
• It weighs less than a 256-page hardcover book (about one pound). It therefore dramatically changes the shape and heft of your computer bag.
• It has a battery life of 12–18 hours.
• It completely replaces your computer and runs all your favorite applications.
• It has 256 gigabytes of flash drive storage. It has room for tens of thousands of songs, photos, movies—and books. Because it has no moving parts (unlike a hard drive), it is faster and more reliable.
• It is wi-fi enabled (of course).
• It includes a software application similar to iTunes for the purchase and download of books. Heck, maybe it's just a modification of iTunes.
• It has a simple, elegant book reading application, similar to Microsoft’s Reader.
• It has a docking station that allows you to use a keyboard, mouse, external monitor, etc.
• It runs an Apple operating system. (Okay, I couldn't resist.)

Think this is impossible? Consider the fact that NEC just announced a paper-thin, foldable battery that can be recharged in 30 seconds. Earlier this year, Phillips demonstrated a paper-thin display that can be rolled, folded, and squeezed into a pocket. Apple put sixteen 2-gigabyte flash memory chips in each iPod Nano—its latest iPod offering. However, Samsung, the producer of these chips, has now introduced a flash memory chip that holds 16 gigabytes. Stack sixteen of these units together and you have a whopping 256 gigabytes of storage.

But don’t get hung up on the particulars. I’m not a hardware engineer, and I’m sure the details could be picked apart. I’m simply trying to provide a vision for what could happen. The point I’m trying to make is that some type of device is coming. It may be five years away or it could be next year. For all I know, it is in development now. Regardless, when it arrives, the publishing world as you and I know it will change dramatically.

Maybe it won’t be the death of traditional book publishing, but it will mean a significant shift, perhaps a seismic shift. If we as book publishers are going to stay in the game and avoid the fate of the music industry, we are going to have to embrace the future now and start preparing for it.

Technorati Tags: apple, books, ebooks, ipod, publishing

Should You Get on the Blackberry Wagon?

A couple of months ago, I took my family to the beach for Spring Break. While I was there, I met a guy who was really sold on his Blackberry. (Actually, this is redundant. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t love their Blackberry. In fact, Blackberry users often refer to the device as a “Crackberry” because it’s so addictive.) I had seen them, of course, but this was the first time I ever saw one demonstrated. Being the gadget-guy that I am, I thought, I’ve gotta have one.

Immediately upon my return to work, I contacted my IT department and told them I wanted to order ten test units that we could try for a month. I’ve bought enough gadgets in the past to know that not many of them have any real utility once the initial wow-sensation has passed. I thought that if the Blackberry could survive the scrutiny of my ten top executives for 30 days, it might be worth adopting the technology.

The Blackberry I saw on my vacation had a color screen, so I was a little let down when I received my test unit which had a black-and-white screen. However, I started using the gadget and quickly forgot about the color. Research in Motion, the manufacturer of the Blackberry, has developed some wonderfully elegant usability features. Here are my favorites:

• Up-to-date connectivity. Your e-mail and calendar changes are “pushed” to the device as soon as they hit your Exchange server (this is the back-end technology that allows Outlook users to communicate with each other within a company). In some cases, I have had e-mails show up on my Blackberry before they appeared on my TabletPC. If your assistant makes a change to your calendar, you know about it instantly.
  
  
• Intuitive point-and-click hardware. The trackwheel on the right-side of the Blackberry is the primary means you use to navigate. It’s like a thumb-operated mouse. I found it to be very natural and intuitive. To select an item, you push the trackwheel. Another button, right next to the trackwheel functions as an escape key. There's also a Phone button that enables you to instantly go to the phone screen to make a call. Here’s what it looks like:
  
  
  
  
• A usable thumb-sized keyboard. The Blackberry has a keyboard you can actually use. I wasn’t sure I could actually type with my thumbs, but surprisingly, on the Blackberry, this is very easy. In fact—and don’t tell my wife—I can now do this with one hand in the car! (By the way, while testing the Blackberry, I also tested the Treo 600 side-by-side with it. There’s no comparison. In my opinion, the Treo is “all show and no go.” I liked the phone better, but the keyboard is impossible. Your mileage may vary.)
  
  
• Smart software. Simply click on a e-mail address, phone number, or URL to automatically begin composing an e-mail, place a call, or visit a Web page. The AutoText feature replaces certain phrases or words with whatever you want to attach to it. This is similar to Microsoft Word’s AutoCorrect feature or to ActiveWords (though not as sophisticated). This is particularly helpful, since you are typing with your thumbs. For example, if you type two spaces in a row, AutoText will automatically insert a period and a space. It will also automatically capitalize the beginning of a sentence. My favorite feature is the automatic insertion of hypens in contractions. If I enter “didnt”, AutoText will automatically enter “didn’t”. This makes text-entry very fast. (The Treo, by the way, has nothing like this—not even from a third-party developer.)
  
  
• Integrated attachment viewing. You don’t have to purchase additional software to view attachments. This is included out of the box. You can view spreadsheets and documents by simply clicking on the attachment.

For many, the big question is how this technology integrates into David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology. Simply put, it doesn’t. Referring to one of his coaching clients, David says,

He tossed his Blackberry (“Crackberry” as he called it!), agreeing with my recommendation that e-mail should be processed most efficiently for most people from at least a laptop, and he ordered a Palm to distribute his Outlook lists into for portability.

With all due respect to David, I think this misses the point. The Blackberry is not a replacement for your normal Getting Things Done system. The task categories don’t sync between Outlook and the Blackberry, so using it as David recommends you use a Palm is not an option. However, this doesn’t mean the Blackberry should be tossed.

The value of the Blackberry to me is for quick e-mail and calendar reference. This comes in handy when I am in the car or on a plane and pulling out my TabletPC is too much trouble. I don’t do a lot of e-mail processing on the Blackberry. But for the occassional quick e-mail, when business is moving at the speed of light, a Blackberry is very handy.

For example, last night I had a business dinner meeting. However, I got the time wrong and arrived at the restaurant 30 minutes early. Fortunately, I had my Blackberry, so I made good use of the time. I was able to respond to several urgent e-mails that kept things moving along. If I had not had my Blackberry, or if I had just brought a Palm, I would have been out of luck. I could have reviewed my lists and seen what I needed to do, but it would have been difficult to get any actual work done.

If the point of Getting Things Done is, well, to get things done, then the Blackberry is worthy of consideration. It enables me to get important things done that would otherwise have to wait until I returned to my computer. Also, since it doubles as a phone, I’m not carrying any more devices than I used to. All told, I’m very pleased.

Why I Bought a TabletPC

About three weeks ago, I bought a Toshiba M205-S810 TabletPC. I’ve always thought it would be a big boost to my productivity if I could actually take my computer with me to meetings. Then I would have access to everything I need—my calendar, e-mail messages, documents, spreadsheets, etc. I tried using a PDA, but that didn't really cut it. The interface was too primitive and scrolling documents was a drag.

Then I tried a ThinkPad X31 laptop. This is a great computer. Powerful, light, and elegant. In my opinion, it’s still the best looking laptop on the market. However, laptops in meetings are a problem. Michael Linenberger stated it succinctly in his excellent book, Seize the Work Day: Using the Tablet PC to Take Total Control of Your Work and Meeting Day. He writes:

Using a Tablet PC during a typical management meeting is totally different from using a laptop. It’s the difference between night and day. The difference between success and failure. Here’s why.

• Discretion: Nothing is more distracting than, during a management-style meeting, having a meeting participant typing away on a laptop. In contrast, working with a Tablet PC in your lap appears no different from what you would be doing with a pen and notepad in your lap. This is particularly true if you use, as recommended later in this book, an executive-style portfolio case that makes your Tablet PC resemble an executive notepad portfolio.
  
  
• Communication barriers: Placing a laptop with the screen flipped up in front of you on a conference room table creates a physical barrier between you and others in the room. This is literally a barrier to communication. The Tablet PC is normally on your lap, and out of sight. Or it is flat on the desk like a writing pad.
  
  
• Personal effectiveness: Research shows that if you use both hands to accomplish a task, a much larger percentage of your brain becomes engaged in that operation. Typing with both hands tends to totally engage your brain in the typing activity and makes you visibly less tuned-in to the meeting. In contrast, writing with one hand during a meeting is second nature to most of us. The brain stays mostly engaged in the meeting activities. We all can take notes and participate in a meeting at the same time. Using a Tablet PC in a meeting is little different from this.
  
  
• Eye contact: Related to the above point, and for the same reasons, many users have reported that it is much easier to maintain periodic and consistent eye contact with others in a meeting when using a Tablet PC versus using a laptop. This has a dramatic affect on the perception of others that you are engaged and personable. Lack of eye contact also limits your ability to read body language of others, adding to your distance from the meeting (pp. 15, 16)

So, based on Marc Orchant’s recommendation, I bought the Toshiba. The nice thing about this unit is that it’s a “convertible.” This means that the screen swings around so that you can use it as either a regular laptop or a TabletPC.

So far, I have been very pleased. The biggest problem has been getting used to the Toshiba keyboard. I’ve used ThinkPads for years, and many of the keys are just in different places. Also, I'm not crazy about the touchpad as a mouse pointing device. I still prefer IBM’s “trackpoint” technology (i.e., the red eraser head in the middle of the keyboard). I think it’s more accurate. But, over time, I’m sure I’ll get used to both.

The cool thing has been taking the machine into meetings. Like Lineberger suggests, I bought the leather portfolio that Toshiba makes for it. (This also is very cool and only $39.00.) However, this still didn't camouflage it enough. The first time I pulled it out and started writing, one of my colleagues exclaimed, “Whoa! Is that a TabletPC?” My cover was blown. Regardless, I like carrying the machine in the case. At the very least, it protects it between meetings.

When I demonstrate the computer, as I inevitably do, I usually do so by handwriting some text in Microsoft OneNote. Immediately, people ask, “So, does it automatically convert your handwriting to text?” Well, yes, it can ... if I want. But, 90% of the time I just leave my handwriting “as is.” Here’s why ... to quote Linenberger again:

Taking notes in ink:

• facilitates creativity in your note taking
  
  
• communicates more about the meaning of your notes
  
  
• integrates better with sketches and expressive marks on the note-taking page
  
  
• is a better way to represent information copied from whiteboards and presentations
  
  
• is a faster way to record notes, faster than even the most speedy and accurate handwriting recognition.

I can virtually guarantee that after a few days or weeks of taking notes primarily in ink, you too will be convinced that this is a highly effective and preferable method of note taking on the Tablet PC (Linenberger, p. 237)

I concur. They key is knowing when to use ink and when to use the keyboard. This is where Linenberger's advice has been invaluable.

When I am at my desk, I plug the Toshiba into its docking station and use an external keyboard and monitor. This is the same keyboard and monitor I used with my ThinkPad, so it is very familiar.

When I’m at home or on the road, processing e-mails or writing reports, I use the computer in laptop mode, just like my ThinkPad. Again, this is very familiar, except for the Toshiba keyboard and touchpad, which I am still getting used to.

When I leave for a meeting—and most of my life is spent attending meetings—everything changes. Before, I would have grabbed a legal pad, a folder, and perhaps even a binder or two. Now, I just pull the Toshiba out of the docking station, whirl the screen around so that it’s in tablet mode, insert it into my leather portfolio, and off I go. This takes about 5 seconds. Here's what the Toshiba looks like in tablet mode:

Now I have all my files with me. In fact, I have set up my “Power Documents” (another Linenberger idea) in OneNote for instant reference. (I plan to blog more about these later.) Since our office is wireless, I can quickly look up something on the Web if needed in the meeting. I can also make assignments or solicit information via e-mail. Much of the assignments I receive in meetings can be done right there in the meeting. You have to experience this to believe it, but it's already been a great boon to my productivity.