dreamingspires posterous

For your information it was a Large Flat White coffee which is just as well as we did cover rather a lot of ground.  See, the thing is I have come to expect things I read on the internet for free. And Publishing Houses tend not to give things out for free.

I expect to be able to find information, good quality information mind, and then I want to pass on that information to others.

Snippets of information are read and digested like electronic grazing.  I cannot recall a period where I have learned so much in so short a time. In Marie Curiesque fashion (who did not patent her radium-isolation process enabling others to use it) information is gained and passed on.

Publishing houses like to argue that they are there to provide the peer review process, guarantee quality, publicize….No longer, with the Wiki model peers review peers and quality comes to the surface – whether being noticed from blogs, nudges, digs, stumbles, twitter...  It's fast and powerful.

My friend, Jolyon, made some comments & predictions:

Journal articles will be published pre-review by their authors online for a small fee and be available almost instantly.  Then they will be reviewed by peers who will comment, rating it and giving suggestions for change. As articles are written by researchers and read by researchers most of the reviewers comments will be relevant, and an anonymous review will carry far less weight than a public one.

Very different from the traditional subscription model as it stands where aricles are sent to the Publishing House and not published until they have gone through quite a tortuous review process for all.

Universities will be able to have unlimited numbers of students because students no longer need to physically attend class.  Study material will be sourced by students from wherever they decide, and it will be free. 

Students may opt not to enroll for courses at all deciding instead to study independently and when they are ready register (and pay) to take the exam, irrespective of whether they have studied with that University or not. 

Students will opt for those Universities who are regarded as top in their field such as Harvard/Oxford/MIT and take their exams, although they may only have a limited number of attempts at passing.

Good news for the larger 'Ivy League' Universities as their student numbers could be greatly increased, less so for the smaller Universities who may see students prefer to take exams elsewhere.

The choice is now more with the users than the institutions.

It really was a very good cup of coffee

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The day after a Company Publishing Meeting is a little like the aftermath of a world shattering event.   People begin to smile, realize that life is good, and the next meeting is a whole month minus one day away.

Your Manager thinks the project is a good idea after all, the Marketing guys are happy, the Sales Team think they can do a good job and importantly the Chief Finance Officer has all his boxes ticked and has decided it's not too much of a risk.

Publishing Directors are more than ever focussed on spreadsheets and targets, whereas us Publisher types (being of a more creative ilk) are focussed on the Idea, the Writer, the Project, and want it to see the light of day, not least because it's a privilege to be involved with the Idea and work with the Writers.

The Chief Finance Officer, however, is looking at it from an entirely different point of view -- and he now gets to call the shots.

Why is it all about finance? Just like the Music Industry, Publishing is going through a metamorphosis, Clinicians, Students, Writers, Educators are asking what we can offer and (heaven forbid) deciding that maybe they can do it themselves.  Writers are taking much more control and ownership of their work.

The challenge for Publishers is to ask their own Publishing House to change their way of thinking and look at how to add, enable, fund an Idea... or maybe that can all be done by Writers themselves now with the advent of Blogs, Twitters, Social Bookmarking, Sharing, Networking, Virtual worlds.  After all who needs paper, typesetters, printers when you can self-publish electronically?

Personally I love the move to individual ownership of work, open access, and self publishing in the virtual real world.... bring on the next meeting.

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