3 Billion People – From Listeners to Readers to Writers

This is the fifth post in a continuing series from a technology seminar by Creative Strategies at Thomas Nelson on October 23, 2009.

The printing press turned listeners to readers. Will the Internet turn readers to writers and/or participants? (Creative Strategies Technology Seminar - October 23, 2009)

As I posted earlier, we will have 3 billion consumers connected through smart phones, computers and web-enabled TV in 2010. This creates an unprecedented opportunity in history for people to quickly and inexpensively communicate. If you doubt this will happen, consider the numbers of bloggers today:

• Over 100,000,000 blogs
• 85% of 18-35 year-olds are active posters, commentators and uploaders

The critics will cite the Despair.com wall poster:

BLOGGING: Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few.

This blog may indeed fit that description. But still, never before has it been so easy for so many to say what’s on their mind and quickly send it around the world. We can’t ignore the power of the people, because they will be heard more than ever before; no way around it. It’s now a two-way relationship; not just publishers pushing out content.

The opportunity is to harness that powerful network. My next blog will discuss how we as content producers can harness that network.

3 Billion Connected Consumers

This is the forth post in a continuing series from a technology seminar by Creative Strategies at Thomas Nelson on October 23, 2009.

What does it mean to content producers like Thomas Nelson to have 3 billion connected consumers? The consumers will want access to information and entertainment anytime and anywhere they happen to be in the format they prefer. That format could be an e-book, audio book, author video, etc.

Folks will still read traditional print books. As I have posted previously, however, there will be three dominate screens all connected to the web where people spend their time more and more:

• TV
• Cell/Smart Phone
• Computer

What are we doing at Thomas Nelson to make sure we are producing content for 3 billion connected consumers? Is it better for the author to write a book, do an audio version, to make a video or create all three? More and more, these are important conversations to have internally, with our authors and with our customers.

What does the consumer of that author’s content want? It is easier today than ever through social networking to build that direct relationship with the content consumer and make sure our message is relevant.

Think how quickly those 3 billion connected consumers can spread the word if you have a great message and that message is provided in a format they want to share? This gets really exciting.
In my next blog, I will discuss how all of these 3 billion connected readers may turn in to writers and active participants in the content.

Analog to Digital Revolution – The Next 25 Years

This is the third post in a continuing series from a technology seminar by Creative Strategies at Thomas Nelson on October 23, 2009.

Creative Strategies’ observation concerning the analog to digital revolution:

• The first 25 years was bringing digital to businesses
• The next 25 years is bringing digital to the masses

If you think about the last 25 years, so much of the digital revolution was spent making businesses more productive – e-mail, spreadsheets, ERP systems, etc. The vast majority of the technology spend was in business.

Sure, there have been advances in personal cell phones and gadgets like the iPod and iPhone. These devices, however, are just the tip of the iceberg for what’s to come. Several things are acting as a catalyst to speed up the digital consumer world:

1. The power of semiconductors continue to increase dramatically, as the devices themselves get smaller. The equivalent 600 Mhz processor in a 1999 computer is now in an iPhone.
2. These same semiconductors are in relative terms less expensive for each unit of power and functionality.
3. Net Books, small laptops, are selling for less than $400 opening up computing and the Internet to millions that previously could not afford access. 28 million Net Books will be sold this year; 37 million in 2010.
4. Technology advantages we have learned at work will naturally continue to dovetail into our personal lives.
5. The Internet is prevalent worldwide through cell phone providers, 80% of the world’s population has cell coverage.
6. Today 3.3 billion people have cell phones and it’s growing.
7. Smart phones are exploding globally; all connected to the Internet.
8. Growth in business technology spend has slowed, and it’s refocusing on the consumer.

As indicated in an earlier post, there will be 3 billion Internet-connected consumers on planet Earth next year. Think about that - 3 billion people connected. The implications for content producers like us will be huge. My next blog will discuss how this changes consumer behavior.

Scary Book Facts - We Must Reinvent

This is the second post in a continuing series from a technology seminar by Creative Strategies at Thomas Nelson on October 23, 2009.

Consider these facts presented by Creative Strategies:

• 80% of US households did not buy or read a book last year


• 70% of US households did not enter a bookstore last year


• 42% of college graduates never read a book after college


• 33% of high school graduates never read a book again


• 52% of books are not read to completion
  

The last point I get. I probably finish a book about 70% of the time, because I usually get it about halfway through. In fact, I am more likely to read a full book with Seth Godin’s formatting in Tribes than I am to read a whole traditional chapter format book.

For us book publishers, those facts if indeed true, are downright scary. The solution, as regular readers of my blog know, is for book publishers to become content producers to provide product in any format a consumer wants to consume our education, message and entertainment.

This is why our DigiReady efforts at Thomas Nelson are so important. Our company is embracing DigiReady. DigiReady is one of many things we will need to do differently in the coming years to stay relevant. I am certain we will make the transition, despite the unavoidable pain that will come with it.

We have great content. We must reinvent it; not just repurpose content.

Nelson Leadership Seminar - Post 1

This blog will start a series of posts highlighting key take-a-ways from Thomas Nelson's Leadership Technology Seminar Series. We had the first seminar last Friday. The presenters were Tim Bajarin and Ben Bajarin, the principals at Creative Strategies.

Let's start with these two intersting facts presented at the technology seminar:

1. Processing power is continuing to increase at an amazing pace, while the processors driving that power continue to get smaller
2. The Internet is allowing anyone to connect on anything to any digital content any where in the world

These two converging facts are making our cell phones into what is called smart phones, or basically functional computers that fit easily in our pockets and purses. The iPhone is the most popular smart phone today.


Consider these facts:

• In the United States, 80% of the population has PCs; 77% have mobile phone
• Globally, only 13% of the world's population has computers, but 42% have cell phones
• About 23% of all cell phone purchases today are smart phones

It is estimated by 2012, 50-60% of the world will have smart phones. This raises a series of threats and opportunities to our business. Imagine if half the world's 6.8 billion population can now have access to our content with a device the size of a cell phone. How does that change our publishing strategy from how we acquire rights to print runs on books we sell in a traditional print format?

This is likley a threat to our print volume in the future, but huge opportunity for digital delivery of our content. Read what Michael Shatzkin has to say of the future of e-books in his post Sunday. It will definitely make you think. It might even scare you.

Stay tuned. There is a whole lot of interetsing stuff to come from our first Leadership Technology Seminar.

So Many Emails Are Nice But Not Necessary

For the first time in months, I just got through all my e-mails. This has been a focused attack this week. I dread starting the effort, but I am glad it's over. There were a few gems in the e-mails, but for the most part it was a quick hit of the delete button.

Several business units report directly into me. They are diverse from our international publishing operations to domestic children's publishing to our digital efforts. I often deal with the issues that really need my attention, which might be 5% of the e-mails I get.

The vast majority of e-mails I can't even get to on a prompt basis of a few days. I guess if I did not want to be involved in my family's life I could, but it turns out that so many of the emails were just "nice-to-be-copied-on".

I have not been commenting on e-mails that ask the multitudes for an answer, even when it's a business unit that reports to me. My thought being that enough others will chime in intelligently. Unless I have something AMAZINGLY important to say, I stay silent. The only problem is that I still get copied on just about every one's response.

I don't have the solution. Our CEO, Mike Hyatt, has had some interesting blogs on the subject, including declaring e-mail bankruptcy.

Well five more e-mails just came in on a Saturday afternoon as I wrote this short blog. They will just have to wait a few weeks. I am going to play baseball with my boy.

Basic Social Networking Terminology

I spent the last three days at the annual summit of the Society of International Business Fellows (SIBF). SIBF is an organization of about 500 international business executives and owners that share international and domestic business ideas and assist each other around the globe. SIBF has been quite helpful in our efforts to build our business internationally and find suppliers abroad.

A focus of this year's summit was social networking. While these are brilliant business people, especially internationally, Thomas Nelson is ahead of the SIBF members for the most part when it comes to social media and networking. (That unintentionally landed me on SIBF's Social Networking Committee.)

The social media terminology below was shared with the SIBF members this weekend. Even though I believe most of us know these social networking terms, I thought I would share them with you.

Blog - a journal on the Web. Weblogs can be used to improve communication and culture in an organization while enhancing marketing, branding and public relations efforts. Weblogs cover as many different topics, and express as many opinions, as there are people writing them. Some blogs are highly influential and have enormous readership, while others are mainly intended for a close circle of family and friends. A blog entry usually consists of a title, headline, body, post date, comments, tags, and more.

LinkedIn - the world’s largest professional network with over 40 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts (i.e. SIBF Group) and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.

RSS (Rich Site Summary) - a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. Users save time by not needing to visit each site individually.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. Firms that practice SEO can vary; some have a highly specialized focus, while others take a more broad and general approach.

ShareThis - a program found on a blog which simplifies and accelerates the online world by making sharing content as instantaneous and customizable as possible.

Technorati - an Internet search engine for searching blogs. Technorati looks at tags that authors have placed on their websites. These tags help categorize search results, with recent results coming first.

Twitter - Social networking and microblogging service utilizing instant messaging, SMS or a web interface. Twitter enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Twitter is used by organizations and individuals to quickly and effectively communicate news and information.

Wiki - a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wikis have become an effective and popular means for organizations to collaboratively increase communication efforts amongst its associates and members.

Facebook - a global social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.[1] Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better. (From wikipedia)

What other basic social networking terminology should be added to the list above?