Technology and Society

Californian missions

In the light of UK Trade & Investment's recent engagement with the digital media industry (involving Chinwag, which is holding a UKTI Bloggers Brunch this Monday), and UKTI's planned Web Mission 2008 to San Francisco later this month (reported in TechCrunch UK), I was reminded of related missions organised by the DTI Global Watch Service, which has now closed and had its 'assets' merged into the Knowledge Transfer Networks service.

In 2004 the Global Watch Service organised a West Coast trip to look into 'Innovation through People Centred Design', taking a number of researchers and designers, including Rachel Jones of Instrata and Dan Hill who was then at the BBC. See the summary document [currently not available due to server problems]. A report-back event entitled 'Innovation through People Centred Design: Lessons for the UK' was organised by the Design Council in December 2004. I also programmed an Experience Design event entitled 'The Future of User-Centred Technology Design' in January 2005 reflecting on the findings, with Rachel and Dan among the presenters. See Dan Hill's reflections, and a report on the event in Usability News. A related initiative was the Design Council/HEFCE fact finding visit to the US, building on the Cox Review of Creativity in Business. See the (rather good) Cox US Mission blog (report lost online) and the corresponding Cox European Mission blog.

A note of caution with respect to the UKTI Mission: the UK has at various times looked to Silicon Valley with admiration and envy -- as the labels Silicon Fen and Silicon Glen attest -- and this admiration is being revived. NESTA recently hosted the event How Innovation Happens In Silicon Valley, bringing together various Valley luminaries brought over for a UK tour, as well as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne MP, during which I questioned the appropriateness of the lessons people tend to draw by comparison. I noted the unique role of film industry and the US military in under-writing Silicon Valley R&D and industry. This began in the 1930s in the case of the film industry (one of H-P's first clients was Disney), and the Second World War in the case of the military (the Pacific War was armed and fought from California). I also noted the size of internal market for Silicon Valley companies, and the scale of their international ambitions. (For instance, H-P established trade relations with China in the 1970s.) More generally, the sense of ambition evident in post-War America, especially around the space race (which also fueled West Coast R&D and the early semi-conductor industry). Britain's prevailing pessimistic disposition towards progress certainly doesn't compare favourably.

Article: Design and social networking (DCM)

My piece on design and social networking for DCM (the UK Design Council magazine), reporting on and analysing developments, and presenting some forecasting, was published in Issue 3 (the blue 'air hostess' issue). I have now also posted it to my site. (The piece can also be found on pp38–41 of the issue.) The posted piece is as submitted and prior to cutting and editing. (I have also made available, with the permission of the publisher, an Acrobat facsimile of the published article.) The piece is extensively endnoted and I have also included the un-published sidebars.

The piece is entitled ‘Curtain twitchers, the CIA and the rise of Facebook’. I look at the background and history of social networking; the forces driving and shaping the phenomenon; its applications and affordances; how we might realise its potential; and limitations and dangers. Sidebars include Designing with social networking tools; Getting exemplary; Terminology; and Key technical developments. Overall, I believe it is one of the most substantial reflections on the phenomenon and potential of social networking aimed at the general interest reader.

Contributors to the piece include Tom Coates of Yahoo!’s Brickhouse division; Lee Bryant of Headshift; Will Davies of Goldsmiths College; Colin Donald of the digital media research practice Futurescape; Rishi Dastidar of Archibald Ingall Stretton; Paola Kathuria of consultants Limitless Innovations; and Andrew Calcutt of the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of East London.

If you would like to comment on the piece, you can do so below or, of course, post a response to your own Weblog and trackback to this journal entry.

This issue of DCM includes a number of other interesting pieces: ‘‘The most important instrument of thought is the eye’’ on the use of visualisation (pp18–21); ‘Can designers inject some creativity into China’s karaoke economy?’ by Rhymer Rigby (pp22–29); ‘‘People don’t trust politicians or business. They need to feel sustainability is not a con or a game’’ by David Kester (pp32–37); ‘Why UK designers need an extreme makeover’ by Rachel Abrams (pp46–49); and a case study of Erik Spiekermann’s re-design of The Economist (pp70–71). The magazine is very well designed (by Farrow Design) and printed. Unfortunately it is not also published online, and has no letters page or associated online discussion. (No surprise there as it is published by Haymarket on behalf of the Design Council.)

The error of counterposing media

Simon Jenkins is one of the most interesting mainstream commentators on his own industry, and recently addressed the enthusiasm for online publishing (Comment Three cheers for Gutenberg - and long live dead trees, Guardian, January 6, 2006), arguing that the personal computer isn't fulfilling its potential, online publishing is still immature, talk of the death of newspaper journalism is as ill-informed as it was with the coming of television news, and that newspapers "have shown that they can grasp each new technology" and adapt it accordingly.

Jenkins is right to note the ability of newspapers to adapt to the rise of new technology and "bend it to their will". And in reality, modern computers were in part adapted for the needs of newspaper publishers: for authoring, composing, editing and transmitting pages -- once quaintly referred to as 'desktop publishing'.

However, Jenkins is wrong to endorse the counterposition of new and old media. It is true that TV journalism didn't kill its print sibling, but it certainly pushed newspapers towards features and opinion (of which he is an exemplar). Neither will the Web kill print journalism, though it has already changing it significantly.

Far from being damned, print is a wonderful complement to online publishing, and to broadcast -- as the Guardian's 'Today on the Web' excerpts and Ricky Gervais podcast demonstrate. The challenge for publishers and broadcasters is to use each medium for what it does best, and to facilitate ease of movement between them. If there is a complaint to be made it is that, after ten years the Web being used for publishing, too little progress has been made in these respects.

Read on...

Under my keyboard the desk shakes. The bloggers are on the march, Simon Jenkins, The Times, March 11, 2005, and my comments on the article on Perfect.co.uk.

Publishers can't manage their digital assets

HarperCollins pro-active move to digitize its titles (HarperCollins Plans to Control Its Digital Books, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 12, 2005, page B1 [paid sub required]) and allow search engines to index but not archive them shows a grasp of online publishing models still lacking in most periodical and newspaper publishing houses). Chief executive Jane Friedman is reported as saying "We didn't like being seen as Luddites", but the Journal article goes on to report that HarperCollins sought quotes for scanning, digitising and tagging its titles.

Over the last quarter century the book publishing industry has moved to digital word processing, copy exchange, page make-up and printing, and could, in theory, produce an electronic facsimile of any title more easily than print it. That HarperCollins is planning to scan and digitise printed books, rather than use the digital files it has paid to create, is a terrible reflection on the poor and inefficient management that prevails in publishing.

As a published author I am aware that these poor practices extend all the way from commissioning through copy-editing, asset management and indexing to marketing and sales reporting. For all its modernising intentions, the publishing industry has a lot more than book archiving strategy to fix if it is to compete, or even collaborate, with its upstart challengers.

Read on... Publishing by Design: Time to Make Human Factors a Concern, Nico Macdonald, Online Journalism Review, 20 May 2004

Weblogging solutions looking for problems

In his paean to Webloggging (A click and a tick, and you're a blogger too, Guardian Technology, December 22, 2005) Victor Keegan rightly identifies the significance of ease of use in the success of these services – and one we trust publishers who invested millions in content management systems in the late 90s have taken to heart.

But Keegan appears to be in solution-looking-for-a-problem mode. 'Why do it?', he asks, and suggests these tools might be useful as research aids, for 'storing photos, useful Web links and text that I write from time to time'.

I can think of dozens of better software tools and Web-based services that could be brought to bear on this problem – and it is a real problem, largely ignored by the software industry and tech media alike. But just because something is easy to setup and use doesn't mean it is the best solution to a problem, even if any tool affords adaptation to new ends.

The tendency abroad to lazily re-define distinct activities, including many forms of publishing and online communication, within the framework of Weblogging leads to 'solutions' that aren't thought through and will tend to fail. Let's instead try to move the software industry to new models of information management, require ease of use and adaptability from its products, and push it (and ourselves) to be more ambitious.

Letter sent to Technology Guardian for publication

Read on... 'The future of Weblogging' Nico Macdonald, The Register, 18 April 2004

The abuse of viral marketing

Media Guardian recently ran a Go Figure review on 'Viral marketing' (Owen Gibson, December 19, 2005). However, none of the spoofs and ads listed appear to follow the principle of this phenomenon. Viral marketing is not the same as people forwarding an email attachment to their friends and colleagues. That might be best termed word-of-mouth (or word-of-email) marketing. The term viral marketing is metaphorical, drawing on the nature of viruses, which pass from one host to another without the transmitter being aware that they are passing it on -- or having a particular desire to do so.

Veteran IT commentator Esther Dyson nailed the term in the Guardian some years ago, and also expanded on the theme, noting that: "The best viral marketing is not just word-of-mouth, as some people carelessly assume... Each time the user uses the product/service, he's promoting it to others." ('Second sight' Esther Dyson, Guardian Unlimited, April 8, 1999). The classic virally-marketed product was Hotmail, which advertised itself at the end of each message sent -- without the user being aware, or necessarily desiring to this. BlackBerry email is a modern equivalent.

Viral marketing is currently one of the most misused terms in the new media industry. Considering the hype and abuse of concepts during the Internet bubble -- virtual, portal, push media, sticky content -- one would hope commentators had learned to be a bit sceptical about terms that are liberally (and carelessly) applied. Today the significance of developments such as Weblogging and podcasting are being undermined as all and sundry attempt to appropriate their associated kudos for their own activities. We need to be more careful with our language if we want to make the most of real innovations in new media.

Published (slightly edited) as a letter in Media Guardian, January 2, 2006. Letter available on Media Guardian [free sub may be required required]

Public views on the future of the Web

To mark the 10th anniversary of the Newsnight interviewed Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and followed up with a request for viewers's views. Most responses remarked on interviewer Mark Lawson's negative line of questioning. My response follows:

If the web and associated technologies have been successfully implemented, we won't think at all about the web 10 or 20 years from now. If we are still conscious of going online, using a PC, or "firing up a Web browser" we will have failed. Successful technologies fit into our lives, are easy to use (assuming we are even aware of using them at all), and are taken for granted. Think electricity and electric motors, the internal combustion engine, television and radio - or even the mobile phone.

For other views see BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Your views: Future of the web, 9 August 2005.

Our standard of living is being sacrificed

In the Financial Times, David Begg, a former government adviser on transport and director of the Centre for Transport Policy, argued that transport secretary Alistair Darling faces two challenges ("Road pricing is necessary as well as possible", David Begg, May 16 [paid sub required]): to "maintain the high levels of investment he won for transport during Labour's second term", and address the "environmental impact of more travellers". Noting that new technology "will result in less polluting cars and aircraft" he counters that "all the advice government has been given is that this will be eclipsed by the increased demand for travel".

Building our way out of the congestion problem is not achievable financially and, even if it were, is not sustainable. Mr Darling should respond by introducing a more sensible and efficient pricing policy for the use of the infrastructure, one that takes into account externalities such as congestion and pollution and that allows the government to tackle both congestion and environmental problems simultaneously.

On public support he notes that "London has shown the way with its successful congestion charge, but the negative referendum result in Edinburgh has confirmed that public support is not yet evident elsewhere" and that "public debate has been subdued".

He discusses the Transport Innovation Fund principle of funding based on 'locking in' switches to public transport, and argues for "fiscal and other measures of restraint to stop the roads filling up again with new traffic". He concludes that "[i]ncreasing fuel duty has become a political no-go area. Congestion charging must not suffer the same fate".

Unlike many advocates for congestion charging, David Begg is at least honest enough to claim that building our way out of the congestion problem is not financially achievable. He also believes that, even if it were, this strategy is not sustainable. In case, we should also be honest enough to state that congestion charging reduces our standard of living.

While real innovation in transportation appears to be off the agenda, and, in London at least, even the basics of traffic management are barely addressed, the only logical step will be to periodically increase the congestion charge -- as will happen in the capital this July. For all New Labour's claims for our greater economic prosperity, our real standard of living is being quietly sacrificed at the altars of finance and sustainability.

Published (slightly edited) as a letter in the Financial Times, 18 May 2005. Letter available on FT.com [paid sub required]

BusinessWeek's impressionistic approach to Weblogging

BusinessWeek made Weblogging the cover story, with gushing nine page feature which mimicks Weblog style using timed postings ("Blogs Will Change Your Business," May 2, 2005 [paid sub required]). A nice trick, but the piece suffered from the same impressionistic approach that undermines current practice in the phenomenon it described.

To what problem is Weblogging the answer? No problem in reality, and every problem in the minds of its boosters. Haven't we seen this trend before, in push media, home page building sites, portals and viral marketing? In each case any similar activity was subtly redefined to reinforce the apparent rise of the vogue phenomenon.

But the totality of communication cannot be shoe-horned into the form of short, reverse diary entries, based around links, with added comments. This format is unlikely to suit corporate communications, internal knowledge sharing, organisational home pages, or even news publications. As for Weblogging CEOs, much as I enjoy Sun exec Jonathan Schwartz's posts, is this really what we want our corporate leaders spending hours a day doing?

There are a number of important characteristics and elements of Weblogging, including ease of use, contextualised linking, visibility, structure and malleability, syndication, trackback and comments. To its credit, the piece does consider new models for writing:

If this were a real blog, we probably would have posted our story pitch on Day One, before we did any reporting. In the blog world, a host of experts (including many of the same ones we called for this story) would weigh in, telling us what's wrong, what we're overlooking. In many ways, it's a similar editorial process. But it takes place in the open. It's a discussion.

Most other characteristics and elements are skated over in the piece, but if they are properly understood and carefully harnessed they present tremendous possibilities for information, opinion and knowledge sharing -- and for journalism. However, in the blizzard of journalistic hype these subtle forms they create are being lost.

Earlier draft published as the lead letter (with pull quote) in the Business Week Readers Report section, as Cheers and sneers for the blogsphere, 23 May 2005 [paid sub required]

Don't berate people for not adapting to the digital world

Maggie Brown, in a column in Media Guardian, argues that although Rupert Murdoch probably is something of a 'true digital native' the digital divide, especially between people of his generation and the rest, is a silent election issue. And she references a recent Oxford Internet Institute study revealing that Internet access in Britain has plateaued.

Brown is right to note that the culture of fear is deterring some older people from using the Internet (The great internet boom has stalled, April 25, 2005). But to use perjorative terms such as 'hard core' and 'refuseniks' is inappropriate. So is the idea that there is a digital divide, when the reality is that we all live in digital poverty -- and all needed to be pulled out of it.

It is also wrong to imply that you need an Internet-connected personal computer to be 'digitally wealthy'. Everyone who uses a mobile phone uses a network, and if you send picture messages you are likely to be using Internet protocols. Likewise, every Sky Plus PVR, PlayStation games console, and car-based satellite navigation system is in reality a sophisticated (and connected) computer.

The beauty of these products is that they neatly hide their underlying technologies, in order that they might be fit for purpose, simple to use, and usable where they are wanted. The only people for who this is true with respect to personal computers are desk-based office workers -- and journalists.

When network-connected and computer-powered devices are as extensively and well-adapted to our lives as consumer electronics then people will willingly take them up, just as they have mobile phones. The onus should be on industry to create compelling and well-designed products, not on berating 'late adopters', or pushing for government regulation to fix a mythical digital divide