This text is from a couple of days ago as drafted on a piece of paper. I am still in part holiday mode till Sidmouth Folk Week is over, well maybe for much of August. I don't really have mobile computing, still rely on a desktop such as now.
This draft is to explain a line of questioning for video around learning technology starting with Lancaster campus as a set. Clips for context now include the Sony Reader in the Waterstones on Alexanderplatz. the Learning Zone is under construction, a resource for web connections.
There was work on the idea of Learning Organisations but also critique of some aspects and related quality ideas. Networked Learning described technology applied in organisations. Similar issues were discussed around Networked Learning as around Learning Organisations.
Recently social networking online has demonstrated possibilities. Possibly some of the aims discussed for Learning Organisations are now easier to realise. Policy discussion for Further Education now often considers what students already expect from web design.
What is now possible? Could it meet some of the requirements identified in previous critiques?
A couple of sites could illustrate the issues. Critical Management includes content on Web 2.0 but could have more involvement online. Is it just about announcements for realtime conferences? Networked Learning conference has a Facebook aspect that seems currently to be about ease of logging in. What other connections are possible?
Friday, July 31, 2009
More notes from the fortnight in Lancaster. Actually still on holiday in a sort of way. Sidmouth Folk Week is about to start so Exeter is close to a world class event. Too much to miss out on so daily bus trips are possible. Not sure which blog to put this in but more on this later.
For some time I have been thinking about a book called The Going of "The Book" - my life and times. Never quite sure when there is enough material to make an effective case or what the time scope should be. Most of the Verso book The Coming of the Book is online so what happened next could be the Going. Not that the book will vanish completely. The idea of "the book" as an authority is challenged as there are other media and as a new book can be created quite quickly.
Now i think there are three time periods, maybe the basis for different books. "Hello Spiders" is a way to describe a set of web text and/or pages that have been more or less stuck. For a long time the positive links around quality and print have been difficult to demonstrate. So Hello Spiders is mostly about a set of tensions.
In the future there could be forms of communication in which the book is included. The London college of Printing is now the London College of Communication but it is still unclear what this means. Many people I meet just think it is a mistake.
I have some more jottings but these are groups of words that could be slides. So more later.
I am thinking more outside normal time. Maybe these three phases overlap or exist simultaneously for different people.
For some time I have been thinking about a book called The Going of "The Book" - my life and times. Never quite sure when there is enough material to make an effective case or what the time scope should be. Most of the Verso book The Coming of the Book is online so what happened next could be the Going. Not that the book will vanish completely. The idea of "the book" as an authority is challenged as there are other media and as a new book can be created quite quickly.
Now i think there are three time periods, maybe the basis for different books. "Hello Spiders" is a way to describe a set of web text and/or pages that have been more or less stuck. For a long time the positive links around quality and print have been difficult to demonstrate. So Hello Spiders is mostly about a set of tensions.
In the future there could be forms of communication in which the book is included. The London college of Printing is now the London College of Communication but it is still unclear what this means. Many people I meet just think it is a mistake.
I have some more jottings but these are groups of words that could be slides. So more later.
I am thinking more outside normal time. Maybe these three phases overlap or exist simultaneously for different people.
Monday, July 27, 2009
The hard copy Bookseller also has a section on digital news including a link to Tools of Change blog about how Scribd informs publishers of what is happening on the store. At the London Book Fair there was some worry about Scribd and copyright from journal publishers. Will this change by next year? My hard copy of Information World Review has arrived with a conference report linking to a website about university rankings through visibility of content.
After a bit more checking of links I went to the Exeter Central Library to look at hard copy. The Bookseller now emails me a daily sumnmary of news including a guess that a Kindle will reach the UK before Christmas. The hard copy has an editorial including an opinion that epub support on Kindle is something US publishers should have insisted on. Clearly the bookseller will push for this in the UK. Quite right too. Also saw an FT with a guess that Apple will launch a new iPod some time soon, mostly for movies but also with a guess that book publishers have been in touch. More detail than the references on the web. So once the summer break is over the ebook scene will move on. I am quite happy with the Sony Reader. Some delay while a memory card is moved from a desktop but at least something of a book is associated with delay and consideration. Just pumping a stream into a mobile device is not quite the same, whatever it is. But the world of education will just get used to it, ready or not.
Some web searching to add links
http://www.dius.gov.uk
but the name seems to be BIS, Business Innovation and Skills
The Twitter policy on Scribd
Henry Porter previously
http://www.dius.gov.uk
but the name seems to be BIS, Business Innovation and Skills
The Twitter policy on Scribd
Henry Porter previously
Back in Exeter from a fortnight near Lancaster. More later on photos and video from the campus. I did sort of have web access but used only briefly so as not to test the patience of neighbors lending wifi. I took to blogging on paper so this is from Friday 24th-
The DTI has a Twitter policy. This I discovered through a search on the word "Scribd" where a document has been posted. Not called the DTI, someting else, but the building is still in Victoria Street. Over the weekend I will be back in Exeter so can check such things later.
I was prompted to search on "Scribd" by an article in the Guardian Tech pages (Page 6, 23 July). Bobbie Johnson interviewed Trip Adlert in San Francisco. Surely the store will be extended to the UK some time soon. Why else would this turn up? Previously Scribd has been mentioned only negatively by professional writers such as Henry Porter. the literary bit of the Guardian is on a different timescale to the Tech pages on a Thursday. Adler explains that the idea for Scribd started with his father, a neurosurgeon who wanted to publish faster than the normal eighteen months for a journal. "He just wanted to get things up there." So later versions may be more refined, better informed etc. but someting happens quickly. Will the people in Victoria Street think about this and UK universities? My impression is that most acadamic journal publishing is now digital but also more closed off to public space than when there was hard copy in libraries. Scribd has material around trade, industry, whatever but maybe not much of an overlap with journals. not sure about this, just a guess from memory. to be checked later this year. anyway, the education scope on a Guardian Tuesday could include Scribd as well.
I used to think there was a Guardian editorial policy to control the dissonance of various attitudes to the Web. the policy seemed to be to encourage association for a technical audience or online ; to offer maximum resistance in print or for a n audience associated with education or literature. Now i am not so sure there is a policy, just different people with different views. There may be a shift towards the Web eventually. the Readers Editor reports complaints about the reduction in printed pages. Once the defence for this includes the benefit of the website there may be less insistance on a special role for print, though print will continue as an aspect of news organisations.
Meanwhile I think I must have another look at my Twitter feed. It may be a way of linking blogs together.
The DTI has a Twitter policy. This I discovered through a search on the word "Scribd" where a document has been posted. Not called the DTI, someting else, but the building is still in Victoria Street. Over the weekend I will be back in Exeter so can check such things later.
I was prompted to search on "Scribd" by an article in the Guardian Tech pages (Page 6, 23 July). Bobbie Johnson interviewed Trip Adlert in San Francisco. Surely the store will be extended to the UK some time soon. Why else would this turn up? Previously Scribd has been mentioned only negatively by professional writers such as Henry Porter. the literary bit of the Guardian is on a different timescale to the Tech pages on a Thursday. Adler explains that the idea for Scribd started with his father, a neurosurgeon who wanted to publish faster than the normal eighteen months for a journal. "He just wanted to get things up there." So later versions may be more refined, better informed etc. but someting happens quickly. Will the people in Victoria Street think about this and UK universities? My impression is that most acadamic journal publishing is now digital but also more closed off to public space than when there was hard copy in libraries. Scribd has material around trade, industry, whatever but maybe not much of an overlap with journals. not sure about this, just a guess from memory. to be checked later this year. anyway, the education scope on a Guardian Tuesday could include Scribd as well.
I used to think there was a Guardian editorial policy to control the dissonance of various attitudes to the Web. the policy seemed to be to encourage association for a technical audience or online ; to offer maximum resistance in print or for a n audience associated with education or literature. Now i am not so sure there is a policy, just different people with different views. There may be a shift towards the Web eventually. the Readers Editor reports complaints about the reduction in printed pages. Once the defence for this includes the benefit of the website there may be less insistance on a special role for print, though print will continue as an aspect of news organisations.
Meanwhile I think I must have another look at my Twitter feed. It may be a way of linking blogs together.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Also at Lancaster I hope to look at the new Learning Zone alongside Alexanderplatz as I think of it. Moving images around in time and space is making more sense as online sets the pace, often through things I have just found though they were posted long ago.
Architecture for universities is a sign of relevance. The Infolab 21 building can be seen from the motorway and looks very technical. The Learning Zone I can only guess at from the images on the fence while it is being built. It strated out as fairly casula but then went a bit corporate. Maybe there is still a fence but I hope to post a photo later.
Quick check shows that InfoLab 21 is connected with similar topics to those discussed in Bristol. Wired Preston coming up on Tuesday.
Architecture for universities is a sign of relevance. The Infolab 21 building can be seen from the motorway and looks very technical. The Learning Zone I can only guess at from the images on the fence while it is being built. It strated out as fairly casula but then went a bit corporate. Maybe there is still a fence but I hope to post a photo later.
Quick check shows that InfoLab 21 is connected with similar topics to those discussed in Bristol. Wired Preston coming up on Tuesday.
So far I have only loaded to YouTube the presentation on Betavine. Steve Wolak has a blog where the slides may turn up.
Meanwhile Slideshare has two other presentations
Meanwhile Slideshare has two other presentations
App Stores Global Opportunities
View more documents from kgutteridge.
I went to the openMIC event last Thursday, intended for developers for mobile software. Ning site link here.
This has jumped me into a future with some kind of base. There is an energy about linking cloud content and mobile devices. Living in Exeter we sometimes find this more online than through people we meet. So there is a reason to visit Bristol once in a while. I think we might be better working out how to use the technology with original content than trying to compete on technology as such.
But anyway the main point seems to me to be that the debates about e-books and "technology enhanced learning" if that is still the approved academic term could be some way behind what is going on. The developers are using available technology. I now realise how much the Twitter interest follows on from earlier mobile messaging. there was almost no mention of the Kindle or e-book devices. Books are just a small part of a larger shift. There were references to knowledge and learning but just in the context of something already happening.
Not sure what is happening with "Networked Learning" and related projects. Design seems to wait on sorting out some critical issues. Later this month I will visit Lancaster and hope to find some journals in the library.
This has jumped me into a future with some kind of base. There is an energy about linking cloud content and mobile devices. Living in Exeter we sometimes find this more online than through people we meet. So there is a reason to visit Bristol once in a while. I think we might be better working out how to use the technology with original content than trying to compete on technology as such.
But anyway the main point seems to me to be that the debates about e-books and "technology enhanced learning" if that is still the approved academic term could be some way behind what is going on. The developers are using available technology. I now realise how much the Twitter interest follows on from earlier mobile messaging. there was almost no mention of the Kindle or e-book devices. Books are just a small part of a larger shift. There were references to knowledge and learning but just in the context of something already happening.
Not sure what is happening with "Networked Learning" and related projects. Design seems to wait on sorting out some critical issues. Later this month I will visit Lancaster and hope to find some journals in the library.
Monday, June 01, 2009
I have found an online source for some articles I looked at in journals a few months ago. Paper copies as was. Mostly on the drupa and IPEX blogs I am looking at the move to e-books and digital publishing. Academic journals have mostly moved online but one consequence is that they are even harder to find for non-academics. You used to be able to visit a library and read journals. now they are often only behind an id and password.
Anyway, Elsevier have a current offer of a free look at a copy of The Leadership Quarterly with a special issue on "Leadership and Organizational Learning" edited by Leadership and Organizational Learning edited by David A. Waldman, Yair Berson, and Robert T. Keller. It is interesting for me that they are still looking at Leadership while going back to Organizational Learning. I put it this way after the changes at Lancaster where the concentration on Learning Organisations was dropped in favour of Leadership. I found this quite confusing and it made it much harder to relate learning to anything to do with quality. Quality systems were pretty much out of the discussion as far as I could tell. So this new direction, at least new to me, not sure what else is going on, is interesting. The editors write in an introduction-
It strikes me that none of this is from the UK though there is a link to Management Learning. I don't know what else is being written so link suggestions are welcome. If in a journal please suggest where to find the paper.
Anyway, Elsevier have a current offer of a free look at a copy of The Leadership Quarterly with a special issue on "Leadership and Organizational Learning" edited by Leadership and Organizational Learning edited by David A. Waldman, Yair Berson, and Robert T. Keller. It is interesting for me that they are still looking at Leadership while going back to Organizational Learning. I put it this way after the changes at Lancaster where the concentration on Learning Organisations was dropped in favour of Leadership. I found this quite confusing and it made it much harder to relate learning to anything to do with quality. Quality systems were pretty much out of the discussion as far as I could tell. So this new direction, at least new to me, not sure what else is going on, is interesting. The editors write in an introduction-
In sum, as advanced economies become more knowledge based, the importance of leadership for learning and innovation will increase, and the ability to create a climate for learning will likely become a valuable leader asset. This special issue of The Leadership Quarterly will help provide new knowledge and ideas in this direction.I came across this through an article in Management Learning by Daina Mazutis and Natalie Slawinski - Leading Organizational Learning Through Authentic Dialogue.
We develop propositions that integrate the leadership and organizational learning literatures and offer suggestions for future research.
It strikes me that none of this is from the UK though there is a link to Management Learning. I don't know what else is being written so link suggestions are welcome. If in a journal please suggest where to find the paper.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
I have done a post on ReadG about two scenarios for the Guardian, following Jeff Jarvis and Buzzmachine or trying to carry on as before. I think most newspapers will fail to make the transition that Jarvis is trying to conjure up. Victor Keegan writes about the problems of the music industry where the web energy comes from new companies. The same could happen with news.
academics sometimes query why quality books usually give the impression that there is a route to success, that companies do not usually fail. this may be because the quality books are written for working managers and there is no need to be too depressing. However there could be academic studies of how companies fail for quality reasons. Quality being the bundle of attributes that the users experience.
For example the print Guardian seems to me to be failing to report publishing technology through companies such as Stanza and Scribd while allowing far too much knocking copy about bloggers. Hey this is only a blog. Proper paper may follow when there is a bit more evidence.
academics sometimes query why quality books usually give the impression that there is a route to success, that companies do not usually fail. this may be because the quality books are written for working managers and there is no need to be too depressing. However there could be academic studies of how companies fail for quality reasons. Quality being the bundle of attributes that the users experience.
For example the print Guardian seems to me to be failing to report publishing technology through companies such as Stanza and Scribd while allowing far too much knocking copy about bloggers. Hey this is only a blog. Proper paper may follow when there is a bit more evidence.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
The Espresso is staying in my mind after the London Book Fair. There could be collections of readings in very small runs to work out what makes sense to different groups of people. I think I will start with the papers I have done for conferences at Lancaster and try to find other ones that are ok to include. Starting just with online links, but trying for a "book" sometime later. The book is now spun off from the Web, at least some of the time.
Friday, May 01, 2009
This cropped screenshot just to show how bad the Critical Management site design is. No wonder there are so few posts. A lot of the ideas I don't mind. Quite happy to support the take on what is taught at business schools. Except that there is still a blindspot on quality. HR is accepted as part of the landscape as it has enough scale in practice. The Quality Department is still not on the radar or something like that, only turns up as rhetoric to be exposed.
Anyway, back on topic, the Critical Management dialogue has taken on Web 2 as it appears so tech news could relate. Sony Reader and EPUB offer a new authority for HTML as XHTML duly considered to be loaded to a device. More or less a book but much quicker. Search on epub@lbf on YouTube for more links on this. What is "peer review" ? Is it something that takes a couple of years so you can be sure of what was said some time ago? Some terrible rubbish leaps up the blog charts it is true, but new forms of publishing are possible.
Jeff Jarvis is repeating himself on newspapers ( without much thanks from the journalists losing their jobs ) and has extended his scope to universities. See Reboot the University on Buzzmachine. Includes link to extended extract from What would Google Do?
I think that quality ideas could assist newspapers or news organisations to adjust to the Web. So these topics may cohere. The impact on universities is just starting. Academic websites are one indication.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Recently visited Lancaster and the campus was quiet enough to find somewhere to park. More Flickr photos. Concentrating on the InfoLab21 end as the Spicy Hut has closed. There is a lot of building happening and there may not be many places left just for hanging out. Parking very difficult so I have included a photo of the Bowling green near Booths car park. could be useful, free WiFi.
Waterstones is still not stocking the Sony reader at the campus branch. So the imagined route is via bus to the shopping centre. Consumer electronics now has a lead on the bookshops, maybe the libraries also as far as I can tell. What sorts of knowledge can be distinguished? More on this after the London Book Fair.
Also new video on YouTube
one
two
three
Waterstones is still not stocking the Sony reader at the campus branch. So the imagined route is via bus to the shopping centre. Consumer electronics now has a lead on the bookshops, maybe the libraries also as far as I can tell. What sorts of knowledge can be distinguished? More on this after the London Book Fair.
Also new video on YouTube
one
two
three
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Sony and others will present a seminar about ePUB etc during the London Book Fair.
I have sent in a question
Maybe trhere will be an answer before the 20th April.
The Cromwell room was also used by the LCC Futures Conference so this will be a good test of my theory that access will be easier when the entire ground floor is one space.
I have sent in a question
There is a problem in that ePUB files are being viewd on Stanza and other software for computer and phone screens.
Have people been warned about staring at such screens too long?
This is a question for Stanza obviously but also about the prices for dedicated devices. Can they be afforded? When will the prices become more suitable for a larger audience?
The numbers I have seen suggest that there are more Stanza downloads than sales of Readers. Is there any evidence that this will not continue?
Maybe trhere will be an answer before the 20th April.
The Cromwell room was also used by the LCC Futures Conference so this will be a good test of my theory that access will be easier when the entire ground floor is one space.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
The idea of a blended space could apply to Earl's Court. Like blended learning the Web aspect includes travel in time and space. I think it is time to realise that trade shows only take place in UK time, at least for most of the ones I attend. drupa is every four years but even for the printing industry time is not standing still.
Somewhere on the planet another trade show or event covers most things as they happen online anyway. On the blogs for IPEX and drupa I have recently looked at ePUB and the Total Print Expo where I will suggest some slides for the LCC Futures Conference.
It could yet happen that the Print show would happen at the same time as for Publishing. It makes sense to me. Print in Earl's Court 2, all software on the upstairs floor. Apart from anything else there could be a direct escalator from the print equipment to the LCC Futures Conference. walking all the way to the front of the building then usually back again is just not sensible.
The book discussion is linked to print. Digital may be catching up with litho. The eBook production technology relates to workflow for prepress and Web2Print.
But why stop there? Online Information has Oxford University Press and several others who could usefully explain their digital publishing strategy. They could be at Earl's Court also, along with BETT to supply some energy and fill the upstairs with software. Learning Technology could be run alongside BETT at Olympia for a few years till this idea takes off.
Meanwhile I have an apartment on Twinity but they have yet to reach London and may start closer to Soho, moving out slowly.
Somewhere on the planet another trade show or event covers most things as they happen online anyway. On the blogs for IPEX and drupa I have recently looked at ePUB and the Total Print Expo where I will suggest some slides for the LCC Futures Conference.
LCC Futures 2009
View more presentations from will789.
It could yet happen that the Print show would happen at the same time as for Publishing. It makes sense to me. Print in Earl's Court 2, all software on the upstairs floor. Apart from anything else there could be a direct escalator from the print equipment to the LCC Futures Conference. walking all the way to the front of the building then usually back again is just not sensible.
The book discussion is linked to print. Digital may be catching up with litho. The eBook production technology relates to workflow for prepress and Web2Print.
But why stop there? Online Information has Oxford University Press and several others who could usefully explain their digital publishing strategy. They could be at Earl's Court also, along with BETT to supply some energy and fill the upstairs with software. Learning Technology could be run alongside BETT at Olympia for a few years till this idea takes off.
Meanwhile I have an apartment on Twinity but they have yet to reach London and may start closer to Soho, moving out slowly.
Oh dear my stats for slideshow downloads are back to normal. It was an April fool joke.
Still, the Scribd numbers for the associated papers are still ok, a lot more people than were there at the time.
So I have done another presentation as draft for the LCC Futures Conference. See blog about drupa.
Still, the Scribd numbers for the associated papers are still ok, a lot more people than were there at the time.
So I have done another presentation as draft for the LCC Futures Conference. See blog about drupa.
The Guardian has a report on Business Schools, corporate responsibility, sustainability and the MBA culture that may have contributed to current financial problems.
There are quotes from Hugh Wilmott and Alessia Contu but the word "critique" is hardly mentioned. The impression you might get is of of a fairly mild social responsibility stream within a free market business school. This is a major problem I think. Managers who do go on a critique course could easily be confused by Habermas and Foucault etc. if completely unexpected.
Some clarity would be helpful.
Sage have an offer on journals at the moment, including Management Learning. It seems to be about practice but it is not easy to understand. Might there be an introduction or guide somewhere for managers who might want to relate to this sort of writing?
There are quotes from Hugh Wilmott and Alessia Contu but the word "critique" is hardly mentioned. The impression you might get is of of a fairly mild social responsibility stream within a free market business school. This is a major problem I think. Managers who do go on a critique course could easily be confused by Habermas and Foucault etc. if completely unexpected.
Some clarity would be helpful.
Sage have an offer on journals at the moment, including Management Learning. It seems to be about practice but it is not easy to understand. Might there be an introduction or guide somewhere for managers who might want to relate to this sort of writing?
I am trying to imagine the Lancaster Learning Zone as a blended space. A blended space is a location for learning as remembered or imagined as well as being real if you have the attention span to notice.
I took some photos last year and here are some more from Flickr. Sidelong has made them Creative Commons so it is ok to lift them for this blog. Comment on Flickr is that the "virtual world is strangely grey", looking at the back view of the students on the hoarding. The thing is that official photos have to be unidentified to avoid legal problems. This is especially the case in schools. I think it is likely to represent young people as threatening if you never see their faces.
So a learning zone more Web 2 would have more informal photos, as I guess it.
Still, this learning zone is something towards informal Web access so is well worth thinking about. It is located near the library the bookshop and the newsagent, not to mention the post office. Comparison with a city centre could follow. In Exeter meanwhile LifeBytes has folded but there is still some Web access on desktops. Wireless devices seem to be the growth area.
Blended spaces abound.
Monday, April 06, 2009
In Praise of Scribd
The new week starts in lean forward mode. The weekend is for leaning back and just accepting what the Sunday Newspaper has to tell us. Digesting food may take longer than usual and there is time for a walk in the sunshine. But then you realise that some things in the papers make no sense at all.
Henry Porter writes a normal sort of opinion for a known writer about the dangers of Google for copyright. "Google is just an amoral menace". Then he turns on Scridb as apparently another one of the "worldwide monopolies that sweep all before them with exuberant contempt for people's rights, their property and the past."
It is true that Scribd offers free downloads of documents for 55 million readers. Whether publishers are taking more action than usual to remove texts from the list is disputed. The main news development that Porter fails to mention is that book publishers including Random House and Simon & Schuster have agreed with Scribd to post promotional extracts from their titles as part of the Scribd resource.
Scribd Partners with Major Publishers to Bring Books, Exclusive Content to Community of 50 Million+
My guess, and this is obviously speculation, is that UK publishers are less keen on the global potential of the Web. they may prefer the protection of regional copyright deals. Look out for announcements of Scribd deals with publishers mainly based in London.
I have been posting documents to Scribd for about a year and welcome the response.
I have done some papers for academic conferences from a practitioner point of view. One about ISO 9000 has had almost 1,500 views and one about Dr Deming is approaching 5,000. Most of the comments are positive.
The design of the website is easy to use. They use Flash for display from any source such as Word or PDF. It loads very quickly compared to launching Word or Acrobat from a browser. The design is not Flash as in Adobe however. The Adobe websites now always feature something animated or load a video whether requested or not. Flash is forced on you all the time. The Scribd site seems to be designed by people who like text documents and classic page layout.
Scribd claims to be the "largest social publishing website". This social aspect allows for groups and collaboration as on a music site. My paper on ISO 9000 has been added to a couple of MBA study groups where I can find other material.
The Guardian today has a story about Cambridge University Press. My guess is that there is more of a Web strategy than appears from this report of the difficulties for litho printing. Problems include the development that "academics who used to rely on hardback books to help climb the career ladder have more recently been turning to the kind of self-publishing and free distribution offered by the internet."
The report has no more detail on open access models but my impression is that only Science Medicine and Technology journals have really engaged with the issues around public access to knowledge. Humanities and Social Science journal publishing is still closed down to university libraries by prohibitive subscriptions. So the leaks of papers in draft and alternate versions that may turn up on the Web are entirely to be welcomed, in my honest opinion.
Open access publishing is often discussed in Information World Review, a recent editorial for example. "What is clear is that open access publishing isn’t going to go away, and discussions to overcome the substantial differences between the different stakeholders must go on." It was recently reported that journal contracts allow more rights than is often supposed to publish draft or alternate versions of papers. My suggestion is that they should be posted to Scribd where they would be easily found. Department archives or personal websites may be as obvious for the spiders.
Previously Oxford University Press has made arrangements with Stanford for digital journal publishing. It may seem too simple to give up on a long tradition of printing and subcontract a new method of publishing. But it may be effective. At Online Information 2008 Highwire Press showed they were extending their platform for other content.
These issues will come up during the London Bookfair. Sony have sponsored a digital space with several presentations. It is possible that the 2009 London bookfair will be remembered as an occasion for progress in digital publishing. At the moment it seems more likely that the noise in the print media will be a continuation of misinformation and self-serving nonsense.
As far as I know there has not been a print review from London of the book "Everything is Miscellaneous" by David Weinberger although he has been a keynote speaker at Online Information with similar content. What is the connection between publishing as technology and the world of book reviews? Not very clear. Here is the result for a search on Scribd - reasonable guide to the issues, might persuade someone to read the book.
Everything is miscellaneous Weinberger
Following the London Bookfair some of this text may be recycled for an OhmyNews story so comment and link suggestions are welcome.
The new week starts in lean forward mode. The weekend is for leaning back and just accepting what the Sunday Newspaper has to tell us. Digesting food may take longer than usual and there is time for a walk in the sunshine. But then you realise that some things in the papers make no sense at all.
Henry Porter writes a normal sort of opinion for a known writer about the dangers of Google for copyright. "Google is just an amoral menace". Then he turns on Scridb as apparently another one of the "worldwide monopolies that sweep all before them with exuberant contempt for people's rights, their property and the past."
It is true that Scribd offers free downloads of documents for 55 million readers. Whether publishers are taking more action than usual to remove texts from the list is disputed. The main news development that Porter fails to mention is that book publishers including Random House and Simon & Schuster have agreed with Scribd to post promotional extracts from their titles as part of the Scribd resource.
Scribd Partners with Major Publishers to Bring Books, Exclusive Content to Community of 50 Million+
My guess, and this is obviously speculation, is that UK publishers are less keen on the global potential of the Web. they may prefer the protection of regional copyright deals. Look out for announcements of Scribd deals with publishers mainly based in London.
I have been posting documents to Scribd for about a year and welcome the response.
I have done some papers for academic conferences from a practitioner point of view. One about ISO 9000 has had almost 1,500 views and one about Dr Deming is approaching 5,000. Most of the comments are positive.
The design of the website is easy to use. They use Flash for display from any source such as Word or PDF. It loads very quickly compared to launching Word or Acrobat from a browser. The design is not Flash as in Adobe however. The Adobe websites now always feature something animated or load a video whether requested or not. Flash is forced on you all the time. The Scribd site seems to be designed by people who like text documents and classic page layout.
Scribd claims to be the "largest social publishing website". This social aspect allows for groups and collaboration as on a music site. My paper on ISO 9000 has been added to a couple of MBA study groups where I can find other material.
The Guardian today has a story about Cambridge University Press. My guess is that there is more of a Web strategy than appears from this report of the difficulties for litho printing. Problems include the development that "academics who used to rely on hardback books to help climb the career ladder have more recently been turning to the kind of self-publishing and free distribution offered by the internet."
The report has no more detail on open access models but my impression is that only Science Medicine and Technology journals have really engaged with the issues around public access to knowledge. Humanities and Social Science journal publishing is still closed down to university libraries by prohibitive subscriptions. So the leaks of papers in draft and alternate versions that may turn up on the Web are entirely to be welcomed, in my honest opinion.
Open access publishing is often discussed in Information World Review, a recent editorial for example. "What is clear is that open access publishing isn’t going to go away, and discussions to overcome the substantial differences between the different stakeholders must go on." It was recently reported that journal contracts allow more rights than is often supposed to publish draft or alternate versions of papers. My suggestion is that they should be posted to Scribd where they would be easily found. Department archives or personal websites may be as obvious for the spiders.
Previously Oxford University Press has made arrangements with Stanford for digital journal publishing. It may seem too simple to give up on a long tradition of printing and subcontract a new method of publishing. But it may be effective. At Online Information 2008 Highwire Press showed they were extending their platform for other content.
These issues will come up during the London Bookfair. Sony have sponsored a digital space with several presentations. It is possible that the 2009 London bookfair will be remembered as an occasion for progress in digital publishing. At the moment it seems more likely that the noise in the print media will be a continuation of misinformation and self-serving nonsense.
As far as I know there has not been a print review from London of the book "Everything is Miscellaneous" by David Weinberger although he has been a keynote speaker at Online Information with similar content. What is the connection between publishing as technology and the world of book reviews? Not very clear. Here is the result for a search on Scribd - reasonable guide to the issues, might persuade someone to read the book.
Everything is miscellaneous Weinberger
Following the London Bookfair some of this text may be recycled for an OhmyNews story so comment and link suggestions are welcome.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Sustainability and ISO 9004 relate more than I thought. I have not been paying enough attention. Possibly the words are not meaning the same as for academics in Lancaster. still there is enough overlap for some sort of conversation.
A new version of ISO 9004 2009 will be issued later this year. Can't find a draft online but the title is
Apparently it is not related to ISO 9001 clause by clause so may just add to confusion. It is intended to show management how the standards could be useful. I have found a couple of PDF slideshows that offer some idea, but not details of the standard. Suggest right click and save as, these may not load as PDFs.
Inlac
ASQ Windsor
Some academics will doubtless just write this off as more neoliberal rhetoric etc. but some people have to work with these standards so my preference is for some study before reaching a conclusion. Much will depend on how the standards are reported and considered when actually published.
How do organisations survive? Could be getting harder for those associated with print. Disruption is gaining pace. ISO 9004 looks interesting but changes could be too rapid in some cases. Individuals still benefit from understanding and can transfer to another situation. Problems in the UK printing industry (see BPIF survey) may be followed by problems for libraries and book intensive universities. What would a sustainable business school be like? This sort of question widens the discussion for a general web audience.
A new version of ISO 9004 2009 will be issued later this year. Can't find a draft online but the title is
ISO 9004:2009 - Managing for Sustainability – A Quality Management System Approach
Apparently it is not related to ISO 9001 clause by clause so may just add to confusion. It is intended to show management how the standards could be useful. I have found a couple of PDF slideshows that offer some idea, but not details of the standard. Suggest right click and save as, these may not load as PDFs.
Inlac
ASQ Windsor
Some academics will doubtless just write this off as more neoliberal rhetoric etc. but some people have to work with these standards so my preference is for some study before reaching a conclusion. Much will depend on how the standards are reported and considered when actually published.
How do organisations survive? Could be getting harder for those associated with print. Disruption is gaining pace. ISO 9004 looks interesting but changes could be too rapid in some cases. Individuals still benefit from understanding and can transfer to another situation. Problems in the UK printing industry (see BPIF survey) may be followed by problems for libraries and book intensive universities. What would a sustainable business school be like? This sort of question widens the discussion for a general web audience.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Coming back to "Sustainability" it may be relevant to look at ISO 14000 on the environment. Also the guidance on ISO 9000 uses the same word or is heading that way. See ISO website as a starting point.
The Deming SIG is not yet ready to launch the documents on a sustainability model but meetings continue. Next one probably in June, details will be on the website.
There could be more dialogue with academics. Plan - Do - Check/Study - Act is arguably a learning cycle.
The Deming SIG is not yet ready to launch the documents on a sustainability model but meetings continue. Next one probably in June, details will be on the website.
There could be more dialogue with academics. Plan - Do - Check/Study - Act is arguably a learning cycle.
Slideshare Team rate me as a Rockstar! Do they send these emails to everyone?
There are various sites I have tried over the years and a slideshow presentation is quite rare for me. So they must mean the ones about ISO 9000 and whether it is worth another look following the 2000 revisions. (The recent revisions may have prompted some interest but not as extensive as several people see it) When I check it out the views on both sets of slides are over 10 thousand. Maybe most of this is recent.
The paper has had 1,400 views on Scribd so it is clear that people prefer slideshows...
Is ISO 9000 worth another look?
The first slideshow includes graphics of various kinds that flipped through to meet the moment. M@nagement web site had various problems and redesigns. I claim quality theory could relate to this. Hugh Wilmott views on quality are the blocking condition number one for any constructive dialogue in this area in my honest opinion.
The second slideshow follows the paper pretty much
At the time there was not much interest in this. The first Management Theory at Work took a turn when Chris Grey spoke about relevance. Maybe universities stand a better chance without claiming to be relevant. Something like that. Anyway, interest in ISO 9000 at a "research" level has remained low as far as I can tell.
Meanwhile I have written stories for OhmyNews, a citizen journalism site in Korea. The ISO Surveys have shown rapid relative decline for the UK on the ISO management standards scene. China is clearly in the lead and both the USA and UK have now started to show lower numbers, not just as a proportion of global certification.
China Leads Continued Growth in ISO 9000
Quality Certification Declines in Mature Countries
We've noticed that your slideshow on SlideShare has been getting a LOT of views in the last 24 hours. Great job ... you must be doing something right. ;-)
Why don't you tweet or blog this? Use the hashtag #bestofslideshare so we can track the conversation.
There are various sites I have tried over the years and a slideshow presentation is quite rare for me. So they must mean the ones about ISO 9000 and whether it is worth another look following the 2000 revisions. (The recent revisions may have prompted some interest but not as extensive as several people see it) When I check it out the views on both sets of slides are over 10 thousand. Maybe most of this is recent.
The paper has had 1,400 views on Scribd so it is clear that people prefer slideshows...
Is ISO 9000 worth another look?
The first slideshow includes graphics of various kinds that flipped through to meet the moment. M@nagement web site had various problems and redesigns. I claim quality theory could relate to this. Hugh Wilmott views on quality are the blocking condition number one for any constructive dialogue in this area in my honest opinion.
Miscpdf
View more presentations from will789.
The second slideshow follows the paper pretty much
Look9 Screen
View more presentations from will789.
At the time there was not much interest in this. The first Management Theory at Work took a turn when Chris Grey spoke about relevance. Maybe universities stand a better chance without claiming to be relevant. Something like that. Anyway, interest in ISO 9000 at a "research" level has remained low as far as I can tell.
Meanwhile I have written stories for OhmyNews, a citizen journalism site in Korea. The ISO Surveys have shown rapid relative decline for the UK on the ISO management standards scene. China is clearly in the lead and both the USA and UK have now started to show lower numbers, not just as a proportion of global certification.
China Leads Continued Growth in ISO 9000
Quality Certification Declines in Mature Countries
An email from Lancaster university suggests i would be interested in a new course on Leadership for Sustainability. Previously I have tried to link in ideas about quality systems but I don't think i have time for more study at the moment. More like blog and twitter level seems to be the case. But sustainability is definitely an issue. I attend meetings of the Deming SIG of the CQI where work is advanced on a document about a model of a sustainable organisation. "Sustainable" for the Chartered Quality Institute includes the idea that the organisation in question survives itself. My guess is that for academics the environment would be more of a priority. not sure about this but something to look out for as the course continues.
I have loaded the flier PDF to Scribd.
Leadership for Sustainability MA at Lancaster
It turns out that Lancaster is using social media much more than I realised. The code for the video at the bottom of the course page is dodgy and a Google search only finds Twitter to lead straight back to it.
However Google Video finds probably the video intended.
Over half an hour, no wonder it is not on YouTube. Attention span test before starting the study.
Later, more on learning organisations and ISO standards.
I have loaded the flier PDF to Scribd.
Leadership for Sustainability MA at Lancaster
It turns out that Lancaster is using social media much more than I realised. The code for the video at the bottom of the course page is dodgy and a Google search only finds Twitter to lead straight back to it.
However Google Video finds probably the video intended.
Over half an hour, no wonder it is not on YouTube. Attention span test before starting the study.
Later, more on learning organisations and ISO standards.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Not much happening, too little notice to encourage people to join Twinity online. LifeBytes is slowly winding down. More next week.
Also Twinity has been a bit wobbly today. You can now teleport direct to Humboldt University but it may not all be there.
Couple of short videos
more vanishing
finding Humboldt
Also Twinity has been a bit wobbly today. You can now teleport direct to Humboldt University but it may not all be there.
Couple of short videos
more vanishing
finding Humboldt
Thursday, March 19, 2009
This is the last weekend for LifeBytes, web resource in Exeter. There are places to eat that also have web access but it seems the era of the dedicated web retailer is coming to an end. Maybe it means that mobile devices are now good enough.
For me the downside includes probably not visiting Twinity for a while. At home my PC is full of junk and Twinity fails to install. Also the bandwidth is not that good. At LifeBytes they delete almost everything quite often and a new download of Twinity usually works ok.
So here are some stills with the essential point for the moment. I may have time to save some more in the next few days. If it was a video the plot outline would be to start with some tech vision in the Sony Centre
Then teleport to Brandenburger Tor, then follow Unter den Linden to the square near entrance to Humboldt. Discussion around the learning claims of the technology. Whatever energy survives spreads to cafes and apartments at the end of the day.
Basic structure of conversation much the same in other locations. The characters from Second Life are gradually getting spaces on Twinity.
Video from the spaces-
Kings Cross
Morecombe
Earl's Court
For me the downside includes probably not visiting Twinity for a while. At home my PC is full of junk and Twinity fails to install. Also the bandwidth is not that good. At LifeBytes they delete almost everything quite often and a new download of Twinity usually works ok.
So here are some stills with the essential point for the moment. I may have time to save some more in the next few days. If it was a video the plot outline would be to start with some tech vision in the Sony Centre
Then teleport to Brandenburger Tor, then follow Unter den Linden to the square near entrance to Humboldt. Discussion around the learning claims of the technology. Whatever energy survives spreads to cafes and apartments at the end of the day.
Basic structure of conversation much the same in other locations. The characters from Second Life are gradually getting spaces on Twinity.
Video from the spaces-
Kings Cross
Morecombe
Earl's Court
The various blogs could fit together better. I am trying to do another version of "Hello Spiders" and the "The Going of the Book" as if there is some sequence of events. The theory comes mostly from attempts to study at Lancaster. The problem is how to pass go. I still get the impression that "quality" is not part of the Management Learning scope. Maybe it is an HR thing as if operations are something else. Not sure at all. Maybe "critique" has to be part of the academic mix and quality is an easy target. They have to be polite about HR some of the time. Anyway I may be wrong in my memory and this impression could be tested again.
The current situation is that ePUB is doing well. I got into this looking at the print tradition and how it could morph. Today it is announced that the Google scan archive will be in ePUB format for the Sony Reader. When will Chris Argyris turn up? Some of his stuff was written a long time ago. Anyway back on topic, this is consumer electronics and the global cloud. Whether or not the ePUB design intention meets the criteria for conditions for dialogue, it exists and is widely available. It may be easier to look back on how learning has happened within a quality system. That is if you look at the history so far on e-books as a series of problems in production and customer objections. Starting out to ask academics who know about management learning to comment on a quality related design would have been more of a problem.
I still think ISO 9000 is a part of the quality scene and should be considered. In the UK the number of certificates continues to decline but on the planet, growth continues. So the explanation that people in the UK are now more sophisticated and do not need to bother may be only partial. It could be part of a decline in manufacturing or management.
So here are a couple of statements that could be checked out during study and also help to pass go.
On the drupa2008 and IPEX2002 blogs I am obviously out of time sequence. Issues just keep repeating. The Job Definition Format is getting less attention over time. "Web-to-Print" turns up more often in Printweek. So JDF and XML is in the background. Meanwhile ePUB offers an XML friendly route from author to reader fairly quickly so XML will continue as a publishing topic. The discussion around PDF and portable job tickets is urgent or else an explanation of why the hard copy aspect of publishing may decline as a proportion. I still find Adobe confusing in their insistence of Flash as a direction but this could be because they do not have confidence in the classic Adobe products to offer much margin.
The current situation is that ePUB is doing well. I got into this looking at the print tradition and how it could morph. Today it is announced that the Google scan archive will be in ePUB format for the Sony Reader. When will Chris Argyris turn up? Some of his stuff was written a long time ago. Anyway back on topic, this is consumer electronics and the global cloud. Whether or not the ePUB design intention meets the criteria for conditions for dialogue, it exists and is widely available. It may be easier to look back on how learning has happened within a quality system. That is if you look at the history so far on e-books as a series of problems in production and customer objections. Starting out to ask academics who know about management learning to comment on a quality related design would have been more of a problem.
I still think ISO 9000 is a part of the quality scene and should be considered. In the UK the number of certificates continues to decline but on the planet, growth continues. So the explanation that people in the UK are now more sophisticated and do not need to bother may be only partial. It could be part of a decline in manufacturing or management.
So here are a couple of statements that could be checked out during study and also help to pass go.
1a ISO 9000 can be part of an effective quality system
1b Learning is part of what happens while people engage with ideas about quality
On the drupa2008 and IPEX2002 blogs I am obviously out of time sequence. Issues just keep repeating. The Job Definition Format is getting less attention over time. "Web-to-Print" turns up more often in Printweek. So JDF and XML is in the background. Meanwhile ePUB offers an XML friendly route from author to reader fairly quickly so XML will continue as a publishing topic. The discussion around PDF and portable job tickets is urgent or else an explanation of why the hard copy aspect of publishing may decline as a proportion. I still find Adobe confusing in their insistence of Flash as a direction but this could be because they do not have confidence in the classic Adobe products to offer much margin.
2. The project around Postscript and PDF has reached a stage when the technology is widely understood and available. Because of standardisation and a range of current suppliers, developers look at other areas for innovation opportunities.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Jeff Jarvis on Buzzmachine is moving on ahead. He seems to assume that print is on the way out, though I think it will continue for some time.
Then he links to Hacking Education. This is still a bit sketchy at the moment.
Then he links to Hacking Education. This is still a bit sketchy at the moment.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Adult Education
Over the weekend I realised that e-books are making progress. there is enough momentum for a definite culture around them. What I wrote in blogs for IPEX and drupa is still making sense so I am starting to think about the ways this could influence approaches to knowlwdge and content. The Kindle format is carefully controlled and Amazon will try to keep pricing close to print books as requested by publishers. The ePUB format is based on open standards and seems better suited to open content. Adobe can arrange Digital Rights Management but anything on the web could be moved to XHTML fairly readily and the method for creating ePUB is better understood over time. InfoGrid Pacific have a route from Open Office though the business model is a bit vague at the moment. They are open to offers as to how they could be paid.
Previously I thought about knowledge as "official" and "grassroots" as in "Everything is Miscellaneous" by David Weinberger. So the collective view from people on the web is one sort of knowledge, the book suggested by a librarian is another. There are modes of knowledge production described by Gibbons and others. Some conferences distinguish academics and practitioners. I don't fully understand the "critique" theory, but part of the reason Chris Grey is "Against Learning" seems to be the positioning of official education.
There may be a new meaning for "adult education" around knowledge available through Amazon and/or as ePUB. Not sure how this will work out. The academic journals are now mostly digital but this has made public access more difficult. Texts appear online as drafts or leaks for humanities and social science but this is still in flux, like much else.
Over the weekend I realised that e-books are making progress. there is enough momentum for a definite culture around them. What I wrote in blogs for IPEX and drupa is still making sense so I am starting to think about the ways this could influence approaches to knowlwdge and content. The Kindle format is carefully controlled and Amazon will try to keep pricing close to print books as requested by publishers. The ePUB format is based on open standards and seems better suited to open content. Adobe can arrange Digital Rights Management but anything on the web could be moved to XHTML fairly readily and the method for creating ePUB is better understood over time. InfoGrid Pacific have a route from Open Office though the business model is a bit vague at the moment. They are open to offers as to how they could be paid.
Previously I thought about knowledge as "official" and "grassroots" as in "Everything is Miscellaneous" by David Weinberger. So the collective view from people on the web is one sort of knowledge, the book suggested by a librarian is another. There are modes of knowledge production described by Gibbons and others. Some conferences distinguish academics and practitioners. I don't fully understand the "critique" theory, but part of the reason Chris Grey is "Against Learning" seems to be the positioning of official education.
There may be a new meaning for "adult education" around knowledge available through Amazon and/or as ePUB. Not sure how this will work out. The academic journals are now mostly digital but this has made public access more difficult. Texts appear online as drafts or leaks for humanities and social science but this is still in flux, like much else.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Sorting out photos from Learning Technologies. Story for OhmyNews should be ready over the weekend.
Found this link from Google blogsearch. Seems that "informal learning" is part of the main conference.
Found this link from Google blogsearch. Seems that "informal learning" is part of the main conference.
Monday, January 26, 2009
This is a draft for a story around Learning Technologies for OhmyNews.
Comment welcome
--------------------
Adobe presents a case study in e-learning
"We always had confidence in the leadership" says researcher
draft story for OhmyNews around Learning Technologies -28/9 Jan
Next Generation Learning @ Work - driving business benefits
probably this will cover leadership, change managements, organisations.
Adobe have a stand. Last year the word Acrobat was visible but the messages were all about Flash, almost nothing on PDF or Postscript.
So a possible story could look at Adobe as an example of an organisation. How has it learnt over time? What is going on at the moment?
My guess is that the "towards maturity" research will not show top management as a major pressure for e-learning. Mostly it seems to be something that slips in through HR or somewhere over time and eventually is accepted. To be checked in conversation on the day.
Adobe is different. They are interested in software. Started in Xerox Parc a long time ago. Warnock and Geschke still seem to share being Chair. What is the influence of this?
Geschke to Knowledge at Wharton-
[running a company] can feel pretty lonely. Who do you talk to? That's one thing John and I have always tried to do for Bruce and Shantanu. We don't keep an office at Adobe. I don't want to be perceived as looking over their shoulders. [But] we make ourselves available anytime that they want to sit down. We usually have breakfast once a month with Shantanu to chat and see how things are going. If he wants to call, we'll be there immediately.
Around the time of buying Macromedia there seems to have been a shift in Adobe as if the entire Postscript / PDF project had been traded in. How would Warnock or Geschke think about this?
from same interview-
Knowledge@Wharton: What do you think is the biggest challenge Adobe is facing going forward?
Geschke: Inventing the future. We'll never succeed unless we continue to open up new vistas.
I honestly believe that our technology and what's happening in the market -- where essentially all visual communication is going to the web -- is the sweetheart point in our whole envelope of products and technologies. Shame on us if we can't figure out a way to take advantage of that shift in the way the world is moving with the distribution of information.
A lot of what are there today -- the limitations of browsers and of the web imaging standards -- are things that we think we have a solution for. As they become the primary delivery mechanism, that value is going to differentiate.
So "all visual communication is moving to the web". Is print just part of visual communication?
YouTube link to Warnock on newspapers in 2007
The Chief Technology Officer is now Kevin Lynch. I cannot find through Google that he ever mentions PDF.
So there could be a major shift here. I am still interested in print and PDF and find it quite hard to communicate with Adobe. The description "paranoid" sometimes makes sense but in a formal technical sense as described by Andrew S. Grove in his book - Only the Paranoid Survive
Look out for the inflection points. Move out of declining products fast.
Adobe may be right about this but I find it hard to keep up. Academic journals for example. What will happen? There is still a lot of text there but maybe future students will just not be very interested.
Am I making this up? Recent Adobe blog entry
many of you may have heard about Acrobat.com and simply dismissed it as some kind of PDF-Mecca
so being interested in PDF as such is not very cool.
I think about the change as Adobe Classic and Adobe(FLSH). Thsi Adobe(FLSH) comes from a blog after Max that I can no longer find.
Another sign is the lack of promotion for MARS or PDFXML. No blog updates since September and there is no other promotion.
Back to organisation theory.
At BETT I found a stand for the LSIS hidden away on a balcony. They merge quality and learning, though this ssems a slow process. I have worked on quality systems but find it hard to get people who study learning to be much interested. Maybe the academic theory relating to NSIS will be written down later once the practice is sorted out. There is a model here that includes leadership but I still have doubts about how many case studies it would fit.
In my story for OhmyNews about BETT I did not go into much detail about Adobe or Microsoft. I think both are looking too far into the future. Silverlight may serve a purpose later, but currently there is still interest in text and flat graphics. I did get some email response to earlier drafts so this may be included in a story about Learning Technologies. See below.
I think the ePUB format is interesting. There may be signs of devices at the show. However Adobe are not doing much to promote the Digital Editions Reader. Can't remember any sign of it last year. It turns everything into Flash.
Story will be based on what is actually displayed on the Adobe stand. The implication could be stark for how comprehensive an organisational change can be.
Questions
Will the price of Postscript and PDF products be reduced? Acrobat Elements any time soon?
Is there a business plan for Adobe Cloud?
Below, from replies to previous draft ahead of BETT
---------------------------------
while EPUB is fast on its way to becoming the standard for reflow-centric eBooks, I think it's a bit mixing apples and oranges (ok, chalk and cheese to you) to compare with PDFXML (Mars) or XML Paper. EPUB is designed to represent in a single file the structure of a publication, but not a particular final-form paginated appearance. Speaking only for myself, I think the reason that these other formats are not taking off (in the case of Mars, I will add "yet") is that PDF has ably occupied the fixed-format document standard, and now is a fully open ISO-level standard, which does not leave a compelling reason for another format standard to be broadly adopted to do the same job. While there's some advantages to XML-friendiness over the binary PDF format, and a more modular approach to packaging (ZIP vs. COS), on the flip side there's 1000s of software programs and libraries that grok today's PDF. EPUB is not a competitor since it is at a different level of abstraction (with with the addition of page-templates over time there will be EPUB publications with a reasonably polished preferred presentation, the intention is that different devices may still render quite differently, and I doubt that print/prepress workflows will ever work with EPUB, otherr than as an input format a la MS Word, RTF, etc.).
Our Digital Publishing team has a blog at: http://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleditions, and there's an Adobe DevNet digital publishing technology center that focused on EPUB best practices etc. at: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/digitalpublishing/ . My own rather non-technical blog is at http://blogs.adobe.com/billmccoy.
Cheers,
--Bill
Bill McCoy
General Manager, Digital Publishing Business
Adobe Systems Incorporated
bmccoy@adobe.com
-------------------------------
Will: I do not think that Adobe views the business of communicating information broken into two distinct camps as you have portrayed. I think we view it as a spectrum with "old" printing at one end and "new" rich internet applications at the other.
Most of our Creative Suite (CS) component products are used throughout the information communication industry. We estimate that 85% of all web pages have had some of the content processed in Photoshop. And Photoshop, well even the complete CS, is the primary tool for traditional publishing/printing.
Although in enterprise there was a split at first between the web team and the traditional print marketing materials team, nearly all companies have realized that there is so much in common that they have brought those teams back into one management structure. Companies are interested in getting their message out using whatever means is the most effective. And the most effective way for them to do that is to have people responsible for the objective and free to use whatever technology and tools work the best. Adobe serves that more general audience.
Just my thoughts,
Jim King
PDF Platform Architect
Comment welcome
--------------------
Adobe presents a case study in e-learning
"We always had confidence in the leadership" says researcher
draft story for OhmyNews around Learning Technologies -28/9 Jan
Next Generation Learning @ Work - driving business benefits
probably this will cover leadership, change managements, organisations.
Adobe have a stand. Last year the word Acrobat was visible but the messages were all about Flash, almost nothing on PDF or Postscript.
So a possible story could look at Adobe as an example of an organisation. How has it learnt over time? What is going on at the moment?
My guess is that the "towards maturity" research will not show top management as a major pressure for e-learning. Mostly it seems to be something that slips in through HR or somewhere over time and eventually is accepted. To be checked in conversation on the day.
Adobe is different. They are interested in software. Started in Xerox Parc a long time ago. Warnock and Geschke still seem to share being Chair. What is the influence of this?
Geschke to Knowledge at Wharton-
[running a company] can feel pretty lonely. Who do you talk to? That's one thing John and I have always tried to do for Bruce and Shantanu. We don't keep an office at Adobe. I don't want to be perceived as looking over their shoulders. [But] we make ourselves available anytime that they want to sit down. We usually have breakfast once a month with Shantanu to chat and see how things are going. If he wants to call, we'll be there immediately.
Around the time of buying Macromedia there seems to have been a shift in Adobe as if the entire Postscript / PDF project had been traded in. How would Warnock or Geschke think about this?
from same interview-
Knowledge@Wharton: What do you think is the biggest challenge Adobe is facing going forward?
Geschke: Inventing the future. We'll never succeed unless we continue to open up new vistas.
I honestly believe that our technology and what's happening in the market -- where essentially all visual communication is going to the web -- is the sweetheart point in our whole envelope of products and technologies. Shame on us if we can't figure out a way to take advantage of that shift in the way the world is moving with the distribution of information.
A lot of what are there today -- the limitations of browsers and of the web imaging standards -- are things that we think we have a solution for. As they become the primary delivery mechanism, that value is going to differentiate.
So "all visual communication is moving to the web". Is print just part of visual communication?
YouTube link to Warnock on newspapers in 2007
The Chief Technology Officer is now Kevin Lynch. I cannot find through Google that he ever mentions PDF.
So there could be a major shift here. I am still interested in print and PDF and find it quite hard to communicate with Adobe. The description "paranoid" sometimes makes sense but in a formal technical sense as described by Andrew S. Grove in his book - Only the Paranoid Survive
Look out for the inflection points. Move out of declining products fast.
Adobe may be right about this but I find it hard to keep up. Academic journals for example. What will happen? There is still a lot of text there but maybe future students will just not be very interested.
Am I making this up? Recent Adobe blog entry
many of you may have heard about Acrobat.com and simply dismissed it as some kind of PDF-Mecca
so being interested in PDF as such is not very cool.
I think about the change as Adobe Classic and Adobe(FLSH). Thsi Adobe(FLSH) comes from a blog after Max that I can no longer find.
Another sign is the lack of promotion for MARS or PDFXML. No blog updates since September and there is no other promotion.
Back to organisation theory.
At BETT I found a stand for the LSIS hidden away on a balcony. They merge quality and learning, though this ssems a slow process. I have worked on quality systems but find it hard to get people who study learning to be much interested. Maybe the academic theory relating to NSIS will be written down later once the practice is sorted out. There is a model here that includes leadership but I still have doubts about how many case studies it would fit.
In my story for OhmyNews about BETT I did not go into much detail about Adobe or Microsoft. I think both are looking too far into the future. Silverlight may serve a purpose later, but currently there is still interest in text and flat graphics. I did get some email response to earlier drafts so this may be included in a story about Learning Technologies. See below.
I think the ePUB format is interesting. There may be signs of devices at the show. However Adobe are not doing much to promote the Digital Editions Reader. Can't remember any sign of it last year. It turns everything into Flash.
Story will be based on what is actually displayed on the Adobe stand. The implication could be stark for how comprehensive an organisational change can be.
Questions
Will the price of Postscript and PDF products be reduced? Acrobat Elements any time soon?
Is there a business plan for Adobe Cloud?
Below, from replies to previous draft ahead of BETT
---------------------------------
while EPUB is fast on its way to becoming the standard for reflow-centric eBooks, I think it's a bit mixing apples and oranges (ok, chalk and cheese to you) to compare with PDFXML (Mars) or XML Paper. EPUB is designed to represent in a single file the structure of a publication, but not a particular final-form paginated appearance. Speaking only for myself, I think the reason that these other formats are not taking off (in the case of Mars, I will add "yet") is that PDF has ably occupied the fixed-format document standard, and now is a fully open ISO-level standard, which does not leave a compelling reason for another format standard to be broadly adopted to do the same job. While there's some advantages to XML-friendiness over the binary PDF format, and a more modular approach to packaging (ZIP vs. COS), on the flip side there's 1000s of software programs and libraries that grok today's PDF. EPUB is not a competitor since it is at a different level of abstraction (with with the addition of page-templates over time there will be EPUB publications with a reasonably polished preferred presentation, the intention is that different devices may still render quite differently, and I doubt that print/prepress workflows will ever work with EPUB, otherr than as an input format a la MS Word, RTF, etc.).
Our Digital Publishing team has a blog at: http://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleditions, and there's an Adobe DevNet digital publishing technology center that focused on EPUB best practices etc. at: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/digitalpublishing/ . My own rather non-technical blog is at http://blogs.adobe.com/billmccoy.
Cheers,
--Bill
Bill McCoy
General Manager, Digital Publishing Business
Adobe Systems Incorporated
bmccoy@adobe.com
-------------------------------
Will: I do not think that Adobe views the business of communicating information broken into two distinct camps as you have portrayed. I think we view it as a spectrum with "old" printing at one end and "new" rich internet applications at the other.
Most of our Creative Suite (CS) component products are used throughout the information communication industry. We estimate that 85% of all web pages have had some of the content processed in Photoshop. And Photoshop, well even the complete CS, is the primary tool for traditional publishing/printing.
Although in enterprise there was a split at first between the web team and the traditional print marketing materials team, nearly all companies have realized that there is so much in common that they have brought those teams back into one management structure. Companies are interested in getting their message out using whatever means is the most effective. And the most effective way for them to do that is to have people responsible for the objective and free to use whatever technology and tools work the best. Adobe serves that more general audience.
Just my thoughts,
Jim King
PDF Platform Architect
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
BETT has changed shape I think. The Grand Hall Entrance is still the main way in but the immediate space has lost a lot of buzz without the BBC or Apple. BBC is still there on the Pearson stand but nothing like the scale of previously. Jam was cancelled after pressure from competition. Maybe this is the reason for the absence. Apple have cut back on shows as the mobile devices are aimed at a consumer level. They are more likley to open another shop than turn up at Olympia. A group of Apple dealers are in the smaller National Hall so the Mac fans head there.
The Netbook or whatever you want to call it is getting a lot of interest but some of the new companies cannot book into the smae area as Dell and Microsoft so some are right at the back behind the cafe- Asus, Acer, Sony and Intel.
So the overall effect is that most of the sp[acehas the same sort of attention. Open Source is hidden away though on the balconies - Moodle N2 near the Leadership Lounge and the Open Source Precinct SW104 in the software area.
The UK print journalists still have enough influence to prevent BBC projects such as local video and educational resources. It remains to be seen what happens next. Long ago Greg Dyke spoke of an open archive of video for the public. What happened?
The Netbook or whatever you want to call it is getting a lot of interest but some of the new companies cannot book into the smae area as Dell and Microsoft so some are right at the back behind the cafe- Asus, Acer, Sony and Intel.
So the overall effect is that most of the sp[acehas the same sort of attention. Open Source is hidden away though on the balconies - Moodle N2 near the Leadership Lounge and the Open Source Precinct SW104 in the software area.
The UK print journalists still have enough influence to prevent BBC projects such as local video and educational resources. It remains to be seen what happens next. Long ago Greg Dyke spoke of an open archive of video for the public. What happened?
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I'm at the easyInternetcafe on Kensingtom High Street, checking Google News ahead of BETT. Top link is about netbooks. I think that is still the right word.
Eugene Hsu is the director of the education ecosystem enabling team at Intel. So far I did not realise Intel was there.
It seems to me that Linux has a chance for this kind of situation. Yesterday the Guardian had an insert from Dell with one offer with Ubuntu. The price was only just a bit more than a Sony Reader. Sony is at BETT but no news yeton the Reader being displayed. If book publishing is goind digital there could be more evidence in school books.
Eugene Hsu is the director of the education ecosystem enabling team at Intel. So far I did not realise Intel was there.
It seems to me that Linux has a chance for this kind of situation. Yesterday the Guardian had an insert from Dell with one offer with Ubuntu. The price was only just a bit more than a Sony Reader. Sony is at BETT but no news yeton the Reader being displayed. If book publishing is goind digital there could be more evidence in school books.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Generation Zed approaches autonomy
Educational institutions respond to learner choice
draft notes for a possible take on BETT
depends on finding enough quotes and evidence to convince OhmyNews editors that there is a genuine story here
Z comes after X and Y, at least that bit is ok with the fact checkers
from the Wikipedia
Net Generation
In his book Growing Up Digital, business strategist and psychologist Don Tapscott coined the term "Net Generation" for the group, pointing at the significance of being the first to grow up immersed in a digital--and Internet--driven world. Accordingly, some say the final year of Gen Y is between 1993 and 2000 because they would be the youngest people to appreciate the changes of the Digital Revolution
(citation needed, adds the Wikipedia)
So if z starts in 1993, some of these people could be aged 15.
Sometimes students make choices about the courses they sign up for. This gets attention from the people who plan budgets. So some of the interest at BETT ( and in how universities are presented to potential students) follows the views of generations y,z.
-------------
"autonomy" was a central concept in research by Taylor Nelson for the IT Economic Development Council in 1987. They predicted that the "Inner Directed Group" could reach 55% of the UK population by 2010. So what happened?
----------------
Learning Zone, Alexanderplatz, Lancaster
---------------------------------
Theory on Networked Learning. Has it changed since 2002? Can it be related to practice? Has it been explained in language that is easy to understand? Where could anyone find out more about it?
Some of these ideas are from the 1960s or earlier. May still relate to conversation at BETT.
Educational institutions respond to learner choice
draft notes for a possible take on BETT
depends on finding enough quotes and evidence to convince OhmyNews editors that there is a genuine story here
Z comes after X and Y, at least that bit is ok with the fact checkers
from the Wikipedia
Net Generation
In his book Growing Up Digital, business strategist and psychologist Don Tapscott coined the term "Net Generation" for the group, pointing at the significance of being the first to grow up immersed in a digital--and Internet--driven world. Accordingly, some say the final year of Gen Y is between 1993 and 2000 because they would be the youngest people to appreciate the changes of the Digital Revolution
(citation needed, adds the Wikipedia)
So if z starts in 1993, some of these people could be aged 15.
Sometimes students make choices about the courses they sign up for. This gets attention from the people who plan budgets. So some of the interest at BETT ( and in how universities are presented to potential students) follows the views of generations y,z.
-------------
"autonomy" was a central concept in research by Taylor Nelson for the IT Economic Development Council in 1987. They predicted that the "Inner Directed Group" could reach 55% of the UK population by 2010. So what happened?
----------------
Learning Zone, Alexanderplatz, Lancaster
---------------------------------
Theory on Networked Learning. Has it changed since 2002? Can it be related to practice? Has it been explained in language that is easy to understand? Where could anyone find out more about it?
Some of these ideas are from the 1960s or earlier. May still relate to conversation at BETT.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
BETT background
Long ago there used to be general purpose computer shows. In the UK these were often at Olympia. Part of the attraction of BETT is to recover some memories of Olympia at capacity with computer conversation. My friend Gary may remember the names of the previous events so more on this later, after Thursday or Friday, possible days to meet up.
In the USA the show was called COMDEX but is now about Consumer Electronics or else only one survived. From the UK we only get the search results anyway but it seems that consumer electronics set the pace.
Slightly off topic- Last time I was at Lancaster University I had hoped to check out Waterstones and ask about the Sony Reader, implications for literary culture, resource planning for teaching and learning etc. But it turned out that the Sony Reader was only in stock at the Waterstones in central Lancaster. The traditional university has deep links with the print industry so it is slightly surprising that the latest publishing technology is not launched from campus. But maybe the reasoning around this will become clearer.
Heading back on topic but cannot find the blog from around the time of Adobe MAX when there was discussion about Adobe changing their stock symbol to "FLSH" in the same way Sun changed to "JAVA". I like this idea as it clarifies a change and leaves Adobe Classic as a way to describe what I am more familiar with. Relevant to BETT Adobe(FLSH) covers video on mobiles, animated websites and other stuff that students use at home or when moving about while Adobe Classic covers books, academic journals, basic word processing as most schools require.
I don't mind watching video but it is the Adobe Classic area where I think there could be some immediate progress. As Adobe have lost interest in this sort of thing there may be lower prices for software quite soon. Open source alternatives are pretty good for document creation. Open Office has the features most people use. Also I think the people who write open source code are as likley as anyone to make the connections between open document formats, XML, and ePUB or other formats for e-books and mobile devices. Vista is still not established despite the large Microsoft stand at BETT. So the XML paper spec is not really doing that well. Adobe do almost nothing to promote PDFXML so my impression is that the current PDF format is likely to continue. It turns out that the PDFXML Inspector works just as well with ePUB so ePUB has potential as a way to publish from XML-friendly sources.
The ePUB format has some wide support. The Sony Reader and the Digital Editions Reader from Adobe. However it is not that easy to create. Should be possible from InDesign but it is hard to find much about this. Will Microsoft offer "export as ePUB" in Word? More likely they are worried about Silverlight and video. A couple of years ago they announced Grava and the news link is still from 2007. Probably they will concentrate in this area, not just text.
I have discovered the eCub EPUB creator by doing some searches between paragraphs. See the blog from Julian Smart. Not tested yet. On the TeleRead blog David Rothman has invited the open source community to develop an ePubWriter as part of Open Office. At the moment I am not sure how this will work out but open source and XML have grown together so far.
XML is also the basis for JDF, a way to describe print requirements. the printing industry has yet to find a way of promoting this to print buyers. But it may be that a combination of PDF and JDF is the only way for print media to respond to e-books for speed and cost.
BETT is not advertised as a show about publishing and e-books. But the issues will turn up somewhere.
Open source promotion at BETT will be in the gallery. Moodle for knowledge management or document storage or whatever term fits best is at N2 with Synergy Learning. Open Forum Europe is at SW104 with links to most open source software.
Long ago there used to be general purpose computer shows. In the UK these were often at Olympia. Part of the attraction of BETT is to recover some memories of Olympia at capacity with computer conversation. My friend Gary may remember the names of the previous events so more on this later, after Thursday or Friday, possible days to meet up.
In the USA the show was called COMDEX but is now about Consumer Electronics or else only one survived. From the UK we only get the search results anyway but it seems that consumer electronics set the pace.
Slightly off topic- Last time I was at Lancaster University I had hoped to check out Waterstones and ask about the Sony Reader, implications for literary culture, resource planning for teaching and learning etc. But it turned out that the Sony Reader was only in stock at the Waterstones in central Lancaster. The traditional university has deep links with the print industry so it is slightly surprising that the latest publishing technology is not launched from campus. But maybe the reasoning around this will become clearer.
Heading back on topic but cannot find the blog from around the time of Adobe MAX when there was discussion about Adobe changing their stock symbol to "FLSH" in the same way Sun changed to "JAVA". I like this idea as it clarifies a change and leaves Adobe Classic as a way to describe what I am more familiar with. Relevant to BETT Adobe(FLSH) covers video on mobiles, animated websites and other stuff that students use at home or when moving about while Adobe Classic covers books, academic journals, basic word processing as most schools require.
I don't mind watching video but it is the Adobe Classic area where I think there could be some immediate progress. As Adobe have lost interest in this sort of thing there may be lower prices for software quite soon. Open source alternatives are pretty good for document creation. Open Office has the features most people use. Also I think the people who write open source code are as likley as anyone to make the connections between open document formats, XML, and ePUB or other formats for e-books and mobile devices. Vista is still not established despite the large Microsoft stand at BETT. So the XML paper spec is not really doing that well. Adobe do almost nothing to promote PDFXML so my impression is that the current PDF format is likely to continue. It turns out that the PDFXML Inspector works just as well with ePUB so ePUB has potential as a way to publish from XML-friendly sources.
The ePUB format has some wide support. The Sony Reader and the Digital Editions Reader from Adobe. However it is not that easy to create. Should be possible from InDesign but it is hard to find much about this. Will Microsoft offer "export as ePUB" in Word? More likely they are worried about Silverlight and video. A couple of years ago they announced Grava and the news link is still from 2007. Probably they will concentrate in this area, not just text.
I have discovered the eCub EPUB creator by doing some searches between paragraphs. See the blog from Julian Smart. Not tested yet. On the TeleRead blog David Rothman has invited the open source community to develop an ePubWriter as part of Open Office. At the moment I am not sure how this will work out but open source and XML have grown together so far.
XML is also the basis for JDF, a way to describe print requirements. the printing industry has yet to find a way of promoting this to print buyers. But it may be that a combination of PDF and JDF is the only way for print media to respond to e-books for speed and cost.
BETT is not advertised as a show about publishing and e-books. But the issues will turn up somewhere.
Open source promotion at BETT will be in the gallery. Moodle for knowledge management or document storage or whatever term fits best is at N2 with Synergy Learning. Open Forum Europe is at SW104 with links to most open source software.
Monday, December 01, 2008
I will be at Online Information this week.
Posts mostly to the Exetreme blog as this is on my card.
Cards by Moo by the way. Last year this is mostly what I was asked about.
Posts mostly to the Exetreme blog as this is on my card.
Cards by Moo by the way. Last year this is mostly what I was asked about.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The ISO Survey for 2007 shows decline in the USA and UK for ISO 9000 certificates. I have done a story on this for OhmyNews.
My impression is that quality theory is moving with manufacturing outside where the business schools have been. There will be another story for OhmyNews next year but meanwhile there is plenty of scope for speculation and anecdotes. The survey is based on info from a year ago so things may be different already.
My impression is that quality theory is moving with manufacturing outside where the business schools have been. There will be another story for OhmyNews next year but meanwhile there is plenty of scope for speculation and anecdotes. The survey is based on info from a year ago so things may be different already.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Financial Times at Online Information
So far as I can tell the Financial Times will not be at Online Information as they were last year.
All will become clear at the real event but meanwhile please add a comment if I have looked in the wrong place or they will appear with another name.
My impression is that the Web is getting more viable but particular information offers may not be. No other newspaper appears at Online Information. Would they gain much in cover price sales? Is advertising the main prospect for newsprint?
Last year I had a discussion about the Chinese version of the FT, almost entirely a Web operation. Limited print but mostly to promote the Web. Hope to find out more about this.
So far as I can tell the Financial Times will not be at Online Information as they were last year.
All will become clear at the real event but meanwhile please add a comment if I have looked in the wrong place or they will appear with another name.
My impression is that the Web is getting more viable but particular information offers may not be. No other newspaper appears at Online Information. Would they gain much in cover price sales? Is advertising the main prospect for newsprint?
Last year I had a discussion about the Chinese version of the FT, almost entirely a Web operation. Limited print but mostly to promote the Web. Hope to find out more about this.
ePUB at Online Information
At the publishing panel on Thursday I hope to find out more about the ePUB format. There is more interest in e-books this year with a conference at the start. The ePUB format is supported in both the Adobe Digital Editions Reader and the Sony Reader. there could be more announcements from publishers with new titles.
So far there has not been much publicity for the open source aspect. There could be more public domain or creative commons content. Creating an ePUB file is not impossible but could be easier. Maybe the bookselling industry is unlikley to promote the fact that there is so much free stuff available but the cost of a Sony Reader is a bit of a block for many people so the whole cost structure needs to be explained.
Adobe seem to prefer ePUB to PDF for reflow on small screens. Also Stanza have a reader for the iPhone. Some numbers suggest that the downloads of Stanza compare with sales for e-reader hardware. So do people read texts on an iPhone for any length of time?
Feedbooks can create ePUB from a blog or RSS feed. So is this a book?
There will be probably be more on this in a story for OhmyNews after Online Information. Any text, links etc. welcome.
At the publishing panel on Thursday I hope to find out more about the ePUB format. There is more interest in e-books this year with a conference at the start. The ePUB format is supported in both the Adobe Digital Editions Reader and the Sony Reader. there could be more announcements from publishers with new titles.
So far there has not been much publicity for the open source aspect. There could be more public domain or creative commons content. Creating an ePUB file is not impossible but could be easier. Maybe the bookselling industry is unlikley to promote the fact that there is so much free stuff available but the cost of a Sony Reader is a bit of a block for many people so the whole cost structure needs to be explained.
Adobe seem to prefer ePUB to PDF for reflow on small screens. Also Stanza have a reader for the iPhone. Some numbers suggest that the downloads of Stanza compare with sales for e-reader hardware. So do people read texts on an iPhone for any length of time?
Feedbooks can create ePUB from a blog or RSS feed. So is this a book?
There will be probably be more on this in a story for OhmyNews after Online Information. Any text, links etc. welcome.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Thinking about things cloud. The Microsoft move gives it some momentum. Strated to look for cloud managemnt but can only find this blog.
I added a commentInformation show I will try to find out other ways to assess how much knowledge is available for management practitioners outside of paid journals.
I added a commentInformation show I will try to find out other ways to assess how much knowledge is available for management practitioners outside of paid journals.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
I have been checking out some social networking sites. Started with Linked In as I am getting more messages there recently. Found the Deming Forum India though it has moved to Multiply as far as I can tell or at least has more content there.
Then I found a link to Orkut where the QUALITY MANAGEMENT group has a large number of members. There is a Deming group as well. The discussion seems to me to be based in practice.
I have started a topic as I have recently started to think that the connection between learning and quality is obvious. Still not sure how to present this to academics however. Text as below. Comment welcome here or on Orkut.
Then I found a link to Orkut where the QUALITY MANAGEMENT group has a large number of members. There is a Deming group as well. The discussion seems to me to be based in practice.
I have started a topic as I have recently started to think that the connection between learning and quality is obvious. Still not sure how to present this to academics however. Text as below. Comment welcome here or on Orkut.
Learning with quality systems, is this obvious?
I have just found this group so the topic may have come up previously.
Is it obvious that learning is a large part of what happens through people in a quality system?
I have tried to get interest in quality theory from people who study management learning. In the UK the people who know about learning tend to have a critical opinion about quality. Perhaps their experience in UK universities has not been pleasant. See "Making Quality Critical" by Wilkinson and Wilmott for example.
So far there has not been much UK academic interest in relating quality theory to researching learning organisations. Peter Senge recognises the connections, see his mentions for Dr Deming in the update for The Fifth Discipline.
My guess is that for most practitioners the links between learning and quality are obvious. Maybe academics just have to be organised in disciplines. Maybe it is just an issue in the UK.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Following previous post about how topics are studied by academics, here is a list to run through on rotation
Knowledge Economy
Leadership and Further Education
Learning Organisations
Technology Enhanced Learning
Protection Science
Competitiveness
Each one is the sort of thing that should be studied.
The end state often seems to be revealed as rhetoric from the dark side.
The next one could be the Creative Economy. My hope is that the study includes something that practitioners could relate to.
Knowledge Economy
Leadership and Further Education
Learning Organisations
Technology Enhanced Learning
Protection Science
Competitiveness
Each one is the sort of thing that should be studied.
The end state often seems to be revealed as rhetoric from the dark side.
The next one could be the Creative Economy. My hope is that the study includes something that practitioners could relate to.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Notes for a future chat show.
Background for discussion in a space moving from technology through academic to public
This started as a route from Infolab 21 across the campus. Assume some technology innovation is possible, through a method linked to quality theory. Will motivation survive "critique" past Lancaster Management? The Spicy Hut is the destination for connection with a wider public.
The recent UK launch of the Sony reader is an example of technology that could disrupt the print basis of university libraries and is also in stock at Watersones at the centre of the route.
I find points of view around e-books that are similar to those on other topics. Universities claim resources to make a study of something practical, implying there will be some contribution to a project. Then the academic status is reinforced by a distance from practice and forms of "critique". I have found a particular problem with quality ideas that could relate to "learning organisations".
A blog found through Critical Management explains a view that universities now relate to "excellence" while they used to represent "culture", often national. Many academics do not like the "excellence" approach so reverting to culture has an attraction.
It would be helpful to be clear about the purpose of Business Schools. Sometimes research status seems to depend on distance from practice.
There is a problem in getting permission to video and also many people are reluctant to talk on camera. In principle a similar sequence to the move across Lancaster campus could happen on other sites or there could be various edits. Another possibility is to use a virtual set such as Twinity Berlin. The Sony Center would be a technology launch and there is a courtyard in front of Humboldt University. also many cafes and open spaces. Experiments continue on how to add sound.
Meanwhile this is the start of a sort of script or starting point.
Background for discussion in a space moving from technology through academic to public
This started as a route from Infolab 21 across the campus. Assume some technology innovation is possible, through a method linked to quality theory. Will motivation survive "critique" past Lancaster Management? The Spicy Hut is the destination for connection with a wider public.
The recent UK launch of the Sony reader is an example of technology that could disrupt the print basis of university libraries and is also in stock at Watersones at the centre of the route.
I find points of view around e-books that are similar to those on other topics. Universities claim resources to make a study of something practical, implying there will be some contribution to a project. Then the academic status is reinforced by a distance from practice and forms of "critique". I have found a particular problem with quality ideas that could relate to "learning organisations".
A blog found through Critical Management explains a view that universities now relate to "excellence" while they used to represent "culture", often national. Many academics do not like the "excellence" approach so reverting to culture has an attraction.
It would be helpful to be clear about the purpose of Business Schools. Sometimes research status seems to depend on distance from practice.
There is a problem in getting permission to video and also many people are reluctant to talk on camera. In principle a similar sequence to the move across Lancaster campus could happen on other sites or there could be various edits. Another possibility is to use a virtual set such as Twinity Berlin. The Sony Center would be a technology launch and there is a courtyard in front of Humboldt University. also many cafes and open spaces. Experiments continue on how to add sound.
Meanwhile this is the start of a sort of script or starting point.
Monday, October 27, 2008
I have started to study Twinity Berlin in some detail. More later on how this might help learning. The main problem is still that the people who designed it know Berlin very well. There are no signposts or street names. I have bought a map but still need Google maps as well.
This is a bustop, but where? No timetable I can find.
Sometimes there is a clue, such as the name of the hotel on the side. Maybe this is only for a select few, but more of this would be helpful. with a map it gives some idea where you are.
So if you find the Unter den Linden from the Brandenburg Gate (one of the places you can teleport to) then keep going ahead thill the trees come to an end. Humboldt University is on the left. There is a large square that would be suitable for lots of avatars to meet up for discussion.
This is a bustop, but where? No timetable I can find.
Sometimes there is a clue, such as the name of the hotel on the side. Maybe this is only for a select few, but more of this would be helpful. with a map it gives some idea where you are.
So if you find the Unter den Linden from the Brandenburg Gate (one of the places you can teleport to) then keep going ahead thill the trees come to an end. Humboldt University is on the left. There is a large square that would be suitable for lots of avatars to meet up for discussion.
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