Comments on: Counterpoint: The Power of Simplification — Why the Digital Age Means the End of Top-Heavy Bureaucracies

By: Do publishers have the stomach to do what’s really needed? | [mturro: in plain sight]

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 16:44:00 +0000

[...] As a result it makes no difference how slick devices like the iPad are, or how they provide a more controlled, billable content environment – if publishers insist on feeding it with a complex, bloated, press oriented supply chain they will always be vulnerable to digitally native start-ups. Clipped from scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org [...]

By: Avatar, Alicia… ¿El formato ya es más importante que el contenido? | Famosos de Cine

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:13:13 +0000

[...] Counterpoint: The Power of Simplification – Why the Digital Age Means the End of Top-Heavy Bur… (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org) [...]

By: David Crotty

David Crotty — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:41:10 +0000

Hey, this is Web 2.0, shameless self-promotion is assumed.

By: Kent Anderson

Kent Anderson — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:37:42 +0000

I think the complexity = quality argument is situational. I agree that in some cases the equation works, but not in all or even in most. In fact, processes and bureaucracies are often instituted to eliminate deviation, to your point about Microsoft. Once they had something worth preserving, bureaucracy became the norm. It’s a conservative force.

You and I saw different things in Shirky’s post, which I find interesting. No two people ever read the same book or, I gather, blog post. Interpretation is everything.

I’m glad our banter made it out of the comment threads! (Want to see more? Come to the SSP’s annual meeting and the Scholarly Kitchen Food Fight that ends the meeting!)

[Shameless blog promotion provided by shameless bloggers.]

By: David Crotty

David Crotty — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:08:51 +0000

I'm not sure I missed the point as much as I was interested in adding something new to it, because link-blogging is boring, and frankly, I know how you feel about people who try to get by from simply repackaging the works of others. The first half of my post is an acknowledgment that Shirky is right on the money about the value in reducing complexity (though I'd go a step further, it's worth doing at all times regardless of disruptive influences). It's interesting though, that I chose to take this more to be about trimming the fat in the production chain, thinking about things that are rapidly becoming obsolete, like the infrastructure to support print or owning your own warehouse when that could be more cost-effectively outsourced, while you focused more on the bureaucracies that inevitably build up over time. My point is that complex, quality products often require complex infrastructures, and if you eliminate all of your editorial staff, the quality of your books is likely to suffer. Avatar and LOTR may have avoided some of the complexities of the studio system, but both were incredibly huge, complex projects that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, that required incredibly complex infrastructures. Take those away and you have this. But streamlining is always valuable. Bureaucracies are an interesting subject though--are they inevitable? I always think of Microsoft, who were able to overthrow the Goliath of IBM because IBM was so mired down in their bureaucracies, while MS was lean and agile. Given years of success and expansion, MS is now the lumbering giant (and their successor, Google, is starting to show signs of creeping complexity as well). Wikipedia is an area where you would think these problems could be avoided, as it's meant to be a wide open portal to the sharing of the world's knowledge. Instead, it's become an incredibly regulated and locked-down environment, completely bogged down by rules and petty dictators who are constantly driving away potential contributors. Building these bureaucracies seems to be endemic to human nature, and really hard to avoid.