Revisiting PressForward – A Good Idea Facing an Uphill Battle
PressForward has a lot of potential, but a lot of potential barriers to overcome. How it fares will depend on how much the larger culture of academia is interested in change.
Blogs Meet Academic Biases, Are Offered an Ironic Prize for Good Online Content
A new initiative to feature online content shows its cards when it names the ultimate honor it can convey on selections.
Setting the Agenda: Key Issues for Scholarly Publishing
What are the key issues for scholarly publishing today? Setting the agenda for productive discussion.
Spam versus Targeting — Which Approach Will Define the Age of Abundance?
As spam defines one end of abundance, targeting enters to deflect the damage. Can they co-exist? Or will one become the defining trait of the age?
iOS: The Evolution of an Agile Business
Looking back, it’s clear Apple’s development of iOS and its device strategy has taken them down paths they didn’t expect — a true sign of agility.
Stick to Your Ribs: The Editorial Fallacy
Revisiting a popular and important post — the editorial fallacy, that belief that more or better manuscripts can save you from disruptive change.
The Rhetorical Consequences of STM "Madlibs" — Saving [ __________ ] from [ ____________ ]
Instead of filling in the blanks of attribution with the same old agents, maybe we need to go beyond the usual suspects.
The Value Web — The Value Chain Isn't Breaking, It's Interweaving
We talk about value chains and disintermediation. What if it’s a web, and it’s about reorientation and new intersections?
Stick to Your Ribs: When Did Print Become an Input?
The mental models associated with print are still defining how we work and design. Why has this persisted?
Mobile Reading REALLY Comes of Age — An Information-packed Slide Deck Worth Viewing
The facts and context for e-reading show strong trends of demand and expectations.
Is Piracy Really the F**king Answer?
A viral book sensation’s obvious story may not be as obvious as some think, harder to replicate, and indicative of a strong counter-trend.
"The Making of a Scholarly Journal" Video — Perhaps Inducing More Nostalgia Than Intended
A nice video documenting how a humanities journal is made inadvertently hits on some other themes, almost by exclusion.
Stick to Your Ribs: Can the Creativity of Social Persuasion Cure "Corporate Asperger's Syndrome"?
This week, we revisit the power of persuasion, and wonder out loud if perhaps publishers suffer from traits that hold back engagement.
Stick to Your Ribs — Why Publishers' Brands Matter
(Editor’s Note: Published just over a year ago, this post helped people from outside publishing houses understand some fundamentals of brand management and quality proxies. It’s as clearly written as anything you’ll ever see, and a gem from the archive.) […]
A Parable of Innovation in Publishing — A Mostly True Story
This is a parable of the role in innovation in publishing and makes the case that we should not criticize companies that try and fail to do new things.