Tech Elephants & the State of Change at SSP 36

Photograph by William Albert Allard

With each new software release, what's possible grows. With each new company that comes online, or new resource or material that's created, what's imaginable expands. This is simply the state of play; Heraclitus' river is now grade-5 whitewater.

For those who grew up under Moore's law, not only are more things possible; they're inevitable. Whatever you see, briefly, as missing or desirable in any device, service, product, or feature set will be corrected or added to the next build, because if you've seen it, someone is already working on it and since they will naturally have faster and faster processors and more and more code at their disposal, the problem will fall.

It's a funny thing to grow up like that, or at least it's funny to those that didn't grow up like that; the outlooks and world views to come out of such an evidently or presumptively self-ameliorating iterative environment are fundamentally different from those outlooks that came before.

NASA saw the change/s and adapted to them early on. (This I have on the very good and entirely irresponsible, second-hand hearsay authority of a mother of a precocious college graduate who was snatched up to work in NASA labs in Texas a decade or so ago.) Older design engineers used to take lead in design-direction decisions on their teams because they were the most knowledgeable. They knew what worked and what didn't work, what would and what would not, and could guide the younger engineers as they 'came online' out of dream-filled days of school, learned those hard lessons, and caught up with reality. Later, as the pace of change increased, they saw that increasingly younger engineers -- who didn't know any better -- were able to try things that hadn't worked a few years ago, or even a few months ago, and get those things to work, delivering different results faster in rapid iterations. Silicon Valley and other tech centers saw this trend too, back in the late nineties, and regularly "poached" young elephants from computer labs.

It's always tempting to suggest that younger folks are smarter (especially for the less than superannuated among us); but perhaps it's worth while too to consider the case in less debatable terms, that they are less knowledgeable of the river that flowed before; ignorance isn't just bliss, but at times of rapid change, it is alternately enabling. Or to put it another way, when you step into rapids, regardless of your comfort level or experience with whitewater, you're going to go for a ride; it's your experience with the rapidity of the rapids, if you will, that determines whether the trip will be a happy and productive one for you or for your doctor.

Growth

In Erik Brynjolfsson's TED talk on the future of innovation The Key to Growth? Race with the Machines, (TED, February, 2013) he shares stats from the second industrial revolution a hundred and twenty years ago. He notes that the real advances in productivity did not happen when the factories electrified; in fact, it took another thirty years for workflows and processes to be reimagined, based on the flexibility of those new eFactories, for the greatest growth to be realized. That's time enough, as Brynjolfsson points out, for a human generation to turn.

In comparison with our age, he underscored that simply applying new technology wasn't what brought the greatest returns. Redefining who we were and what we set about to accomplish in light of the capabilities of the new technology is, and while we have seen great advances thus far, in our age of the computer, we will see more still if, when, and as we shift from the external focus of applied technology to this more existential and categorical focus of redefining the enterprise itself; i.e., not just replacing traditional processes and products with computers and digitally-built alternatives but in a sense "teaming" with the new technology to imagine what it is capable of in order to define new systems that aspire to do more and entirely new things than did the systems that were in place before.

The State of Change

Rick Joyce of Perseus Books delivered a rousing Keynote address to start the 36th annual meeting of the SSP last week in Boston. He shared many adventures in new marketing approaches at Perseus and its imprints (e.g., Basic Books), including the first ever Publishing Hackathon, from May of last year, and a thoughtful review of future implications of mobile-publishing and content delivery; e.g., work/s regarding famous landmarks delivered or offered to visitors as they pass by. The talk was rich with suggestions for scholarly presses -- such as finding new ways to leverage the inherent value in and expertise of our scholars/authors -- and as soon as slides/video are available, all scholarly publishers should check them out.

via niemanlab.org

Throughout Joyce stressed the growing need for publishers to stretch their definitions of their roles from producers of products such as books and eBooks to deliverers of value and wonder in new forms -- a sentiment that resonated well with the now famously leaked NYT's Innovation report from earlier in the year. Now, if we take a step back and consider the innovation discourse of just a few years ago, back when people were discussing mobile cheese and talking mice (can you imagine?), the argument was more externally focused. The cheese, she is moved; let's go find the cheese. Then, for a time, we heard messages about the pace of change and how the pace of change was accelerating; everything was about keeping up and reacting faster: be nimble, pivot to avoid disaster.

These suggestions that we're hearing today, from Joyce and the Innovation team at NYT and elsewhere, are more organizationally and internally focused (less cheesy). They foreground the need to rethink and radically restructure what we're doing not just how we're doing it (e.g., developing new software programs to deliver our own B2B services, finding new ways to leverage the expertise of our authors). I'd say that this shift in the focus of these strategic suggestions (from how can we react to a sudden change, to considering what else we can do entirely -- taking change as a given) places us somewhere down Brynjolfsson's productivity curve; we may not be running with machines, quite yet, but some of us are choosing up teams.

The 36th annual meeting of the SSP in sum

It's true to say that the SSP 36th annual meeting was, as it usually is, packed with new technology and creative uses of new platforms and practices, but from Rick Joyce's shared vision for new marketing and new programming, to Delta Think's tutorial on contextual inquiry-bassed product development, and on to the closing sessions on new product releases and on augmented reality via Google Glass and via other devices yet to be imagined, it was clearly more than that; it was a proving ground, heralding things to come not only for presses but from presses in the next digitally expansive era that's beginning to open up for us upstream.

Morag and others will of course tell you that there is absolutely no reasonable possibility for successful, meaningful change in the models for publishing, not yet, and they're as right as can be, in retrospect; an elephant never forgets the waters that it has stepped in. But as Joyce and others suggest, the opportunity to change, for the moment, is only the greater for it. 

Who re-Moved My Chains - the way change has changed, taking change as read

Photograph by William Albert Allard

Winston the elephant was still just a baby, so he hadn't yet learned. Long exercises each morning at the hands of the elephant trainers were exhausting and strange, but they never tired him out enough to stop him from trying to escape. The ground in camp was brown and bear, and all they had to eat was soggy grass that came in dirty buckets. He pulled on his chains every afternoon, working to get free. He longed to run in the meadows across the river from the circus camp. The grass and leaves there were rich and deep and looked so delicious!!!

     Gaspar and the other adult elephants watched Winston with patient sympathy. Burdened with perfect memories of every pull, every failed attempt and all the wasted energy, in every afternoon, through the weeks and months of their first years in camp, they knew. Winston wasn't strong enough to break the chains around his leg. In time, he'd learn.

© 2014 Peta.

     In the afternoons, the elephants were chained along the edge of camp, facing the river and the jungle beyond where it was said that packs of elephants roamed free. Small chains held even the largest of elephants in line, because of their perfect memories of the truth of the way things work: when a chain is around your leg, you cannot break free. Many weeks passed, many long afternoons of wild, youthful commotion and elephantine sighs: Winston pulling on his chains to exhaustion; the adult elephants watching with slightly less and less patience at having their quiet afternoons rendered unquiet.

     Morag was an old bull elephant next in line on the other side of Gaspar. He didn't like the constant disruption of Winston and his pulling. Several times Winston had upturned their buckets of dinner, leaving half of the herd to go hungry. He complained loudly to Gaspar that this nonsense must stop. Gaspar tried to argue that the matter would run its course in time, once Winston learned; but siding with Morag, the other elephants in line weren't satisfied to wait. Gaspar realized that it was time.

     "The chains are too strong, Winston."
     "Why don't you break them?!" Winston asked. "You are huge!"
     "Elephants can't break the chains that hold us."
     "You knock me aside with your leg, when you are not looking."
     "I'm sorry for that, Winston."
     "But, you must be strong enough to break your chains."
     "No, like you, we've tried. We could not."
     "But, try now."
     "There would be no point; we know what will happen when we pull on the chains."
     "Try just once; show me!"
     "No, Winston."
     Winston thought on this. He knew there would be no budging an elephant when it came to his memory. He'd have to think of something.
     "What if you and I pull on the chains together? Have you tried that?"
     Gaspar grunted somewhat angrily. He didn't like frustration in the ranks and could feel Morag growing surly next to him.
     "We can't break the chains, Winston. Others have tried that. I've heard many stories..."
     "But have you tried that? Have you tried pulling on the chains? ...with another elephant?"
     Gaspar had to admit the truth. "No, I haven't."
     Winston put his foot on top of the chain on Gaspar's leg.
     "We can pull together then."
     "Gaspar..."
     "Just once more. Try once more. Then, I'll stop."
     Morag trumpeted loudly and knocked Gaspar sharply in the ribs.
     "No, Winston! Stop this!" Gaspar said. "It's time for the elephants to sleep."
     "But..."
     "We must give the others peace, Winston!"
     Winston began to complain again, but Gaspar quickly pulled him in closely with his trunk and disciplined him sternly in hushed tones. He released him again.
     Gaspar's counsel seemed to work, as Winston looked defeated at the ground, kicking it several times and scraping it with his trunk.
     "Now go to sleep, Winston. Tomorrow will be a new day."
     Winston circled some, eyeing Gaspar, but then lay down his head and finally gave up.
     "Al last," Morag said, triumphantly.
     "We will have our afternoons of quiet returned to us!" the other elephants trumpeted.
     "Yes," Winston said. "I told you all, it would run its course. We can all get some sleep now."
     The elephants fell in line, one after the other, and slept content that quiet would return to the edge of camp, in the days, weeks, and months to follow.

via funpic.hu

     But in the morning, all woke a strange and unfathomable sight. As news spread of not one but two sets of broken chains at the end of the line, they saw silhouettes of two elephants in the sunrise's light, one large and one not so large, running in the meadow across the river, heading for the jungle beyond. How did camp elephants get all the way over there? the adult elephants thought, that never happens. Morag and others were even more confused by what they found at their own feet. They had never seen that before and didn't know quite what to make of it.
     Soon the trainers would awake, they decided. They'd know what to do.

...

Scholarly Publishing 2.0: The Wrath of Khan

Scholarly presses and u presses in particular have at least two great (macro) strategies open to them to change the game in their favor. One, I'll call the Wrath of Khan strategy (discussed herein), and the other is exploring beneficial network effects and that thing called scale of partnering on non-core infrastructural needs and services and on delivering core and neo-core D2C products and services (elsewhere discussed, though touched on herein). Both strategies are enabled by the web, but herein, we'll just consider the Wrath of Khan strategy in broad strokes (not examine its wiring).

The Wrath of Khan Strategy

Pretty simple: in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (the first one), Kirk defeats Khan in a final battle between two space ships. How? Kirk, or really Spock, realizes that Khan is stuck in the past; his reality is defined by his "life on Earth" and ancient history where battles ranged across a physical landscape -- defined in terms of longitude and latitude, 2D. Space is 3D. In fact, from any point in space, your options are global. Yes, not unlike the web. Kirk wins by "turning around, vertically," rising up and then dropping back down -- which is far more detail than you need, but you get the point; or, you get enough of the point to smile politely, mumble "Geek," and let me continue to say: The future and the web enables 3D publishing products and services for u presses. To which, you might say: Why do I say this and what does that mean, Geek? For starters, we can consider OA.

(c) Paramount Pictures

OA & 3D

Recently, "access" to research/scholarly written output has been a hot topic in scholarly communications; specifically, Open Access or OA. Discussions around OA often center on the "pay wall" and on which side of the pay wall things reside. Two dimensions. Binary opposition; physical landscape of u presses to date: "pay-per-view" to the left of them and "OA" to the right of them. ...Rode the one hundred. OA is about "access," as is implied in the name, and yet access isn't "understanding." Therefore, OA would leave positioning on "understanding" wide open to u presses, and delivering understanding is, for my money and for most people's money, far more valuable than simply granting access (and is largely what publishers do, when they make thinking into a book; so, it's a core competency). However, if you think of summarizing and abstracting or distilling out the essence of arguments (and/or applying them to current events), i.e., derivative, tangential, inspired-by works for new age groups, new occasions, and new markets or modes & nodes of access, as resting above or below primary works of scholarship (the outputs from research), you can see these transformative acts as opening up a 3D space in which to operate and develop new products or create new value far above and far beyond scholarship. The research is foundational; but, if you take it as what is given or as a leaping off point, what can be made of it from there? Or, what else can researchers be tasked to do with their thinking for us as a society?

The 800-kg. Stakeholder in the Room

Am I the only one that has found the "OA" moniker just a little awkward? Maybe after explaining it to friends and having them say: "You mean 'public.'" "Yeah, isn't that just 'public access,' like public media; free for everyone in the country or online: smart-stuff produced by noble, dedicated people for the general good?" Yes, I've had to admit on many occasions that we've had a word for this kind of thing, for decades, and it's public access -- like public access tv of old, but different. Really different. Yet, we don't seem to call it that, and we don't tend to hear the public interest much represented in these discussions, beyond our imagining that everyone is better off if scholars have access to scholarship for their work, and if students have access to it too for their work, without paying for it ...and the public should have access too. Is this the best we can do for the public? Given all our access to the best minds and current thinking in the world? If serving them and raising their understanding were the goals, is access the best that any of us can do?

Speaking for John Q. Public

I am an evil capitalist, by training and inclination; but, speaking for John Q. Public, I could see wanting a little more. Were I JQP, I'd want works that are built on top of (3D) this research and these nuanced intra-dsciplinary arguments, to teach our kids and lead intelligent debate in the public sphere -- actively -- not just on a shelf, and not just in classrooms and academic conferences, and not just for those who are motivated to access and take part (i.e., the 'converted'). For my money, I'd want media that undertakes and completes the higher-order communications objective or raising "understanding" in the country and the world (www) by direct actions and interventions of publishers and editors; that complicates and disseminates what they are given. More plainly put, I'd want content generated for me and mine: where I want it and in forms that I want to access when I feel like accessing it.

I just downloaded an info-graphic from NPR, related to a video I saw, elsewhere on NPR, for a band they talked about on Morning Edition three weeks ago that I'm currently streaming in a podcast from my phone in my pocket.

25 years ago, that's an ambulatory schizophrenic talking. Now, what we "see" synthesized on or download/stream from NPR is taken in stride. What comes next?

If u presses are allowed to continue to stretch beyond traditional academic functions of effecting scholar-to-scholar communications and minting coins for tenure accounting, to the higher-order cultural global value of advancing public understanding directly, actively (as engaged participant agents; i.e., co-creators and engaging readers to be the same), they may continue to discover and build new forms, new models, and vistas for that thing called publishing that used to require glue and sutures.

E.g.,

More media - maybe presses working together can field a networked online news magazine, blog, or other digital 'source' that applies the best thinking and the best writing by the best minds to current events. There's an app in that.

More popular - maybe the web is license to make scholarly research and conclusions OA; but then, maybe it's also mandate to do more besides to create new, expanded, premium/trade derivative titles/value.

More public - maybe there's room for something transformative, synthetic, and diversely engaging like NPR/PBS (i.e., public programming). SPOILER ALERT: Take multimedia mixed with digital delivery, evolve it, and whether paid for or free or both, we may see emergent roles née editors functioning not unlike producers. ...if we're fortunate.

More funding - to the enabling crowds of scholars and libraries add: everybody in the country. Network effects apply to funding global/public projects. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one." (That's Spock and/or Kirk, depending on which reel and/or timeline you're in.) Maybe public-centric programming and/or centralized functions of any kind will win the hearts and pocketbooks of more hearts and pocketbooks. Centralized, concentrated presence in space often results in increased [critical] mass and with it an enhanced attractive force of gravity.

More SALES - u presses have unique products and unique, premium markets of consumers, yet they rely on third-party strategies, leaving customers to navigate the wilds of maddeningly crowded third-party vendor sites to find their content, and worse: abandoning the best behavioral, conversational, and market-intelligence gathering (data resulting from said navigating) and chances to engage and collaborate with the world of interested consumers to said third-parties. They could capitalize more on and deliver more value to consumers based on what they have to offer with a networked D2C all u press site.

The 3D and Wrath of Khan analogy and attendant e.g.s are only delivered mildly tongue in cheek; they are in earnest framed around freemium and premium thinking that the u press network should feel leave to "go digital" not only in form but also in function, and such new functions could be at the title/book/project level or at the institutional level of the u press/u press network itself, to continue to invigorate and to explore the multiple ways the united federation of u presses can generate and receive value in society. ...to boldly go where no one has gone before.

A collective presence on the web furthers such new revenue and new value generating interests and building one or more virtual networks to effect such a presence (or presences) is a smuggled presumption herein. In other words, and to be clear, having a unified u press presence on the web will be beneficial to all presses and align with both enhanced sales and content development goals. As far as funding the societal enterprise of making the most of university-based textual ideation transfer goes, this certainly applies: We don't need a university press; we need all of them. However, such a centralized presence or space (the final frontier) does more: as an umbrella, it will allow presses to "get vertical" to create new, living value for the public and for scholars, on top of the world-class scholarship that they already deliver, it will explode the sales and marketing potential for their rare and wonderful products and services therefrom derived (in ways Joe Esposito regularly brilliantly describes and more), and throughout it will enable u presses's own "research" and development of this expanding new space between authors and readers, to continue to refine, experiment with, and improve the ways in which we access and reach ideas and the ways in which these ideas reach us to the greater benefit of our collective understanding.

Google & University Presses: On U Presses Cashing in on the Potential of the Web, Potentially

“My company and I would like to give folks a nigh-infinitely scalable digital map of every street in the world that they can 'fly' around in like a video game, and after that we’ll build eyeglasses that surf the web and self-driving cars.

“So, naturally, our first step will be to put a new search algorithm up on the web, in a single framed search box, so folks can find webpages better.”

Google had a good idea and a fine algorithm. But, no one short of shaman-grade crazy saw web-enabled eyeglasses and self-driving cars as likely later/next steps–or as their ultimate goal when first they set out.

Do what you can do now; find out what you can do next, after. Then, do that.

It’s how we learn to walk, run, and build unimaginable things like driver-less cars.

When considering U Presses building a collective immersive online environment, folks often ask "key questions" that only focus on one aspect of what might have been a partial near-term goal (back in the days of the newness of the web); e.g., how will that succeed in selling books (i.e., specifically on such a site that U Presses might build; because all we can imagine are real-world things reconstituted online, such as an "online" bookstore).

However, key questions of strategy depend on what strategic intent/s and ends might be in the near term, in the long term, and beyond. And, in so far as some of those goals may be open ended or a matter of positioning for an unknown future, key questions of strategy can be manifold or moot, in current terms.

For now, I’d suggest that raising customer awareness (no matter where the purchases of those things called books take place) would bring value to the U Press network. Purchase intent is constrained by lack of brand/product awareness; by similar measure, it is often enhanced by increased brand/product awareness. Down the road, being in position to build new models, set new goals, expand into a web-based world (in ways no one else will for presses); that may well be priceless.

In sum: for talented folks in a swiftly changing landscape, landmarks may be less helpful than they used to be; direction may be key. The web is a good direction.

{this is a shameless rehash of a comment, I posted originally on Scholarly Kitchen; but, I like "shaman-grade crazy" so refurnished it here.}

University Presses have the world by the tail - twice: outside-the-books thinking

I'm going to put you in business. I'm not going to tell you what that business is, or what you sell, but, I'll describe some moving parts, and ask you how you like your chances.

It's a not-for-profit business (NFP), but one that engages with customers in open, global retail space to generate revenues in multiple streams; so, market returns are important and good for business: good^2. Your business is well established, not a new concept. You work in media. Your customers are uniformly well-heeled, all earning fine salaries, some extraordinary salaries, they go to live theater, attend museum openings, visit art galleries, they hold respected places in society, they consume mass quantities of media like yours, and they are required to work with your offerings and your competitors' offerings, under penalty of death (publish or perish), for the rest of their professional careers. How do you like your chances?

Before you answer, let me add that some of your expenses and infrastructure will be paid for/provided by a nearby laurelled institution (a university), and, because you're a NFP, you will be held exempt from paying taxes. How do you like your chances now?

Wait: In addition to this customer pool, thanks to your NFP status, you can fund raise to support operations. How do you like your chances now?

The answer to everything in business is, of course, That depends... It depends on what you're selling and if anyone is willing to pay you for it. But, before you get your 'depends' on, you have to stop and take stock of the moving parts described above: that this is a freakishly favorably stacked deck. No entrepreneur gets a play like this, to that kind of customer base, with that kind of support. Most would say, it really doesn't matter what your product is (or are), with a stable bid for the rapt attention of folks like these, you can't miss.

VANS

I've said before that folks contemplating the future of the university press network, branding, and revenues "slash" sustainability should have a look at Vans, in the period described in the Harvard Business Review case study, VANS: Skating on Air. And I'll say it again here:

...Folks contemplating the future of the university press network, branding, and revenues "slash" sustainability should have a look at Vans, in the period described in the Harvard Business Review case study, VANS: Skating on Air.



In brief, it describes Vans' decisions to produce the skateboard movie, Dogtown and Z-Boys, to sponsor myriad extreme sporting events, and develop a line of video games. None of which are shoes. Vans is a shoe company. The answer, for Vans to continue to grow, however, lay outside the shoes.

Monetizing on scholarly content alone is fraught and fragile these days. If a publisher is a book company, with "book" understood broadly as all content the company produces, then maybe it's time to think outside the books.

SSP = recommended for 2014

Reflecting on all that I am thankful for from 2013, I’d say that getting a chance to attend the annual meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), meeting all the folks I met, and learning all that the SSP is about – and learning all that attending the SSP’s annual meeting entails for an individual scholarly pub professional – is near the very top of the list. Attending the SSP changed my worldview and enhanced my understanding of the industry.

The SSP comprises leading industry consultants from around the world, heads and key staff of libraries, executives from all the major commercial presses, directors and staff of university and other not-for-profit presses, as well as professionals from third-party vendors (B2B providers). Having diverse populations from the communications ecosystem so well represented makes the SSP meeting a richly flavorful melting pot; not only are expert panel sessions informed and thought provoking, but all conversations in the halls, around exhibits, and in receptions are charged with brains and knowledge of multiple perspectives.

Moreover, in keeping with the principles of the founding members, the SSP is compellingly democratic; each professional, regardless of the “rank” of the individual or the focus of the individual’s firm, is able to and indeed expected to contribute to the SSP, to serve on the board of directors, and to participate in keeping up the high standards of networking and the sharing and development of best-practices in scholarly communication. (Deadline this Friday, 12/6.) This democracy of membership emulates (and accelerates) the cross-pollination and cross-strata flow of ideas that is in keeping with today’s best practices for competitive idea generation in successful firms.

My experience in attending this year’s meeting may have given me a uniquely swift and thorough view into what the SSP is all about: I won one of several Student Travel Grants offered by the SSP, and as a first-time attendee, I was paired with a “Meeting Mentor.” I was also grouped with other first-time attendees, for peer-to-peer networking, and as a group we were all under the further wing of the First-time Attendee Coordinator. My Meeting Mentor was Heather Staines, VP of the Stanford-born startup SIPX, past board member of the SSP, and long-time industry pro. My fellow first-time attendees and grant winners were similarly diverse professionals from library sciences and publishing programs across the country and overseas (I was the only MBA in the mix and the first one to participate in the program, thus far.) Our First-time Attendee Coordinator was none other than Will Wakeling, Dean of University Libraries, Northeastern University, founding member of the SSP, and industry/meeting icon.

The SSP meeting is huge, the orgs in attendance cover the globe (and all the walks of life above-mentioned); it might take several years to learn where the ropes are, let alone learn how to use them. Having a meeting mentor and first-time attendee coordinator accelerated the process for all of us and, for me, having a Meeting Mentor so versed and experienced as Heather Staines and a First-time Attendee Coordinator so knowledgeable and widely respected as Will Wakeling meant that I got to chat with international professionals at every level of the ecosystem, meet nearly all the past presidents of the SSP (and a host of the Chefs from the Scholarly Kitchen), and learn about the founding principles and history of the organization.

The sessions and conversations I had at the meeting were amazing; each more informative and eye opening than the last, and I could go on at dizzying length (as is my apparent wont) about the best-practices I learned of and the ideas I came away with – many of which have informed new initiatives I’ve begun since – and I will no doubt post some thoughts born of those takeaways. However, this post is about what I am truly grateful for from this experience, and that is getting to learn what the SSP is about: the people I met.

In the SSP logo, it says: “innovative people advancing scholarly communication.” I can say that the emphasis there is on “innovative people.” I met a dynamic, driven, and welcoming worldly horde of people. I’ve been to a number of meetings and attended some “schooling” here and there. In the first few minutes of the SSP, I met dozens of folks from a host of organizations and backgrounds, all of whom I look forward to seeing again and continuing to learn from, as we advance in our careers.

CENTRAL TAKEWAY/LEARNING:

The wealth and diversity of backgrounds and perspectives (commercial execs, consultants, vendors-as-members!, librarians en masse, and not-for-profits), the democratic nature of the organization (a focus on you as an individual professional), and the generous disposition of the members (founders, Presidents, attendees, mentors, and colleagues) are what distinguishes the SSP at heart; these elements make the SSP exceptionally welcoming and engaging and make discussions at the meeting uniquely generative of new thinking and opportunities.

THANKSGIVING:

I am thankful for getting to meet all my fellow grant recipients, and for getting to meet so many of the best and brightest in scholarly communications (the many chefs, heads, and execs). I owe special thanks to Heather and Will and other SSP stalwarts who all took such a personal interest in our experience – I can’t thank you enough! On that broader front, I would be remiss if I didn’t back up and say thank you to the SSP itself for giving me the opportunity to attend this year’s meeting and to everyone I met who made the experience so rewarding.

Given my experience, I would be further remiss if I did not say to all my fellow colleagues in scholarly communication, whom I have not met yet (and likely already talked your ear off in this regard) and who are planning professional development activities for the coming year: I’m renewing my membership in the SSP and making plans for Boston. I recommend, whole-heartedly, that all seeking new ways to advance scholarly communication do the same and join the polyglot discussions at the SSP next year. When you do, I look forward to meeting you there!

How to Spot Ugly Black Ducklings: next competitive frontiers in scholarly publishing

This is a pre-print version of a piece I wrote for the upcoming issue of Learned Publishing, LEARNED PUBLISHING VOL. 26 NO. 4 OCTOBER 2013

[It] reviews events of SSP 2013 and AAUP 2013 within the context of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s notions of Black Swans (unexpected game changers) to anticipate the formation of competitive arenas (i.e., new models and revenue streams) for scholarly communications. It examines Tim O’Reilly’s keynote address at SSP 2013, the advice of Michael Schrage from the opening Plenary at AAUP 2013, and Tim Sullivan’s discussion of Harvard Business Publication’s use of a topical blog network as new publishing platform to access global digital communications networks, in the Reaching the World session at AAUP 2013. The essay extrapolates from the case studies presented in these sessions to overlay the strategies of successful practitioner presses and the advice of sought-after business consultants on the work of academic houses, to imagine the next competitive frontier/s in scholarly publishing.

We are all familiar with a Black Swan (capitalized). A Black Swan is categorically unexpected; contrary to all experience and thought likely not to exist or ever have impact on anything we hold dear—like our business models—but it comes along and has impact: massive impact. Simply put, it is an unexpected game changer. Could be good; could be bad; it depends how close you are to the volcanic vent on the ocean floor when it opens.

So, how do you launch your own Black Swan event—that changes everything for the better/in your favor? More importantly, how do you spot the potential for doing so in the world around you, when, by the very definition, a Black Swan is wholly unexpected and unpredictable?

The short answer is to read Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s latest book, Antifragile, apply its tenets to your situation, and shape your fate and business model to be improved by all the challenges it faces; i.e., to exist in a state beyond robust and resilient, in a state that actually “feeds” on shocks to the system.

The other answer (hard to say which is longer) is to learn how to spot Ugly Black Ducklings, spare them from the day-to-day ducks, and wrangle and raise them as your own Black Swans. Important to note, however, that a Black Swan can never be anticipated or predicted; so, an Ugly Black Duckling is doubly-unrecognizable. This brief piece is therefore about doing the impossible; assaying the latent outsized potential in the rightfully dismissed.

Suggesting that we can develop aptitude for spotting what might lead to an unpredictable game changer is seemingly irresponsible; but, fielded here for an important reason: Amazon constituted a Black Swan event for brick and mortar bookstores (and later publishers). Importantly, founders of and investors in Amazon had reasons to believe they could reshape the world in their favor, and they were right. So, somewhere amid the noise and chatter, quacks and squawks, someone saw or heard the Black Swan that could be …someone spotted an Ugly Black Duckling.

If I had one of those fancy things called a thesis, it would be very near to some of Taleb’s thinking: namely, that game-changing opportunities (Ugly Black Ducklings) are all around us; the world is lousy with them. (E.g., Amazon found one; Twitter too.) That’s the good news. Bad news, according to Taleb, we are naturally disposed never to notice them.

Two Ugly Black Ducklings for scholarly presses
I was fortunate to have attended two, outstanding, international conferences this summer: SSP 2013 and AAUP 2013. Across both, at least two Ugly Black Ducklings waddled. I’ll discuss the moments in the meetings when I saw them waddle, and latter imagine the Black Swan/s that might come from them. You can draw your own conclusions and see what ducklings you see in each of the following:

1. O’Reilly Media
The first Ugly Black Duckling waddled across both conferences; I will move back and forth across both sightings.

Michael Schrage got backs up in the opening Plenary at AAUP 2013 by saying that university presses were too focused on “publishing,” (e.g., how to publish books better, how to sell more of the books published, and promoting the value of the work of publishing generally); as an organizing principle, “publishing” is limiting, and Schrage felt that university presses should find a new organizing principle. He pointed to a phrase in the mission statement of the AAUP for starters: “…to advance scholarship.” Advancing scholarship, he noted, is broad enough to yield new vistas over old terrain; it would be more likely to lead to new products, services, and profitable moves in the market.

Two weeks earlier, Tim O’Reilly had given the keynote address at SSP 2013. Interestingly, he had similar advice for all scholarly presses. In his address, he stressed innovation and experimentation with new models. He quoted a Silicon Valley investor who said: “only invest in solutions that close the loop;” i.e., that provide complete solutions to a given set of needs. His example of an approach that is working to close a loop: Google’s self-driving car. Organizing need: helping people to get from point A to point B. Example of a publishing solution: a road atlas; specifically, the Rand McNally Road Atlas. Example of the evolution of a more complete solution—of closing the loop: MapQuest and Google maps; mobile GPS with real-time updates and synthetic voice directions; next, a self-driving car. Obvious to all: the obsolescence of the publishing solution.

What Schrage pointed to at the AAUP was just such a broader notion of the set of needs to be addressed; one that might carry a business forward in such an evolutionary progression, to help safeguard it and its products from obsolescence, if not help it to be the one to finally deliver the goods and close the loop.

In the panel sessions at the SSP, we were also reminded by an exec in O’Reilly Media, Allen Noren, of what Tim O’Reilly said to his management team to spur them to innovation: “In five years, if all we are is publishers, we’ll be out of business.” That was decades ago. They became more than publishers and are increasingly innovative and successful today.

I caught Schrage after his talk at AAUP 2013, and told him of O’Reilly’s remarks. He said, “O’Reilly gets it.” He also told me that they had worked together in the past; so, this isn’t too surprising that they agree on everyone targeting being more than just publishers. But, what is it that we should get from this, exactly; what can we make of it in scholarly publishing?

2. Harvard Business Publishing
The second Ugly Black Duckling started waddling back in 2011 (possibly before) and appeared again at AAUP 2013 …not a day older!

Grant McCracken was the lead plenary speaker of AAUP 2011. He spoke on “Innovation and Organizational Change,” summarizing the state of strategy in business today and emphasizing the need for radical creativity in the face of new challenges, especially in scholarly publishing. Then, he offered a modest suggestion: In addition to standard forms of peer-reviewed journals and books, scholarly presses should consider including a new form of publication, a new platform for ideas, without peer review; in this format, presses should base approval on an editor’s sense of the author’s work and the need in the popular discourse for the information it contained alone—and go straight to market with it.

Mayhem ensued; editors armed themselves with pitchforks and throwing-cats, monsters sang show tunes, frogs fell from the ceiling; McCracken barely made it out alive. Things didn’t settle down until champagne was uncorked at the reception.

Tim Sullivan, editorial director at Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), spoke in the Reaching the World panel session at AAUP 2013. The session was inspired by Peter Dougherty’s speech as President of the AAUP in 2012; a later version of which appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education: “The Global University Press.” In it, Dougherty advised university presses two capitalize on “two converging trends: the growth of international scholarship, and expansion of digital communications networks.” Sullivan and others in the session spoke on HBP’s use of the latter.

HBP operates three market groups: Higher Education (coursework), Harvard Business Review (the journal/magazine we know as HBR), and Corporate Learning (management training). HBP and HBR manage a blog network to support all of its publishing programs.

Sullivan stressed that the blogs are not a promotional tool/s; they are one of several, integrated publishing platforms; 100% editorially driven and strategically knit with other offerings. HBP/HBR simply utilizes the web as part of its publishing program. Posts are not peer reviewed and they are not always tied to or inspired by other HBP/HBR publications. Sullivan and other editors acquire content directly for the blogs, from researchers or specialists in interesting areas. The blog network even has its own published submission guidelines, inviting unsolicited submissions to the blog. These posts can develop into articles or book projects, but that is not always the goal; the goal is to publish good blogs.

Of course, the reverse happens as well; authors of articles or books are approached by HBP/HBR editors or offer to write for the blogs on their own. In these cases, posts have links that tie the reader to a HBR article or HBP book (and sometimes to books published by scholarly presses).

Regardless of the content’s origins, Sullivan noted that through the original, topical content of the blog network, HBP/HBR engages the world and culture at large by delivering instant real value in the form of original, shareable insights from leading experts in the field—and then connecting readers through links to more resources/products.

At a glance, three things are unique about the HBP/HBR use case of accessing global digital communications networks, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, via its blogs: 1) as stressed above, the blogs have all original content and are wholly editorially driven, without peer review or exclusive marketing input, 2) because all of HBP/HBR content focuses on management and leadership, the content across the blog network is topically cohesive; i.e., all posts are relevant to the HBP/HBR target audience, and 3) the topical “tags” on the blog tie out to all HBP/HBR content – across all HBP/HBR platforms: e.g., journal articles, books, book chapters, online tools, cases, audio CDs.

How can, and perhaps more importantly why should, the strategies and advice of these largely practitioner presses be applied to the work and business models of the more scholarly presses?

To spot the ugly & black amid the yellow & cute
New product strategy is like hosting a dinner party; specifically, it’s like planning the menu for a dinner party. I have it on good authority that you are an excellent host/hostess; so, you know that what you do NOT do is set out to make the very best dish you are capable of making. This can be expensive and it can kill your guests, and killing your guests, as it turns out, or sending them home with swollen hands and feet, shoes in a sack, and lips and eyelids that look like cooked shrimp, has a deleterious and lasting impact on your reputation as a party thrower.

Of course, you check what’s new in the markets, what’s in season, and maybe what’s on special, if cost is an issue. Of course you think of your best recipes, and what wines you have on hand to pair with everything. You also take into account the likes and dislikes of your guests, if you want them to return. Most of all, however, you make sure to ask if anyone has any food allergies, and if you can’t shift the whole menu to accommodate, you make sure you have something in the works for everyone to enjoy the bash and make it home in good spirits, without recourse to epi-pen or ER room.

The ugly & black duckling (an antifragile business model) takes such things into account.

Scholarly publishing’s guests are displaying an allergy to copyright. Like it or not, folks are using more material more freely and preferring not to pay for it. Downside for publishers: copyright undergirds most all publishing revenue streams. (In a traditional SWOT analysis, this would show up as a W.) Therefore, scholarly presses would not regret having a revenue stream (b-model) that was not copyright-dependent; it would diversify their portfolio/s and decrease aggregate risk.

Further, guest are displaying allergies to peer review, to the protracted periods between completion of their research (submission of new ideas) and our publication of them (sharing of their ideas with the world), and to the burden – especially on junior scholars – of having to generate an instant, wide-reaching, and vibrant blog following, on top of all other research and teaching responsibilities. Scholarly presses would not be unpopular for helping to alleviate the discomfort of these allergies; doing so would further help turn the press’s Ws into Os that could lead to more Ss.

The Black Swan/s

1. O’Reilly Media
One of the first ways O’Reilly Media became more than publishers was by hosting conferences in the subject areas in which they published. Much of their content addressed emerging topics with nascent communities; the conferences provided hubs around which the subject-oriented communities could turn and grow. O’Reilly Media benefitted.

Many scholarly communities (societies) and conferences are long-established. Nevertheless, as a service to societies and the scholars who run and participate in them, scholarly publishers could (and many already do) lend their centralized and highly-specialized organizational strengths to offer conference-hosting services: event planning, post-meeting video, audio, and slide deck posting, registration and project management on down. Just as with journal publishing services, centralized investment in conference hosting services would lead to economies of scale.

This is common practice among commercial houses, but again at least Schrage was addressing university presses, when the Ugly Black Duckling waddled. In their ranks, it is rarer. This subset of scholarly presses could move to offer top-services to the smallest of conferences and, in time, offer to shoulder infrastructural burden for larger conferences.

In fact, a few university presses do already offer such services, having made the investment in doing so many years earlier. So, the true Ugly Black Duckling, and perhaps Uglier and Blacker for it, would be for university presses to partner with one another to offer these services; thus partnered they could hazard scale of nigh-commercial status and achieve greater market penetration.

Though there are many primary and ancillary benefits to such a move in the market, an immediate effect will be to expand revenues beyond content-monetization and to expand the suite of services the organization offers scholars/scholarly societies, thereby expanding the role of the publisher in scholarly communications.

2. Harvard Business Publishing
The suggestion to be inferred from Sullivan’s presentation of the HBP/HBR case study was more direct: If it hasn’t done so already, a scholarly press could move to host a thoroughly integrated and editorially-driven, topically cohesive (disciplinary) blog – with 100% original, directly acquired content that is linked to all other published offerings – as HBR has; however, a few caveats.

- HBP/HBR has a proverbial lock on the practitioner space in management. It certainly is the market leader. More importantly, it doesn’t publish in any other areas; e.g., how to knit is not often a subject of HBR articles. So, the HBR brand is both nigh-synonymous with AND dedicated to one subject area. Presses that publish in several subject areas – or enjoy a less-than-authoritatively-dominant position within a discipline – will either need to publish one or more separate blogs (branded by subject) and/or explore a partnering strategy with other presses to cover one subject persuasively well enough to attract dedicated users and achieve similar results.

- HBP/HBR blogs are clearly editorial, not institutional – and they have been that way for some time. As a result, HBR blogs have independently acquired original content. As with any other publication, the focus of the blog/posts in such a network must not be on the publisher or on the business interests of the publisher (e.g., fund raising, sales, and events); that’s what an institutional blog is for. They also must not be limited to the published authors of one press or another. The focus of a disciplinary blog must rather be purely on ideas and dedicated to the discipline or topics of interest to the community at large. Scholarly presses that have blogs with an institutional focus (i.e., that post promotional announcements or limit themselves to only the ideas of the press’s published authors) will have to reconceive the blogs’ role in the press’s publishing strategy (engaging with the community) and/or launch a separate blog or blogs under topical branding and with the new focus.

- HBP/HBR blog posts are integrated with all other content offerings – the topical tags on HBP/HBR blog posts link to every other “chunk” of HBP/HBR informational products (e.g., journal articles, books, book chapters, online tools, cases, audio CDs). Many beneficial network effects of the HBP/HBR blogs use case stem from the centralized hosting of all HBP/HBR products and content. For similar benefits, scholarly presses with third-party hosting services may have additional planning to do to allow for similar, dynamic access.

Though this move would have many primary and ancillary benefits as well, one immediate effect would be to expand the platforms the publisher offers authors in a given discipline. Perhaps more importantly, such a new dis-intermediated platform would not have the delays associated with peer review and other traditional publishing platforms, thus, shortening the timeline from authorship to publication for the author, and undoing the unflattering correlation, for the publisher, with exclusively slow times to market and under-networked media.

Black Swan effects – inspecting the plumage
For these moves to be part of or give rise to a Black Swan they would have to lead to events that might ultimately change the game; so, what would some related fallout be: How could they be used?

1. To engage: Kathryn Fitzpatrick says in Planned Obsolescence (NYU Press, 2011): "We too often keep our work as scholars hidden away from the cultural mainstream, pointing toward a pervasive anti-intellectualism that disqualifies the public from engaging with our ideas." She urges that scholars seek open forums for their work to engage readers—who are increasingly called upon to fund the research. Such open forums and platforms as blogs would engage not only other scholars and but through sharing and open submission the public as well.

2. To delight: Marketing strategist, and frequent TED talk speaker, Seth Godin points out two things regularly in his work: ideas that spread win, and the best way to get people to spread your ideas is to be remarkable and delight them. Adding such expanded services and dis-intermediated platforms for scholars to work in would be remarkable.

3. To drive sales: Authors the of Spreadable Media (NYU Press, 2013) note that when publishers utilize spreadable forms they, in effect, turn each blogger, retweeter, sharer, reposter, and mashup person of Pinterest into sales reps; blog posts and conference events could be “spreadable” sales channels.

4. To close the loop: O’Reilly endorses “only investing in solutions that close the loop;” i.e., those that more completely address an organizing need or set of needs for your customers. With words like “trending” thriving in contemporary culture, traditional outputs of formal scholarly publication are increasingly over-and-done-with before they see their pub dates; publishers of traditional forms are not wrongly seen as presenting research that “happened,” in preparation for its entering the archival record. That worthy function notwithstanding, each of the above approaches expands the publisher’s role from covering what “happened” (after individual research is complete) to presenting what’s “happening” (in discussion at conferences and in open forums). If hosting the academic discussion, encouraging debate and the spreading and improving of ideas with and to the public, is the organizing need – rather than simply publishing research – than approaches like these could begin to close the loop.

Publishers working on the frontlines of research, in nearer to real time with scholars, and accessing a networked culture on its own terms to engage the public in dis-intermediated forums would constitute a broadening of the traditional role of the publisher in scholarly communications (for the better; W → S) and could therefore be seen as at least elemental of a game changer for scholarly publishers—giving rise to new strengths and new competitive frontiers.

In other words, though other moves and complementary business model components (the right exercise and nutrients) will be needed for maturity to be reached, our Ugly Black Ducklings could grow into a Black Swan for scholarly presses.

Conclusion
The above, is not intended to be an exhaustive explication of the latent potential in any of the conference sessions or business models referenced. It is not intended to prove beyond doubt or alteration that these extrapolations will be part of a looming Black Swan event or that academics are “allergic” to peer review, necessarily – any more than to suggest that scholarly presses are allergic to operating out from under it. Nor is it meant to prove what these speakers were imagining as likely and advisable next moves for scholarly publishers: e.g., it would be hard to say that disciplinary blogs, hosted by scholarly presses, was exactly what McCracken had in mind, back in the summer of 2011. That said; while I’m thinking of it, for any who are interested in McCracken’s work, his new book, Culturematic, came out in May of last year (HBP, 2012). He can be read on his blog (cultureby.com) and on the HBP/HBR Blog network; last seen at the time of this writing posting to the HBP/HBR blog on: “Is Timex Suffering the Early Stages of Disruption?”

Getting back to our Ugly Black Ducklings: their extrapolation into an alternate future for scholarly publishing – that hath such favorable creatures in it – is intended to illustrate and underscore the doubly-unrecognizable nature of what might lead to an unprecedented game changer; i.e., the fact that ideas presented at conferences or in case studies from other industries and markets may not seem fit in with the other ducklings of a publisher’s past strengths and traditional practices, does not disqualify them from the consideration and formation of viable future models. Rather, it qualifies them as potentially being part of game-changing, new revenue sources and platforms, which in turn could lead to more and better models and ultimately to a Black Swan for the home team. Therefore, such odd notions and left-field advice may be worthy of further reflection.

Sources:
Dougherty, Peter J. (2013). “The Global University Press." Chronicle of Higher Education; (Accessed on July 5, 2013).

Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. (2011) Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. New York, NY. NYU Press

Godin, Seth. (2009).Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. New York, NY. Portfolio Hardcover; Penguin USA.

Jenkins, Henry, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green. (2013) Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture (Postmillennial Pop) New York, NY. NYU Press

Harvard Business Publications. Harvard Business Review Magazine, Case Studies, Articles, Books, Pamphlets – Harvard Business Review; (Accessed on July, 5, 2013).

Harvard Business Publications. “GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS/HBR Blog Network.” (Accessed on July, 5, 2013).

O’Reilly Media, Inc. O’Reilly Media – Technology books, Tech conferences, IT Courses, News. http://oreilly.com/; (Accessed on July 5, 2013).

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. (2010) The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: with a new section: “On Robustness and Fragility.” New York, NY. Random House Trade Paperbacks

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. (2012) Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder. New York, NY. Random House Inc.

Rakestraw Books – my first job & Alfred the cat

It does my heart all kinds of good to know that the small bookstore where I grew up is still in business. I say “where I grew up” advisedly, as it is the independent shop in the small town where my family lived when I was young, and it is the place where I grew to love books and writing; i.e., the place in which I grew up most.

Sunday mornings, open

Sunday mornings, I’d open the shop early. The delivery guy left stacks of New York Times and Wall Street Journals just inside the door. He had a key too. I’d throw one NYT onto the counter as I passed, set the remaining NYTs and WSJs on the spinning rack near the front desk, and prop open both sets of double doors on either side of the store. I’d put the handmade, grumpy-old-man life-sized doll into the director’s chair out front, with the slate tablet sign in his lap that read: “Please don’t pet the cat. Thank you.” Put the matching, kindly-old-lady life-sized doll, with similar slate tablet, in a director's chair outback. Flip on the light over the coffee table near the small wall-mounted sign that read: “A clean, well-lighted place, for books.” Review new arrivals, so I could answer questions; people always asked after the new arrivals on Sundays. Flip the Bang & Olufsen on low, tuned to classical. Kick on the registers. Read through notes from Brian and/or Mary, the owners. Scan special orders to fill. Walk the aisles quickly to find where the beast was lurking and then settle in behind the counter with the New York Times. The goal was to get thus ensconced for a moment before the customers began coming in.

The truly enlightening crowds (for even their questions were edifying) would descend with a just a few folks at first; eventually scores of delighted people were roaming the aisles. The owners would join for the active hours, and I’d watch them work the store, saying Hi to new and old friends, dispensing advice on all fronts, until the afternoon shift arrived. Then I was off for the day.

Try harder

Brian Harvey had a thriving law practice in the financial district of San Francisco which he sold to open a bookstore in the East Bay suburbs. He was clearly insane in the best possible way.

He and his wife Mary were the nicest people I’ve ever known, and I think everyone who knew them could say the same. Their shop was the mythic stuff of films and legend, like most every independent bookstore founded on a love of literature. Everyone came and went with a “Hi, Mary” and “Bye, Brian.” Families bought gifts and joined reading groups. They sought Mary and Brian’s and other staff’s advice on books, films and theater; It was alive with people sharing culture.

Mary was an archetypal Berkeley grad, down to Birkenstocks with socks and bangs clipped to one side with a simple barrette. Brian was Mark Twain-esque in his laughter, wit and delivery; the embodiment of a wicked-smart jocular curmudgeon: starkly opinionated about what constituted a worthy book and author and quite free with recommendations for and against anyone on his shelves or throughout history. Mary would just shake her head.

My mother found the Harveys and Rakestraw Books shortly after we moved to town. She dragged me through on weekends, after visiting the health food store next door, for hours. Eventually, I’d leave the nuts and vitamins early to roam the aisles in the bookstore and wait for her. Natural perhaps, too, that when time came for me to get a part-time job, if I ever wanted to pay for gas or have a car, it was in the bookstore.

Brian and Mary were brilliant to work for. Brian handled staff. Mary handled Alfred. Besides endless insight into the book business, good writing, good film, theater, and literature, Brian taught me several important things for an awkward teenager and future lit-major to learn: “Don’t lean,” and “Keep your hands out of your pockets.” He was a man of few words in this arena (all of them above) and relentless: I was cured of slouching, at least in the shop, within a week. …I have to say, books and literature were easy; these lessons were the toughest for me at the time (I also grew taller by several inches while working for the Harveys.) If I am ever mindful of good posture now, I owe it to working for Brian Harvey.

Two other things stick out about Brian's handling of staff

One day I mistyped something on a special order or a return airway bill (yes, mistyped; yes, airway bill). I think I swapped the shop’s street address for that of Little, Brown and Company—a curse of inattentiveness has plagued me throughout my life. Brian pointed out the mistake. I began to explain what led to it, and Brian raised a hand to stop me. He said simply, “Try harder,” with a laugh and we moved on.

I recall on my first day, Brian had announced my training schedule similarly; he raised a hand to prevent me from stepping behind the counter and pointed out into the store: “Walk the aisles; commit every book to memory.” That was it; for two weeks, I was paid to come to the store, after school, and inspect every book in inventory, from one end of the shop to the other. His reasoning was simple, “I can teach how to use the cash register in fifteen minutes; …how else are you going to learn about the books?” Apparently I was ahead-of-the-curve; he'd had other new hires roam the aisles for a month. It was a good of couple weeks.

Several nights a week, early evening, to close

I’d arrive at the tail end of the last rush. For this bedroom community, dinner time on was a fairly quite time in all the shops. I’d help with the last evening customers, say goodbye to the afternoon staff (often Brian or Mary) and manage the store until close.

Having already heard news (mostly on MTV), newspapers held less interest in the evening than they did on Sunday. Brian and Mary had devoted a short wall, below the counter, to works by a syndicated cartoonist featuring a family of bunny rabbits and a pair of fez-wearing twins. I did read all of those, start to finish. They were and are hilarious. (I presume everyone has read them all; if by some chance you have not, stop and do so. Your life and the life of those around you will be better for it.) The artist went on to have some success on TV. His name was and is Matt Groening (like complaining).

I was through those pretty quickly, and the shop was usually nearly silent; one or two customers at a time. So, I read. I picked up books that I’d heard Brian and Mary and customers talking about. Classics, I’d heard everyone talking about. Books that were clearly college-aged material. I read, several nights a week, early evening, to close.

Alfred the cat

Brian and Mary eventually retired (again) and sold the shop to some folks from the next town over. New owners had worked for a major chain and had a notion of employing a “personal computing machine” or maybe two to track inventory. Brian was a bit old fashioned, refused to let a computer in the store, and still had all books inventoried on a series of index cards that filled a recessed space and ran the length and breadth of the iron-black counters—just out of sight of the customers and in easy reach of staff. Some folks say the switch to computers with the new ownership helped gird the shop for the battles ahead (plummeting national sales and closings of small shops everywhere); however, I know it was Alfred the cat.

Alfred the cat’s actual name: Alfredo Arthur William Horatio Ralph Edgar Cicero Nathaniel Cappuccino William (different William) Henry Ernest Boccaccio Samuel…the cat (you get the idea), a beautiful black, long-haired feline with thick fur and greenish golden eyes. The flat-iron-black modern floor-to-ceiling shelving units held all books at angles for easy viewing and had flat shelves at just better than waist height for lay-flat displays. Alfred lounged on the shelves throughout the shop, mostly on the lay-flat space.

A few tough coincidences here: Children loved Alfred. The lay-flat display space was roughly at kid-head-(or face)-height. Alfred didn’t like children.

So, you know where this goes. After working there a while, you could feel the rhythms even from across the shop: children run in…(beat)…scan shelves, find their section, and run around the corner (beat) “There’s a cat, Mom!” (beat) (sometimes another beat) and unfortunate sounds and tears followed.

I asked Brian if he ever thought of taking Alfred home. “I value my face too much!" he'd say. "No, Mary loves Alfred, so he stays; but he stays in the shop.” I’d like to say Alfred stayed on when they sold the shop, but I’m sure they did take him home then ...or drove slowly while he followed the car.

The survival of the shop

The shop was in the beginning of decline when they sold, but its fortunes did turnaround somewhat and level off (I believe) even through the toughest of years. No doubt the computerized inventory tracking and new management systems helped guard profits. Clearly the goodwill that Mary and Brian built up over the years with the larger Rakestraw community helped sustain it.

But, in the deeper analysis, behind the scenes and statistics, I think it was the generation of kids like me that were mauled by the dwarf, long-haired puma they kept in the shop that made it last. We grew tough. If customers can have significant, repeated facial lacerations (some of us are slow to learn) and keep coming back to your store, you know you have them for life!

In all seriousness, sticking with literature and the arts has always been tough, and in the toughest times it is toughest among us who dig in and find new ways to hold the fort. So I am glad that when Brian and Mary wanted to retire, and as bookstore fortunes were clearly uncertain, noble souls chose to invest in such an enterprise, others followed, and a community never stopped frequenting it, keeping it alive with people sharing culture.

I always think of Rakestraw Books around the Holidays. I hope everyone thinks about visiting their ‘Rakestraw Books’ this season, and I invite all who do to reflect on the simple lessons of my first job: Try harder, commit every book to memory, and please don’t pet the cat.