Free vs Fee – the Future of News – SLA Europe meeting 3 November

Another successful SLA Europe event this evening, this time at the swanky venue of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, five minutes away from Blackfriars station.

The hot topic was Free vs Fee – the Future of News. And stemmed from the fact that most newspapers have offered their content via the Internet for free with the expectation that display advertising would create enough revenue to cover the cost of creating and distributing their content. However, with the continuing decline in physical newspaper sales and the softening of the display advertising market, news organisations are exploring new ways to charge for their digital content.

On the panel were Jeremy  Lawson  VP Sales, EMEA, Dow Jones & Company, Andrew Hughes – Commercial Director for the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA), Laurence C. Rafsky Ph.D. – CEO of Acquire Media and Laurence Kaye – Principal at Laurence Kay Solicitors. The panel was excellently moderated by Donald Roll – Managing Director, Europe for Alacra.

Here are my notes from the evening:

Don Roll introduced the evening by talking about the steep decline in newspaper circulation, the recent arrival of the first free quality newspaper in the form of the London Evening Standard, and how the NLA wants to ensure newspaper publishers receive payment for web content.

Andrew Hughes – NLA initiatives

NLA are moving towards creating a set of licences for commercial use of newspaper websites.

UK newspapers spend £1b a year in creating this content, which is quite different from paper published information. For example 31% of newspaper websites has never appeared in print.

The plan is that for those who charge for access to newspaper content will be charged by the NLA, who will also charge end user clients for access to content.

Existing licences will be extended and new ones created where necessary

e-Clips Web – Working to improve access to content by using newspaper CMS systems.

Laurence Kay – The legal view – 10 key points

1. Professional journalism, ‘trusted content’ and UGC (user generated content)

2. Change takes time! Business models and culture takes time to change.

3. Global Media / local copyright?

4. If content is going to be free, why does copyright matter? Provides the framework for access and usage rights.

5. B2B versus consumer copyrights

6. ‘Effects-based’ approach to copyright. Helps to work out how to apply rules to the real world. Look at the commercial impact of activities.

7. ‘Legal’ versus ‘Illegal’ content. When to take action or technical measures over infringements.

8. Who are the ‘intermediaries’ in the value chain? E.g. Where does Google fit in? Searched for or ‘scraped’ conent?

9. ‘Fair Use’. Big variations across Europe. United States has a broad definition. If the use is commercial is that no longer fair use?

10. We are still lacking 21^st century infrastructure to cope with licensing and payments for use.

Laurence C. Rafsky – What do we mean by free?

Once freedom has been tasted there is no going back.

Value chain –

1. professionally produced but given away selectively – e.g. advertiser supported
2. Non-professional content
3. Gifted professional content. E.g. Stephen King novel
4. Free to some but not others
5. Content that should not be free.

Two enemy camps

1. Information wants to be free – the hippies
2. Corporate suits who want to charge for everything

The solution will need to be  a compromise.

A question for the NLA to consider:

Do you use copyrighted material for commercial gain without payment to content owners?

Do you use copyrighted material for commercial gain without permission from the content owners as we understand it?

The crux of the debate is between these two viewpoints.

Can we separate business use from personal use? Google don’t distinguish between the two.

Jeremy  Lawson – Supporting publishers and their right to monetise their content.

Questions from the audience:

Did the newspaper industry start digging its own grave by giving away content?

New York Times started with some free and mainly fee access. They ended it because when compared pay per click ads versus pay for access would give ten times the revenue. But as ad revenues fall they may go back to first model.

Should be driven by economics.

Do you think news aggregators are a serious threat to publishers?

Links are fine, but extracts complicate the issue as readers may not link through to content. But as web content grows and newspaper content becomes a smaller fraction, increasing hits to newspaper sites lose their economic value to the publishers.

85% of newspaper traffic comes via Google. So should Google pay the majority share?

Is the Kindle from Amazon a potential future model for subscription access to newspaper content?

Disagreement – ability to break news up into selected streams for readers counts against Kindle model.

When will paper newspapers die?

Laurence C. Rafsky predicted that by 2030 newspapers would cease to exist in paper form as a  mainstream product.

He compares their future to candles today – they will become a decorative only production.

As he pointed out, if you had a choice, why would you use paper for something that only has a value for a few hours, and then you need to scan it to create a digital version which can be archived.

B2B vs B2C

Issues about consumers within a business environment – now that the genie is out of the bottle, how do you get individuals in a corporate environment to accept paying for information.

The event was kindly sponsored by Dow Jones.

What is a CRM, and when are they best used by small business? Lucidica workshop Tuesday 3 November

This morning I managed to find the time to attend a workshop by one of our partners. Lucidica are a relatively new partner for the Business & IP Centre and currently provide six workshops related to IT and business.

This particular half day workshop on what is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and when are they best used by small business, was presented by immensely knowledgeable founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Thomas Jeffs.

He got straight down to business by explaining that a successful CRM implementation requires both staff discipline and management buy-in. With out both of these you will be wasting both your time and and your money.

Here are my notes from the morning:

What can a CRM system do?

1. Contact Management

• the most basic function of a CRM
• who they are
• what they are doing
• central point for all staff

Shared office address book – suppliers – customers – for many business this is just a piece of paper stuck onto a computer terminal

if people don’t use it and keep it up to date it become worthless

2.  Sales Force Automation – now the most popular aspect of CRM – making sure you make the best use of your sales force

• What to do and when, with regards to sales and follow ups
• Helps make sure you chase opportunities when you need to
• Allows you to forecast your predicted sales and leads – only tends to work on larger scale of operation
• Allows you to see how your sales agents are doing
• Essentially automating your sales force and sales force reporting
• Benefits not so clear to staff due to reluctance to fill in details of customer interactions

3.  Marketing Campaign Management – linked to previous activity

• How much did £100 in marketing spend raise in sales?
• How many leads did a marketing campaign generate?
• How many internal resources were required as a result of a marketing campaign? E.g. Did it attract the wrong kind of customer who were ‘high maintenance’?

4. Customer Service Management – support tickets – complaints – consistency across the Business & IP Centre

• A centralised place for tracking – breaks dependency on one member of staff
• Can provide automated responses to issues. E.g. generated ticket number and expected response from the company
• Can monitor and escalate issues if still outstanding
• Result in – consistency  and efficiency of service
• Benefits clearly visible to staff and customers

It is important to establish which of the above are the most relevant to your business, as this will have an impact the the most suitable package for you.

How do CRM systems help your business?

1. How do they do it? – Automation

Health warning

-       Automation to internal users is good

• Creation of follow-up tasks/ reminders
• Workflow tools
• Creation of templates, timelines and standards

-       Automation to external users is mixed

• Acknowledgement of complaints/issues/feedback work well
• Automated quarterly sales email – don’t work so well – de-personalises the business.

2. How do they do it? – Tracking / Recording

-       Change of address for existing clients

-       Client moves to a new company

-       Recording emails and phone contacts with sales leads

-       Recording information that client is under contract with competitor for next three months

-       Has your entire team access to this information

3. How do they do it? – Reporting

-       Reporting is the purpose for a CRM for management

-       Some things a CRM can tell you:

• Predicted sales for next three months
• Which clients haven’t been in contact for a while
• Which sales agents are getting the most leads
• Which sales agents are making the most sales
• Which contracts are up for renewal
• What total sales have you achieved from each marketing campaign
• Which clients have service level issues
• Which people work for which clients

Thomas reviewed several case studies based on real experiences at Lucidica.

Which CRM is right for you?

1. Which CRM? – Questions to ask

1. What is the function of the CRM?
2. What will it need to integrate with?
3. Who will need to use it, and from where?
4. What is the potential benefit for my business in £’s?

2. Which CRM? – Quick and dirty recommendations

-       Excel – 1st choice for people thinking about what they need to track

-       SharePoint – 1st choice for precision applications and power users

-       Sage ACT! – 1st choice for integrating into Outloook and Sage, below 10 users, primary use for contact management and sales force automation

-       SugarCRM – 1st choice for Linux users

-       SalesForce.com – 1st choice for users with little infrastructure and who rely on internet traffic for business

-       Goldmine – 1st choice for businesses with over 10 users but can’t afford Microsoft CRM

-       Microsoft CRM – 1st choice for businesses with high volume of sales and contracts

Summary

-       Make sure your CRM does not have superfluous functions

-       Make sure it can scale both up and down

-       Make sure you can get your data out of the system

-       start small and evaluate after six months

Lucidica Technology Seminars

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

- how to improve your website so search engines, like Google, lists or ranks it better/higher.

Email Marketing

- how to use professional looking emails, in bulk, to market effectively, and/or keep your clients informed (e.g. newsletters).

Technology “Must-Have’s” For Small Businesses

- from the best computers and laptops, virus-protection and back-up software we know of; to “what is a server and when does my business need one” and many free software and technology tips to reduce technology risk and increase value in your business.

An Intranet and more with Microsoft Sharepoint

- touted as a big thing in the 1990s, Intranets are finally adding value to business – especially small business now they are affordable with products like Microsoft Sharepoint. In this seminar we explain what an Intranet is, how you can use Sharepoint and how to get this powerful solution from Microsoft for FREE. We’ll talk and show you how you can use Sharepoint for your own CRM, wiki, time sheeting forms and reporting, expense summary forms, other procedures and forms with built-in workflow and much, much more.

What is a CRM, when are they best used by small business and which one to select

- Client Relationship Management (CRM) software can bolster your relationship with existing clients as well as help you work on your prospective client contacts better and more frequently with ease. We’ll outline what a CRM, how it should be used for small business and profile the top 4 or 5 CRMs affordable to small business.

Designing, developing and maintaining an effective website

- every small business should have a website. Here we dispel many myths about designing, developing and maintaining a website – it’s really not that hard! For most websites we design and build for our clients we recommend they buy some great Adobe software which allows them to maintain their website like they edit Word documents. We provide plenty of advice and tips on what is a good design, and what your developers should be including in the code when they build it.

Micro Men and the birth and death of the personal computer – 1980 to 1985

Last night I watched Micro Men, another in the recent BBC series of dramatised portrayals of historical events from the 1970’s and 80’s, such as Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley.

This was the story of the battle for dominance in the newly emerging personal computer market from in the early 1980’s. It was also a personal clash between eccentric inventor of the pocket calculator Sir Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry (formerly his right hand man).

The film cleverly interwove news footage from the period and actors, effectively reawakening memories of my involvement in that era as a callow youth.

In particular I remember the excitement young people felt at the rapid development of the technology, and how we thought they would change the world. One scene from the seminal BBC Computer Programme talked about how personal computers would replace manual typewriters and much of the associated office paperwork. (here are some snippets). It was also something of a shock to remember how Britain led the world for that brief period, with by far the highest rate of ownership of personal computers. There was an optimism that this lead would give us an immense advantage in this newly emerging industry.

As with so many cutting edge technologies of course expectations far outstripped reality. As a ‘programming expert’ with 98 per cent in my Computer Science ‘O’ level, my father presented me with a brand new £99 Sinclair ZX81 and asked me to show him what it could do. My memory is a bit hazy on the details, but I seem to remember that its state of the art 1k of memory (compared to 2 gigabytes in today’s computers), allowed me to create a spreadsheet about 5 rows high and 16 columns wide. Unfortunately that didn’t leave any room for calculations or content.

However this did not dim my nerdish enthusiasm and I went on to study Computer Science at ‘A’ level using a Commodore Pet, and then to university on Apple II computers. It was only when I came to leave university and was pondering which model of personal PC to buy, that reality dawned. I remember my cousin asking me what I would use it for. Programming of course was the main purpose, but outside the learning environment that was not a practical application. Games were next, but the basic ones available did not appeal to me. The applications we take for granted today such as word processing and spreadsheets were not established at that time. I decided to save my £600 and wait for the technology to develop.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. Today we are surrounded by personal computers which have profoundly affected how we live our lives. Whether it is the constant bombardment of emails via Blackberries, shopping over the Internet, sharing our lives through social networking, watching or listening to films, television or radio on our iPods and personal media players, meeting new life partners through internet dating (7.8 million in the UK alone), spending time in virtual realities like Second Life, or just computing on the move (I am writing this on the train sitting next to another laptop owner – who appears be writing a gripping novel – from my furtive glances)

So although the personal PC went from boom to bust in just five short years between 1980 and 1985, apparently taking its future promise with it, the long term impact of computers on our lives has been truly revolutionary.

The footnote at the end of the show reminded me of how the two companies at the centre of the story subsequently went in very different directions. Clive Sinclair returned to his obsession with creating the world’s first mass produced affordable electric car. And produced the legendary Sinclair C5, perhaps the single most spectacular failure in the history of personal transport with sales of less than 12,000.

However, the chip that powered Chris Curry’s Acorn computer went on to be developed into the ARM processor, which has gone on to become the most successful computer chip ever, with over 10 billion shipped to power the majority of mobile phones manufactured across the world.

I made it onto net@night

As I am sure you will be aware if you are a regular reader here, I am something of a fan of Leo Laporte and his one man TWIT.TV broadcasting corporation.

From his current output of fourteen netcasts, I currently subscribe to Windows Weekly (which was instrumental in my decision to skip Vista and go straight to Windows 7) and net@night co-hosted with Amber MacArthur from Toronto.

As a loyal listener from their very first netcast, I feel honoured to have been selected as their email of the week in the latest show.

Perhaps surprisingly the topic was the controversial  choice of typeface by IKEA the global furniture brand. To be more specific it was their recent switch from the traditional print fonts of Futura and Century Schoolbook to Verdana which was designed primarily for screen use.

Although this might seem a rather esoteric topic for a show about the Internet, both Leo and Amber have experience of designing websites. And of course they spend their lives using and reviewing newly designed sites and web based services like Twitter. Consequently they are well aware of the importance of screen design and the impact the choice of typeface has on this.

For myself, ever since being volunteered to create and edit a staff newsletter way back in 1992, in the early days of desk-top-publishing, I have been interested in the impact of type styles and fonts on readers.

My email to net@night was pointing to a fascinating discussion on the BBC arts program Front Row about the implications on the IKEA brand of their change of typeface.

Free eOffice offer for Business & IP Centre customers

Many thanks to eOffice for the following free offer for August:

We are very pleased to extend free of charge access to eOffice to 8 customers of the  Business &IP Centre per day in the month of August 2009.

We are offering free one day access (from 8.30am to 6.30pm weekdays), including hot desking (please bring your laptop), free wi-fi and one free coffee per day from 18^th to 28^th August.

The offer is valid to the first 8 visitors per day, if you are interested, please reply to eOffice@eOffice.net and quote promo BIPC.

eOffice has created a new generation of workplace solutions. Your nearest eOffice, located on Sheraton Street, W1, in the heart of London, combines contemporary design and break-out areas with great technology infrastructure and WiFi connectivity.

We also offer a range of flexible services to meet the fast-changing needs of todays businesses:
- Hotdesking from £4.99 + VAT per hour
- Meeting rooms from £19.99 + VAT per hour per room and worldwide video conferencing
- Virtual office solutions (business address, mail forwarding and telephone answering) from £99.99 + VAT per month
- Full-time office solutions  with a minimum term of just one month.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Pier Paolo Mucelli / Founder

2 Sheraton Street (off Wardour Street), Soho, London, W1F 8BH – +44 870 888 88 88

Website: www.eOffice.net
Twitter: www.twitter.com/eOfficeLondon
eBlog: www.myeOffice.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/PierMucelli
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PierMucelli
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/PierMucelli
eOffice – Winner BCO Innovation Award 2007 – BCO Regional Winner 2007- 2008
eOffice – Climate Neutral Business and Meeting Centres

The smell of fiction

Since the dawn of time in the ‘real world’ people have enjoyed creating complicated hoaxes, spoofs and pranks (April 1 in particular being a popular time of year).

However, I don’t understand the thinking behind the multitude of fake products ‘for sale’ on the Internet. The latest to bamboozle the blogosphere (and Internet savvy Librarians) is the Smell of Books.

As you can see from the images and text below, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to create this ‘product’.

However, the Smell of Books is just one of a range of unexpected items produced by DuroSport Electronics. These include the DuroSport, a digital music player that no longer supports MP3 format songs. The DuroSport website links to the Prism DuroSport Insider Blog which contains many long and detailed posts written by Vladimir Concescu, the Chief Product Engineer at the DuroSport Electric Company.

I have included a photo of him below to indicate the nature of this site.

Either ‘Vladimir’ has too much time on his hands, or is working to some kind of agenda I can’t fathom.

The smell of e-books just got better

Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?

Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?

If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.

But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.

Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much. With Smell of Books™ you can have the best of both worlds, the convenience of an e-book and the smell of your favorite paper book.

Smell of Books™ is compatible with a wide range of e-reading devices and e-book formats and is 100% DRM-compatible. Whether you read your e-books on a Kindle or an iPhone using Stanza, Smell of Books™ will bring back that real book smell you miss so much.

The latest example is the the website devoted to selling

Visit to the new Guardian newspaper building in Kings Place

The same evening as the The Social Media Exchange – For the Cultural and Heritage Sectors event, I hobbled over to Kings Place to visit the shiny new Guardian (and Observer) newspaper offices.

As it was evening, we were able to see the journalists hard at work creating the next days newspaper. The building itself is amazing, with lots of glass and open spaces, making for a ‘transparent’ working environment. But as the building is also partially open to the public, the journalist are even more open to scrutiny.

Our guide, Luke Dodd, the Guardian’s project manager for the building and former Director of the Newsroom, explained the background to the move. In particular the bringing together of several disparate offices into one space. As well as merging the paper and digital activities, so that content for both media is produced by one extended team instead of separately, as before.

As a bit of a techie, I was most impressived by the  sight of literally hundreds of uniform 24 inch iMac computers on every desk. Each floor was filled with these very desirable pieces of kit as far as the eye could see. Again, the move gave an opportunity to equip all the staff with a same technology.

Many thanks to the Association of UK Media Librarians (AUKML) and SLA Europe for organising such a fascinating visit.

The Social Media Exchange – For the Cultural and Heritage Sectors

It has already been a week since I attended the one day Social Media Exchange – For the Cultural and Heritage Sectors. Organised by the irrepressible Jude Habib, co-founder of Sound Delivery the communications and training company, it was a fun day learning about the uses of social media in museums and libraries.

I have included a selection of my notes from the day below, but most of the content plus updated comments are available through their dedicated website at http://socialmediaexchange.org.uk/

Using Web Content to Build and Engage Your Audience

Madeleine Sugden – KnowHow NonProfit – http://www.knowhownonprofit.org/
http://www.slideshare.net/sounddelivery/making-content-work-for-you-presentation

What is web content for:

• Proof of existence
• Help people to learn something – 24/7 learning
• Encourage action / change behaviour – find out more/shop etc

What is web content for? – 5 Questions to help you make the most of your web content

1. Audience – will they get beyond your home page?

Examples:

• Museum of Witchcraft – poor design, which doesn’t match the nature of the content i.e. it looks like it is designed for accountants – http://www.museumofwitchcraft.com/
• Walsal new museum – too much text, missing image – http://www.artatwalsall.org.uk/
• compare to Tyne & Wear museums page – http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/
• Porthcurno telegraph museum – sections for different visitors – http://www.porthcurno.org.uk/
• Pages for visitors or for creators eg about page from Museum of Brands and Packaging is too boring – http://www.museumofbrands.com/background.html
• Working with Men website one of very few asking for feedback to improve website – http://www.workingwithmen.org/
• Friends of the Earth website – what you said content following on from consolation exercise – e.g. local groups. – get into the mindset of audience
  http://www.foe.co.uk/community/local_groups/group_resources_index.html

2. Presentation

• Are you helping with skim reading?
• Use headings, blocks of text, links to more content
• Are you giving too much information?
• Placing text over images leads to accessibility issues
• Is content accessible
• Are you encouraging people to read on?
• Don’t use – “Click here to find out more about…” unnecessary text
• Bring in other content to improve experience e.g. weather forecasts from BBC

Examples:

• Samuel Johnson website – good layout – http://www.drjohnsonshouse.org/
• Shakespeare birthplace trust – more links to content – http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/
• British Heart Foundation – good example of design – http://www.bhf.org.uk/

3. Medium

• Content isn’t just printed words
• Are you using the best format?
• Are you using audio and video content?
• Is it interesting and fun?

Examples:

National Museums Liverpool – audio content is key part of page – subject integration – includes transcript alternative – http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/

Great Fire of London – interactive video game type experience for children – http://www.fireoflondon.org.uk/

Welcome to Yorkshire – help to build your day in … – dynamic itinerary building tool – http://www.yorkshire.com/inspire/inspire-me

Hackney Museum Virtual Tour – very boring – http://www.virtualtours360.net/hackney/virtual-tour.html

4. Marketing

• Help people find your site
  Search engines – work on Google Search Engine Optimisation, think about subject terms used to find your content. E.g. A search for Victorian homes does not find many of the relevant museums.
• Use all channels
• Integrate on and offline activities

Examples:

Eric Bloodaxe from York Museum has a Facebook page

Mediamuseum on Twitter with 1,700 followers

Eureka museum putting their images on flickr

Wellcome collection – medical London – videos of relevant walks around London – http://www.medicallondon.org/related_events.html

Imperial War Museum North – their page on the Big Picture Show does not come close to capturing the impact of the actual experience in the museum – http://north.iwm.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.2141

5. Influence

• From passive users to active users to super active users…
• Make it easy to interact and take action
• Influence windows

Examples:

• Nation Museum of Wales – use e-cards – http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/ecards/?cat=all
• + make your own love spoon – http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/lovespoon/
• Barley Hall – oral history involvement – http://www.barleyhall.org.uk/content.asp?ID=35
• Kent Police Museum – donations page – call us, but no phone number – http://www.kent-police-museum.co.uk/core_pages/donations.shtml
• Sponsor a valve on Colossus web page – http://www.colossusonline.com/
• Museum of Childhood – page on Lego has no opportunity for interaction – http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/collections/toys/construction_toys/lego/index.html
• Museum of London – e-newsletter ‘close this window’ page after completing request – http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/AboutUs/Newsroom/Enewsletter/EnewsletterForm.htm
• KnowHow NonProfit – good example of many points – http://www.knowhownonprofit.org/

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Group Tweeting or Finding your organisation’s voice on Twitter

Ali Holder – Westminster Libraries

@wcclibraries

Started in March 2009

Currently lone tweeter

First tweet: Planning to put all news and events in libraries here. Also additions to the 24/7 library of exclusive online resources for library members.

11:34 PM Mar 3rd from web

Why?

Instant

Getting started:

Buy-in from senior management important as speaking for Westminster

Get tweeting – once or twice a day, most days – not too much, not to little

Set up Business Continuity colleague so they can tweet library closures etc

Aims:

Mainly post news & events, but also draw attention to existing / regular / ‘hidden’ aspects of service.

Issues:

• Organisational voice
• Broadcasting, not conversing
• Access restrictions within the work setting
• Getting customers and potential customers to follow us.

Lessons:

• Aware of popularity of posts with existing and future followers – e.g. free wi-fi
• Use search tools to find out what people are saying about us.
• Proactive use allows us to build trust and demonstrate use to organisation
• Ditto for users –

Finding our voice – who is tweeting?

Me, us or them?

Future plans:

• Group tweeting – or groups of tweeters
• More feeds
• More use of hashtags
• Tweeting through events
• Feedback and conversation
• How do we measure success?

Tips:

• Never forget the biog section
• Work out who is speaking
• Provide links
• Don’t protect updates
• Watch how others do it
• Don’t exclude – have a feed

Twitter demographics – typical user – around 30 and urban

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Round up discussion

Patrick Forbes – Head of Documentaries at Oxford Film and Television

Nick Reynolds – Editor, BBC Internet Blog

Frances Croxford – Consultant and Account Manager at Jane Wentworth

Be aware of both huge opportunities and significant risks associated with adoption of  social media.

Inherent lack of control.

Before you start make sure you are aware of the external perception of the organisation.

• Clarity
• Confidence
• Transparency

Tell stories which come from both your staff and your audience.

Conclusions:

• Institutions are naturally resistant to social media as it leads to loss of control.
• Biggest resistors are curatorial staff
• Cultural change can take between 5 and 10 years

Digitising the British Library one page at a time

Lynne Brindley the British Library Chief Executive has been campaigning hard for the cause mass digitisation of content in order to facilitate access for all and preservation – Dame Lynne Brindley challenges Government on Digital Britain

However scanning books to turn them into digital ‘assets’ is not as easy as might be thought. I was lucky enough to be able to visit the part of the library where the work is currently in progress, and was impressed by both the scale and complexity of the challenge.

Recently I came across a YouTube video from German TV which gives a revealing insight into the project.

Otto Rohwedder and the greatest thing since sliced bread

The greatest thing since sliced bread

I’m sure you will have heard this phrase before, used all to often to describe the latest gizmo or gadget. But have you come across the name Otto Rohwedder? I’m guessing you haven’t.

Otto, originally a jeweller, was the inventor of the world’s first mechanical sliced bread, which went on sale on July 7 1928,  in Chillicothe, Missouri.

After many setbacks, including a fire which destroyed his first factory as well as blueprints and prototype, he managed to develop a successful process for slicing and wrapping the bread. However sales were slow at first as suspicious consumers were slow to accept a pre-sliced bread, but soon everyone wanted sliced bread. By 1933, only five years after its introduction, American bakeries were turning out more sliced than unsliced bread.

Below are a few of his many patent application drawings.

Celebrating books in the British Library

On Tuesday evening I decided to pop over to the Conference Centre to have a peek at the event being chaired by Sue MacGregor (who used to be a stalwart of the BBC radio Today programme).

The title of the event was ‘A source of inspiration’: conversations with British Library readers, and is a part of the programme to celebrate ten years since the St Pancras building first opened.

And what an impressive line up of readers the panel was:

The eminent historian Dr David Starkey, who spoke of his work as the Guest Curator of the Library’s forthcoming exhibition on Henry VIII opening next April.

Professor Martin Kemp spoke of using technology to make items understandable, citing examples of Leonardo da Vinci’s work, and challenging the audience to consider that digitisation should be about “digital exposition, not just digital storage.”

The award-winning architect M J Long was also on the panel. She has particularly close links with the Library; her firm Long and Kentish designed the Centre for Conservation, and with her husband, the late Sir Colin St John Wilson, was joint architect of the Library’s St Pancras building. It was interesting to hear her talk about how they imagined people studying in the variety of spaces they created, and to see how this had been successful in reality. Also the reward for using expensive, quality materials, wood and marble, which were standing the test of time well. I have to agree with her assessment. After ten years of heavy use, most of the building still appears new or nearly new. Even the heavy oak and leather chairs have plenty of life left in them after supporting thousands derrières.

Last, but by no means last – as far as I was concerned, was Tim Campbell, winner of The Apprentice television programme. He explained how the Business & IP Centre has provided him with crucial information for setting up The Bright Ideas Trust, a social initiative to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. He described the Library as a “a hidden gem”, and his own desire to publicise the business resources to young people who might not otherwise come in.

The evening ended with a heated debate between David and Tim about increasing access to the British Library. David was worried about damage to the unique items in the collection through over use. Tim wanted to see more people benefiting from making use of our content.

All parties agreed that although increasing access to rare material through digitisation was a good thing, it was not a substitute for the need for subject experts to explain and educate readers.

Business & IP Centre on the Richard and Judy Show

I know the Business & IP Centre has had a lot of good press coverage since it opened in March 2006. We even had a full page story in the Financial Times and appeared on Working Lunch on BBC2. However, I was very surprised to hear on returning from holiday last week that we would be appearing on Richard and Judy on Channel 4.

In the studio with Richard and Judy

Mark Sheahan (our inventor in residence) and Maurice Collins

The media interest (including a double page spread in the Daily Mail and an interview on the BBC Radio Today Programme) has been caused by our Weird and Wonderful small display currently in the Centre. It consists of over 50 ingenious gadgets, from a two handled self-pouring teapot (1886) to a clockwork burglar alarm (1852).

I first met Maurice Collins, the owner of this amazing collection, at the The British International Innovation & Technology Conference and Exhibition at Alexandra Palace, last October. He is also involved in the Prime Thinkers service for inventors and entrepreneurs I mentioned at the time.

Although we hoped the small display would be of interest to visitors to the British Library, the press interest has taken everyone by surprise.

In search of the perfect mouse

I’m sure you are all familiar with the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” There is even a book by Graham Barker & Peter Bissell called A Better Mousetrap: the business of invention.

However, as a computer addict for over 30 years (anyone remember the Commodore Pet) I have suffered from repetitive strain injury (RSI) for many years. The introduction of the mouse in the 1980s only made matters worse for me. Consequently I have spent much time investigating new and improved hardware and software.

For over 10 years I have been using my left hand for mousing at work and my right at home to spread the strain. When the pain was at its worst I experimented with auto-mouse-click software. (When the mouse pointer stops moving, the system counts down a fixed interval and triggers a mouse click.) However this was very tricky to use, especially for moving items around the screen.

A more successful approach has been to upgrade my mouse, first from the type relying on a physical ball for positioning, to infra-red, and more recently to laser powered. Also the introduction of a scroll wheel significantly improved the ergonomic experience, especially for those long hours surfing the web for information.

I briefly experimented with a track-ball mouse but couldn’t get on with it.

However a couple of years ago I saw the the answer to my prayers (and started saving the £70 required to acquire it). This particular example is from Logitech (although I’m sure there are similar ones available now). The key factors are its ergonomic shape, which comfortably fits into my hand, a high precision laser beam leading to less hesitation on the screen, and a wireless USB connection preventing snagged cables. It also has a scroll wheel with a needle roller bearing (something of an engineering anachronism in these days of high-tech). When the wheel is set to ‘free scroll’ (my default setting), I can whiz up and down fifty screens worth of information with one gentle flick of my finger.

I understand that thought controlled computer interfaces are being developed, but until that day I think I will be happy with my digital mouse.

Stephen Fry in the British Library Basements

After my recent blog post about the rather exclusive location deep below the reading rooms of the British Library, I was surprised to discover this week that Stephen Fry was there before me. He was there as part of a fascinating documentary in which he helps to build a copy of Gutenberg’s (and the world’s) first ever printing press. You can still catch this fascinating program via the wonderful BBC iPlayer service.

I love the way he demonstrates the principles of typeset printing using an old John Bull Printing Outfit whilst sitting in the British Library Café. I have fond memories of that game from my early youth.

The cool Wattson from DIY KYOTO

In the networking area of the Business & IP Centre are several illustrated examples of ’success stories’. These are entrepreneurs and inventors who have made use of Centre and gone on to achievement.

One of my favourites is the Wattson from DIY KYOTO who’s wonderful motto is, “to value simple things, and seek to produce products of perfect convenience and utility, elegant in their conception and efficient in their operation.”

If you have been reading this blog for a while you may have noticed my interest in product design and the Wattson is a perfect example of form and function combined into one. Not only does it look elegant whilst showing you how much money you are spending on electricity, the coloured glow emanating from its’ base gives you an immediate sense of your consumption as it changes from blue (good) to red (bad).

This achievement has been recognised by Stuff Magazine who awarded the Wattson number 8 on the cool list of gadgets for 2007, beating the iPod nano into 10th place. An amazing achievement for such a young company.

An Easter egg in Firefox

Thanks to my Gadgets and Gizmos Pageflakes page by Jenny Zuko I have discovered that Firefox has a virtual Easter egg (Wikipedia definition for those who are curious). It was discovered by one of the geeks at Geek24.com.

Just go into the address bar and type ‘about:mozilla’.

Here is an indication of what you will see, but unless your eyesight is a lot better than mine you will need to view the page.

Everyday Marvels of Design

As a late Christmas present to myself I bought a copy of Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design by Paola Antonelli the Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Each page is devoted to a design classic and I am still working my way through. However I have already come across two of my favourite items.

On the very first page is the Swiss Army Knife which I first came across back in my Scouting days. I have owned one ever since and always take it on my travels. There are now over one hundred different models to choose from, including one with a USB computer storage chip. My favourite has always been one of the simplest (see photo). I have only just discovered it is called the Spartan, which is very apt given my youthful Scouting experiences.

The other design classic is the Screwpull Corkscrew which surprisingly was invented as late as 1979. I have tried many different types of corkscrews over the years and have found nothing to touch the Screwpull. What makes it even better is the simple construction, light weight and low cost, which makes it ideal for pick nicks. The key to it’s success is the Teflon-coated helical screw which enables the screw to penetrate the cork and then pull it out of the bottle in one continuous action.

By a strange quirk of fate, the copy of the book which arrived from Amazon’s used books service originally belonged to Gwinnett County Public Library in Lawrenceville, Georgia in the United States, and still has a security tag in the back. I can only assume it did not prove to be a popular item, and to use a librarian’s term was de-accessioned.

Broadcast your invention to the world

I was recently contacted by Roger Nettleford who I met at the Business Startup show at Olympia in last year.

He is the founder of www.uploadideas.com an online video business start up site which allows members of the public and entrepreneurs to broadcast their business ideas or inventions using a short video.

The site is still being developed but Roger believes that there are many people who have a great idea or invention but don’t have funds for marketing. He sees the site as YouTube meets Dragons Den, because potential investors are alerted once a video or webpage of interest is uploaded to a selected subject area. He sees this site as a catalyst for business start up assistance and innovation and expects to add ‘How to’ business advisory videos in the future.

Goodbye to the CD-Walkman

I was having something of a mini-clear out over the holidays and came across two rather forlorn looking portable CD players. Neither of my kids expressed any interest or even recognition of these previously prized possessions. Actually my daughter did get excited at one point, but only when I revealed a long missing CD lurking within one of the players.

All of which made me realise just how quickly we have moved on from the orginal format of the cassette-walkman to the CD-walkman to the now ubiquitous MP3 player.

Although Amazon.co.uk still has lots to choose from, evidence is found on the Sony UK website which has just two current models of player to buy, compared to their 42 ‘previous’ players.

The end of the road for the portable CD-player?

The future of home entertainment is behind you

Once again the latest technology seems to hark back to the past. At the recent What Hi Fi? Sound and Vision Show the most impressive home entertainment demonstration was not the 103 inch plasma screen, but the Epson projector.

These new proper (1080) high definition projectors also go against conventional technology by using lcd panels inside rather than dlp. Admittedly, just under £3,000 is a lot to pay for a big screen view. However given that it can project an image up to nine metres wide, this is better value than the Panasonic ‘rival’ with 103 plasma inches at just under £40,000. And that is without even mentioning the necessary strengthened wall and increased electricity bills.