August 30th, 2012 by Peter Turner
Nobody Knows Anything—But Let’s Not Let That Stop Us
During a very long highway drive to northern Maine, I remembered something a philosophy professor said to me when I was in school: “Most philosophical problems are caused not by having the wrong set of assumptions,” she said, “but by having assumptions you’re not aware of.” Later on this week, I’m meeting with some friends to lay the groundwork for a new publishing model I’ve been kicking around for a while now. That got me thinking about my own assumptions. Here are a few of the most essential. Some may see obvious or too abstract, but they do lead in a direction.
- As the volume of content that is available increases, both delivering and determining content of quality will become increasingly difficult and valuable. Delivering, here, does not mean only producing but having the content discovered, used, engaged in some way. Quality includes relevance and context.
- For content creators–more than ever before–there is the diminishing likelihood of being sufficiently compensated to produce content of quality. Compensation means being viewed, read, commented on, paid, and so forth.
- For content consumers, the challenge is in determining what content is worth consuming. Worth may mean being worth the time to read or view, respond to, and/or pay for.
- Creating and consuming are roles in an asymmetrical relationship. If the consumer does not have the means of determining quality to rationalize the possible use or purchase, the creator of the content cannot rationalize the effort to create it in the first place.
- If one can solve the problem for the consumer—the ability to determine quality—one creates an opportunity for the creator as well.
Agree? Disagree? Please do share your thoughts and calls for clarification.
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5 Responses to “Nobody Knows Anything—But Let’s Not Let That Stop Us”
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Well, to help you and the readers of this good blog out, I suggest they watch this… in the end it is ALL about consumer satisfaction and experience. Yes, experience, reading experience. Pay special attention to the audio link and X-Ray.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/VYi1jZXz9Kg
Peter
Thanks, Peter, for sharing the link. Amazon is brilliant at customer satisfaction. But that’s the end of the funnel, so to speak. The challenge for the would-be reader–and increasingly so–comes way before they make a purchase decision and experience the customer satisfaction that Amazon is so good at delivering. I firmly believe that all the algorithms and reader reviews in the world will not significantly solve this problem as the quantity of available content continues to explode. As, Shaq O’Neill likes to say, “I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
Peter Turner
I agree with all of your points, Peter. I think one of the keys to this all is publishers’ ability to scale the discovery of quality content in ways they’ve never done. Then there’s scaling effective distro, discovery, etc. In terms on monetization of the content, I think there is a need for a wider range of choices for the consumer on how s/he wishes to consume the written word. More — and varied — revenue streams + more quality content = healthy value chain is my way of thinking. No small feat, though!
Peter McCarthy
“More — and varied — revenue streams + more quality content = healthy value chain”: That about sums it up, Pete. Thanks for the comment.
Peter Turner
“discovered, used, engaged” is the end goal for authors and publishers, but they have not, traditionally, been the best at ensuring that final stage of the process. Amazon has not mastered it either, despite the recommendation system that revolutionized e-commerce. I think that’s because this final stage is about communities and values. People want to know who values the books that are out there, so they can sift through the over-abundance of choice. Amazon made a start here with the recommendations, but they miss out the community function. On-line, this is best provided by tools like GoodReads, but in the physical, social world we move in it is still the independent, local bookstore that can best do this. Amazon implicitly recognizes this with their price app that encourages their customers to start their browsing in bricks-and-mortar stores.
Thanks for the assumptions. As you can tell, I have a few unexamined ones of my own.
Eben Muse