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Tools of Change: The Revolution Will Be Tweeted…

by Jane Hope on 16. Feb, 2011 in Commentary

…blogged, posted, liked and QR coded.  But mostly tweeted.

The wireless internet of the second day just about collapsed under the full force of the Twitter maelstrom prompted by the hashtag #toccon, and I met many Canadian publishing powerhouses today.  Some are MPubs of years past, and got a lot of stories about how horrifying their Book Project experiences were.  It also led to this conversation.

MPub Grad: “Are you IMing with Rowly?”

Me: “Uh, yup.”

MPub Grad: “The future is AWESOME!”

I tell you this not only because it’s a funny story, but because it is also a good summary of the attitudes of Tools of Change, which represented the future as mostly a positive opportunity for publishers.  People are not talking about what is dying, as much as that this eternal march of progress was a good thing.  However, I reached my personal nadir at the eTextbooks in Higher Education: Practical Findings to Guide the Industry.  Here I ostensibly learned how students are engaging with electronic textbook, but I also learned about how this roomful of people perceived students.

Some of the conclusions that they drew during their session:

  • DRM is essential, even though students complain about it.
  • Students feel entitled to wireless internet and the use of their digital devices, even though it’s expensive for the university.
  • Students see textbooks as short term and resaleable objects.
  • Students see textbooks as something that should be shareable.
  • Students expect customer support from representatives of their university.
  • Students are incredibly price sensitive.
  • They are on the Facebook, even though they know it’s a distraction.
These points seem to indicate an industry which is clinging to the print model, since textbooks are an incredibly lucrative industry.  One of the presenters at the keynote speeches, Theodore Gray, congratulated educational publishers for putting the price point of a textbook so high that buying a $500 iPad and several apps seems like an affordable option instead of buying several print books.
There also seemed to be an incredibly poor conception of “the students”, a monolithic body of consumers who were clumped together despite field of study, geographic location or economic status.  This was not treated like a segmented market as universities treat their students, and I suspect that is a function of the print model of book publishing, where it was important to sell the professor who assigned the textbook, not a segmented market of students who might be split between a print book, e-book or app format for their learning experience.  One of the best takeaways from this session was a comment that textbook providers have to provide a palette of learning tools that tailor the learning experience to the student, with eyeballs focused on how tools are used.  The key strength of an electronic textbook may not have been identified yet.
Do I have suggestions for textbook publishers and universities?  Of course.  I also have questions for them.
  • Understand your market.  If every other presenter at Tools of Change is rabbiting on about starting with a consumer-first philosophy, stop talking about “the students” and think about the needs your content is trying to fill.  Transmedia would enhance a biology textbook, and eInk is kind on an arts student’s eyes that are reading a novel a week for Victorian lit class.  Then start your production process.
  • Wireless internet and mobile devices are not just how twentysomethings work, it is how we work now, if you’ve missed everyone with their laptops, tablets and smartphones right here at Tools of Change.  Complaining about how expensive it is to maintain wireless networks is like complaining about the heating bill.  It’s expensive, but turning it off is not really an option.
  • If students see textbooks as a short term investment, why not subscription based pricing models agreed with the university? You could even put the file on auto-destruct.
  • Students work in a collaborative learning environment – in project groups, seminars and conferences.  Just something to think about.
  • If students are so committed to pirating your books with or without DRM, then you need to start considering whether all the time and effort your anti-piracy measures are taking are in any way effective.  If you decide to keep your DRM, then why all the stick and no carrot?  Allow some sharing, some copy-paste functionality, whatever you have to do to make the book interactive and useful.
  • Think of content as aggregational, but also de-aggregational.  That is, instead of trying to think up three ways to sell the same book, slice your content into saleable segments to increase the markets for your product.
  • Ask librarians what they think.  You’ll get an earful, but they do students and books ALL DAY.

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