Conjugando

Self Replicating

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 11:03:00 +0000

We don't have very much time left on this (is there another?) universe...

Do watch this biologically oriented video from George Dyson, —it's fascinating!

Self replicating signals traveling through the universe. We don't stand a chance in competing with such a magnificent and omnipotent opponent.

I know, Ray Kurzweil tells us that our brains will be wired into the digital universe, to our benefit. I'm not too sure.

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel more positive, but tonight the thought gives me the creeps, because I've opened my eyes to this universal Taoist organism, which is too much of a speed-of-light-dangerous running partner.

We really have to be naively optimists. We are, but this is too much, or is it me?

80 años de Nicanor Parra

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 04:29:00 +0000

Encontré esta entrevista en los archivos de educarchile, para el cumpleaños 80 de Nicanor, que estoy seguro disfrutarán.

Un ingeniero irreverente, --gran poeta también.

La tecnología cuprífera y el estándar de vida chileno

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:44:00 +0000

José Tomás Urmeneta

(Actualizado Julio 7, 2010)

Me sorprendió lo mucho que ha influido la tecnología en la vida de los chilenos, a través del bienestar que ha traído la minería del cobre, —sus altas, y más que nada sus evitables bajas.

Todo comenzó para mi con un comentario que dejé en el blog de Gabriel, que desató la curiosidad de Eileen Bashak, una pariente lejana interesada en las familias Wylie Ross de Chile, quien me contactó.

Así, buscando alguna referencia de mis antepasados, comencé a leer las historias de los ingleses en Valparaíso, de los mineros en Copiapo, Lebú y Lota; y de ahí a darme cuenta de que Chile ha surgido fundamentalmente en las espaldas de su minería —no ha existido una fuerza más poderosa en la determinación del bienestar de los chilenos.

Y la tecnología jugó y juega aun un papel fundamental.

Cuando se explota una mina, primero se procura extraer el mineral más valioso. A medida que pasa el tiempo, la ley del mineral va decayendo, hasta el día en que se cierra la mina porque ya no es rentable explotarla.

Así, los indios Diaguitas y otros pirquinearon e inician la explotación del cobre en pequeñas minas para fabricar pulseras, hachas y otros.

Los españoles continuaron la explotación, especialmente interesados en la fabricación de cañones. Sin embargo, la corona agrega que las minas son de la exclusiva propiedad del rey, medida que freno su desarrollo, aunque se sabe que hubo mucho contrabando —era muy lucrativo para los barcos ingleses (piratas) traer telas, herramientas y utensilios domésticos de Inglaterra y regresar cargados de cobre.

La independencia de Chile, con sus altos y bajos o los tres años de reconquista (1814-1817), acercaron aun más a los ingleses a Chile, por eso del "enemigo de mi enemigo es mi amigo".

Así, con apoyo y préstamos ingleses, algunas acomodadas familias del agro dan fruto a empresarios de la minería como José Tomás Urmeneta (1808-1878) y Matías Cousiño (1810-1863), que sinergizan sus esfuerzos, Cousiño supliendo el carbón para las fundiciones de Urmeneta.

Y es justamente la implantación de los hornos de reverbero en las fundiciones, —un adelanto tecnológico—, lo que permitió explotar industrialmente el mineral de cobre con leyes más bajas, dando un impulso enorme a la producción del cobre chileno hasta llevarla al nivel de primer productor mundial.

Un horno de reverbero permite calentar el mineral a mayores temperaturas "reverberando" el calentamiento del primer horno al segundo que lo compone.

Entonces, ya vemos como se han desplazado dos estamentos de mineros por su carencia de tecnología, el indio y el pequeño minero pirquinero.

Otro gran empresario, quizás el que se enriqueció más, fue Agustín Edwards Ossandón (1815-1878), que actuó fundamentalmente como habilitador minero, una suerte de super-banquero que prestaba a un interés entre el 10-18% anual, amarrando al minero por varios otros frentes: ganando por la provisión y venta de equipos y herramientas, y comprometiendo un precio de compra del mineral que le permitía ganar en su reventa al extranjero.

Del libro de Agustín Ross recojo esta anécdota:

"La base de la circulación monetaria de Copiapó consistía en onzas de oro, de todas nacionalidades toleradas por la ley, y en moneda divisionaria de plata. Las onzas de oro eran relativamente pocas en el distrito; pero don Agustín tenía su sistema para hacerlas circular con actividad, sacando provecho de cada movimiento del dinero. Recibía dinero en depósito, abonando interés, y a cada depositante otorgaba un "valecito" manuscrito. Si llegaba a su oficina uno de los depositantes a cobrarle 15, 20 o 30 onzas, le averiguaba a quien iba a pagarlas o entregarlas, y tomaba nota mental o escrita. Si ocurría otro cliente a cobrarle o a solicitar un préstamo, y se le había agotado el dinero en caja, les hacía esperar un rato, o les citaba para una o dos horas después, o para el día siguiente y salía personalmente a recoger las onzas que el primer ocurrente había repartido, entregando al nuevo dueño del dinero un valecito con intereses, escrito allí mismo. Estaba tan habituado a esto, y era tal la confianza que los comerciantes de Copiapó tenían en él, que no se le presentaba ninguna dificultad; y hacía circular el mismo dinero varias veces al día siempre efectuando alguna operación útil. Con poco circulante se hacían muchos negocios con provecho, merced la buena cabeza del banquero".

A su muerte deja el equivalente a $6 mil millones de dolares de hoy a su viuda, Juana Ross Edwards, quien ha sido una de las más grandes benefactoras de Chile.

Pero, continuando con el cobre y los chilenos, desde 1880 hasta fines de siglo, con los ingresos del salitre sumados a los del cobre se vivía muy bien.

Todos conocemos la historia de Guggenheim y su invención del salitre sintético para la primera guerra mundial (1914-1918), que dejó sentir sus efectos luego de concluida la guerra, que golpea de manera doble las arcas fiscales y el estándar de vida de los chilenos, porque después de una guerra cae la demanda y los precios de los metales.

Y aquí debo detenerme un poco.

Gradualmente, la disminución de la ley de las minas hace que los chilenos dueños de las minas del siglo XIX vendan porque ya no es rentable continuar su operación. Las empresas americanas comienzan a comprar minas en este momento, porque tienen la tecnología y los capitales requeridos para explotar minerales de baja ley, menos del 6%.

En esta condición, durante ambas guerras mundiales las minas americanas venden su metal a un precio preferencial para favorecer a EE.UU., varias veces inferior al de mercado, perdiéndose la oportunidad de ahorrar para los años de las vacas flacas que ocurren incuestionablemente después de las guerras por la caída en la demanda de metal.

El peor momento para Chile llega para la depresión de los años '30, los ingresos y empleos del salitre han desaparecido y el paupérrimo precio del cobre cierra minas.

La desesperación del gobierno por mantener los recaudos fiscales —ante la presión de los desempleados— hace que éste suba los impuestos desde un 10 a 20% conque se gravó las utilidades mineras en los tiempos buenos hasta un paralizador 66%, con variaciones dependiendo primordialmente del tamaño de la empresa y de los acuerdos que negociaba con ellas: inversión a cambio de rebajas en impuestos.

Indudablemente los elevados impuestos aguantaron las inversiones, que debían ser cuantiosas —al igual que hoy— sólo para sostener el nivel de producción alcanzado.

En este ambiente los acaudalados pierden el interés por emprender, aletargándose en el disfrute de su bienestar, contribuyendo al estancamiento del crecimiento del país, y justificando el creciente descontento y ayudando a los argumentos de los movimientos de izquierda, que culminan con la nacionalización de las grandes minas de cobre en el año 1971.

Para aquietar las esperadas represalias del gobierno americano, que supondría usurpar abierta e ilegalmente la propiedad de compañías americanas, el gobierno de Salvador Allende justifica la expropiación con una compra muy particular. El precio de compra se calcula en base al precio de libro de estas minas, pero ingeniosamente, se descuentan los impuestos que Chile no recaudó durante las dos guerras mundiales —ascendente a $774 millones de dólares. Como resultado, sólo un par de minas pequeñas iniciadas después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial arrojan un balance positivo, las demás deben al gobierno chileno.

Richard Nixon, junto a Henry Kissinger, deciden sancionar indirectamente al gobierno de Allende con todo el peso del gobierno americano, más que nada, para evitar que la idea de nacionalizar compañías americanas se riegue por los demás países del hemisferio.

Imaginen lo distinta que habría sido nuestra historia y vida política si nuestros mineros hubieran continuado incorporando nuevas tecnologías, como lo hizo en su momento Urmeneta —se pudo evitar mucha pobreza y discusiones agrias durante la mayor parte del siglo XX.

Como lección me queda, que los precios del cobre han afectado y seguirán influyendo nuestras vidas de manera significativa. Ciclicamente por las guerras, por lo que son importantes las políticas de ahorro contra-cíclicas. También, que debemos reconocer el fenómeno actual como uno único debido a la excepcional demanda de metal que implica el crecimiento inusual de China.

Una de las lecciones más importantes es que no podemos quedarnos atrás tecnológicamente en lo que cotidianamente hacemos, en todos los procesos involucrados: manufactura, distribución, ventas y financiamiento.

La búsqueda de nuevos ángulos en el negocio de la empresa, inversiones, inversionistas, socios, es un tema frecuentemente descuidado, pero, que es obviamente relevante a la optimización de su crecimiento.

Otra de las lecciones es que debemos mantenernos alerta para encontrar en otros campos nuevas vetas que explotar —los juegos de Flores, por ejemplo.

El fracaso y la importancia de la imaginación

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 15:19:00 +0000

Discurso de J.K. Rowling en la Reunión Anual (2008) de Ex-alumnos de Harvard Cortesía de Harvard Magazine y Vimeo.

Mmm... Me falta leer muchos clásicos, y convencer a mis hijos de leerlos también.

Hay que tener referencias para poder disfrutar de la vida. O, hay que conocer para saber que buscar.

¿Dónde conseguir la plata?

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:09:00 +0000

En este vídeo Fred cuenta como trabaja, lo que en si es interesante...

Pero, recojo este vídeo por si alguien tiene o sabe de una pequeña empresa en formación... ya saben a quien llamar.

Fred es un VC o inversionista ángel, que ha estado involucrado en la formación de alrededor de 40 compañías en los últimos 20 años —entre ellas twitter y stumblr.

Twitter: a news alert system

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:39:00 +0000

Fred Wilson explains how he became interested and eventually bought Twitter.

This would be an interesting interview in itself with only the description of Fred Wilson's buyout process, but, it also shows how unique and relevant is Twitter's core service: a news alert system.

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:04:00 +0000

Kahneman and Taleb discuss the financial crisis at the DLD

Wow! If there's one event to watch about the financial crisis and why it happened, this is it.

The Edge event took place at The Hubert Burda Media's Digital Life Design Conference (DLD) in Munich on January 27th; as the greatest living psychologist and the foremost scholar of extreme events discuss hindsight biases, the illusion of patterns, perception of risk, and denial.

DANIEL KAHNEMAN is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology, Princeton University, and Professor of Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his pioneering work integrating insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty. NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB, essayist and former mathematical trader, is Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University’s Polytechnic Institute. He is the author of Fooled by Randomness and the international bestseller The Black Swan.

Aterrizaje en Lima

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:33:00 +0000

Así se llega a Lima...

Otra lección en como vivir.

... Sólo nos queda bailar.

Calvin & Hobbes

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:29:00 +0000

I love these kickstarter projects. Calvin & Hobbes too.

Sweet and simple!

Lumi: éxito asegurado

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:18:00 +0000

Un producto intrigante con una presentación fantástica de kickstarter.

Alegría, entusiasmo, intriga, $5, juventud, música... croissant... es francés...

¿Qué hicieron en el cuarto oscuro?

¿Qué nos motiva a trabajar?

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:46:00 +0000

Los incentivos financieros son un obstáculo al rendimiento en nuestro trabajo. En otras palabras, ofrecer incentivos en dinero por aumentar las ventas es malo.

Nos motiva trabajar mejor el tener autonomía, el dominar nuestras habilidades y un propósito superior. Trabajamos mejor si nos dejan sólitos, nos gusta jugar bien a la pelota y si lo que hacemos ayuda a la humanidad, mejor todavía.

También plantea que los administradores son un invento que está obsoleto.

¡Fantástico!

TED: propagando ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:29:00 +0000

Esta es la presentación que dio Chris Anderson, el director de TED, por allá por el año 2002 acerca de su visión de transformar a TED en una conferencia sin fines de lucro.

Posteo esta presentación porque es una joya para los fanáticos de TED, como yo. Pero también, porque muestra como TED ya irradiaba ese entusiasmo por la propagación holística de las ideas, que tan bien refleja Chris.

La danza de la vida

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:16:00 +0000

The science of the mind, by National Geographic

La cuestión es procurar el bien de los demás.
Si sigues este camino transformarás tu corazón.

(La valentía es la virtud fundamental, sobre la que se sostienen las demás. Winston Churchill).

Como vivir

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:43:00 +0000

Una tarde con Ray Bradbury.
Cortesía de UCTV
¡Envidia!

Ray Bradbury nos cuenta su vida. No todo fue un camino de flores, pero, como el dice: hizo lo que amaba, amaba lo que hacía...

Que clase magistral. ¿Por qué no me enteré de ella hace años?

Subscriber Notice

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:20:00 +0000

Migrating birds. Courtesy of Wikipedia

For clarity's sake, I've moved my media related posts to a new blog.

Starting on February 3, 2010 I'll be posting media related entries at No news is Google news.

If you wish to continue receiving my media related RSS feeds make sure to visit my new site to subscribe.

See you there.

News agencies content leaks

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:58:00 +0000

Associated Press Chairman of the Board
William Dean Singleton

It's the craziest thing. Why would any reader pay for a magazine or newspaper when he can get his news for free?

Currently, news agencies, like AP, AFP and Reuters, still charge for the rights to republish —while... they give away their news content to readers for free!

It's easy to see how this is directly related and hurts the dwingling circulation of magazines and newspapers.

Of course, some of you might argue that broadcasts from television and radio have always aired for free. But, there's a huge and priceless difference: the web allows us to get what we want instantly, with the razor sharp granularity of a search or a link.

With the advent of the web, news agencies saw an opportunity to add a new advertising revenue stream by publishing directly to readers. In doing so, they foolishly sabotaged their wholesale business model, by undermining their traditional newspaper and magazine customers.

To simplify, I will only continue reviewing AP.

Few visit AP to browse for their daily news, mostly, their visits are search and link originated. News aggregators, —like Google News, Yahoo News, Newser, Digg, Stumblr and others—, provide AP with a publisher shell, feeding visits to AP and other news agencies.

Has AP arrived at the final decision to go retail, with publishing shells from Google, Yahoo and others?

The recent layoffs at AP show that it's not doing too well. Apparently, their publishing venture is not working for them. Or, they're destroying more revenue from their wholesale business, than what they've been able to realize by building their retail publishing ad supported venture.

Dean Singleton, MediaNews Group vice-chairman and Associated Press' chairman, made the following remarks four years ago:

The big challenge, he says, is figuring out how to make money from the Web, where most news is free and ads are cheap. "If we don't start getting paid for news, we can't continue to afford to produce it," he said.

Mr. Singleton wants to help steer the industry collectively toward a solution; no one paper, he says, can do it alone.

Apparently, –either getting a consensus hasn't been easy, or AP hasn't been trying that hard.

AP made public in 2009 its efforts (April, July, September) to police and enforce their content copyrights, meeting much ridicule from the IT community, whom stated that there was no technical teeth in the enforcement method.

But incredibly, no word from AP on keeping their content behind a pay-wall.

I'm surprised. Why aren't Mr. Singleton and the newspaper members of AP, watching over their interests?

Is "Fair Use" law testing in court holding them back? No, a healthy fair use of content in other publications should send readers back to content originators for more.

Is it the search engines' almighty control of the ad networks, making originators yield their content to them? Yes, –if it quacks like a duck... it must be a duck. The evidence is in the contracts between Google and publishers, –the search engine's commission is nowhere to be found. Google determines on its own, the 70 to 75% commission it charges, and mails an arbitrary check to the publisher at the end of each month.

It's also noticeable in a few other publishers' mistakes, –not worth mentioning.

Publishers are leaving at least an alarming 65% of their advertising revenue on the table. If we take something from this discussion, it should be that if publishers can agree to something, it must be to have their own ad placement platform, by building or buying an existing system, their take could increase to 95% of the price of an ad (5% would cover the expense of running a client order entry system).

Under these improved conditions, I'd still consider necessary to charge an agreeable monthly subscription to further improve online and print advertising revenue: under $3 for newspapers, more for magazines. It would compensate the inevitable thinning of advertising revenue throughout the ever growing number of publishing venues.

Will publishers ever agree to these two improvements?

The Ipad launch

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:50:00 +0000

Kara Swisher from the WSJ, checks out the action at the launch of Apple's latest device, the iPad, at an event in San Francisco —I loved it, made me feel like I was there. Thank you Kara.

Some were disappointed at the lack of Flash and multitasking... others thought it lacked a camera. Was this a compromise to get a lower $499 price?

I do know that a reporter can write his article and mail it, though. I guess we'll have to wait to see what the public's final reaction is.

BTW, I just read that Bernanke was confirmed for a second term on a 70-30 vote —phew!

Search Engine Optimization and the news

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:47:00 +0000

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Brent Payne interview
Brent Payne, director of search engine optimization for Tribune Interactive, explains Google Trends, a great source of news, on this You decide, we report npr interview.

Google trends shows the most popular searches at any given point in time, alerting news sites on potential leads, and also giving a general feel of the topics people are interested in.

Barely a tweet.

Tweaking subscription prices

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:07:00 +0000

Rupert Murdoch with his wife, Wendi Deng.

Courtesy of China Digital Times

Tweaking for the right price for an online subscription is a lot harder than I thought.

After visiting a few sites that carry a plethora of ideas, I recommend you listen to this fantastic onpoint radio discussion with Jeff Jarvis, Michael Wolff and Steve Brill —with comments from Rupert Murdoch and Eric Schmidt. Undoubtedly, radio adds a fabulous human dimension to the issues in focus.

The other sites worth visiting are NiemanJournalismLab, Reuters, Journalism Online and News Innovation.

To add insult to injury, Seth Godin states that it's time we let go, get over the idea, relinquish the opportunity to make money...

In his own words:

So, if the radio is already there, and music is free-er than ever, it's not clear that music is valueless. There's more music being listened to (not just played, but being listened to) than ever before in history, and that listening is proof that people value it. At least they value it enough to spend their time.

Get over the idea that your success is equated with selling the right to listen, or selling control over when people listen. Relinquish the opportunity to make money by controlling who can listen and when. That's gone. It's over. It would be like a bakery selling the right to sniff the fresh bread or a wine maker selling the right to look at the cool label. It's now a public good, something you see as you walk by.

What you can sell, what you better be able to sell, is intimacy. It's interactions in public. Souvenirs. Limited things of value. Experiences. Memories. People will pay for those things, IF: your art is actually great and if you make it possible for them to buy them.

If it's great, let it go. You'll do fine. If it's not great, figure out what great is and do that.

I think I have a feeling of what Seth wants to achieve, but, on the other hand, I know he feels it's not for everyone...

—Any way you look at it, somebody has to pay for content.

A recent survey from The Boston Consulting Group shows that 48% of US consumers are willing to pay an average of $3 —current subscribers, a couple of dollars more— for a monthly newspaper online subscription. Which follows my hunch that a few readers are willing to chip in a tiny amount to alleviate their guilty feelings —they're getting a free ri-eade.

In my last post, I mentioned that "full" articles need to be protected. If not, they will be viralized to eternity, spreading and thinning advertising through all sites —copycats or not.

Giving away front pages and widgets with titles and a couple of lines would be a good way of viralizing these teasers, for a successful marketing ploy.

Copyrighting content and its enforcement is paramount. In association, Murdoch's leadership is needed to make all news providers pull together to offer these abridged editions. It makes perfect sense to follow this lead —they're all suffering, including CNN and FOX news.

Which should dramatically reduce the size or number of online news providers, diminishing the offer of ad space, —and, increasing CPM, CPC and... print ad revenue.

Compared to the The NY Times proposition, I'd stay away from offering free articles to avoid opening the copyright Pandora box. Instead, I'd shoot for a larger audience, tweaking the $3 or less average pricing that readers are willing to pay, —definitely a lot less than the NY Times $15 monthly subscription, which would likely reduce its readership to a measly 2%.

The math goes something like this: 144 = 48 x $3 is a lot better than 30 = 2 x $15.

And, of course, with more readers, 48% versus 2%, advertising revenue is significantly better, too.

Bottom line: Newspapers must lead readers to recognize that quality journalism depends on this contribution.

Do you see any alternatives?

Where is my paid content?

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:21:00 +0000

Whilst she lay there, dreaming of all sorts of pleasant things, the three Bears came home from their walk very hungry and quite ready for their dinners.

But, oh! dear me! how cross the Great Big Bear looked when he saw his spoon had been used and thrown under the table.

"WHO HAS BEEN TASTING MY SOUP?" he cried, in a Great Big Voice.

Grimm brothers: "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."

Newspapers are feeling papa bear's bewilderment on returning home. Monetizing news content is their business —what brings food to the table.

But, they're finding that monetizing content by intertwining ads with news is a dwindling proposition on print... and surprisingly tenuous on the web. The cracks in the old model may be best explained by understanding that nowadays online readers "search" for most of their content, or get it in laser-search-self-publications. In a close second place, readers are further distracted from the traditional media by —or attracted to— the overwhelming variety of glittering toys, —Iphones and the like.

Notwithstanding, readers will always be attracted to well established news providers, whom they "trust" to suitably inform them on what's going on in the world —with a particular interest in the community that surrounds them.

We must recognize that news organizations are part of the problem. They have been too willing to give away their content. It's quite different to give away titles and leads, a few articles... even, non categorized articles... than the whole shebang.

Radio and TV are broadcast freely, but their audience has always suffered from not being able to pick a specific category, —which is Cable TV's edge over TV. Although, movies have helped by being a powerful attraction to audiences by themselves, i.e. Avatar.

Studies show that online readers prefer short stories —readers are in a hurry to find what they're looking for. Then, shorten them a bit... providing free news "teasers", headlines with a couple of lines, a la Google, which would also take advantage of the web's marketing viralization in a non-destructive way.

It's been a huge mistake to give away complete articles, viralization is killing news "originators" by thinning advertising on the multiplying content copy sites. Viralization should help bring readers into publication sites that originate and carry exclusive-original-good-articles, not disperse advertising into copy sites.

Monetizing content is achieved through subscriptions and selling ads. But, as we've seen, tweaking subscriptions is basic and has a profound effect on the second variable. A process which needs to be repeated for each of the new media outlets.

Tweaking to be followed.

Online distractions

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:04:00 +0000

Profiles of Generation M(2)
Kaiser Foundation

It used to be that our parents would limit our TV viewing, shepherding us into a natural and healthy balance of work and play.

According to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, with an excellent followup article in the NYT, kids, ages 8 to 18, are more wired to their phones and computers than ever before:

"And because they spend so much of that time 'media multitasking' (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours."

This can't be healthy.

Parents are still needed to make a difference. Kids are better off when their parents limit their amount of media exposure and exercise a no-gadget-in-room policy, —kids with less distractions, have more time to work on their education.

News organizations can also help parents and schools make a difference, by also quickly recognizing that they have to play, parcel, phone, or video their presence for this new audience.

The Apple Tollgate

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:14:00 +0000

Steve Jobs

As I read the WSJ piece and paidcontent.org take on next week's Apple ISlate launching, I can't avoid wondering if it's really going to be an earth-shattering event.

Let's not forget that Steve Jobs is a genius in his ability to deliver products in the consumer falls in love category. It's the same ability that allowed the girl that would order shoes for the Vogue cover, to build a worldwide franchise of stores that sell them for thousands of dollars each, under the Chu brand.

There's plenty of cell phones and mp3 players, nothing as attractive as the Iphone and Ipod, though.

There's quite a few e-readers, cell phones and mp3 players. Will the Islate draw the attention of the Iphone and Ipod?

Apple has been in contact with the major media players, not only from newspapers, but also, from TV and movie studios.

Will the Islate become the toll-gate equivalent of the Ipod for the music industry for news, TV and movies?

It might. Stay tuned.

Content creation opportunities

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:44:00 +0000

You might want to check Mike Shatzkin's presentation at the BEA, or his Publishing Points series of lunchtime talks to get a feel of what's coming from a book publishers' perspective.

My feeling is that what book publishers are experiencing today with technology, newspaper publishers may very well experience in the near future. On Kindles and e-readers, book format reproduction has been a child's play.

He highlights the obvious dominance of specialized-vertical over general-horizontal publishing in the new search publication environment.

I strongly feel that he falls short in his appreciation of the consequences of the laser focused search pushed publishing. I don't feel there's room for the publisher to guide the book author any longer.

Why would an author approach a publisher, when a healthy search engine optimization of his work should suffice?

As Mike mentions, the usual publisher's marketing wares, —book clubs, newspaper reviews, magazine and newspaper ads, and others—, are too expensive or rapidly disappearing.

Nevertheless, his presentations touch on what I think are a few crucial and far reaching points, which we need to appreciate on the newspaper publishers side of the fence:

Building or maintaining communities is at the core of it all. Well-known places will always occupy a space in our minds. People will always visit the New York Times, as well as, their local newspaper's print, online, or phone presence, to look for what's happened in their community. As a consequence, newspaper brands are relevant, and must be nourished —with likable presences in any new format, like: Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter and others.

Mike's take:

We are all in the conteNt business, and we are going to have to move into the conteXt business. The ownership in the future of eyeballs will be more important than the ownership of IP, because value moves to scarcity. This is immutable, you cannot change this. Content creation and distribution are no longer scarce. Anybody can do them. Distribution is not an issue. I can type something on my computer today, I can flip it to my website, it is distributed. Any body in the world, on the web, can get it. The problem is, will they know about it? That’s the problem. Marketing is the problem. Distribution is no longer the problem. And you’re going to do your marketing niche by niche, and nugget by nugget, and it does require scale. If you don’t have enough content, or clout in a community, you won’t be heard. If you don’t pay enough attention or put enough labor into a community, you won’t be able to command the attention of that community.
Content creation, on the other hand, opens new doors of opportunity. Publishers must take advantage of the fact that it's been their business to know all the intricacies of how to better connect the creator to his audience. They should offer this service to those countless companies needing to show a pretty face to the world —which is better known as publishing.

Mike's take:

Publishers also recognize creative possibilities and ideas that aren’t fully developed. As a matter of fact, publishers usually buy projects based on ideas that are not fully developed, and participate in the development of ideas. That is a very important skillset. That doesn’t go away. And the publisher is coordinating the whole range of disparate activities that are necessary to connect the creator to an audience. You know what that is, it’s putting the art in the book, it’s deciding what typeface, it’s deciding what price, it’s deciding how to market, but sometimes it’s finding a co-author for the book, or sometimes it’s finding an illustrator. So sometimes you’re actually connecting the creators with each other, as well as providing the detailed management that the creator needs. Actually, I believe, is the most important skill set of publishers is that they manage a massive amount of detail. Which the authors would very rapidly table themselves up in knots if they managed for themselves. That is the scale opportunity that publishers present, and that is not going to change. It’s actually going to be even more necessary in the web.

We've already seen a good example that takes advantage of the laser focused search publication environment in a previous post, The new news habitat: content that works.

So, it's time you guys get out there to offer your creation and presentation wares...

Good luck.

The power of praying

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:54:00 +0000

Gregg Braden explains the power of prayer
I'm always curious and surprised at how I run into certain subjects.

In this video, Gregg Braden tells his amazing experiences with what our feelings are capable of. It's fascinating to learn that a gathering of people can feel their way into making a person's tumor disappear. Or, that an online gathering of hundreds of thousands can effect positive results by praying for world peace.

~~Prayer, is a way of eliciting our feelings —which, would empower us to change the world around us.~~

Eliciting our feelings empowers us to change the world!

Which is in agreement with Losada's positivity. Although, Gregg's praying would have a broader scope, since it can also alter physical (water, tumors) structures.

I don't want to sound too preachy, but, shouldn't we be trying to be nicer, or at least, more positive?

For those pragmatically inclined: it pays.

Be nice: it pays

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Rotger) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:24:00 +0000

I have a tendency to be very demanding with my personal relations, maybe, because I'm very exacting on myself. Or maybe, it's because I like to live on the edge, and after a while, this life style takes its toll by making me grumpy.

Not long ago, I realized that showing my love to my wife had the (unexpected) consequence of having her love me back a lot more.

So, it's quite simple: give more to receive more in return.

Dr. Marcial Losada

Founder and executive director of Meta Learning

Interestingly enough, I recently ran into an eye-opening interview with Marcial Losada (In Spanish: part I and part II), where he explains his Meta Learning Model (same stuff, in English).

Marcial was initially interested in understanding how to improve the effectiveness of a group of people within an organization. Flourishing teams would be those that would show high performance across three indicators: profitability, customer satisfaction, and good evaluations by superiors, peers and customers.

Like a flower, a group or a couple, may flourish or languish!

It was discovered that 95% of what goes on is explained by the emotions involved, and only 5% by knowing the process. In other words, people may know what to do, but this has a minute weight in the effectiveness of a group, —it's the positive affect involved in the interactions of a group that sustain its high performance.

Positive affect, or pleasant expressions (feeling grateful, upbeat, expressing appreciation, liking) predict well-being; whilst, unpleasant expressions (feeling contemptuous, irritable, disdain, disliking) predict an opposite outcome.

Other studies have shown that inducing positive affect carries multiple benefits:

Good feelings alter people's mindsets, widening attention, broadening behavioral repertoires, increasing intuition and creativity.
Good feelings alter people's bodily systems, improving cardiovascular aftereffects, alter frontal brain asymmetry and increases immune function.
Good feeling predict good mental and physical outcomes: (a) resilience to adversity, (b) increased happiness, (c) psychological growth, (d) lower levels of cortisol, (e) reduced inflammatory responses to stress, (f) reductions in subsequent-day physical pain, (g) resistance to rhino-viruses, and (h) reductions in stroke.
And, perhaps reflecting these effects in combination, good feelings predict how long people live. Several well-controlled longitudinal studies document a clear link between frequent positive affect and longevity.

To make a long story short:
(for the long version check the Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing study)

Observe a group's behavior, counting positive (P) and negative (N) acts, as mentioned earlier, and use the following formula to determine the connectivity (c), or the strong lasting social connections between the members of the group, which determines the long term effectiveness of a group.

c = 15 + 2.67 P/N

c = 18 represents a low performance,
c = 22 a medium performance, and
c = 32 represents a high performance team.

Due to some Lorenz systems behavior, from where this formula is derived, there is an important breakpoint, which delimits the performance of a group: it will be pulled (permanently) either to the flourishing or languishing attractor.

This value is found for c = 22.74 or P/N = 2.9.

And this sums it up: we must get 3 positives, or better, for every negative in the interactions, in order to flourish. If not, languishing and low performance is a given.

Long lasting relations is the secret —and it might improve your news writing too...