http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/will-dropouts-save-america.html

The Blah-Blahmeter from Dan Roam on Vimeo.

Be Double Minded from Dan Roam on Vimeo.

It promises to create a beehive of innovation and discovery, attracting and nurturing the kind of technical talent that will spawn new companies, create new jobs and propel our city’s economy to new frontiers.

Others argue that it takes more than a university to create a hub for innovation. “A university by itself is not clear that it will transform New York into a more entrepreneurial dynamic place,” said Anna Lee-Saxenian, dean of the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley. “After all, we have big famous engineering universities in Texas and California, in Europe, in Germany and England, that don’t have Silicon Valleys around them. So one single institution can’t be the story of Silicon Valley or of creating a new Silicon Valley.”

What do you think? Does NYC have what it takes to overtake Silicon Valley?

WNYC: New York City Takes on Silicon Valley

The Industrial Age was largely about making those jobs as menial and unskilled as possible. Technologies such as the assembly line were less important for making production faster than for making it cheaper, and laborers more replaceable. Now that we’re in the digital age, we’re using technology the same way: to increase efficiency, lay off more people, and increase corporate profits.

While this is certainly bad for workers and unions, I have to wonder just how truly bad is it for people. Isn’t this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with “career” be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?

It’s a worthwhile question, and not just one for consideration in freshman Marxism seminars.

[CNN.com]

The newest voice in the mix is blogger and sci-fi writer Cory Doctorow. After having worked with a traditional publisher to publish several books over the better part of the past decade, Doctorow self-published his short story collection With a Little Help earlier this year and, despite his name recognition and platform, found it more difficult than he imagined. As he writes in Locus magazine:

I figured I could deploy all the stuff I’d done when my other books had been published by mainstream publishers, the stuff that had given my books a little push to get them out of the midlist and into wider circles of attention and discussion. I knew I’d have to do some of the stuff my publisher had done, but like everyone doing something complicated for the first time, I dramatically underestimated how much work this would be. It’s not impossible, and it’s not horrible work – it’s challenging, exciting stuff, but it’s incredibly time consuming and it can be tough.

Locus Magazine: Cory Doctorow, Why Should Anyone Care?

If you are a member of the press and would like more information on THE BIG ENOUGH COMPANY, please contact Jamie Jelly at jamie.jelly@us.penguingroup.com.

In anticipation of the book launch, Jonathan just released a great video where he talks about the inspiration for writing the book.  Check it out:

And here’s the direct link

Some proponents of self-publishing (J.A. Konrath, Barry Eisler, John Locke et al) go even further — they think having a traditional publisher is not merely optional but foolish. Why should a gifted writer share the proceeds of her success with an intermediary if she can attract a flood of readers without one?

This line of reasoning makes no sense to me. Yes, self-publishing and ebook-only publishing are enticing new avenues for aspiring writers. But self-publishing is not an easy road. As a recent New York Times article attests, “there are often hidden fees.” It’s expensive to self-publish. Incredibly time consuming. And the results can be meager. The author who was the focus of the Times article had sold 700 copies of her novel after months of hard work.

Despite the hype, the fundamental rules of publishing have not really changed very much. Now, as before, the greatest challenge facing a new writer is to find readers, not to finish and print a book. If anything, self-publishing has made the shelves, both virtual and physical, even more crowded. The obstacles to being noticed are even more forbidding, not less. In a world where anyone can upload a Word doc and call it a book, it’s more valuable than ever to have experts curate the works that are really worthy of a reader’s attention.

But even more important, good publishers add immeasurable value precisely because they have hard-won experience in all those aspects of the process that writers are not experts in. These arts — editing, positioning, packaging, and marketing — are as essential as they ever were. Freelance editors, publicists, and other service providers are available to provide such services, but few writers know how to choose and manage those hired guns. Even fewer possess the mix of discipline, public credibility, and book marketing savvy it takes to devise their own titles, cover art and marketing plans.

And let’s not forget that the explosive rise of e-books and online retail hasn’t eliminated the crucial impact of distribution and merchandising of printed books in stores — an area in which traditional publishers have an overwhelming advantage.

Some gurus of self-publishing suggest that trying to start word-of-mouth by focusing on friends and acquaintances is a new tactic. Actually, writers have done that from time immemorial. The difference is that now we call a writer’s core audience his “platform” or “tribe” and the Web makes it easier than ever to build one. Which is great news for every author, from the famous to the unknown. But surely the vast majority of promising writers who aspire to reach the wider world are better off with the help, nurturance, advice and financial backing of a prominent publisher. Writers who fall for the myth of self-publishing are likely to end up relegated to the periphery of the book world.

My advice to aspiring writers is to pursue the traditional path of agents and publishers to the best of your ability. If you fail to get traction that way, you can certainly try self-publishing as a way to attract attention and build your platform. But a good mainstream publisher is still the best way to reach the biggest possible audience via professional editing and marketing support — and to get paid an advance for your work, which the self-publishing gurus tend to conveniently ignore or disparage.

Of course there are rare exceptions — like self-publishing superstar Amanda Hocking — and those anecdotal triumphs draw a ton of media attention. But someone always wins the lottery too. Why take that risk and sell yourself short if you don’t have to? Besides, Hocking herself has now signed with a traditional publisher for her future novels, as the best way to build on her early success.

Watch the full episode. See more Tavis Smiley.

Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why (Portfolio, 2009), made this list with one of the most-watched TedTalks videos of all time. His speech on how great leaders inspire extraordinary action has been viewed over 2.1 million times since 2010!

Simon’s TEDtalk video on how great leaders inspire action