A bit more on the future of work and the workplace. I picked up here what I thought was a really good piece of futures thinking, by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., apparently from 2002. I particularly like the willingness to think about the future from first-principles (understanding human/ anthropological fundamentals, but making the minimum of assumptions beyond that) and the part at the end about seeming trends and recurrent illusions
'Predicting the future is a tricky business. There have been countless ridiculous failures at identifying the trends and products which will determine the future shape of our life and our environment. Even more difficult is trying to guess which of us will be deemed a useful member of the community – and which an obsolete relic. To a large extent, the answer to this question lies in determining the useful professions of the future. This is an age when people are determined, defined and categorized in strict accordance with their professions.
Whereas during the Renaissance, a person might have been defined by his range of interests (remember the likes of Leonardo da Vinci), by his familial, religious, or ethnic affiliations, by his or her gender and so on – today the first and foremost question is a person’s profession. The first question that we must provide a clear answer to is: What constitutes a profession (as opposed to a hobby), a vocation (as opposed to an avocation)? To qualify as a profession, the act must bear the following hallmarks:
It must be continuous and pursued for a long time.
It must occupy most of the waking hours.
It must yield earnings or compensation whether in money or in kind.
The person must have an advantage in that field of knowledge or activity, at least over laymen. In other words, the categories of laymen and expert – which are the result of highly specific education – must exist and prevail.
It must be hierarchically layered with clear flows of professional authorities and responsibilities and with a clear career path (progressing up the professional ladder).
The second relevant question is: What are the trends which determine our future? It is useless to look at microtrends. These are too volatile and, in principle, unpredictable. Much more important are the trends that last for hundreds or even thousands of years. These are usually not the results of technological conjuncture or geopolitical upheavals. Rather, they are the outcomes of characteristic human activities which are uninterrupted. Healthcare, for instance, is such a human activity. Humans – terrified of death and infirmity – always wanted and are very likely to continue to want to improve their health and thus to postpone the inevitable and better the quality of what is available.
Another such overriding tendency is education: this is a part of the human survival kit. By educating oneself, by studying a profession, by learning more about the world – one better one’s chances to survive. Out of this set of human, almost deterministic activities, a group of overriding trends emerges:
From Less Mobility to More Mobility
People, goods and, lately, information became and become, daily, more and more mobile. Physical distance has been shrunk. A global marketplace has formed. Information is almost instantly available anywhere. This was described as the global village – an outdated concept which might soon be replaced by the global home. All the professions which has to do with more mobility will benefit and represent preferred professions of the future. The moving of people: pilots, drivers, the car industry, sophisticated traffic planners and automotive innovators, tourism related professions and so on. The moving of goods: shipping, trucking, air and modern train travel. This area is already so specialized that I do not consider it as offering opportunities in the future (put differently, I do not regard it as a growth industry). The moving of information (today dubbed: “The Service Industries”): Trading systems, the Internet, Networking and communications related professions, the field of communications within the computer industries, telecommunications, entertainment related professions, technologies of banking. The creation of destinations for people, goods and information (commonly known as Markets or Marketplaces): advertising, marketing, trading, design, image and public relations experts.
The Age Polarization of Society
Better medicine will lead to a polarization of the age structure of society: there will be more older people and more younger people. Gradually, as birth rates fall and contraception becomes widespread, a reverse pyramid will be formed: most people will be middle aged and old. This offers a clear view of professions which will be required in the future: Professionals to take care of older and younger people (which have very similar needs): nurses, paramedics, nannies, entertainers, leisure time professionals, companions, specialized equipment manufacturers, operators of homes for the very old or for the very young, pension planners, manufacturers of specialized medical and paramedical needs and products for both age groups, legal and accounting specialists in pension and inheritance laws and tax planning. Virtually every industry and field of human activity will have to adapt themselves to these demographic changes. Age-related expertise will develop in each one of them. This applies to the arts (mainly music and cinema) as well as to the crafts, to industry as well as to agriculture, to infrastructure as well as to government. Human society will be enormously influenced by these shifts.
The Fragmentation of Society
Initially, society was composed of very large units. People belonged to tribes “nations”. These were groupings of up to hundreds of thousands of people. They felt amply defined by this belonging. Nothing was left out when you said that a certain person was “Hebrew”. Nothing needed to be added. Stereotypes were more than sufficient and, usually accurate.
Later, the concept of family fully emerged. First, in a very extended form: the family comprised a few generations and all removed family (blood) connections. Gradually, the family shed more and more layers. People began to be called by family names only 250 years ago. The nuclear family was an invention of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution and modern methods of transport and communication broke families apart. Even this relatively small units came under a debilitating attack in the last 50 years and the nuclear family underwent a nuclear implosion, it disintegrated. Today, the basic unit of society, its cell, its atom, is the individual.
People will tend to isolate themselves: stay more at home, work from it with flexitime, form and break up short term attachments to other humans or be engaged in non-committal activities with others, activities which will not threaten their absolute freedom and mobility. Solitary media will be predominant: the Internet is a one-user medium (television was a family medium).
The professions which will cater to the needs of individuals and separate them from society (while maintaining the survival need to communicate) will be the professions of the future: Internet, entertainment (especially customized), telecommunication, singles-related industries (dating and couple matching, for instance, single’s bars, to mention another), virtual reality, small businesses which can be run from home, agencies for temporary work placement and other professions catering to the conflicting human needs of being together while being alone.
All the other seeming trends are recurrent illusions. There have been ages of more or less democracy, more or less market orientation, more or less polarization between rich and poor people. The human race experienced numerous forms of government, of marriage, of economy, of management, of residence, of production, even of trying to predict the future. It was the wisest of all men, King Solomon, who said: 'There is nothing new under the sun'. True, but it is getting stronger."
Monday, January 18, 2010
The just-in-time worker and the push-back
Business Week this week leads with a feature 'The Disposable Worker,' saying that 26% of the US workforce has 'non-standard' (part, flexi, multiple) employment and the forecast for the next 5-10 years is more of the same. "Right up to the C-suite, more jobs will be freelance and temporary... As Kelly Services CEO Carl Camden puts it: 'We're all temps now.'"
BW also quotes Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, as saying the brutal recession has prompted more companies to create just-in-time labor forces that can be turned on and off like a spigot. "'Employers are trying to get rid of all fixed costs,' Cappelli says. 'First they did it with employment benefits. Now they're doing it with the jobs themselves. Everything is variable.' That means companies hold all the power, and 'all the risks are pushed on to employees.'"
It's a fairly old forecast in labor circles that work is moving from full-time jobs towards a project-based, just-in-time agglomeration of skills. This can even sound quite attractive: think of the movie industry. When a movie goes ahead, a whole raft of employees, from actors to sound engineers to caterers to editors are brought in as needed and paid well. They meanwhile have the flexibility to work on other projects too.
But, predictably, people who are not celebrities, or super-skilled, or young-and-free hate this form of working because of its insecurity. Those who want to know where their next paycheck is coming from, are the overwhelming majority, and they will push back against this future heavily. They are therefore the immense brakes on this brave new world of work forecast.
In recessionary times employees have little power. But when things turn up, the power balance in the labor market will shift and employers will have to start offering real jobs and benefit to workers they don't want to lose to competitors who are offering them.
BW also quotes Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, as saying the brutal recession has prompted more companies to create just-in-time labor forces that can be turned on and off like a spigot. "'Employers are trying to get rid of all fixed costs,' Cappelli says. 'First they did it with employment benefits. Now they're doing it with the jobs themselves. Everything is variable.' That means companies hold all the power, and 'all the risks are pushed on to employees.'"
It's a fairly old forecast in labor circles that work is moving from full-time jobs towards a project-based, just-in-time agglomeration of skills. This can even sound quite attractive: think of the movie industry. When a movie goes ahead, a whole raft of employees, from actors to sound engineers to caterers to editors are brought in as needed and paid well. They meanwhile have the flexibility to work on other projects too.
But, predictably, people who are not celebrities, or super-skilled, or young-and-free hate this form of working because of its insecurity. Those who want to know where their next paycheck is coming from, are the overwhelming majority, and they will push back against this future heavily. They are therefore the immense brakes on this brave new world of work forecast.
In recessionary times employees have little power. But when things turn up, the power balance in the labor market will shift and employers will have to start offering real jobs and benefit to workers they don't want to lose to competitors who are offering them.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Shell scenario 'how to' book from 2003 available here
The classic Shell Scenario methods book, 'Scenarios: An Explorer's Guide' (2003) is available for free download here.
The book is a graphics-heavy 'take' on scenario planning, quite whimsical, no doubt all about fighting the good fight with the Dutch engineers and Scottish accountants that 'are' the Shell establishment. It's hardly the last word in scenario methods, but still interesting for what it is.
On of the key things about it is it uses the metaphor of exploration and map-making to describe how to think about building scenarios. Says Shell: "Like a set of maps describing different aspects of a landscape, scenarios provide us with a range of perspectives on what might happen, helping us to navigate more successfully."
The book describes the approach used to develop Shell's ‘People and Connections’ scenarios circa 2000 under Ged Davis. As Shell comment: "Since then, scenarios guided by Albert Bressand have been published, and more recently Shell has published a summary of its Energy Scenarios, ‘Scramble’ and ‘Blueprints’, developed under the guidance of the current leadership. These have built on, and extended, our approach. Indeed, Shell has been working with scenarios for almost 40 years, and we are still learning."
Amen to that.
The book is a graphics-heavy 'take' on scenario planning, quite whimsical, no doubt all about fighting the good fight with the Dutch engineers and Scottish accountants that 'are' the Shell establishment. It's hardly the last word in scenario methods, but still interesting for what it is.
On of the key things about it is it uses the metaphor of exploration and map-making to describe how to think about building scenarios. Says Shell: "Like a set of maps describing different aspects of a landscape, scenarios provide us with a range of perspectives on what might happen, helping us to navigate more successfully."
The book describes the approach used to develop Shell's ‘People and Connections’ scenarios circa 2000 under Ged Davis. As Shell comment: "Since then, scenarios guided by Albert Bressand have been published, and more recently Shell has published a summary of its Energy Scenarios, ‘Scramble’ and ‘Blueprints’, developed under the guidance of the current leadership. These have built on, and extended, our approach. Indeed, Shell has been working with scenarios for almost 40 years, and we are still learning."
Amen to that.
Monday, January 4, 2010
The alleged re-decline of the American empire
If you're old enough to remember a thing or two, when you hear about the imminent 'decline of the the American empire' you remember that this worry was on everyone's lips in the early 1990, just before the US zoomed to renewed and unprecedented prosperity. As an experienced foresight observer, I say that what fundamentally counts in future national prosperity (for any nation) is science and technology research, enabled design & innovation processes, and facilitated entrepreneurship. While the US has its problems, it still easily trumps all comers in these key areas, and that will keep it very prosperous through the 21st century (albeit with wealth remain ultra-concentrated in few hands, bringing its own severe social problems.)
But don't believe me. Here are the reasons for Americas bleak future, according to US News and World Report:
Jobs. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the U.S. unemployment rate will be 9.3 percent for all of 2010. That's lower than in some European nations, but it's higher than in Canada and a lot worse than most countries in Scandinavia and Asia. Overall, the U.S. unemployment rate is about average for advanced economies and likely to stay that way. It could be worse, but middling job creation isn't a sign of global leadership.
Economic growth. The IMF also predicts that the U.S. economy will grow 1.9 percent in 2010. That's a tad better than the average for all advanced economies, but at least 10 developed nations will grow faster. Woo-hoo. Three cheers for mediocrity.
Poverty. The U.S. poverty rate, about 17 percent, is third worst among the advanced nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In that sample, only Turkey and Mexico are worse.
Education. American 15-year-olds score below the average for advanced nations on math and science literacy. But don't worry, our nation's future leaders are still ahead of their peers in Mexico, Turkey, Greece, and a few other places.
Competitiveness. In the latest global competitiveness report from the World Economic Forum, the United States fell from No. 1 to No. 2. Sure, let's console ourselves that the No. 1 country, Switzerland, is a tiny outlier nation and that getting bumped from the top spot doesn't really mean anything. Add an asterisk, and we're still No. 1.
Prosperity. The most prosperous nations, according to the Legatum report, are Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. These fairly homogenous European countries are the teachers' pets of global rankings, often appearing near the top because of right-sized economies and a relatively small underclass. For a huge economy like America's, a No. 9 ranking is still respectable. And part of the drop from last year's No. 4 spot is a change in methodology that puts more emphasis on the health and safety of citizens. Still, in the index's subrankings, the United States isn't even in the top 10 for economic fundamentals, safety and security, or governance. We should do better.
Health. In the Legatum study, the United States ranks 27th for the health of its citizens. Life expectancy in America is below the average for 30 advanced countries measured by the OECD, and the obesity rate in America is the worst among those 30 countries, by far. And, of course, we spend far more on healthcare per person than anybody else—but get no bang for the extra buck.
Well-being. In the United Nations' Human Development Index, which attempts to measure the overall well-being of citizens throughout the world, the United States ranks 13th, one notch lower than in the prior set of rankings. Norway, Australia, Iceland, and Canada are at the top.
Happiness. The United States ranks 11th in the OECD's measure of "life satisfaction"—behind Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and other usual suspects. That's not bad, but the United States is one of only five countries where life satisfaction is going down, not up. The other downer nations are Portugal, Hungary, Canada, and Japan. Plus, the research behind these rankings predates the recession, so it's likely that Americans are a lot less satisfied these days.
But don't believe me. Here are the reasons for Americas bleak future, according to US News and World Report:
Jobs. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the U.S. unemployment rate will be 9.3 percent for all of 2010. That's lower than in some European nations, but it's higher than in Canada and a lot worse than most countries in Scandinavia and Asia. Overall, the U.S. unemployment rate is about average for advanced economies and likely to stay that way. It could be worse, but middling job creation isn't a sign of global leadership.
Economic growth. The IMF also predicts that the U.S. economy will grow 1.9 percent in 2010. That's a tad better than the average for all advanced economies, but at least 10 developed nations will grow faster. Woo-hoo. Three cheers for mediocrity.
Poverty. The U.S. poverty rate, about 17 percent, is third worst among the advanced nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In that sample, only Turkey and Mexico are worse.
Education. American 15-year-olds score below the average for advanced nations on math and science literacy. But don't worry, our nation's future leaders are still ahead of their peers in Mexico, Turkey, Greece, and a few other places.
Competitiveness. In the latest global competitiveness report from the World Economic Forum, the United States fell from No. 1 to No. 2. Sure, let's console ourselves that the No. 1 country, Switzerland, is a tiny outlier nation and that getting bumped from the top spot doesn't really mean anything. Add an asterisk, and we're still No. 1.
Prosperity. The most prosperous nations, according to the Legatum report, are Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. These fairly homogenous European countries are the teachers' pets of global rankings, often appearing near the top because of right-sized economies and a relatively small underclass. For a huge economy like America's, a No. 9 ranking is still respectable. And part of the drop from last year's No. 4 spot is a change in methodology that puts more emphasis on the health and safety of citizens. Still, in the index's subrankings, the United States isn't even in the top 10 for economic fundamentals, safety and security, or governance. We should do better.
Health. In the Legatum study, the United States ranks 27th for the health of its citizens. Life expectancy in America is below the average for 30 advanced countries measured by the OECD, and the obesity rate in America is the worst among those 30 countries, by far. And, of course, we spend far more on healthcare per person than anybody else—but get no bang for the extra buck.
Well-being. In the United Nations' Human Development Index, which attempts to measure the overall well-being of citizens throughout the world, the United States ranks 13th, one notch lower than in the prior set of rankings. Norway, Australia, Iceland, and Canada are at the top.
Happiness. The United States ranks 11th in the OECD's measure of "life satisfaction"—behind Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and other usual suspects. That's not bad, but the United States is one of only five countries where life satisfaction is going down, not up. The other downer nations are Portugal, Hungary, Canada, and Japan. Plus, the research behind these rankings predates the recession, so it's likely that Americans are a lot less satisfied these days.
Predictions for the ebook and publishing industry
Mike Shatzkin offers these 13 predictions in and around the printing and publishing industry on The Idea Logical. It is great industry-focused futures thinking, clear, logical, and ... (holy grail) some non-obvious stuff there too:
1. At least one major book will have several different enhanced ebook editions. This will result from a combination of circumstances: the different capabilities of ebook hardware and reader platforms, the desire of publishers and authors to justify print-like prices for ebooks, the sheer ability of authors and their fans to do new things electronically, and the dawning awareness that there are at least two distinctly different ebook markets: one just wants to read the print book on an electronic screen and the other wants links and videos and other enhancements that really change the print book experience. (Corrolary prediction: the idea of an enhanced ebook that is only sold “temporarily” in the first window when the book comes out, which has been floated by at least one publisher, will be short-lived. Whatever is made for sale in electronic form will remain available approximately forever. Or, put another way, if you have a product that requires no inventory investment that has a market, you’ll keep satisfying it.)
2. Here come some new retail book outlets, but can publishers afford the risk of selling to them? The growing incidence of bookstore-less cities will provoke the mass merchants to explore a greatly increased title selection inside their stores as a magnet to attract disenfranchised bookstore customers. The early emphasis will be on children’s books and illustrated how-to: books for which there is high value to seeing them before buying them. They might even see this expansion as a margin-booster because if they’re responding to scarcity (as they would be), then discounting might not be as necessary as it is with their bestseller-only strategy now. Publishers will be wary of this new initiative, knowing that it could fail and lead to large returns but it will be on the drawing boards by the end of 2010.
3. Thanks to digital, there is no minimum length for a book anymore. Ebooks that are too short to be print books will become a real factor in ebook sales, opening up new opportunities for publishers but even more for authors. Short fiction is already well established in the romance genre and some major publishers have broken out stories from anthologies as separate items to be sold on Kindle. In 2010, authors and agents will discover that shorter-than-a-book works can be the subject of useful experimentation and learning through electronic publishing and, by the end of the year, it will become a frequently-employed device. Periodical media (newspapers and magazines) will also see this paid delivery mechanism as an alternative worth experimentation for them as well. After all, if a big publisher can unbundle a short story anthology to sell the individual stories as Kindle editons, why couldn’t The New Yorker sell the short fiction it publishes that way as well? This concept has been tipped by the announcement in 2009 than the web site Daily Beast will be delivering shorter books in a timely manner through electronic distribution.
4. Ebooks will require a new industry directory (and it won’t be printed.) Driven by new entrants in the field, self-publishing, and unbundled aggregations of print books, the gap between the items listed in “Books in Print” and the items that should be listed in a directory of “Ebooks Available” will continue to grow. There has been a robust conversation in a corner of the book community about whether all ebook editions need ISBNs, but that’s really only one part of a much larger metadata problem. In 2010 we are likely to see at least one serious effort to deliver a new online directory for ebooks.
5. Big publishers start to match their offerings to their marketing capability. The rearrangement of the big publishers’ IP portfolios will begin in 2010 as they emphasize what they do best: deliver narrative-writing and children’s books to multiple outlets in large quantities. This reshuffle will only begin to be evident in 2010, but we will see small slices of big publishers’ lists sold or licensed to specialist small publishers and we will see the beginnings of genre consolidation among the big publishers, with some publishers beefing up and others exiting romance, science fiction, and mystery. In 2010 the latter will take the form of list growth or cutbacks, not the sale of whole lists to a competitor. We’ll see that in 2011 or 2012.
6. Ebooks become significant revenue contributors for many titles. By the end of 2010, ebook sales will routinely constitute at least 20% of the units moved for midlist and the lower tier of bestsellers and at least 10% of the units for really big bestsellers. (These are predictions for narrative writing; illustrated books and kids’ picture books will lag considerably.)
7. Circumstances will outrun the ebook “windowing” strategy. By the end of 2010, the experiment with “windowing” ebooks — withholding them from release when the hardcover comes out — will end as increasing evidence persuades publishers and agents that ebook sales (at any price) spur print book sales (at any price), not cannibalize or discourage them and, furthermore, that this withholding effort does nothing to restrain Amazon’s proclivity for discounting. (Amazon can’t quit with so many competitors joining them; see number 11 below.) There will also be steadily increasing evidence that most readers distinctly prefer either digital books or paper for their narrative reading and the real minority is the people who routinely read both.
8. In the digital world, geographical territories will be found not to make much sense. The problem of managing territorial rights for ebooks will be a growing problem the industry will have to deal with. As ebook platforms are increasingly separated from dedicated readers (a move even Amazon encourages with its Kindle software working on PCs and iPhones by the beginning of 2010 with more to come throughout the year), people all over the world express their frustration about books they are blocked from obtaining by obsolete rights regimes. With the number of ebook platforms and outlets increasing, it becomes almost impossible to police these rights effectively. Authors with global audiences become increasingly sensitive to the frustration of their fans and, through their agents, lobby for “open markets” for ebooks to solve the problem. US publishers back the idea and smaller market publishers hate it, but by the end of 2010 it is obvious that territorial rights will be relegated to print books only, meaning the end could be in sight for the entire concept of territoriality (but, because of old contracts and lots of national laws, it will be a very long sunset.) Pushing back against this concept might be publishers in countries with large English-language populations (Israel comes to mind, but I know publishers getting offers from Nigeria) who want to carve out a national monopoly for their own local editions in English. But that would be print-only.
9. Authors with clout start looking more like publishers. Some authors who have developed huge followings on Facebook and Twitter and their own blogs start to demonstrate that they can have a serious positive impact on the books of other authors they favor. This leads to a variation on the time-honored practice of getting blurbs and jacket quote-lines as savvy editors and agents suss who the new author-megaphones are and line up to get their support. The prediction for 2010 is that this will start to become obvious. The likely prediction for 2011 will be that this leads to authors becoming quasi-publishers or, perhaps, getting “imprint” deals from established houses to select and promote other people’s writing.
10. The “shakeout” in ebook delivery mechanisms won’t start this year; proliferation rules in 2010. With the arrival of Google Editions in the first or second quarter of 2010, there will be multiple channels to the ebook market through a variety of players: Google, Amazon, Apple, Baker & Taylor’s Blio, Kobo (formerly Shortcovers, the ebook operation begun by Indigo of Canada), and Sony will not be alone! During the course of 2010, the industry will become aware that there are three moving parts here: the device ebooks are viewed on, the ebook “reader” software the device employs, and the retailing and merchandising experience for the consumer shopping (or searching) for a particular book. As it becomes clear that ebook readers employ multiple devices and can accept a variety of platforms, the shopping experience will become appreciated as the most important determinant of consumer loyalty for most books. This is a moving target; everybody will be working on it. But as we enter 2010, it looks like Kobo has figured this out better (so far) than anybody else.
11. Retailers will demonstrate that they have more at stake with each file they sell than the revenue from that sale. Because there are so many players fighting for a foothold in ebooks, discounting them deeply will be the “new normal.” This will enable publishers to keep their “established” retail price (and their revenue per unit sold) high, but consumers will increasingly see ebooks as the less expensive alternative.
12. We will see greater integration of ebook offerings with other products and services. The merchandising challenge for ebooks will ultimately be met web page by web page over the entire Internet. This future paradigm will be tipped in 2010 when we start to see ebook stores on more and more non-book web sites, each trying to deliver some sort of value-add with curation or follow-on products.
13. Book publishers will have to admit to real confusion about what the product is that they produce. The big meme coming out of 2010 will be “what is a book?” Publishers will increasingly be releasing productions that contain video, audio, animation, slide shows, and interactive game elements. Movie, TV, and game producers will see an alternate marketing and revenue channel available through “ebookifying” content they have and moving it through book channels like a “tie-in.” Where one stops and the other begins will become increasingly difficult to see (and increasingly irrelevant).
1. At least one major book will have several different enhanced ebook editions. This will result from a combination of circumstances: the different capabilities of ebook hardware and reader platforms, the desire of publishers and authors to justify print-like prices for ebooks, the sheer ability of authors and their fans to do new things electronically, and the dawning awareness that there are at least two distinctly different ebook markets: one just wants to read the print book on an electronic screen and the other wants links and videos and other enhancements that really change the print book experience. (Corrolary prediction: the idea of an enhanced ebook that is only sold “temporarily” in the first window when the book comes out, which has been floated by at least one publisher, will be short-lived. Whatever is made for sale in electronic form will remain available approximately forever. Or, put another way, if you have a product that requires no inventory investment that has a market, you’ll keep satisfying it.)
2. Here come some new retail book outlets, but can publishers afford the risk of selling to them? The growing incidence of bookstore-less cities will provoke the mass merchants to explore a greatly increased title selection inside their stores as a magnet to attract disenfranchised bookstore customers. The early emphasis will be on children’s books and illustrated how-to: books for which there is high value to seeing them before buying them. They might even see this expansion as a margin-booster because if they’re responding to scarcity (as they would be), then discounting might not be as necessary as it is with their bestseller-only strategy now. Publishers will be wary of this new initiative, knowing that it could fail and lead to large returns but it will be on the drawing boards by the end of 2010.
3. Thanks to digital, there is no minimum length for a book anymore. Ebooks that are too short to be print books will become a real factor in ebook sales, opening up new opportunities for publishers but even more for authors. Short fiction is already well established in the romance genre and some major publishers have broken out stories from anthologies as separate items to be sold on Kindle. In 2010, authors and agents will discover that shorter-than-a-book works can be the subject of useful experimentation and learning through electronic publishing and, by the end of the year, it will become a frequently-employed device. Periodical media (newspapers and magazines) will also see this paid delivery mechanism as an alternative worth experimentation for them as well. After all, if a big publisher can unbundle a short story anthology to sell the individual stories as Kindle editons, why couldn’t The New Yorker sell the short fiction it publishes that way as well? This concept has been tipped by the announcement in 2009 than the web site Daily Beast will be delivering shorter books in a timely manner through electronic distribution.
4. Ebooks will require a new industry directory (and it won’t be printed.) Driven by new entrants in the field, self-publishing, and unbundled aggregations of print books, the gap between the items listed in “Books in Print” and the items that should be listed in a directory of “Ebooks Available” will continue to grow. There has been a robust conversation in a corner of the book community about whether all ebook editions need ISBNs, but that’s really only one part of a much larger metadata problem. In 2010 we are likely to see at least one serious effort to deliver a new online directory for ebooks.
5. Big publishers start to match their offerings to their marketing capability. The rearrangement of the big publishers’ IP portfolios will begin in 2010 as they emphasize what they do best: deliver narrative-writing and children’s books to multiple outlets in large quantities. This reshuffle will only begin to be evident in 2010, but we will see small slices of big publishers’ lists sold or licensed to specialist small publishers and we will see the beginnings of genre consolidation among the big publishers, with some publishers beefing up and others exiting romance, science fiction, and mystery. In 2010 the latter will take the form of list growth or cutbacks, not the sale of whole lists to a competitor. We’ll see that in 2011 or 2012.
6. Ebooks become significant revenue contributors for many titles. By the end of 2010, ebook sales will routinely constitute at least 20% of the units moved for midlist and the lower tier of bestsellers and at least 10% of the units for really big bestsellers. (These are predictions for narrative writing; illustrated books and kids’ picture books will lag considerably.)
7. Circumstances will outrun the ebook “windowing” strategy. By the end of 2010, the experiment with “windowing” ebooks — withholding them from release when the hardcover comes out — will end as increasing evidence persuades publishers and agents that ebook sales (at any price) spur print book sales (at any price), not cannibalize or discourage them and, furthermore, that this withholding effort does nothing to restrain Amazon’s proclivity for discounting. (Amazon can’t quit with so many competitors joining them; see number 11 below.) There will also be steadily increasing evidence that most readers distinctly prefer either digital books or paper for their narrative reading and the real minority is the people who routinely read both.
8. In the digital world, geographical territories will be found not to make much sense. The problem of managing territorial rights for ebooks will be a growing problem the industry will have to deal with. As ebook platforms are increasingly separated from dedicated readers (a move even Amazon encourages with its Kindle software working on PCs and iPhones by the beginning of 2010 with more to come throughout the year), people all over the world express their frustration about books they are blocked from obtaining by obsolete rights regimes. With the number of ebook platforms and outlets increasing, it becomes almost impossible to police these rights effectively. Authors with global audiences become increasingly sensitive to the frustration of their fans and, through their agents, lobby for “open markets” for ebooks to solve the problem. US publishers back the idea and smaller market publishers hate it, but by the end of 2010 it is obvious that territorial rights will be relegated to print books only, meaning the end could be in sight for the entire concept of territoriality (but, because of old contracts and lots of national laws, it will be a very long sunset.) Pushing back against this concept might be publishers in countries with large English-language populations (Israel comes to mind, but I know publishers getting offers from Nigeria) who want to carve out a national monopoly for their own local editions in English. But that would be print-only.
9. Authors with clout start looking more like publishers. Some authors who have developed huge followings on Facebook and Twitter and their own blogs start to demonstrate that they can have a serious positive impact on the books of other authors they favor. This leads to a variation on the time-honored practice of getting blurbs and jacket quote-lines as savvy editors and agents suss who the new author-megaphones are and line up to get their support. The prediction for 2010 is that this will start to become obvious. The likely prediction for 2011 will be that this leads to authors becoming quasi-publishers or, perhaps, getting “imprint” deals from established houses to select and promote other people’s writing.
10. The “shakeout” in ebook delivery mechanisms won’t start this year; proliferation rules in 2010. With the arrival of Google Editions in the first or second quarter of 2010, there will be multiple channels to the ebook market through a variety of players: Google, Amazon, Apple, Baker & Taylor’s Blio, Kobo (formerly Shortcovers, the ebook operation begun by Indigo of Canada), and Sony will not be alone! During the course of 2010, the industry will become aware that there are three moving parts here: the device ebooks are viewed on, the ebook “reader” software the device employs, and the retailing and merchandising experience for the consumer shopping (or searching) for a particular book. As it becomes clear that ebook readers employ multiple devices and can accept a variety of platforms, the shopping experience will become appreciated as the most important determinant of consumer loyalty for most books. This is a moving target; everybody will be working on it. But as we enter 2010, it looks like Kobo has figured this out better (so far) than anybody else.
11. Retailers will demonstrate that they have more at stake with each file they sell than the revenue from that sale. Because there are so many players fighting for a foothold in ebooks, discounting them deeply will be the “new normal.” This will enable publishers to keep their “established” retail price (and their revenue per unit sold) high, but consumers will increasingly see ebooks as the less expensive alternative.
12. We will see greater integration of ebook offerings with other products and services. The merchandising challenge for ebooks will ultimately be met web page by web page over the entire Internet. This future paradigm will be tipped in 2010 when we start to see ebook stores on more and more non-book web sites, each trying to deliver some sort of value-add with curation or follow-on products.
13. Book publishers will have to admit to real confusion about what the product is that they produce. The big meme coming out of 2010 will be “what is a book?” Publishers will increasingly be releasing productions that contain video, audio, animation, slide shows, and interactive game elements. Movie, TV, and game producers will see an alternate marketing and revenue channel available through “ebookifying” content they have and moving it through book channels like a “tie-in.” Where one stops and the other begins will become increasingly difficult to see (and increasingly irrelevant).
7 Predictions For 2010-2020 from Business Week
With the Business Week platform behind him, Bruce Nussbaum put out these predictions for the next 10 years (he admits sticking only 'to things I know about': to economics, innovation, design, politics, demographics, policy, global):
1- Peak Globalization:
Just as the world globalized in the second half of the 19th century, only to return to nationalism in the first half of the 20th, so too will we see a strong backlash against globalization in the decade ahead...As China, India, Korea, India, Japan and other countries pursue strictly national strategies, Western governments and publics increasingly counter with theirs... the Boeing 787 fiasco highlights the problems with extreme outsourcing of complex systems. As Boeing has moved to insource and control the 787, so too other US and European companies follow.
2- Radical Remodeling (around social media):
The social media form of organization found in Facebook and Twitter spread to business, healthcare, education and, politics. This is Gen Y’s technology platform and the 16-27 year-old demographic cohort take social media with it as it takes power and moves through it’s life cycle... A culture-centric, behavior-focussed model replaces the current rationalistic, math-basaed, theoretical economic model. Bye-bye to the Chicago school of economics. Hello Harvard.
3- US-sclerosis:
America becomes increasingly ungovernable and incompetent. Ideological polarization, political corruption (legal lobbying but pay-to-play), growing inequality, globalization of corporate and financial elites, and large-scale social system failures (education, healthcare, intelligence, industry), cut America’s economic, political and military power. The shift to a green economy is slow. The dollar sinks and inflation rises to ease paying for huge government debt.
4- Return to Big Power Conflict:
The rise and fall of nations generates new Big Power conflict. China challenges the US militarily in Taiwan and nearly succeeds in blinding US naval computer systems. China and India fight a small-scale border war that is really about controlling water. Pakistan and India engage in conflict.
5- China stalls out:
A huge aging population, soaring inequality and anger at the rich, over-investment in infrastructure, industrial capacity and failure to shift from a producer/exporter to a consumer/importer economy combine to produce a financial crisis in China that ends its 30-year, double-digit growth streak. The decline of the US consumer-of-last-resort is not matched by the rise of Chinese consumption. China becomes “Japanized.”
6- India Becomes Global Growth Engine:
A large, young Gen Y population, a vast middle class consumer base, an innovative corporate elite, a large, educated, English-speaking IT industry, a stable government and an ever-closer military alliance with the US push India’s growth rate to double digits, making it the biggest importer of investment and goods from the US and Europe by the end of the decade. Problems remain—corruption, Maoist rebels, inequality.
7- Europe Fades Further:
Benefits from a successful shift to a green economy by many countries are countered by the burdens of paying for a huge aging population. Turkey is invited to join the EU by the end of the decade—and turns it down. Working population continues to shrink.
Of course 3-7 are all part of the same issue (US and Europe decline, China stall, India rises; big power conflict results.)
1- Peak Globalization:
Just as the world globalized in the second half of the 19th century, only to return to nationalism in the first half of the 20th, so too will we see a strong backlash against globalization in the decade ahead...As China, India, Korea, India, Japan and other countries pursue strictly national strategies, Western governments and publics increasingly counter with theirs... the Boeing 787 fiasco highlights the problems with extreme outsourcing of complex systems. As Boeing has moved to insource and control the 787, so too other US and European companies follow.
2- Radical Remodeling (around social media):
The social media form of organization found in Facebook and Twitter spread to business, healthcare, education and, politics. This is Gen Y’s technology platform and the 16-27 year-old demographic cohort take social media with it as it takes power and moves through it’s life cycle... A culture-centric, behavior-focussed model replaces the current rationalistic, math-basaed, theoretical economic model. Bye-bye to the Chicago school of economics. Hello Harvard.
3- US-sclerosis:
America becomes increasingly ungovernable and incompetent. Ideological polarization, political corruption (legal lobbying but pay-to-play), growing inequality, globalization of corporate and financial elites, and large-scale social system failures (education, healthcare, intelligence, industry), cut America’s economic, political and military power. The shift to a green economy is slow. The dollar sinks and inflation rises to ease paying for huge government debt.
4- Return to Big Power Conflict:
The rise and fall of nations generates new Big Power conflict. China challenges the US militarily in Taiwan and nearly succeeds in blinding US naval computer systems. China and India fight a small-scale border war that is really about controlling water. Pakistan and India engage in conflict.
5- China stalls out:
A huge aging population, soaring inequality and anger at the rich, over-investment in infrastructure, industrial capacity and failure to shift from a producer/exporter to a consumer/importer economy combine to produce a financial crisis in China that ends its 30-year, double-digit growth streak. The decline of the US consumer-of-last-resort is not matched by the rise of Chinese consumption. China becomes “Japanized.”
6- India Becomes Global Growth Engine:
A large, young Gen Y population, a vast middle class consumer base, an innovative corporate elite, a large, educated, English-speaking IT industry, a stable government and an ever-closer military alliance with the US push India’s growth rate to double digits, making it the biggest importer of investment and goods from the US and Europe by the end of the decade. Problems remain—corruption, Maoist rebels, inequality.
7- Europe Fades Further:
Benefits from a successful shift to a green economy by many countries are countered by the burdens of paying for a huge aging population. Turkey is invited to join the EU by the end of the decade—and turns it down. Working population continues to shrink.
Of course 3-7 are all part of the same issue (US and Europe decline, China stall, India rises; big power conflict results.)
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