The new generation of customers and technical communicators look at information design and collaboration in a totally new way. The book paradigm and things like Tables of Contents and Indexes are alien to them. So how do we prepare? One way to watch our kids do their homework and we learn from them. This session will take a look at why the print page based model we are all so used to is broken, and puts forward some ideas on how we should be thinking about information design for the digital generation.
30. “ This new technology has to straddle financial, economic and cultural concerns, … as well as the very different requirements and constraints of the many countries who embrace it. More than ideas, the success or failure depends on patrons and markets, precarious strategies and the thwarting of piracy, and the ebb and flow of popular demand.”
33. “ The first age of print was undoubtedly a period of excitement and bold experimentation. But not everyone was convinced that the new invention represented a great leap forward for the book culture.” “ Many book industry professionals received the first indications that blind faith in the new technology would be misplaced.”
35. WIKI: Grow Your Own For Fun And Profit. Published Oct, 14 th , 2010 Available on B&N.com; Amazon.com COMING IN 2011 “ The Content Pool” – How to leverage your company’s biggest hidden asset. Alan J. Porter – [email_address] / TheContentPool.com / @alanjporter & @4jsgroup
Notas do Editor
- School libraries – the same today as they have always been.
This quote is applicable today as it was when it first appeared in 1967 Technology has changed a lot in the intervening 43 years but the way we present information hasn’t
All we have done is shoe horned the existing model into shiny new packages.
Consider this It’s a page It has a TOC Text and Graphics are separate Doesn’t take advantage of being digital – doesn’t give any more value than print – in fact it provides less.
I love books – Read them Write them -Collect them I’m surrounded by them
Spent twenty plus years working on them… yes we may have move some of the deliverables from paper to electronic media – CD-ROM Web etc And made a few concessions But the underlying model remained a page based one.
Seen standards come and go SGML HTML XML DITA - never really questioned the idea of the underlying structure… Until Pearl Harbor
First stop Wikipedia
Next stop Social networks
A different cultural perspective
We need to accommodate for the possibility if chaos within the structure.
Dad’s old-fashioned books… - show browsing
So how will the expectations and the data gathering behavior of the teen translate into the workplace?
Technology comfort The Millennial generation have different expectations
Is the future more about creating reusable content objects than book based structures?
The library of the future? – New Engineering & Technology library at UTSA – all digital.
Enhanced eBooks – multimedia Sound, color, video – use the advantages of the digital platform. Anne’s comment about no TOC in electronic travel book. Work with educational publishers Next generation wants graphical and color based navigation clues not imposed lists. They want to be able to generate their own “TOC” based on their interests. – BTWB venue / map and musicians/iTunes examples
Augmented Reality – Value to print BMW already experimenting with AR for service operations instead of traditional Tech Doc.
Augmented Reality – Information design and presentation.
An shift in expectations and the way we find information.
We prepare by watching the next generation as they work and play. Look at the way that they interact with information, technology and each other. What will their level of “technology comfort” be? What will there expectations of ability to collaborate and knowledge share. We need to prepare for their models, not force fit ours.
So if the next generation is all about digital and mash-ups is Print Dead?
Let’s return to where we are today with the print vs eReader discussion They are not mutually exclusive – you can have both. Different technologies for different needs
Addendum quote – not about eBooks and the digital revolution – but about the arrival of the printing press. From intro to “The Book in the Renaissance” by Andrew Pettegree.
Scrolls were designed to be read as a continuous narrative. – The great invention of books was that you could read in any order – browse.
Many early books were a combination of hand written manuscript and printed pages = merging the new technologies. First printed books – Guttenberg Bible – were a financial disaster – Guttenberg went broke and was driven out of his own business The market for bibles had already peaked. First successful were custom misals . Then small school pamphlets and academic books Took centuries for print to evolve into the model we are now used to – Title page initial usage for protection and shipping – not to inform. – The modern book model is largely a 17 th -19 th century construct.
Print and digital are not mutually exclusive. Print is not dead – it is just become one of many delivery options. There will come a time when it is no longer the predominant format But it will always be around.