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TRENDS: Crossing Boundaries: Implications
for the Content Industries
Archive from: http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2013/06/trends-crossing-boundaries-
implications-for-the-content-industries.html
June 20, 2013 Maxwell Hoffmann Events, Technical Communication, Webinars, Whitepaper
This blog covers major highlights of a white paper recently published for Adobe by Ray
Gallon and Neus Lorenzo. Two white papers in this series are available for
download: Crossing Boundaries: Implications for the Content Industries a and Changing
Paradigms in Technology and Communication
Adobe Tech Comm is holding a series of 5 webinars based on the first white paper listed
above, feature Gallon and Lorenzo. You may register for the events in the links listed
below:
Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/TransformationSociety/presentations
 July 17th, 10AM Pacific Time
Crossing Boundaries: Sess 1) Transcending space: Ubiquitous knowledge
 Sept 19th, 10AM Pacific Time
Crossing Boundaries: Sess 2) Transcending time: Collaboration in the virtual age
 Oct 17th, 10AM Pacific Time
Crossing Boundaries: Sess 3) Consumers become producers
 Nov 20th, 10AM Pacific Time
Crossing Boundaries: Sess 4) Your Most Important Stakeholder: Your customers
 Dec 12th, 10AM Pacific Time
Crossing Boundaries: Sess 5) The End of the Job Ethos: Blending professional and
private activity
Five challenges facing our times
The authors speculate that hundreds of years in the future, scholars may point to the direct
interconnection between human an inanimate objects as one of the primary “revolutions” of
our time. This new paradigm demands roles that combine both communication and content
expertise. The following list summarizes some of the most significant issues emerging from
our new environment:
 Physical space has disappeared
 Time is asynchronous
 Users become producers
 Consumers raise corporate consciousness
 Private life becomes part of professional life and vice versa

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Physical space has disappeared
The white paper gives a good example of how our sense of space has changed radically
over the past 20-30 years. Through smart phones and the common availability of location-
based content, most of us have no longer memorized phone numbers for friends or loved
ones; we may not even remember specific streets for places of business in which we rely
on devices to lead us to.
To quote the authors:
Space will have a different meaning when our connective devices not only beep in our ears
or vibrate in our pockets to get our attention, but will pop content directly in front of our
eyes, or in 3D virtual spaces around, or even on our bodies. Eventually we will get used to
not only seeing a person walking down the street, talking to a distant person through his
bluetooth earpiece, but seeing people sharing social events in hybrid spaces where
physical humans, holographs, and virtual messages interact seamlessly as a new type of
collectivity in a conceptual space.
Time is asynchronous
Even though many of us work as part of global teams that hand off projects to continue on
another continent while we sleep, the overall process is still based on synchronous models.
This is one of the most challenging aspects of creating scalable, project management
solutions. The authors make a significant observation about how things must change in this
arena:
Fragmentation and discontinuity will need to be managed digitally. The project manager
can’t be the only one with a global view of the whole, with more platforms for simultaneous
information sharing. Openness and transparency will be indispensable in the collaborative
corporate environment. Content strategy, unified content management, and overall design
thinking are going to be essential to keep asynchronous projects on track and gain
advantage from time shifting.
User become producers
The authors describe a common scenario, where many of us have contributed significant
portions of data to commonly available online repositories. People we know nothing about
profit from the information we have shared and use it in ways we may not have envisioned.
“Data mining robots have selected bits of our production, and aggregated them with others’
work to produce new informational ecosystems.”
The authors’ share a frightening observation:
“Copyright”–i.e. the right to make a copy–has become an obsolete notion, and with it, the
idea of “intellectual property”. We no longer need expensive printing presses or disk
manufacturing plants to copy content. Anyone can make a copy at home, and digital copies

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can be exact, indistinguishable clones of the original. In many cases, it is almost impossible
to trace original authorship amidst the huge quantity of production on the web, and it is
obvious that other means of recognition, payment, and attribution for authors are going to
be developed.
Consumers raise corporate consciousness
The authors share a hypothetical example of consumers who are able to instigate
significant change through social media after discovering their own strength (in relatively
small numbers) and leadership skills. Relatively recent trends in large corporations have
led to full time resources to manage social media and minimize damage from community
opinion.
It can take years to build up a brand, and only moments to temporarily “destroy” it.
As the authors observe:
There is an ethical subtext under all of this. Consumers are demanding more ethical
behavior in a cutthroat, globalized, highly competitive economic environment. The derived
information gathered to help the avatars stay ahead of the curve might find other uses–
some of them unethical. Might we be entering a new era of digital blackmail, pressure, and
lobbying?
Private life becomes part of professional life and vice
versa
Whether you are self-employed, or work for a large corporation, it is nearly impossible to
completely separate your personal and professional life in social media. Most of us cannot
maintain family contact only in a face-to-face context. Many of us have discovered that
online postings in areas that used to be a “hobby” have helped to “brand” us and create our
ever evolving digital personae.
The authors conclude with a point that the many developments mentioned in this section
may imply that society is moving away from a “job ethic” toward a sort of organic, integrated
lifestyle.
The quotes below show how the role of artists may change:
 Artists are and always have been the socializers of new technologies–but they may
well also be collaborating as socio-technological researchers for society.
 We might discover, for example, that artists can be a creative source of innovative
business proposals.
 Performances where visitors interact with screen-walls that generate 3D objects by
recognizing faces and body movements might be the first manifestation of new
interactive supermarket interfaces.

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In this final section, the authors conclude that although this phenomenon may seem
threatening at first glance, there are many positive potentials involved. Some skills or hobby
passions that were once relegated to “our own” time can actually influence our value in the
workplace.
About the Authors:
Ray Gallon is owner of Culturecom, a consultancy specializing
in technical information design, content strategy, and usability.
He has over 20 years’ experience in the technical content
industry, having worked with major companies such as IBM,
Alcatel, and General Electric Health Care. Previously, Ray was
an award-winning radio producer and journalist, and has worked
with with broadcasters such as CBC (Canada), NPR (United
States), France Culture, Radio Netherlands International,
Deutsche Welle, WDR (Cologne, Germany). In the late 80s, Ray
was program manager of WNYC-FM, New York Public Radio.
Ray is a member of the international board of directors of the Society for Technical
Communication (STC) and past president of STC France. He is a two-time winner of
awards in the trans-European technical communication competition, including Best in
Show. He is a frequent speaker on communications topics at conferences and
seminars around the world, and has taught communications subjects at New York
University, The New School (New York City), Université de Toulouse Le Mirail
(France), Université Paul Valéry (Montpellier, France) and Université de Paris Diderot.
He is currently a researcher at The Transformation Society.
Neus Lorenzo (PhD) heads the Foreign Language Service in
the Departament d’Ensenyament, the local Ministry of Education
in Catalonia (Spain), and has worked at the Inspectorate of
Education in the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan
government). She has been a trainer and advisor (Council of
Europe, Anna Lindh Foundation) and is currently coordinating
the Lifelong Learning Project of the European Union in
Catalonia. She has also represented the Spanish autonomies
before the education committee of the European Parliament.
Neus is an author and co-author of educational material and
textbooks for Oxford University Press, Richmond-Santillana, Oceano, and McGraw Hill.
Her areas of expertise include communication, language learning, digital learning, ICT,
organizational networking, educational assessment, international collaboration, and
headmaster coaching. She is currently doing research with the Jaume Bofill
Foundation, the OECD, several Catalan universities, and The Transformation Society.
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