Archive for July, 2008

We have a publication date for the book!

I met with my co-author Silvia Cambie and our editor, Annie Knight, from Kogan Page earlier this week to discuss the next phase for the book now that we were nearing the end of the writing process. I’ve got one more substantive chapter and then I need to go through my manuscript and prepare a smooth second draft. Silvia has a couple more case studies and a chunk of final writing to do and we then both need to get together to write a concluding final chapter. We are due to submit the finished manuscript at the end of November. Based on that timescale, the publication date for the book is set for 3rd July 2009.

It was exciting to sit down together for the first time in several months with Annie and Silvia and really talk through the detail of the book. The last time we did so was back in the autumn of last year when the project first came together and our book proposal was accepted. At that stage, we had an outline of our ideas and argument for the book. Now, 9 months later, we’ve done a lot of research and interviewed many business people and communicators internationally as well as putting it all together into a coherent narrative and I think we have something that’s going to be really fresh and thought-provoking.

So what’s the book about? Well, the working title has so far been New Trends in International Public Relations. Silvia puts the case for the rise of the till now non-dominant cultures in global business and the need for cross-cultural engagement to be at the forefront of any enterprise that wants to make waves internationally. Her experience as a business communicator means that she has drawn together a range of case studies on leadership communication, corporate social responsibility and cross-cultural communications from all over the world. My sections on the rise of social media as a recognised communications tool complement her part of the book, taking the reader on an in-depth guided tour of the virtual cultural landscape of the interactive web. The web is another country - to misquote H. E. Bates - with a culture and etiquette of its own and to engage succesfully in that landscape, communicators need to do so understanding those “rules” of engagement.

We may be tweaking the title of the book to New Trends in International Communications, which reflects more accurately the breadth of the content. If we do, it’ll play havoc with all my links and the URL for my research wiki - rats! But it’s important to get the title right so it’s a small price to pay to have to go back and reset my links etc… Stay tuned and I’ll let you know.

In the couple of months leading up to publication, we’ll be getting review and advance copies to send out to reviewers and also to take with us on speaking engagements at conferences etc. We’ll also be talking to the Marketing Executive in more detail about opportunities for promoting the book in the traditional real world way. We also hope to be able to offer additional online resources to our readers, perhaps via this blog and/ or the Kogan Page website eg links to the source material for my social media chapters, verbatim text from interviews, background research materials etc.

So, starting next week, my “honeymoon” is over and it’s back to hard work on the book to write the last chapter….

Do you have any ideas or suggestions for us about promoting the book? If you’re a writer or publisher, has there been a particular strategy that has worked well - or not so well? If you’re a reader, what kinds of activities would invite you take notice of our book - and even buy a copy…

I really am. No, don’t laugh, I’m being serious. I’m not being vain or making it up. I really am beautiful.

I have a Dulwich Picture Gallery fridge magnet* proving it. Look, there it is, there’s my name on it: the Chinese ideogram “May” that means Beatiful. It’s more usually written in the Western-style as “Mei” or even “Mai” but my parents spelled it “May” on my birth certificate. They had always thought they’d send me to the UK and they wanted to make it easy for the Brits to spell my name. But all my life in the UK, everyone exoticises my name and refer to me variously as Yang-Mei or Yang-Mai. Sigh.

If you meet a Chinese woman, there is more than half the chance that her name is Something-Mei or Mei-Something. In most Chinese families, there will at least be one daughter with Mei in her name. Why? Because every family would love their daughter to grow up beautiful, of course.

As for the “Yang” bit of my name, it means “reflection”. So putting both parts of my name together, I am technically the reflection of beauty and not beauty itself. To understand why this is so, I need to tell you about my grandmother and her elder brothers and a Chinese belief in the greed of the gods. For the Chinese, the gods are jealous and dangerous. If they see that you have something of value that you treasure, they will take it from you - just because they can. Back in China, when my grandmother was young, she had two elder brothers whom the family loved dearly. Being a Presbyterian minister, her father had turned to the Christian God and left behind old Chinese superstitions. He had named his beloved sons with names that anointed them heavenly and perfect. And for a few years, it seemed that he had been right to forget the old Chinese gods. But these his sons did not live past their twenties, one of them dying slowly and painfully of tuberculosis. The gods coveted the young men’s pure essence and took the boys for themselves.

So for the future generations in the family, to fool the gods, we have never been named for the pure essence and I am just the reflection of beauty - worth nothing to the gods - and not the thing that they might desire, beauty itself.

The fridge magnet is a souvenir from the Lion & Dragon exhibition of photographs from Old China, currently on at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

OK, Malaysians, what do you think of this programme where New York chef and author Anthony Bourdain goes to Malaysia and eats weird stuff?

In this episode, he tries out bull’s penis in KL and takes advice to find traditional “Malay” culture in an Iban long house in Sarawak. This experience of “Malay” culture includes getting tattoo-ed…

Curious how his version of KL looks so tatty and run down and exoticly Third World, omitting the very First World skyscapered and shopping-malled city centre…

I met Kieron Smith at The Bookseller’s Digitise or Die conference a couple of weeks back when we were both on the Digital Spaces panel and intrigued by his online social networking bookstore BookRabbit, I asked him to tell me more about it.

# What is BookRabbit?

BookRabbit is an online bookshop that dynamically connects readers, authors and publishers through the books they own.

Using BookRabbit, readers can share their passion for books, make recommendations to other readers as well as creating their own personal bookcase (using pictures of their real owrld book collections) and catalogues online – anything from medieval falconry, through bestsellers, to educational publications for schools. BookRabbit has a simple aim – to claim back book selling and book buying, enabling readers to discover the right books for them.

# How did you come to be involved / start BookRabbit?

I’ve worked in bookselling for many years for companies including WHSmith, Ottakar’s and Waterstone’s - I have felt for a while that online people don’t get the interesting and engaging side of discovering a new book to read. Instead they get one where books are commoditised and just about price. Although there are millions of titles available through the big bookselling sites, more and more it feels like we actually have less to chose from.

I was approached by an entrepreneur in late 2007 who asked me what I would do about this given a blank sheet of paper, I told him and he said he’d back me to do the lot - something of an offer I couldn’t refuse!

# For booklovers who are already signed up to buy books from Amazon, why should they move over to BookRabbit?

On the e-commerce side we’ve hopefully made it as painless as possible! We don’t require registration unless you want to take part in discussions or set up a profile, so no new passwords to remember! We’re cheaper than Amazon on the top 100,000 titles and take PayPal (as well as the standard cards) and have free delivery on everything.

BUT

I’d like to think you should give BookRabbit a go because browsing other people’s bookshelves and getting title matches with your own collection means you’ll discover something new!

# Is BookRabbit for UK residents only?

No anyone can use the site, we only have UK shipping at present but hope to add International as soon as we can.

# For those who have already got their libraries displayed on LibraryThing, why should they also sign up to BookRabbit? (This is my dilemma too!)

I wanted to avoid the whole painful data input thing - so you can start making useful and interesting connections from just a few books tagged on a shelf - give it a go and see who you match with!

# What are the benefits for authors for signing up?

There is an element of vouyeristic pleasure for authors in that they get to see what other books are sitting next to their own on people’s bookshelves - and if they wish start to interact on discussions. They’re also able to directly amend their title details on screen, including synopsis, jacket, catagory and even add YouTube videos all of which go live immediately.

# What are the kinds of discussions on BookRabbit?

We have discussions on three ‘areas’ they are either books, bookcases or categories and there is a summary of most recent ones on the homepage. It’s early days and we didn’t want to assume we would know what the community would discuss, but it seemed sensible to anchor them against a particular part of the site, rather than have one sprawling forum - we could be wrong though!

# I like the function for uploading a photo of your own bookshelf. What’s on yours?

I’ve got many, many bookselves, one of which can be seen http://www.bookrabbit.com/bookshelf/detail/bookshelfid/113 I’ve quite an eclectice taste in titles. We’ve a special offer on at the moment that if you upload a bookcase photo and tag at least five books then we’ll handpick you a free book and send it to you. You can see how we’ve been getting on with our selections at http://www.bookrabbit.com/help/showfaq/topicid/77/page/1 full details of the offer at www.BookRabbit.com/free

This is how they ride motorbikes and talk/ text on the mobile phone in India…

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been watching how video dramas have been taking off online and engaging audiences in a different way from how film or TV dramas have traditionally engaged viewers.

Up till recently, movies have relied on audiences going out and gathering at a given time at a given place and all sitting down together to watch a film, munching popcorn and drinking soda. TV dramas need their audiences to gather at a given time, though they can stay home to do this, in front of the telly, munching whatever comes to hand from the fridge. Technologies such as DVD and recording devices changed those behaviours to the extent that we can now choose the time we watch a film or TV drama but we are still bound to the place we do that ie usually a living room with a telly in it. We still settle down for a stretch of 40-90 minutes, sometimes more, to watch an episode of a TV drama or a movie - and it is sociable in so far as we are there in the same space with our friends or we talk about it later with our mates or we text / chat on the phone during the programme.

There are a number of online video dramas that are changing the rules of engagement. One example is Sofia’s Diary, which is being shown on the social network, Bebo.com. The episodes are uploaded twice a week and run for around 2-3 minutes. It’s an online soap opera around the life of a 17 year old girl, her family and friends with the occasional to-camera video diary. You don’t have to sign up to Bebo to watch it but if you do sign up, you can interact with the “Sofia” and the Sofia’s Diary network of “friends”. You can become a “fan” so you can receive email alerts when the site is updated eg with photos or another episode. You can opt to receive text alerts twice a week to be kept up to date with what’s happening. You can also add comments to each episode - many comments are inane but in respone to one episode where one of Sofia’s friends dies, many of her Bebo friends shared their own experiences of bereavement and grief.

The production quality is high - and, no wonder, as it is backed by Sony Pictures, developed from the original Portuguese online hit. The show is also the first online series to make the transition across from the internet to good old fashioned broadcast TV, having been bought by UK’s Channel Five.

I think that this is likely to be the future of drama series - not being tied to TV or film or the internet but across many platforms, including mobile (and books, too), with added features such as interactivity with the show, its characters as well as other fans. As the teens and young adults who are the current fans of Sofia’s Diary grow up, they will be used to this kind of interactive relationship with their entertainment and media, and no doubt come to expect it.

For writers and creatives, it’s becoming increasingly relevant to think beyond the medium you are currently used to working in, whether it’s print, TV, film or radio and to start experimenting with other media and to think about building in interactivity. For businesses who are interested in engaging with a public that is growing ever more multi-modal, it’s time to explore multi-platform, multi-media ways of grabbing - and holding - the attention of your customers and clients. Sure, not every different media is going to suit every kind of narrative or every kind of customer and certainly, a frenzied spray gun approach is not going to work either. But if you don’t explore new ideas and fresh ways of doing things in a strategic considered way, you could miss out on opportunities to expand the reach of what you have to say.

For more on interactive online dramas, take a look at What happens next…? where “Each of our show’s episodes ends with a decision for you to make and your vote determines the direction of the series itself.”

This post is part of my occasional series on Digital Narratives. If you are a fan of any online dramas or other digital narratives/ stories or if you’d like to share your views/ reviews of online storytelling, please add a comment and let me know.

dignar

Andrew Keen has been anointed the Anti-Christ of Web 2.0 ever since his provocative book, The Cult of the Amateur, offended bloggers’ all over the world. The subtitle of the book, “How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture and Assaulting our Economy” says it all, really. As a blogger myself, I found his book combative and polemical in many places. Reading the heated diatribes against him and his equally vigorous defence of his position online, I imagined an angry, aggressive and offensive man who might be ready to destroy anything I might say about the joys of blogging and social media when we sat on the panel on Digital Spaces at The Bookseller’s Digitise or Die Conference last week.

Instead, I found a witty, amusing man who could laugh at himself while not pulling his punches when you talk with him. (His business card bears the tagline “the anti-christ of silicon valley”!) His real passion is defending the rights of creatives such as writers and artists and of knowledge professionals such as journalists and other experts. The central thesis of The Cult of the Amateur is that the white noise of opinionated bloggers and the expectation that content delivered over the internet should be free is devaluing the knowledge economy that has till now been grounded in the expertise, knowledge and skills of experienced and highly trained/ skilled journalists, authors and other experts. If everyone and their dog can be an expert and everyone is giving away their content for free, our culture will suffer because there will be no money in being a real expert with real in-depth knowledge and we will all become the more ignorant for it. Contrast the opinions and personal views of a blogger who sounds off on Iraq with the opinions and contextualised views of a BBC journalist who has spent many years observing the Middle East crisis and is an expert on Iraq. Andrew’s take is that the while the blogger has the freedom to share his opinions, they should not be considered to have equal weight or value to the commentary offered by the journalist. I certainly agree with that.

As a professional writer, working on my third book, I found myself cheering him on as he talked to the publishers gathered in the room about the need to nurture and value “the talent” ie the writers and those who produce content that is worth paying for in the form of books. It is ironic that people are happy to pay for a physical book because they walk away with a physical object in their hands - but that is almost like they are willing to pay for the paper and glue that makes up the physical object but not the words and ideas inside ie the content. Andrew’s plea is about valuing the content and those who create that content. The call to give content away for free from some quarters (Lawrence Lessig, Chris Anderson, Cory Doctorow etc) is disingenuous, he argues, as these people can afford to give stuff away since they earn their money elsewhere - it’s not so easy for a struggling writer who does not have the same personal capital of these men who have variously made their names in academia, tech and online publishing. Andrew’s main income stream comes from his speaking engagements rather than his books, which surprised me as his book is a bestseller - in this context, what he is arguing makes sense: even a bestselling author can’t make enough to live on from the sales of his book because the book as a conduit of knowledge is so devalued in today’s knowledge economy. What people are more willing to pay for is access to him - to the knowledge source itself.

The economic model for writers is becoming one where, in order to succeed as a writer, you need to have the skills to get out there and speak for money, write articles/ columns to supplement your income, to engage in other paid gigs such as TV appearances etc. He urged publishers and literary agents to see themselves as more than distributors of book units but nurturers of talent and in this role, to help their authors get those paying gigs. For writers, you need to see yourself not as a writer of books but as knowledge source - you are no longer selling your books but yourself. The value lies in your personal brand. He said starkly that in the future those writers who do not have such skills will not be able to make it in this new creative economy.

The story that Andrew tells about how he came to be the Anti-Christ of Silicon Valley is an object lesson in itself of the smarts an author needs to thrive in the economic model that he describes. His first draft of the book was called Digital Vertigo and was more densely written with a stronger academic tone. It was turned down by a number of agents. Then one agent called him back to suggest that he rewrite is as an anti-blogging diatribe that was bound to provoke a lot of reaction. They then sent it out to some influential bloggers, some of whom rose to the bait and blogged about the book, creating a turbulent groundswell which carried the book to its current infamy, especially after the main stream press picked it up. Not everyone has the thick skin or sturdy shoulders to wear the mantle of an Anti-Christ so this way of rising from obscurity to infamy is not necessarily recommended for all writers… But the take home point is “Get yourself noticed”.

So, it looks like I met the Anti-Christ and he turned out to be not so evil or scary but rather, a great personal brand…

Photo: from Andrew Keen’s website

This is a funky video creating a buzz around my friend, hair guru Winnie Loo, whom I interviewed in a podcast awhile back (talking about her book True Grit and a Pair of Scissors).

I’m always keen to promote dynamic, modern, Asian women and Winnie is a fab example of a can-do Malaysian role model!