Kindle Thoughts (2)

The last post was Mr. Guy asking us to be a little patient with the so-called problems some folks are having with the Kindle.

And I promised another post about a second subject having to do with the Kindle, but now there might have to be a third, since B&N has now entered the electronic reader marketplace in direct competition with Amazon.

No. Don’t worry. Won’t get into that.

This second Kindle post is about a more important subject relating to what’s happening in the Kindle marketplace. This is a much more disturbing story, and connects, I fear, much more directly to our work as knowledge services directors in our companies and organizations.

By now we’ve all heard about the Kindle 1984 “scandal,” as it’s been called, Amazon’s remote deletion of e-books from the Kindle. On July 20Farhad Manjoo posted on Slate his reaction to the story.

Turns out it wasn’t just Orwell’s titles but Ayn Rand’s as well, as perhaps others. Amazon acknowledged the error and, according to Manjoo, promised that it will no longer delete customers’ books.

Not too impressed, Manjoo is wondering if Amazon’s action (the deletions, not the apology) “paves the way for book-banning’s digital future.” Now this is truly a scary proposition, with enormous implications for knowledge workers. For people like us, we live and die (professionally speaking – and hopefully even personally as well) by our ability to distinguish between what’s good and what’s bad in the information, knowledge, and strategic learning realm. We also, as knowledge professionals, willingly share our skills for making such distinctions with our corporate affiliates, and if we have recommended to or assisted a colleague in accessing an electronic tool that one day just isn’t there anymore, we have a bleak future waiting for us.

Anne Mintz and her colleagues got us to thinking about these things in her book, Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet. While the disappearance of information wasn’t the subject of the book, much of the advice contained therein can be applied in the current environment (especially the advice provided in Carol Ebbinghouse’s essay on legal advice on the Internet: “Make Sure to Read the Fine Print”). And, as Manjoo notes, in Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain’s book (The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It), the concept of “tethering” appliances and, in our case, content is dangerous if that “tethering” is under the control of forces that are not, ultimately, concerned with the benefit of the appliance – or the content – to the person or organization that has acquired it.

But we are so tempted by the newness of it all, aren't we? And we’re just human after all. We want to trust the people and the companies that are bringing us information that reports on and describes other people’s knowledge development experiences, information that – fundamental to our work – is then made available for sharing as needed. So what’s the solution for those of us who build our careers on advising others about these matters?

For one thing, we have to use incidents like the recent Amazon deletions to keep the dialogue going. We have to make sure that our intellectual and professional leaders and, yes, even our political leaders are made aware of how important it is to figure out how to prevent such incidents in the future. And the time to do it is now – as the growth of digital information still accounts for only part of all recorded information. In the current environment, hard copy books and other hard copy materials are purchased and become the property of the buyer, who cannot necessarily be forced to return the materials, as Manjoo points out. But with an electronic reading device, the “purchaser” is acquiring a service, one which can have a multiplicity of variations and restrictions, depending on what is stated in the service’s terms of agreement?

Knowledge professionals can also – in discussions in the workplace, in brown-bag lunchtime workshops, in project teams and task forces, in practice groups – review company practices and procedures. Beyond the immediate discussion, when informed (and even legal) advice is needed, experts can be identified and invited to contribute to a strategic learning activity, either in the workplace or – more likely – at professional conferences. There are definitely ways to keep thinking about this scary possibility. We’re the knowledge thought leaders in our companies and our opinions count. We should be advising our organizations about this.

Kindle Thoughts

Not just thinking about Kindle, but trying to connect some of the current Kindle controversy to what we do for our clients and users with KM/knowledge services. And to our role as knowledge thought leaders in the companies where we are employed.

Two recent articles caught my attention, not surprisingly since (full disclosure) I’m a serious Kindle user. I’m what some people refer to as a “big reader,” currently plowing through the recent translation of War and Peace on my Kindle, and really loving the experience (this book is much better now than when I first read it at 22!). So I’m not a disinterested spectator in the Kindle discussions, and I can’t help wondering how the perspectives offered in two recent articles transition over to our tasks as knowledge professionals.

First of all, I should point out that we are dealing with two different subjects here. In one, Nicholson Baker – famous for his distress at the closing of library card catalogs and the disposal of hard copy newspaper collections – writes in the August 3 issue of The New Yorker about the Kindle as a product. Baker shares with us his disappointment that what he sees on the Kindle – if he is reading a book – isn’t a book. Or if he is reading a newspaper, that what he’s reading isn’t a newspaper. All he’s getting is the content, conveyed to him through an electronic medium that is sort of book-like (or newspaper-like).

And to be fair, Baker puts forward some very legitimate complaints, as when he describes scientific journals that in print display important color-coded charts which, on the Kindle, aren’t color-coded. But that takes me back to my original problem with this whole discussion: if the content isn’t appropriate for reading on the Kindle, why view it on the Kindle? Why would anyone purchase the Kindle version of a scientific journal that required color-coding? And of more concern, why would Amazon sell it? My guess is that Amazon acquired the publisher’s entire list – or the portion of the list that happened to contain these materials – and simply didn’t road test the material before it was made available.

That’s why I’m having a little problem with this particular piece of the Kindle controversy, and that relates to my attempt to connect the Kindle “idea” with our work in KM/knowledge services. Our job is to get the user the content, in the format he/she requires. If all the user needs is the text (like me with the new translation of War and Peace), what’s the difference if it’s read on Kindle? And especially if I prefer to read it this way, since I am the reader and it’s my choice. If I want to, I can purchase the hard copy or the paperback and lug it around with me, but I travel a lot and carrying around the Kindle is much easier. And I don’t remember having any problem accommodating (if that’s the right word) myself to the format. It works for me.

So perhaps thinking in terms of the-one-or-the-other isn’t the way to go here. Perhaps “balance” is a more appropriate attribute, as Mary Tripsas writes in yesterday’s New York Times. In her article about how innovation often takes a long time to take hold. Tripsas makes it clear that just thinking about the “old” as a cash cow or as a source of inertia holds us back. She asks for “selective, intelligent innovation” and perhaps that’s what we’re looking for as we – as knowledge professionals – seek to move our companies toward a knowledge culture.

And not to be in too big a hurry (after all, as Tripsas coincidentally just happens to note, “despite the recent buzz over the Kindle and other electronic reading devices, e-books are still less than 5 percent of overall book sales”). So perhaps the future for us, for the Nicholson Bakers of the world, and particularly for our users who come to us for KM/knowledge services advice, is to take it easy and recognize that reading newspapers and books represents one way of acquiring content and using a Kindle (or Kindle-like) device for the same or similar content is another way. It all just depends (very simply, really) on which version of the “content” the user wants or requires.