August 31, 2009

Another step closer

It’s kind of like building a house.

A book, I mean.

Publishing a book is like building a house.

When I was writing The Net Present Value of Life, it was a lonely and solitary existence. There was me, and there was my computer screen. And there was no need for anything, or anyone, else.

Publishing a book, though. That’s different.

That takes people—an actual team of people, I suppose.

And now, so contrary to the solitary experience I described earlier, I find myself working with those other people, each one an expert interested in one thing; the production of a completed item, an item called a novel.

Wait a minute, maybe a book’s not like a house at all. Maybe it’s more like a manufacturing process.  A process that saw me provide the raw materials, that I then gave to others, who are now providing—you know—other stuff.

There’s publishing, there’s design, there’s promotion, there’s legal—and I guess later on, there will be printing and distribution and sales and… uh, I don’t know what else, actually.

Exotic travel and fancy meals maybe? Hmm, that would be nice…

For now though, I’d like to tell you about one person who has been helping me develop this production object of mine—this unit, this inventory item, this SKU. This thing called my novel.

Her name is Jane and she’s my editor. We’ve been working together for over a month, and, just two days ago, Jane sent me her final edits.

It was a weird feeling, getting those last few chapters. To be honest, while there may have been some excitement, there was a scary feeling there too. I don’t know if it was scary because the book was that much closer to public scrutiny (scary enough of a thought, isn’t it?). Or maybe it was scary because, after almost three years of writing and revising and tinkering and tweaking, it was now time to, as they say, put it to bed.

Whatever.

Want I want to relate, though, is that Jane’s editing (which I was worried about, to be honest) has brought out.. Oh, let me put it this way. If I had a restaurant and Jane were a chef, then the book would be a meal. And what Jane has done is expose hidden flavours and textures, and lingering tastes on the palette.

Good stuff. All of it good stuff.

So, as the book moves along the manufacturing process, it will soon leave Jane’s wonderful care (once I get my butt in gear and comment on Jane’s final edits), and it will move on to someone else.

And, before it does that, all that’s left to say is, thank you Jane, a million times over.

It really couldn’t have been in better hands.

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August 26, 2009

Profit and social responsibility. Mutually exclusive?

I’m fed up. I’m really fed up of the business bullshit—the attitude and the rampant narcissism, the lingo and the catchy acronyms, the stance and the phony dance.

Business today, contrary to its supposed intent of exchanging a sound product for an honest dollar, has become entertainment. A diversion, an aspiration, and a television show.

For how long, I wonder, has business been fashionable? Was business always fashionable and it was only me who hadn’t noticed?

For how long, I wonder, have self-important CEOs and money managers been vedettes—celebrities and icons? What, other than their ability to amass (and then blow) a fortune, makes them more important—more notable and more readable—than the workingman (and woman)?

How long ago did the pursuit of money, and nothing but the mere pursuit of money, become so admired? Something to talk about, something to broadcast and write about—in envious and respectful tones.

Why does the press, and the business press in particular, gush with glee over business rationalizations, business mergers and blockbuster buyouts? Do they know—really know—what that means? What it implies?

More importantly, though, what has all this fascination and emulation wrought?  Ponzi schemes and fraud. Cooked books and sorrowful failure.  Madoff and WorldComm. Nortel and GM.

It’s time, I believe, for a rethink.

It’s time to reframe what big business and big finance are supposed to be about.

Just as social media is redefining the dissemination of information, perhaps it, too, can reset the metrics of success.

Rather than obsess on the bottom line, business—and big business in particular—should keep only one eye on that. And the other on responsible customer care, responsible innovation and responsible governance. Rather than growing the business by buying out large competitors (and assuming ever-more debt), corporations should grow their social consciousness with responsible, empathetic action.

After all, is it a given that profits and social responsibility are mutually exclusive?

Only in the hearts and minds of big business, I fear.

Is it time for a change? Is it time to end big business’s seemingly contradictory attitude of narcissism (when they’re profitable) and entitlement (when they’re not)? Yes I believe it is.

Do I expect things to change? Maybe one tweet at a time…

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August 20, 2009

Innovation in action

I’m going to pause my regular programming to tell you about Keith Blount. You may not know Keith, and—guess what?—neither do I.

But I love what he’s done.

Keith has created a software application called Scrivener, which is, sort of, an amalgam of a word processor and a project management tool.

Why is that important?

Because I used Microsoft Word to write The Net Present Value of Life and, as I was writing it, a few things came to mind.

The first was, no one writes a novel chronologically. At least I didn’t. No, the  fact is I jumped around a lot, writing a chapter that gave me an idea for another chapter. I’d then create a draft, based on that idea, that I’d later squeeze in somewhere between the book’s beginning and end.

Did I mention revisions?

I often made changes in one part of the manuscript (keeping a backup of the original file, in case I changed my mind), only to find, soon after, that my changes impacted on a later chapter that I had written much earlier.

Confused? Well, so was I, all because it really wasn’t an efficient way to work. Even worse, it was a process rife with minefields—I was always afraid, as I searched and edited blocks of text, that I’d delete, unnoticed, some crucial dialog, some character development, or something else entirely.

Which is why I kept backups. Lots and lots of backups.

The other thing I noticed? I was accumulating a big pile of supporting files containing research, weblinks, story-development ideas, statistical information, outlines, notions, mindless ramblings, and the occasional grocery list.

I kept backups of all that too.

It was, at times, hard to manage. And, as I look back, I’m puzzled that I never wondered whether there was a better way.

Which is why I’m thrilled to have, only recently, discovered exactly that—a better way. Scrivener truly is a one-stop, no-fuss-no-muss software application devoted to one simple task—writing.

Not only am I over the moon about Scrivener, but I’m equally impressed by Literature & Latte, the company that publishes it.

First off, let’s face it, Literature & Latte is an intriguing name for a software company. Turns out that Keith chose that name because he always wanted a bookshop/cafe. Hey! I love coffee. And I love books too. You see? A connection…

But that’s not the real reason I’m intrigued by the company.

What intrigues me (and what I identify with) is their history, and their philosophy.

The company’s history is right there, on their website. As it happens, Keith was (is) a writer who (like me) wasn’t thrilled with the available crop of word processors. Unlike me, though, he did something about it. He created Scrivener.

Now that’s what I call innovation in action.

As regards philosophy, they programmed Scrivener to work on Macs. Not Windows, just Macs. Why? Because the folk that work at Literature & Latte (both of them) prefer Macs. That’s it. No other reason. They like Macs.

Now how refreshing is that? A company creating something because that’s what they felt like creating? And not because some business metric like ROI (return on investment) or market capitalization suggested they do it. And certainly not because some focus group, or strategic-planning consultant, or leading-edge indicator implied that’s what they should be doing.

Then there’s the price point, which is much too reasonable—a steal in fact. Why is Scrivener priced so low? Because, as stated on their website, they “didn’t want to price out struggling writers.”

C’mon, how can you not be a fan of such a company?

There you have it. Scrivener. I’m a fan and I bet you will be too. So go ahead and try it. Right now.

But remember, you’ll need a Mac. Now how great is that?

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August 16, 2009

Money: illusion or elixir?

My friend Gwen McCauley sent me an interesting weblink that relates money with an individual’s tolerance of pain or affront.

I love coming across this stuff. Maybe it’s because (insert shameless plug here) my upcoming book suggests that money, as I mentioned in my very first post, is nothing more than an illusion.

Or maybe it’s because it serves as some sort of validation. After all, it’s one thing to make outrageous claims about money in a novel, but it’s something quite different when done in academia.

And yet this article written by Robert Goodier, and published in LiveScience.com, suggests, believe it or not, that money relieves pain.

And it doesn’t do so in ways you might think either. No, the article doesn’t say that having more money relieves pain, it says that pain is relieved by just touching money.

Now, how far-fetched is that?

And that’s not all money does either. As Goodier’s piece explains, experts conducted six separate experiments to show that, in addition to reducing physical pain, the mere handling of money served as “a proxy for social acceptance.”

If you haven’t hyper-linked to the article, let me summarize it for you.

Undergraduates were separated into two groups; one counted a stack of $100 bills, and the other counted plain paper. Then, members of each group had their fingers dipped in 122 F water.

Yes, you guessed it. On average, those that had counted money felt less pain than those who counted paper.

In another experiment, after counting either money or plain paper, each of the two groups played a game of Cyberball.  Unbeknownst to half of each group, they were playing with a computer programmed to never pass them the ball.

While all undergrads playing the doctored version felt rebuffed, those that had counted money didn’t feel as offended as those who had counted plain paper.

Which makes me wonder…. what does it all mean?

Well, according to Kathleen Vos, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota, it means, “These effects speak to the power of money, even as a symbol.”


Which is, no doubt, true.

What it also means, at least to me, is these experiments prove, once again, that it’s not the actual possession of money that people fixate on, but rather the concept of money.

And, could it also mean, as improbable as it may sound, that maybe money is an illusion after all?

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