BeyondPrint Offers Helpful Review of StartWithXML

Brian O'Leary
January 15, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (26) | Listen

George Alexander, who attended the StartWithXML forum in New York on Tuesday and made quick work of reading the research paper (thank you!), offers a helpful review of both.

In his review, George also offers a view he shared with the StartWithXML team the day after the forum: the current tools are not yet ready for widespread use, and the forum and the research paper were largely silent on his concerns.

I think that George makes an important point about the tools for authoring and editing. I responded yesterday to say that what may have felt like a "middling" position at the forum reflects a range of opinion within the project team.

At the forum, O'Reilly's Andrew Savikas, for example, advocated use of XML authoring tools in his afternoon remarks, showing some examples of what worked. In contrast, Laura Dawson, who co-wrote the research paper, is more critical of the tools, something she made clear in her comments. I'm somewhat in the middle, feeling that the tools are not necessarily ready for widespread deployment, but that balanced changes in processes, technology/tools and organizational structures can provide a path to moving the tagging work upstream.

One thing less evident at the forum or in the paper is the healthy discussion that took place within the team about this issue. At one point in the e-mail exchanges, I wrote (paraphrasing) that "waiting until the tools are "ready" isn't the right answer; people developing the tools will improve them when publishers in adequate numbers use the tools and advocate for better and more features.

When I presented the "solutions" grid in the afternoon, I pointed out that the bulk of the most developed software and systems are in the production editorial and operational areas, but that upstream options were becoming more available. I stopped short of saying "not ready," in part because I don't want publishers to hear me and walk out saying "we'll wait until the tools come on line" and let production worry about tagging until then. Changing workflows is painful, and people are prone to avoiding pain. That's smart in the short term and potentially disastrous in the mid-term, so I stuck with the recommendation to push upstream as much and as fast as you can.

We view the research paper as a living document, and we expect to revise it based on feedback from the forum as well as an evolving understanding of the number of case studies that the paper and forum started to capture. Look for a subsequent draft to articulate a position on XML tools that may not match what George sees but more clearly captures the project team's thinking.

Related Stories:

• Slides from "Essential Tools of an XML Workflow" Webcast
• For a Workflow Change, Support from the Top is Required
• Balancing the Benefits and Costs of XML for Book Production
• Can the Author Really Help?
• See more StartWithXML posts

Can XML Help you Avoid a Disruptive Innovation?

Brian O'Leary
October 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5) | Listen

This semester, I'm fortunate to spend my Wednesday nights teaching management to students who are part of NYU's M.S. in publishing program. Although a significant share of the course is given over to management fundamentals, the students are for the most part already working in publishing, so they also look for connections between lessons learned and their real-world application.

One recent class was given over to "managing in periods of change" (always relevant, seemingly more so this semester). Part of the lesson includes a discussion of disruptive innovation, a term coined in the mid-1990s by Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen to describe upstart innovations that grow to disrupt or destroy the business you are in.

Disruptive innovations typically start out as inferior ways to meet the needs of customers who are currently not served at all or who are over-served by existing options and are open to a simpler or cheaper option. Walking through this description, I was asked for a content-related example.

Maybe I do my best work on my feet (you'd have to ask the class), but I started to describe travel books. "People visit France," I said, "but not all of it. Maybe they want information on just the area around their hotel in Paris ... What's a good restaurant, a trendy bar, a place where you won't pay an arm and a leg for show tickets ...

"Today, you could get this information, but you might have to buy all of three or four different books to combine it. After that, you might go to the Web to get current information on the shows that are scheduled for the day you are in Paris. And then, you'd probably try to print maps to get you from your hotel to wherever you decided was interesting.

"Suppose instead, we created a travel database that you could search using criteria that mattered to you -- proximity to a hotel, a particular neighborhood, a time of year, your preference for trendy bars ... Zagats does this for its database, after all, and still makes printed guides. And maybe you'd buy just the parts you want, download them to your laptop or handheld and head to Paris, lighter, greener and better informed."

A structured approach to content development and management -- XML -- makes it possible to create and serve relevant searchable content.

Someone said, rightly, "But that would hurt (print) book sales." I had to agree. Disruptive innovations fundamentally disrupt the old model. If you're in a market that will be disrupted, the choice isn't whether you get disrupted; it's whether you are one of the firms that disrupts.

Ultimately, XML won't help you avoid a disruptive innovation. Depending on the type of book you publish, XML could provide the vehicle that sponsors the disruption. The choice you make in considering XML (or, to pre-empt my friend bowerbird, some form of structured content) may be between staying with your existing business model until it runs out, or hastening its demise in pursuit of a blended mix of new revenue opportunities.

Related:

• See more StartWithXML posts

StartWithXML Survey Results Preview

Brian O'Leary
October 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

The survey for this project closed a little more than a week ago. We're continuing the analysis now, and we'll do a full briefing in early November, but here are some highlights:

• 165 publishing professionals responded
• the majority (60%) work in trade or consumer publishing, with a healthy cross-section of professional, school and academic publishers also represented
• almost half of those responding work at smaller firms (fewer than 100 employees)
• of those responding, about a third currently maintain digital files in an XML format that supports content re-use and reformatting
• while a quarter of the respondents reporting using their own (proprietary) DTD or schema, the majority of those responding are still thinking through what they want to do in this area

Our initial review suggests that many publishers are making progress in the use of XML as a content management tool, and many more have an interest in learning more about current and best practice before committing to greater use of XML or an alternative. While we feel that the research paper and the forum in January will address practice and future use, it's clear from the survey that publishers are already looking at this topic.

Related:

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When it Comes to Search, How Low Can You Go?

Brian O'Leary
October 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | Listen

I came back mid-week from the American Magazine Conference, where I heard Paul Saffo talk about the future of content, including what search tool might eventually trump Google. He introduced the term "quantum of search" - the lowest level or most granular search possible - and used it to say that the future of search will depend on your ability to return the precise results needed for each and every search.

While Saffo counseled editors and publishers in attendance to develop the lowest level "quantum of search" possible, he stopped short of saying something that is in my mind directly related: publishers have a tremendous advantage in defining what good search looks like.

Figuring out how to accurately respond to a narrow search requires intimate knowledge of both content and market. Search informs an increasingly niche-driven publishing model, a prediction that Mike Shatzkin and others have advanced, but good search is more than just an alogorithm. As we migrate to a more richly defined, "semantic" web, content that has been given meaning through well-designed editorial processes will not only be more easily sold and repurposed; it will be more easily found by the people who are most likely to benefit from finding it.

So, publishers worried about a content glut have at least two opportunities to define themselves and redefine their role. The first opportunity comes in organizing around audience-valued content niches. Generally, lawyers don't go to Google to find legal information, and in a more niche-driven world, vertical content plays will be increasingly preferred. Even if I try Google first, the trusted vertical niche with deep content should be high on the list of returned links. As publishers, we need to make sure we are there.

The second opportunity comes in using the tools we are examining here - structured content, appropriately tagged - to capture the editorial insight and rich meaning that is lost when we render content to print books and magazines. Investing now to keep that meaning and provide it in a form linked to the content will help publishers demonstrate primacy in defining Saffo's "quantum of search." The discipline of XML-driven workflows can capture that insight.

Related:

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StartWithXML at Frankfurt Book Fair

Brian O'Leary
October 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Next Friday (October 17), Mike Shatzkin (Idea Logical), Michael Healy (BISG) and Andrew Savikas (O'Reilly Media) are presenting an overview of this project at Frankfurt Book fair. If you are attending the fair and are interested in our work, consider attending the panel, which will provide:

• a description of book publishing's changing environment;
• ways that XML workflows can help publishers meet the demands of this changing environment;
• an update on the project, its surveys and interviews and related research now under way;
• background on how this project "fits" with BISG's long-standing commitment to the development and promulgation of meaningful standards; and
• first-hand experience from a publisher whose use of XML is established and evolving.

The presentations and discussion will take place at noon on October 17 in Brillianz Room, Halle 4.2.

Related:

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StartWithXML Research Paper: A Work in Progress

Brian O'Leary
October 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

The January forum will be accompanied by a research paper whose content is informed by a combination of publisher interviews, supplier discussions, two surveys and the conversation that continues on this blog. If you haven't had an opportunity to answer the publisher survey, this is the week: it closes on October 10.

Based on the feedback we have received from publishers and suppliers, we have started to refocus some parts of the original research paper outline, which you can read here. Changes we are planning include:

• moving the current first section to the appendix, so that we can ...
• start by making the case for why publishers should consider XML now

We are also adding two practical components, an XML "starter kit" (what do you need to get off the ground?) and an XML "checklist" (what kinds of things should you consider before undertaking an approach that starts with XML?)

The outline guides us, and it remains a work in progress. We welcome any comments you may have on its contents or structure.

Related:

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XML and APIs: Perfect Together

Brian O'Leary
September 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

This week's formal announcement of the first three APIs for Google Book Search provides a frame for the "why" in StartWithXML: Why and How?

Although Google has confirmed just a few APIs, or application programming interfaces, the firm has clearly opened the door to making book content more easily searchable and findable and, through the use of some standard identifiers, more meaningful.

It's that last part that makes the use of XML even more compelling. While the first set of tools naturally provides publishers with the ability to call attention to bodies of work (including reviews and ratings), it is easy to see that next-generation APIs, developed by Google and exploited by publishers, will allow users to search content much more deeply and finely than full-text search currently allows.

As those capabilities come online, the ability to provide structured content that includes reader-valued tags will greatly improve the search experience. While Google controls the search capability, publishers will be able to use APIs to develop compatible tools and employ XML to structure and tag content in ways that improve search results for the content they publish. Ultimately, relevance and visibility will drive awareness, trial and purchase.

Related Stories:

• Inside Google Book Search: "Book Search everywhere with new partnerships and tools"
• Exact Editions: "How many publishing CEOs know what an API is?"
• New York Times: "The A.P.I. Bug Hits Old Retail and Old Media"
• Chunks and Verticals and Niches -- Oh, My!