atw: The New World Order, Christine's confession (too long for short concentration spans)
- From: "Christine Kent" <cmkentau@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:49:11 +1100
No one is trying to silence you Christine.
Rubbish, of course you were. Anyone less Bolshy than me would be whimpering
in a corner now, and getting post traumatic stress counselling!
You made a statement; it was challenged. If you think the challenge missed
its mark, then challenge back.
Oh it did and I have. The challenges were downright bitchy, and I hope I
kept my responses on a slightly higher plane. But I confess that I
deliberately bring this on myself.
Every now and then I throw out a topic that I know will challenge certain
types of thinkers, who will inevitably kick my head in. On this list I can
name them and so can everyone else, but it is actually the best way for me
to clarify what I am feeling and sensing and get it into words, so I risk
the wrath of the academics in order to clarify my own thoughts.
.and that's what makes us so different in approach. I sense and feel
something, I get impressions that something is changing, and sometimes I
cannot put in enough internal processing to work it out. When I throw it
out to other people, even people I know will get downright nasty and
patronising (which does not normally include you), I get to hear what I am
thinking - it brings it through and out, and even the hostility forces me to
clarify (rarely to drop) my own ideas. For the most part the actual
feedback does not matter. Hearing my own thoughts it what matters to me,
which is a good thing given the quality of the feedback.
That's how people like me learn and move in life - we are self directing, we
learn from some kind of inner direction that drives us out to find the
answers. If an expert has the answers, we are happy to use them, but we
can't stop researching just because there is no expert with ready made
answers. We keep looking, watching, speculating, until research catches
up.
My immersion in the internet and Web 2.0 for the last 2-3 years has opened
my eyes to a new world that I did not know existed and about which I now
know a great deal. It's a world that actually suits me. I will write the
following about how our world of work is changing as a result of this new
internet world, for my own benefit, because I know no-one in this group will
participate in a constructive discussion, but by the act or writing it down,
then being howled down, I can hear it and refine it.
Observations off the top of my head
. Much writing and editorial freelancing is going offshore to India
via freelance web sites, with first world companies retaining a much smaller
editorial staff and getting rid of writers
. Some translation is happening in real time courtesy Google (Wave)
and others
. Some IT related technical writing is going offshore and some is
being done by non writers on Wikis, again with first world companies
retaining a much smaller editorial staff and getting rid of writers
. Instructional design and training is moving towards on-line (eg
Office 2007) and YouTube (eg Google Wave) which is exceptionally cheap and
easy to produce.
. Web design is being taking over by self made blogs, particularly
at the small business level.
. Book publishing is moving on-line courtesy Lulu, Issuu and the
likes.
. Music publishing and marketing has moved to programs like Jamendo
and to MySpace, and if associated with videos, to YouTube Channels.
That's a lot of our world, or the world peripheral to what we do, changing
quite significantly as we watch.
WRITING
I look at the way you and Chris Lofting write, and once upon a time, the
average person could tell the difference between the quality of your writing
and the quality of mine. Now only you can tell the difference. No-one else
knows or cares as long as the message is sufficiently unambiguous for its
stated purpose. Old style academic writers, old style technical writers and
old style trainers are hanging onto values and trying to impose them onto
these new worlds that do not want them or need them. We are not talking
right or wrong here, or good and bad, just reality.
PUBLISHING
I have been working in publishing most recently and that is another arena of
much gnashing of teeth, as all these semi-literate writers self-publish and
apparently get good writers a bad name. But the market doesn't care. Which
means that publishers are getting very worried. They can no longer control
the market, and consumer tastes often move to the free books on-line at
sites like Issuu.
WEB DESIGN
I also watch the web design purists still insisting that anyone who wants a
website must pay them vast sums to use horribly user unfriendly top grade
tools and high level graphics, while behind their backs hundreds of
thousands of people are putting up free blogs in a day that simulate web
sites and make their owners a commercial success. The market seems to have
lost some level of interest in spectacular sites, and some products sell
better through amateur sites.
MUSIC
We know the music industry is in a flat spin because of downloadable music
and piracy, but ITunes and piracy have completely changed the way music is
sold. The album is gone and the "single" is back. There is also a
fantastic surge of independent music being independently published through
the web, on a track by track basis. But strangely, the record companies are
still producing and selling albums in their attempt to retain control.
How much of our world will change, to what degree, and how much of the old
will be left behind I have no idea. We could look in to a crystal ball and
make all manner of speculations. We can be pretty certain that our industry
will look very different in a very few years time, but detail must, at best,
be conjecture.
But, as some academic expert has not told me all this, I guess I have no
right to have even observed it. Is that right? Or is there a different
kind of expert, the experiential expert, and is it possible that an
experiential expert (like a great horseman who taught himself to ride) might
actually be that person who gets to stimulate the academics into doing the
research necessary to clarify, quantify and prove what the experiential
expert already knows?
Christine
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