Technology Crybabies

After reading the article Authors irked by text-to-speech on Kindle 2 about Kindle’s new beta ability to transform ebooks into audio books, I couldn’t help but think: crybabies!

Look, audio book people, technology advances. That’s the whole point. If you don’t embrace it, you will be left behind. For example, do you remember when newspapers started hitting that wacky World Wide Web in the later 1990s? There were a scant few articles and you had to pay to read them. Newspapers were playing not to lose, as opposed to playing to win. What has happened to those papers? RIP, baby. The savvy ones embraced the technology, figured out that they could make revenue by advertising online and offered their news for free. Now I can even subscribe to feeds from newspapers from my home town, over 1000 miles away, without a ridiculous delivery fee. Hoorah!

What would have happened to Kodak if in 2002 when the 1 megapixel, $60 camera hit the US market, and their CEO had insisted that digital photography was a threat that needed to be fought? They’d be out of business. Hands down. Honestly, what family of 4 wants to buy film, take pictures they can’t see, be limited to 36 on a roll, risk melting the film in a hot car, pay to process it, and pay for prints? Oh, and then buy doubles or more to mail to grandmas and aunts? Instead, Kodak joined the digital world and in addition, offered a whole new level of photo printing services.  How awesome is it that you can put together a hardback book full of photos for $30? Or print your kids’ faces on a tie for Father’s Day? (okay it’s more tacky than awesome, but so are Taz t-shirts and people still wear them)  Not to mention the easy sharing methods of email, Facebook, Flikr, etc. Thank you, digital photography folks.  Now I have a mug emblazened with pitcures of my cat. Yes, tacky, but not Taz tacky.

What about the music industry? Oh Napster. You were so cool before you were illegal. But why? Because you gave us what we wanted: individual songs, for free. Why deal with the expense of clunky packaging and 14 songs you don’t like just to get that one hit? You might recall all of the moaning that bands (eh hem, Metallica) did over this music trading. This trading was then called theft after a few short years (as if we hadn’t been making and trading mix tapes  for years). Then finally, it occurred to music folks that 1 mp3 is an entirely different product than a cd with a case and 15 songs. Now we can buy that product as we choose. Download 1 song, 3 songs, a whole album. Hello iPod. See? We’re buying music again, just like we wanted to all along. Was trying to hang on to precious cds and all of their eco-ugly packaging worth suing little Timmy?

Which brings me to the point of this rant: hey audio book people! get with the program! I like audio books. I love when people read to me. And if I were visually impaired, I’d really love, and depend on, audio books. If Amazon.com’s Kindle offers a smart text reader function as a bonus to a regular ebook, all the better! The ball is in your court, audio book industry. You’ve got to play to win, not play to not lose.

Let’s be honest here, Kindle’s beta text reader is crap! It’s robotic and weird, but the idea is solid gold. Fusing the rich voice tones of James Earl Jones into a volume of Grimm’s fairytales would be amazing! And could you imagine hearing David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries by something as robotic as Dr. Sbaitso? puh-leeease. If I’ve got a long flight, sometimes I just can’t muster the energy to read a book. If i had an ebook that I could read, then switch to audio, oh man! I’d be totally stoked! Send me back to South Dakota because this flight’s going to be awesome.  Don’t make me suffer any longer! Make this happen. Audio book folks, you  need to work with and not against Kindle developers to get the technology to work well.  The change is coming. You’ve got to play to win. Oh, and I’ll totally buy it when you do. Totally.

innovation

I’ve spent the past couple of days compiling lists of innovations and major events that have shaped our human experience, and more specifically, our human experience in the US. So many times, we learn about innovations without context.

For example,

• Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin in 1794.
• A cotton harvester prototype was built in 1920.

It took nearly 130 years to complete the automation of cotton production. So why did this take so long?

Slave labor was still readily and legally available for 40 years after Whitney’s invention, so labor cost wasn’t an issue.  Once slave labor evaporated (1833), indentured servants (still very cheap labor) took up the work. However, the demand for cotton was growing rapidly, and plantations couldn’t keep up regardless of the blisters, beatings, and strains on labor.  Eighty years later, World War I broke out and cotton production had to be innovated. The first cotton harvesters (1920) replaced the work of 40 people picking cotton by hand. By the end of World War II, machines could now (1950) produce 6 times the cotton as the 1920s’ models in the same amount of time.

Why is this relevant today? Because people innovate only when they have to. When we are comfortable, we tend not to change our surroundings. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right? It wasn’t until gas prices reached nearly $5/gallon this summer that people started driving less and turning to other modes of transportation.

Unfortunately, due to the current sinking state of our economy, lots of people are uncomfortable. The folks who scraped to get by are now drowning and the people who thought they were doing okay are now scraping to get by. Unemployment is spiking and the availability of jobs is plummeting. Interestingly enough, the people who hold the most money, make financial decision that affect the people who hold the least amount of money. And these people, who were quite comfortable are still comfortable, and don’t see the need for change. Are these the same people that would eat every last grain of food themselves, saving none for the people who produce the grain, then wonder where to get more grain after the producers are gone? It’s worth considering.

Enter innovation. Looking at the numbers of people in financial crisis versus those who are comfortable, the Presidential candidate Barack Obama saw that lots of people needed a change in their lives. Plenty of people need a positive change in their financial situation, but also, plenty of people need a positive change in their lives, period. For those not feeling the financial crunch as vividly as others, perhaps that change is escaping a bad relationship or a dead-end career. He chose the message of Change coupled with the inspiration of Hope, and he shouted it from every form of media his audience would see. Then he shouted it from every form of media his opponent’s audience would see.

A Presidential race is not comfortable. It requires agility, planning, a consistent message, and a constant message. In this campaign, Change and Hope went viral. By facilitating supporters to reach millions, through social media connections, Barack Obama innovated the way campaigns communicate. Support flair on Facebook, update tweets on Twitter, and community-made wearable art on CafePress enabled supporters to become a part of the campaign without knocking on doors and placing signage all over town.

It worked. Today, an hour ago, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of our great country. His message has not changed, but his political status has (I wonder what his Facebook status says…). Today he shouted Change and Hope for the first time as the President (read the transcript of his speech). I followed a link from Twitter and watched the ceremony online.

Being the President is not comfortable. It requires agility, planning, a consistent message, and a constant message. Given the way in which Barack Obama ran his campaign, I feel confident he will run his office and the items within his power with as much integrity and innovation.

Here’s to innovation: let us keep moving forward; let us keep creating; let us keep working towards better lives for all of mankind.