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On World Intellectual Property Day, who can predict what will happen with the value of intellectual property in the future. Will it still be the same in 2025, will it be seen as an irrelevance or will everything be crowd-sourced, socially-owned and open sourced? As a publisher Gower has a vested interest in what will happen and, with the caveat that my views are coloured by my position, let me offer three observations …
Paid for content versus everything for free
Free stuff is always welcome but without question, you do get what you pay for, and innovation, creativity and new content all have a cost. Personally, I think that, while new models will continue to emerge (who could have imagined the mobile apps model 10 years ago!), the need for curation of content and information will mean that customers will still be willing to pay. In a world where digital content is exploding, the value of rigorous, consistent and well signposted content is surely very significant;
New shared models
Crowdsourcing is attracting a lot of attention, but there are other more mainstream opportunities for businesses to create and innovate that don’t involve the mass market. Collaborative business is on the rise and with it comes a need and an aspiration for organizations to share risk and, consequently, share reward. That must point towards some new models that enable practical shared ownership of IP rights between different organizations, companies, governments and NGOs.
A collaborative approach to publishing
I am very proud of the fact that Gower has always worked with our authors and editors on the basis of licensed rights. We have never insisted that authors assign their copyright as part of a publishing agreement nor have we sought to bind them to us with restrictive arrangements for their future books. We are already developing new collaborative models for publishing in the future – models that enable us to contribute and profit from those aspects of a work’s intellectual property where we can add value through editing, distribution and marketing, whilst at the same time, enabling authors to exploit their own IP in directions and media that are outside our (realistic) reach.
A handful of Gower and Ashgate titles on intellectual property:
Whilst I am almost certainly exaggerating the point for dramatic effect, I do think that the influence a facilitator (good or bad) can have on the success of an action learning set is very considerable. I note that Rocket Consultancy are running an Executive Action Learning event for a maximum of 16 CEOs and other senior strategic leaders on 6th March in Oxford. Mike Pedler is one of the group facilitating the event. I can’t think of a better or more knowledgeable facilitator than Mike; he’s been the leading light in the research and application of action learning and management development for over 20 years. Worth checking out if you are considering AL as a tool for your top team. Mike Pedler is author of Action Learning for Managers and editor of The ABC of Action Learning and Action Learning in Practice.
As one of the baby boomer generation, I freely admit that sometimes I have struggled to keep up with the mindset of Generation Xers, let alone the newest generations that have followed, so I found Alexander Manu’s thought piece on how brands can engage the Millennnial Generation a great source of enlightenment – not least because I am beginning to understand and embrace some of the concepts such as gamification to which he alludes. If you are involved in any aspect of brand management, marketing or design, do take a moment to read it. Alexander Manu’s new book Behavior Space: Play, Pleasure and Discovery as a Model for Business Value is published in December.
Philip Weiss’ presentation at a recent event in Brussels picks up a theme that has been around for a number of years but, one that I still think organizations have difficulty accommodating; even thought it is pretty much basic common sense. Innovation involves trial and error and innovation in the context of accelerating speeds of change involves plenty of opportunities for geting it wrong. Every organization needs to work out the dimensions of their own particular tightrope: play it too safe and you’re soon out of the game; overcomplicate the whole process or fail to learn from your failures and it’s also ‘game over’. Philip is author of the forthcoming book Hyperthinking: Creating a New Mindset for the Age of Networks.
AOM , Boston, Massachusetts, August 3-7.
The 2012 programme theme is The Informal Economy and you will find us at stand number 125 in the Publisher exhibition hall. Commissioning Editor Martin West will be in attendance, he will be happy to chat about our books, your proposals, and your ideas for new subjects…
Eric Bolland, one of the editors of Solutions and others of his author team from Midway College will sign copies of their book; Jonathan Smith (author of Misleadership) is having a paper he co-wrote presented; and Guler Aras, the editor of our CSR series will be there if you wish to discuss a proposal for the series.
We are as usual sponsoring the PTC Awards ceremony.
A recording of Donal O’Connel”s presentation in 2012 on “Open Innovation: The challenges and solutions” at a British Library event in London is available on YouTube.
The audience was a mix of people from universities, industry and legal, and intellectual property firms.
The recording is available at …
If this subject of open or collaborative innovation is of interest to you, then we hope Donal’s presentation is of value to you.
Donal is particularly interested in any thoughts you may have on how to dissect open innovation which he may have missed in his presentation and in any ideas you may have on how best to handle intellectual property issues in such collaborations.
The 25th – 29th June 2012 hosts the Ed-Media Conference in Denver, Colorado. This conference sees author Nicola Johnson giving two presentations:
- Internet addiction – the hype and the evidence
- Publishing from your PhD (doctoral stream)
The focus of her two presentations come from the research and information she put together in writing her books The Multiplicities of Internet Addiction (published by Ashgate, 2009) and Publishing from Your PhD (published by Gower, 2010).
Infosecurity 2012 is taking place at Earl’s Court on 24 – 26 April. Gower author, Ian Mann, will be at the event with his company ECSC Ltd on stand E80.
Ian will be presenting at the event in the Business Strategy Theatre at 12pm on Thursday 26th April with the headline of Social Engineering IX – Hacking the Globe – a snappy little title, that sets the theme for an examination of cultural differences that impact on the task of the social engineer. This is the result of his social engineering work across a number of continents.
Do pop in and see Ian on the ECSC stand at any time during the three days - he will be doing regular short presentations each day. ECSC are vendor independent information security specialists offering expert guidance, support and management services.
Ian’s book, Hacking the Human is available from Gower Publishing.
If you can get past the acronyms (the ICCPM is the International Centre for Complex Project Management and the APM is the Association of Project Management), this is an interesting development; one that reinforces the growing emphasis on complexity and systems thinking in project management. The ICCPM are a Gower marketing partner and have been leading the way with an interesting programme of research and education. If you are involved in projects and haven’t come across this organization before, do have a look at what they do.
Gower is attending and exhibiting at Information Design 2012 (12th-13th April) at Greenwich University, London. The event has a very eclectic programme, reflecting the many aspects of information design: human factors, information management, design management, visual studies, architectural design … the list goes on. If you are planning to attend, do drop me an e-mail (jnorman@gowerpublishing.com) and call by the Gower/Ashgate bookstand. I’ll be delighted to meet you.
