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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:
Gower’s Transformation and Innovation Series will have produced, by the end of 2013, an impressive collection of volumes.
Together, the authors have created an enormously rich resource base for transformation agents in the field of business and economics, but also within society at large. The series provides new, integral approaches to business, management, finance, economics, development, research and other related fields – while consistently combining theory and practice. It draws on different cultural knowledge bases, enabling the reader to effectively contextualize and practically engage in transformation processes leading to new sustainable realities in business, economics and beyond.
Embodying an enormous cultural diversity, together the series represents 12 countries, spread across Africa, Asia, Europe and USA. With each author working with and highlighting her or his particular cultural and societal context, we can proudly speak of a truly transcultural series.
The home page for the series includes prologues to read, and each book below has a free chapter to read on our website.
AN OVERALL INTEGRAL PERSPECTIVE:
…and the forthcoming: Integral Development: Realising the Transformative Potential of Individuals, Organisations and Societies
A MIDDLE EASTERN ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE:
…and the forthcoming: Transforming Trade Policy in an Arab State: A Postmodern Approach
AN ASIAN SPIRITUAL, CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE:
…and the forthcoming: Remaking Ourselves, Enterprise and Society: An Indian Approach to Human Values in Management
AN AFRICAN POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE:
…and the forthcoming: An Integral Approach to Development Economics: Islamic Finance in an African Context
A EUROPEAN TECHNOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE:
…and the forthcoming: Crafting an Integral Enterprise: Towards a Sustainable Telecommunications Sector
AN AMERICAN SPIRITUAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE:
Enter your projects for the International Design for All Foundation Awards 2013.
The deadline for submitting entries to the awards is 17th February 2013. Entering is easy – all the details are available on the Awards website.
The Awards offer an opportunity for public bodies, private companies and not-for-profit organisations to gain international recognition for the projects they have undertaken in the field of Design for All. In addition, any individual or organisation can send their ideas for user-centred design projects in Living Labs, in order to find the best design solutions for everyday problems through the involvement of real-life end-users.
The Award ceremony will take place on 20th March 2013 during the International Design Biennial in Saint-Étienne, France.
The Founder and President of the Design for All Foundation is Francesc Aragall, who is co-author of the Gower book Universal Design.
Gordon Pearson’s interview with Bob Garlick on Business Book Talk is a revelation. Gordon’s one of those academic authors who can talk about issues at a level of global economic theory in a way that gives you a real sense of what the driving forces are in the background behind operational businesses. His ideas on cooperation-based businesses really deserve to be picked up at a policymaker level but in the meantime, it’s open for you and I to explore and aspire to a post-crisis world that is robust and sustainable, rather than lurching from one mess to another. Gordon Pearson is author of The Road to Co-operation and The Rise and Fall of Management.
Gower Author Kit Oung has been commissioned by Camfil UK Energy to write a Whitepaper on Efficiency Performance in Buildings.
He will also be speaking on 23 Jan 2013 at a joint Energy Institute and British Standard organised seminar ”Energy Efficiency: What do we need to scale it up?” His presentation is titled ”Energy Management and ISO 50001″.
Kit Ong is author of Energy Management in Business published in January 2013 by Gower.
Other books on sustainability in business can be found in our new Sustainability & Green Economics catalogue.
In the first of a four part series for the 2degrees Sustainable Business Network, practicing energy consultant Kit Oung explores carbon reduction strategies using low-cost high-return opportunities and energy management systems.
Kit Oung is the author of Energy Management in Business: A Manager’s Guide to Maximising and Sustaining Energy Reduction – published this month.
On a related issue, we liked this inforgraphic which gives a quick overview of the issues, progress and set-
backs of the Kyoto Protocol. For more on C02 reduction, Larry Reynold’s new book The Business Leader’s Guide to the Low-carbon Economy gives advice on how businesses can prosper whilst reducing their carbon footprint.
Further Gower Sustainability and Green Economics titles can be found by following this link.
The 2012 IPMA Congress made a big thing of sustainability this year, which is very encouraging. The presentations, some of which will be available in the near future on SCOPUS, covered research results and case studies as well as tools and methods, all of which aligned to demonstrate the need, benefits, and practical nature of integrating sustainable methods with project delivery from a social, economic, environmental, process and product/service perspective. They are promising an expanded sustainability stream for 2013 in Dubrovnik. Gower authors, Gilbert Silvius and Ron Schipper (authors of Sustainability in Project Management) were amongst the presenters at this year’s event.
Tomorrow, Gower is sponsoring and attending PMI Synergy 2012 at Indig02, London. You will find Jonathan Norman (Publishing Director) and Anton Clark (Marketing) on stand S-9, who will be displaying a bumper crop of project management books from industry experts, along with a special prize giveaway. Please do come by the stand and say hello.
Synergy is a celebration of project management. Held on International Project Management Day in London, the event will inform, educate, entertain and provide great networking opportunities. Proudly, it is one of the largest events of its kind in the UK.
We are proud to be part of such an important and influential event and very much hope to see you tomorrow.
Nearly 700 participants registered for the PMI Webinar on Sustainability in Project Management by Gilbert Silvius this week. For those who missed it and would like to see the presentation, it is available via this link.
Gilbert Silvius is co-author of the critically acclaimed Sustainability in Project Management published by Gower - to read the reviews and sample chapters please follow the link.
