So I’m at this conference a month ago – the Association of Online Publishers Interactive Publishing Conference – and I’m listening to Simon Waldman of Guardian Unlimited outline their general approach (some of it sounds plausible and worthy (I like the fact he noted the importance of their site’s solid design structure, largely unchanged for several years but still elegant); he conveniently skirts round their economics).
I later get engaged in discussions with various people from the IPC/EMAP/NatMags power-bloc and newspaper-types etc. about the changing nature of content management across publishing – some of it interesting; some of it carrying so much baggage from ‘old media’ that you can see what evolution’s brutal simplicity will do to it (a workshop organiser seemed surprised that so few were using Quark in their web-publishing these days – to which I can only add … like, duh).
But before that, a consultant engaged by the DTI gives a quick run-through of their findings on issues in multi-channel publishing, which is generally startlingly uninspiring (the most important thing, apparently, is to "make it interactive". Gee. Thanks).
However, when noting some of the approaches to content publishing over the turbulent last few years online, the entire auditorium pauses to chortle at his findings of numerous <andiquote>"horror stories of technical people involved in content creation"</andiquote>. The speaker left a beat for knowing reflection – the crowd’s self-satisfied snigger in response was almost unbearable. Technical people? Involved in content creation? The very thought …
It actually made me want to go postal right there.
In little over two years, blogs have shown that often quite brilliant writing is everywhere. That startling insight and beautiful prose are not the sole reserve of publishing houses and high-street booksellers. That degrees in journalism or english literature are not the only possible prerequisites to using words to communicate, affect. That hundreds of thousands of people can really write, and are doing so. I find this genuinely thrilling, given a background radiation of negative babble around falling literacy rates, or notions that people just don’t read anymore.
This is part of an older battle – one that CP Snow would recognise as his Two Cultures (particularly in England, where technical work is generally demeaned). And yet, I think I know which of those ‘cultures’ is currently making a greater effort to reach beyond those dusty preconceptions; which of those ‘cultures’ is using the greatest communication medium ever invented to write with; to discuss with; to add to the sum of human knowledge with.
Whether it’s dedicated fiction sites like Upsideclown or just numerous blogs, much of the best writing that I read these days is from, well, technicians and craftspeople. From engineers, computer scientists, programmers, IAs, designers … whatever.
The real point is: it doesn’t matter. And of course, some journalists do get it – Simon Waldman’s assertion that he’s spoken of little other than blogs over the last six months is encouraging … ish (noting how wrong-headed Guardian Unlimited’s first overtures in that direction were).
Clay Shirky’s recent piece on the distinction between professional and amateur publishing implies that the difference is not one of quality, but one of economics and logistics. What he brilliantly makes clear is that almost any financial model underpinning online publishing is flawed – all of a sudden, it only very rarely makes sense. Implicit within that is the notion that quality writing must live in numerous places, contexts (just as low quality writing does, I add self-consciously). That scarcity is not part of that economic model.
So, when I heard that audience of online publishers cackle at the mere thought of technical people engaged in content creation, I think I really heard its death rattle.