This is the presentation I gave to the Australian Law Librarians Association Conference in Darwin a few weeks ago. 

The first part of the presentation based on further analysis of the data we collected for our “Professionals and Web 2.0″ whitepaper.  In the second part I explored how Web 2.0 and the increased interaction between authors and readers can lead to new ways of creating and improving information.  I also spent some time discussing why commercial publishers still have a critical role in the provision of information that can be a) trusted and b) found quickly and easily.

This was a hot topic around some of the law blogs a week or two ago, after the Huffington Post published an article entitled “The Reinvention of Legal Research: the Future is Now”.  I didn’t find the article itself particularly insightful, however it did prompt some very thoughtful discussion about what the true value of legal research and legal information providers is.  3 Geeks and a Law Blog have a great post about it.  But for me this post by Richard Leiter on The Life of Books really captures the essential value of legal information providers:

The real trick of legal research (the lawyering part) isn’t necessarily finding the law, it is interpreting and understanding it. This isn’t done by merely reading a lot of cases, it is done using tools: treatises, classification systems, restatements, journals, etc. Any researcher worth his salt knows, that having every case on the law of insider trading isn’t worth a damn toward understanding the law of insider trading; unless you have time to read ten thousand cases!

Today, in the modern legal information economy the useful parts of what West and Lexis are selling us is not the primary law, it’s the secondary materials!

I personally agree with Richard - the core value of a modern legal research provider is to provide quality commentary AND  guide researchers to the most relevant content in the most timely fashion possible.

Yesterday we held our first Innovation Cafe. It wasn’t just an excuse to hang out with colleagues, drink coffee and eat croissants (though that was lots of fun) - the plan was to get creative too and pool our collective brain power to think of some innovative ideas.

The cafe followed on from the CCH Innovation Idol. We had asked the company to vote on seven innovations that had been proposed by a range of CCH employees. The proposals were put up on our Sharepoint site and people had ten days to pick a favourite.

We announced the top three at the Innovation Cafe. I sent out an invite to the whole company and limited numbers to 25: 24 people came. After coffee and croissants we split into three groups (each with a facilitator) and each group spent 15 minutes brainstorming one of the ideas. Each group then moved to the next idea, looked at the results of the brain storming and spent 10 minutes refining the ideas. The groups then moved to the next idea and spent five minutes trying to establish the key opportunity or value proposition. The facilitators stayed with the same idea while the groups moved around and this ensured some consistency. It was effective to keep the groups moving both physically and mentally as it kept it interesting and pacey!

We wrapped the cafe up by voting on the one innovation we wanted to actively pursue and start researching more thoroughly and create a business case for. I found the whole event both stimulating and worthwhile and it was great that 24 people from across the company came along: we had someone from nearly every single department. With such an eclectic mix of people  we couldn’t fail to have an interesting and lively experience.

I really recommend putting on an innovation cafe. The combination of an informal setting ( we just used a common space at the office), tasty food and engaged attendees delivered ideal results: one innovative idea that has been pulled apart and put back together again by 24 different people and lots of full tummies!

Steve Jobs the Chief Executive of Apple is back at work with a new liver, less weight but with the same old enthusiasm. He was happy to be vertical again and is eating lots of ice cream to put on weight (on doctor’s orders, of course).

Two interesting points emerged from an interview he gave David Pogue, technology correspondent of the New York Times. 

First one was that businesses need to employ appropriate product enhancement. At Apple, following customer preference  and feedback it was decided to market the iPod Touch as  a game machine at a price lower than that for the iPod Nano with the video camera.  Touch is pitched at people wanting a convenient device to play games and do nothing else.

Nano is multifunctional and targets a different market segment. But then technical constraints do not allow all desired enhancements to a product . iPod Nano can record videos but cannot snap still photos. It is the optimum balance between technical feasibility and marketing strategy that wins the day.

The other message from the interview was in business blow your own trumpet when marketing your products provided you are right about the figures. If one or more of your products are doing well good, tell it as it is.  People need nudges all the time. That could well be a nudge to prospective customers sitting on the fence.  People are significantly influenced by consumption styles of their peers. A slow walker tends to walk faster in a  group that is brisk. A light eater eats more in a group of heavy eaters and vice versa. It is left to the businesses to create the appropriate ‘choice architecture’. This can be in their product enhancements and marketing strategies.

President Obama’s recent pep talk  to American school children was vehemently flayed mainly on the grounds that education should not be marred by political point scoring.  There is no dearth of do-gooders indulging in virtuous educational reforms, even about the basics of education.  In a recent news item by the BBC the visible and ever more voluble Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger was reported to have said that textbooks are “antiquated and heavy“. The solution is increasing in online learning. Text books are to go digital.

Ebooks are a significant part of online delivery of information and are catching on (see the BBC Technology site.).  Michael Ross  Senior Vice President, worldwide product development/technology, and General Manager of Education at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. recounts some of the opinions expressed at the conferences in New Zealand and Australia on “Future of the book“.

The current state of technology may be sufficient for digitisation of non-professional books such as novels and library books. But will the current state of ebook technology be sufficient to serve the professional book market? Will people be prepared to pay for devices that are dedicated to perform only one task?