Newstradamus

Lisa Williams blogs while sitting on a panel at the editors' convention in D.C.

The national convention of editors and publishers got under way slowly on Sunday afternoon as attendees trickled slowing into the nation's capital. The big deal over the weekend was the NEXPO newspaper trade show, but there also were some educational sessions.

Over the years, I have found many of these types of sessions are people singing to the choir — i.e. editors (often the more innovative ones, to be sure) offering "best practices." They are good places to steal some ideas, but these types of panels don't offer many "aha!" moments. These moments often come from outsiders, or heretics if you will, who approach communication and information from a totally different point of view.

Two of sessions I attended Sunday were typical, "Dynamic Web Strategies for Small Newspapers" and "Building Audience in a Fragmented Media World." There were many bits of advice that could be swiped. But a speaker at the second one offered some of these "aha!" observations.

She was Lisa Williams, who founded H2Otown.info and Placeblogger.com in Watertown, Mass. She comes from a tech background, not a journalistic one, and thus offered some advice to editors. Like not to get to upset by layoffs. In the dot.com world, she said, layoffs are the only time you get vacation. And showing photo of icebergs, she offered this metaphor: "Fewer Titanics, more kayaks." Listen to her talk here.

The welcoming reception was at the new Nationals ballpark. Unfortunately, the Nats left town after a game Saturday with Atlanta. Bummer. But I had a chance to reconnect with many old friends.

Monday brings more sessions designed to cheer up editors and publishers during one of the worst economic times for the business in a while. Plus John McCain and Barak Obama will speak back-to-back at the Associated Press annual meeting and luncheon, so stay tuned to Newstradamus.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 02:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike Keefe/The Denver Post

Arthur C. Clarke died last week at 90. Science fiction fans will recognize him as a giant of that genre, of course. I have been an avid reader of his work ever since I was a youngster, but I gained even more respect for him as a futurist.

Some people know I have political science MA in Alternative Futures from the University of Hawaii, and I've taken some ribbing about that: "How can anything of academic seriousness come out of laid-back Hawaii, especially something as goofy-sounding as 'futurism'?"

Methodological studies of the future are much more than taking wild guesses about what will happen, but are built on analyses of the possible consequences of today's actions (which I consider a worthy role for the news media).

But most people, if they consider the future at all, think of it as being more like today, only faster, shinier or smaller, like flying cars or cell phones the size of sticks of gum. Many of us live our lives looking in the rear-view mirror, and our prevailing thought about the future is "Que sera sera — what will be, will be ... Nobody can change the future."

Futurists take a different view. They believe not only can they make an effort to understand possible alternative tomorrows, but can use that understanding to effect the positive future they desire.

Although his medium was fiction — as in the classic film in collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, "2001: A Space Odyssey" — Clarke was firmly grounded in the world of the possible. That movie was sheer fantasy then, but 40 years later the orbiting space station is so routine that hardly anyone pays attention to what is going on up there anymore.

In 1945, while with the Royal Air Force, Clarke wrote a technical paper, published in the British journal Wireless World, that explained the feasibility of using stationary satellites around the globe as relay stations for earth-based communications. This was 10 years before the first orbital rocket flight, yet today such satellites are the the key pipeline for the digital revolution.

I got into futures studies in mid-life as I tried to understand the implications and consequences to the news industry as a result of this revolution. At Hawaii, I met many others who were on the same quest regarding their own fields, from the sciences to the arts to economics.

It requires some mental refocusing to get away from the rigid world-views we box ourselves into over a lifetime. To do this, I found Clark's Three Laws to be useful:

1. "When a distinguished but elderly scientist [or editor] states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

2. "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

3. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

My mentor at Hawaii, Dr. Jim Dator, has his own take on this mind shift: "Any useful observation about the future will appear on its face to be ridiculous."

Clarke was said to be working on a novel when he died, "The Last Theorem." I hope he finished it, because I'd love to read one more book by Arthur C. Clarke.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Ares/Caglecartoons.com

Readers of our Web site, Times-Standard.com, undoubtedly have been noticing a string of improvements over recent months: frequent breaking news updates throughout the day, regular video and audio enhancement of news stories, a better software to handle reader feedback, more weblogs by staff members and others, and flash photo galleries such as last week, when we displayed readers' snowstorm snapshots.

All that effort reaches a crescendo at 2 o'clock Tuesday afternoon when Times-Standard.com launches its new look. A culmination of months of work, the revitalized site is designed to be more streamlined and be organized more efficiently.

Already the North Coast's top news Web site, Times-Standard.com is getting better by the day. Check out the site this afternoon and let us know what you think.

In the print edition (and in our E-edition), another improvement for our younger readers began Monday. The Kidscoop page — a weekly page of learning and fun — replaces the outdated Mini Page. Kidscoop will tackle a weekly topic in depth (on Monday it was how tadpoles grow up to be frogs), and offer word games and other brain teasers.

In coming weeks, local teachers who work with our Newspapers In Education program will be helping to make Kidscoop interactive — asking students to send us responses to published on the page.

Back online, a fantastic feature is coming for readers who follow the stock market. Next week we will officially add Market Review to Times-Standard.com. Replacing our daily market data page in the print edition — which in the digital age is quickly outdated and for space reasons can only cover a small fraction of stocks — the new Web feature offers an A-to-Z, up-to-the-minute, searchable report from all the major stock exchanges, including currencies and precious metals.

With a simple signup, readers can set up the site to provide instant access to their own portfolios, or a custom “watch list.”

We are juggling ideas for many more features in the future. What would you like to see at Times-Standard.com that would help make your life better or easier? Drop me a note and we'll see what we can do.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The $21.3 million Magna Carta

How far the dissemination of information has come was brought home powerfully by a recent New York Times magazine article about the auction of a copy — not the original, a copy — of the Magna Carta. You'll remember from your high school history that the Magna Carta was an English charter from 1215 that was the historical first step for the establishment of a rule of law and democratic society.

This particular 15-by-17-inch piece of parchment from 1297 was sold at Sotheby's for more than $21 million. (Its previous purchaser, Texas billionaire Ross Perot, paid $1.5 million for it. Shows why he's a billionaire.)

The article goes on about the nature of "historicity" adding value to relics, but one paragraph by the author, James Gleick, stood out in noting that even at a time when all information is perceived as being free, some remains extremely valuable: "In one way, the Magna Carta is already yours for the asking: you can read it anytime, at the touch of a button. It has been preserved, photographically and digitally, in countless copies with no evident physical reality, which will nonetheless last as long as our civilization."

Back when this copy was made, he notes, the creation of parchment required the soaking, stretching, scraping and drying of sheepskin to make vellum, making ink from oak galls, and painstaking penmanship by scribes with quill pens. These copies would be dispatched to country churches and county seats to be read aloud to the populace, who were largely illiterate.

It continuously amazes me what arcane information can be accessed instantaneously these days — all within the past 20 years since the creation of the Web. And yet there is so much more that could be online, including all government documents. If you can access the Magna Carta, you should be able to access anything.

By the way, the guy who bought the copy was David Rubenstein, a founder of the Carlyle Group investment firm, who is worth about $2.5 billion himself. He plans to return it to public view at the National Archives, where it has been on display.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)