Thanks to products like iPad, and software from Blio and Quark, the practice of reading may be on the brink of redefinition. A brink … and maybe, a new way to think. Run-time 4:10

A Slightly Long Explanation … But It Eases The Pain

After creating several titles based on our own mediabook format (MBooks), we faced an unpleasant reality when Apple introduced iPad. Online digital booksellers distribute products based on format-standards, often their own. This is okay if you’re selling books developed for .epub or .mobi. We weren’t. MBooks were based on blended narrative — video, audio, text and animation – wrapped together in custom-program. No matter how worthy our years of research and programming, we had to adopt a new standard. The only format even close to what we’d been doing was the just-announced Blio standard, from K-NFB.

Since Blio and its authoring requirements were unknown in the beginning, the only option was to spend the time wisely, breaking out media-assets from our MBooks products as we awaited the specifics of a new “wrapper.” This was when we did a crash-dive into “scribing,” also described as “white-boarding on steroids.”

We’d actually been doing a form of scribing for years. But it was geezer-scribing. Slow-paced and cheap in terms of effort. A funky little illustration here, maybe; a ten-frame animation, there. Inevitably, the graphical style was coarse and fairly screamed “the author is seriously lazy.”

What changed was seeing some of the stunning white-board work from RSA-Animate.

Since we were already retooling the files rather extensively, we decided to refry the new editions in the style of info-scribing.

Introduction to LifePlanning is actually the test footage from our first effort at resetting the content. Excerpted from a religious production that runs approximately 30-minutes, we’re generally happy with the new direction. The information scales perfectly to today’s “media-mind,” and conveys highly resolved content … to any age-group. That was our goal all along.

After dead-tree books, what happens next? Click on Introduction to LifePlanning and maybe you’ll see what’s next.

 With the Internet, people are still serving their headspace, but what exactly are they being served?

Not all that long ago, Steve Jobs famously suggested that no one reads anymore. Maybe not, but everyone’s blogging as if someone is. What’s going on here? Everybody writes, but nobody reads?

Recently, I tracked comments to an insightful article on demographics. My blood chilled when I discovered several responses along these lines: what I read was interesting, but too long, or I lost interest after the first paragraph.

Maybe I’m overreacting, but this could be a sign of a problem. I wonder if our efforts to simplify prose, cutting down on dependent clauses and paring the sentences to the fewest possible words, is coming back to bite us. For our well-intentioned efforts at simplifying narrative, have we spawned simple-mindedness?

As we endeavor to understand the new narrative venues for the Internet, there are a few questions, someone should ask. Is the transmission of ideas that pass there, truly free? Is the transmission worthy and sustainable? Does it seek to objectify its transmission? Does it promote summary or thesis? Is it worthy of the broad traditions in language and scholarship?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but my instincts tell me we’ve got a few problems.

I’m not suggesting that the whole of human-enlightenment hangs in the balance, but scholarship may be the ultimate victim in this new paradigm. Kicking around the history of language, I found this curious bit from Plato. As we look to transplant ourselves into the new domain of narrative, my revised text here, of the original translation, suggests a context for migration.

… for this Internet of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust search engines and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

Thanks to the Internet, words are often free, and if not free, cheap. Is technology really our friend?

—

Without metaphors and similes, we’d probably all be … like … dead. But before you rush out and thank an English teacher, consider this. At the front end of your intelligence, where native-stupidity meets enlightenment, your metaphor-machine is out there working for you, saving your life on a daily basis. Thank the design, first.

At some point we have to ask ourselves the question: is it a rattlesnake or earthworm?  Your ability to compare something to another something, and log the distinction, is what informs understanding and helps you avoid the embarrassment of being caught with a pit-viper in your tackle box.  Snakes and worms are similar, but there are important distinctions. In the end, it’s more than just comparing one thing to another, it is what distinguishes them, that enlightens.

The technical distinction between metaphor and simile is not all that great. Both refer to: one thing as compared to another. Here’s the classic example of a metaphor.  My love is a red, red rose. A simile is similar, but implies its comparison, usually by adding a couple of words like … like or as. For example: My love is LIKE a red, red rose.

As it turns out, metaphors, similes and analogy are vital to any discussion of technology. When Apple’s Macintosh appeared in 1983, the Mac represented an important step in the transformation of human language. What I found most compelling about it: the interface was metaphoric . In this case, the metaphors were visual, known as icons, and shaped like pages and folders. I got that, right off the bat. I already knew what pages and folders were, and how they worked, together. My voyage from the typewriter, thus landed me on the beachhead for all things digital– metaphorically.

I tended to approach the Mac as if the desktop-icons were exactly the programs they represented. I assumed, everything needed by the software was wrapped inside the wee picture. In retrospect, this seems incredibly naive, but hey, I was new at computering in those days. I thought, all I had to do was click the wee picture, and all would be well.  What I was actually dealing with – in point of fact – were similes. The applications and extensions were often like the icon I was clicking, but not just the icon. Getting stuff to work on the computer was ultimately defined by other realities, outside the metaphor. So really, the wee pixs weren’t  the purest of metaphors. The subtle distinctions really dawned on me when I converted to Windows, later in life. Some might argue this point, but for me it’s true. Macs and PCs exist on a scale, not unlike the one you discover in the study of autism. There’s high functioning, on the metaphor-end, and low functioning, in a domain of pure simile. Which is the Mac? Which is the PC? On that question, I happen to be of  … like … two minds. I use both platforms with corresponding ineptitude.

The thing about metaphors and similes, they contain profound solutions, if you know where to look.

And now, I’ve come to the point where I can make my point.

Writers, publishers and educators face pretty serious challenges these days. Extinction, for instance. Clients who used to reside in our markets, the people to whom we historically sold product, have packed up and gone to the new Jerusalem of the Internet, where words are free, if not actually, cheap.

How shall we understand the change? How should we respond? Is there a course to pursue? Maybe what we need is a good metaphor, or more accurately, a simile. Somewhere, in the history of language, there must be a functional analogy to lend us a little direction. It probably won’t boil down to something as simple as an icon, but the history of language is deep and wide. There has to be a saving analogy back there somewhere. If we can find it, then translate it to our reality, perhaps we’ll discover the touch-point for a new age of publishing.

Blood Toys is a media novel, soon to be release in the Blio format for Mac, Windows and iPad.

Blood Toys is a media novel, soon to be release in the Blio format for Mac, Windows and iPad.

Blood Toys is a media novel, soon to be release in the Blio format for Mac, Windows and iPad.

Blood Toys is a media novel, soon to be release in the Blio format for Mac, Windows and iPad.

Blood Toys is a media novel, soon to be release in the Blio format for Mac, Windows and iPad.