Capitalizing on accessibility, the Authors Guild is out of touch
Today I read a post on TechCrunch about an op-ed piece on the New York Times by Roy Blount, Jr of the Authors Guild. Mr. Blount argues that the text-to-speech feature of the Kindle is infringing on his industry because even though Kindle owners pay to download the text version of a book, they do not pay for the audio rights. Typically audio rights are paid for audio versions of the book read aloud by humans. He goes on to say that computer voices are getting so good that they will eventually be indistinguishable from humans.
This all sounds to me like another industry fighting technology to maintain a monopolistic hold to try to extract profit for individuals at every opportunity. If a person purchases a printed book and later the audio version of that book, do they get some sort of refund for owning the same work twice? Why is the inverse so reasonable then? When I was at USC I was once told by a music executive that a music CD only gave you the right to listen to the music from that CD, not the right to transfer it to another device. In essence he was saying I should have to pay them multiple times for the same content. Why did this make sense to the guy? Because in the past this is what the industry has lived by. Get customers to build a library in one format and then purchase it again when a new format comes along, Vinyl -> cassette -> CD -> digital (end of the road). The issue here is a flawed business model which in the past was able to extract more profit from the release of new technology. I still remember how angry I was when I learned how much more CDs cost relative to cassettes. We never saw a price decrease for music CDs even though they were cheaper to produce.
The real issue with text-to-speech…
By adding text-to-speech Amazon is not “infringing” on the book industry. They are opening up a world of information to the blind and visually impaired. Newspapers and magazines can now be consumed by this segment of the population the same day they are available to sighted individuals. Mr. Blount points to the National Federation of the Blind taking offense to his stance, but they have every right. Where has the Author’s Guild been when the blind and visually impaired could not access newspapers? Did they make their professionally recorded audiobooks available to these individuals? Did they help the Library of Congress or Recordings for the Blind by allowing them to distribute their books on standard CD, DVDs or Downloads which could be played on an ipod? The short answer is no. From the Recordings for the Blind website:
RFB&D now offers AudioAccessSM, which enables downloading of audio textbooks from the Internet for playback on either a Windows computer or a Windows–compatible portable media player. RFB&D’s AudioPlus® digitally recorded textbooks are stored on CDs, which hold more than 40 hours each of recorded materials.
In order to play RFB&D digitally recorded textbooks, you will need to use specially adapted CD players or software
The National Library Service for the Blind has the following:
Books and magazines loaned free by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress, are available in recorded format on audiocassette. Cassette recordings require specially designed playback equipment (see Part I), which is loaned free to eligible individuals and institutions. Special accessories (see Part II ) are also loaned free. Cassette machines play at either 15/16 inches per second (ips) or the commercial standard 1-7/8 ips.
The above 2 services basically say that if you are blind or visually impaired there is no simple way for you to read a book. You need special Windows only players, big cassette players, or special CD players to consume books. This industry does not have a vested interest in solving accessibility issues, but they are quick to denounce a tool that could help those who are most in need.
Anyone who has ever used text-to-speech know that it is not the fastest or most enjoyable way to read. Most people use the technology because of a need, not as a superior replacement for visually reading text.
Publishers should be helping the blind…
Instead of condemning Amazon for the text to speech technology in the Kindle, the industry should be complaining because Amazon didn’t go far enough. They should make the device more accessible by making menu navigation text enabled so that the blind could better use the device. Apple has been making great strives in this area by making OS X very accessible with technologies like Voice Over and making iPod menu speech enabled, but more can be done in this area.
What some companies miss is that accessibility isn’t just about helping people, it makes business sense. Text-to-speech does not take money out of author’s pockets, it adds to the bottom line because a whole new segment of the market can now purchase their content. This is synonymous to closed-captioning which makes TV shows accessible to the deaf thus increasing the number of people an ad can reach.
A new era…
Target is in the process of settling a case filed against them by the NFB with regards to Target’s formerly inaccessible website. Instead of capitalizing on a market segment which is in more need of online purchasing due to transportation limitations, Target locked those potential customers out.
The web and digital media is for the first time giving hope to millions of Americans which in the past could not get accessible books for pleasure or education. Today these individuals can’t get access to college books because they change so often it is impossible for organizations to keep up with transcription to Braille or audio. I would bet these individuals would pay for an accessible version of a text book were it available. The Author’s Guild should work on capitalizing on this market instead of trying to close the door for these individuals.
Just like TV executives will not be able to stop the progress of internet TV, the publishing industry will not be able to stop text-to-speech. It’s already on every Mac. Don’t fight progress, figure out how to capitalize on it.
Do executives ever try their services? (My experience trying to watch LOST online)
This past weekend when my wife and I sat down to catch up on ABC’s Lost we realized that our DVR had not been recording the show. It turns out that this had been going on for several weeks, but being parents of a 3 and a 4 year old, we had not noticed. In order to catch up I started to look at my options to watch the missed episodes legally.
Don’t Demand so much….
My cable company has an OnDemand feature which allows you to immediately watch a catalog of TV shows and movies. I had recently seen a new category called Primetime On Demand so I thought I would give that a shot. I was presented with content from the following stations:
- CBS
- FX
- NBC
- USA
Not only is this a pathetic channel listing, the content for each of those stations is laughable. Does anyone at Time Warner actually use this? It still amazes me that companies put up services which no one in their right mind would use. In my house OnDemand is a service my children benefit from, that’s it. They don’t mind watching the same show over and over again. I love to introduce my kids to my childhood cartoons and this service helps in that respect, but once we have seen the 4 episodes of The Jetsons which are available, I have to wait at least another month for the catalog to be refreshed.
I am so LOST…
So being the geek that I am I next turn to Boxee on my Mac. Boxee is a great tool which is trying to do for TV what Napster did for music. No, it is not about pirating TV shows, it is about bringing together a unified user experience so we don’t have to hunt for content at NBC.com, ABC.com, etc. Boxee merely presents the content already available on these websites in one place, ads and all. Unfortunately Boxee has to work around limitations and changes on the network’s websites for our benefit. Currently Boxee is working through some of these technical issues with abc.com, so once again i fail in my quest to watch this TV show. If the networks would just work with Boxee instead of against them, these problems would not exist. But have network executives ever tried Boxee?
Off to ABC.com (abc.go.com why are they still on this go.com thing?)
The worst user experience to hit internet TV has to be abc.go.com I had been to their site before and that is why I left it to the end. I must say since I had last visited they have at least improved the site so that you can get to the show page in a few clicks. The problem is the actual experience of watching the show. When you actually try to watch an ABC show, you go through the following:
- You select the show you want to watch, this launches another window with the area for the episode in the middle and the episodes on the right hand side. The problem with this is that you can only see the thumbnails of four episodes at a time, and they put up “enhanced” episodes, so you actually just see 2 episode choices.
- Once you make the episode selection an ad plays, no problem except for the fact that once the ad completes, you have to “click to continue.” This happens at every commercial break, and in my case I guess no ads were available so I got to just sit back and watch a counter countdown to 0 before I could click to continue.
- Once the show starts, you can make the player full screen however, when the commercial comes on, you are taken out of full screen mode back to the player window to see the add, and when you click to continue you are once again taken back to full screen mode. This has got to be the most disorienting and annoying part of the experience.
I have to think that this is a conspiracy by ABC to make people hate watching TV on the internet so much that they will not bother with it. Has anyone from ABC actually sat down and tried to use this horrible service? In my mind, if you are not even going to try to do something reasonably well, why try at all?
A great user experience…
If you haven’t tried hulu.com, you should. It is the closest we have come to a legal way to watch TV on the internet and the experience doesn’t suck. When you find the show you want to watch, all the episodes are clearly listed on the same page. When you start a show no pop ups are thrown at you. Ads are shown on the same player as the episode and you don’t need to leave full screen mode to see them. Best of all, when the ads end, the show just picks up where it left off, no clicking to continue, just like on TV. Wow, how amazing, it’s like rocket science I guess. Hulu even gets this right; if you just want to see what shows they have in their catalog, no problem, there is an alphabetical listing, (can you hear me Joost?)
Why does hulu work and OnDemand or abc.com don’t?
It is obvious to me that the people who developed hulu.com love TV. They actually see a future for instant tv over the internet and they have actually used their service. That’s it, it’s not magic. I am sure they “eat their own dog food” Have the ABC executives ever tried Hulu? I can’t believe they have given what they have on the ABC site. I think the CBS guys learned because their current site tv.com sucks a lot less than their previous attempts.
Even NBC which has a lot of content on Hulu still has news.msnbc.com which is probably the worst place to watch their nightly news. I guess the news division hasn’t been on Hulu, or they would just put their content there.
Trying to hold on to the past
Unfortunately, Hulu only has rights to some of the content from NBC and FOX and a few other stations. Want CBS content, go to tv.com. Want ABC, well, you go through that horrible nightmare of a site. Or do you? Well actually you don’t. You just have to go to bittorrent TV aggregation sites. There you can get all the stations in one place. Every show, even before they air on the West Coast. No commercials, no clicking to continue. Want 720p, no problem. While Hulu’s content is only available in the US, via bitorrent if you are outside the US, no problem. On bittorrent you can even find shows not available legally anywhere else. You can even get content from other countries and with some tools like RSS, new episodes will arrive automatically ready for you to watch just like your DVR, only better.
Have TV executives ever tried these bittorrent sites? Aparently not, because if they had, they would see how poor their services are compared to what’s already available. They are not benefitting by trying to lock content to the US. In this global market it would seem to me more productive to develop a business model that works globally and take advantage of emerging markets. Would Pepsi restrict sales of their drinks to the US only? No, that would be ridiculous. Why does this have to be different?
Lets bury our heads in the sand
When Napster happened, Music labels could have embraced the new distribution channel, but they were intent on protecting the $16.99 per CD they were accustomed to getting. Some artists were used to putting 2 or 3 good tracks per CD and still selling the entire album. Today iTunes has changed the game. Now people get to decide what is good and can pick and choose the 3 tracks they like. They also get to pay a much more reasonable price per track. Some would argue that even at $0.99 the price per song is too high, but at least Apple helped the music industry by giving them a fighting chance. Suing Napster out of existence and trying to lock up their content with DRM didn’t really solve anything. Embracing the changing landscape sooner could have put them in a much better position.
Globalization does not just affect hard goods…
Today we are all more connected than anyone in the history of man. This availability of information means that people in the US can learn of a great show in the UK like the IT Crowd, but unfortunately there is no legitimate outlet to consume the content. Will prohibition work this time? I am sure it won’t. Technology has sped past this road block and while content providers sit back trying to protect their content, I am sure someone is developing even better ways to get around these restrictions.
Carpe Diem..
If the industry is going to prevent their content from being freely distributed without commercials, they must get ahead of the curve. Give users a reason to access the content legitimately by partnering with Hulu, Boxee and others. At the very least if you MUST have total control try to make the experience on your site suck less. Please, this is not so hard.
The only way to learn is to do…
There is no substitute for first hand experience. If you are an executive making strategic decisions about your product or service, the first thing you need to do is use it. No Power Point can ever convey the experience your users go through when setting up and using what you sell. Once you experience your product, try your competition’s product. You don’t have to lift every idea from them, but a TV executive can never know how amazing bittorrent and usenet are until they have tried them.
When you don’t know your product or your competition first hand, it is very simple to pull the wool over your eyes and if you surround yourself with people who won’t bluntly state the realities of the market, you are bound to fail, it’s just a matter of time.
Improving your processes doesn’t mean buying expensive tools
The other day I was speaking to my cousin, a dentist, about process improvement. His thought process quickly led him to describe how expensive some of the tools in his industry can be. These tools tend to revolve around digitizing the dental office.
I quickly shifted the conversation to Southwest. He knew where I was going with this as he had read a book about how Southwest used one model of planes, etc. The classic Southwest case study. I think he understood that process improvement does not have to mean capital expenditures. Sometimes the biggest wins are the low hanging fruit.
If a secretary sends and receives a lot of faxes, but has to walk to another room to perform this action, is there a way to move the fax machine closer? Most people can identify this because it is pretty obvious, but in a dentist office, like with Southwest, utilization is the most important thing. So keeping this in mind, what can be done so that chairs are never empty? What could he do to increase the number of patients he sees in a day?
I know he has down time between seeing patients, so he may be able to improve utilization by examining the set up process for each station. How long does it take to prepare a chair for a new patient? When he gets there are the tools he needs ready for him? How long does it take to sanitize the area once the patient is done? By asking simple questions he may find ways to carve out an additional appointment in a given day.
There are many things you can do to improve a process without spending a dime. You just have to be creative and ask the right questions.
Results-only work environment (ROWE)
The guys over at 37Signals have a great post on how rogue Best Buy employees have been able to accomplish great things around the company. The article’s message is that you can accomplish great things by showing results instead of asking for permission.
In general the article is right on the mark, but keeping things under the radar can be tricky especially if your direct manager is opposed to the idea. Generally it is best to get a few allies. Find others within the company who share your vision and are willing to work with you to get things done.
When I worked as a Manufacturing Engineer and I had an idea I felt was viable, I allied with marketing. My direct supervisor was not a fan of the idea, but marketing loved it. By working with marketing I was able to create a proof of concept which we then sold to management.
So yes, go rogue and show results, but find allies.
If companies got politics out of the way and measured performance based on results, they would see productivity and employee satisfaction go through the roof.
Error recovery not failure avoidance (the core skill of innovators)
I saw the following speech by Pixar’s Randy Nelson on the qualities they look for in people they hire. Many of the areas he covers not only apply to his industry, but as he points out we can all apply them no matter what we do. One example Randy uses is how NASA selected austronauts for the mission to the moon. He said they looked for people who were good at error recovery not failure avoidance. I guess he would agree with this post. Enjoy.
Take away:
- Collaboration, accept every offer and make your partner look good by amplifying
- Depth, resilience and adaptability to master some area
- Breadth of experiences and interest in things
- Communication, translation for the listener
Are office politics hurting your organization?
Talking about politics and religion at work is normally considered tabu and people usually steer away from such topics. However, the kind of politics that SHOULD be kept out of the workplace are office politics. In my career I have not encountered a more insidious cancer of corporate culture. Not only do corporate politics hurt morale, but more importantly, they hinder progress. When decisions are made “among friends,” those decisions tend to be suboptimal because objective criteria are not brought into the decision making process.
I have seen this phenomena in both the private and the public sector. In some organizations not only do politics come into play, but decisions are reached by committee thus reducing progress to a snails pace. There is definitely a role for decision by committee in certain instances, but when your top talent spends most of their day in meetings I can guarantee nothing is moving forward.
This article on how Google runs effective meetings is a good read. It outlines six ways to running effective meetings:
- Set a firm agenda
- Assign a note-taker
- Carve out micro-meetings
- Hold office hours
- Discourage politics, use data
- Stick to the clock
While I have seen companies that have tried to minimize meetings, I have never consulted for or worked at a company that discouraged politics. To me this is the key take away from the article. While it might be simple to emulate the other aspects outlined in the article, politics in the workplace run deep and no one will admit to playing favorites, thus introducing objective, data driven, decision making will be the hardest part to accomplish.
Constructive conflict can be the best tool your company employs to remain competitive, but once it becomes apparent that decisions are not based on fact, people will withdraw and hold back as to not be labeled trouble makers. This will lead to a pseudo group think culture which like lemmings may lead your organization off the proverbial cliff.