Matter/Anti-Matter

For one week, Swiss author Alain de Botton was living the life I've always wanted to live. As the first-ever writer-in-residence of London's Heathrow Airport, he was working on his new book on site, observing, documenting, and philosophically charging the emotions and motions of the two arguably most interesting things in life--people and planes--in transit, in situ.

My own fascination with airports started at an early age thanks to the location of my parents' house. I grew up with planes taking off and landing at the nearby airport, and as a student I spent one summer vacation working as a baggage handler on the tarmac. Ever since, aircraft noise makes me feel at ease, and if I could, I would become a permanent tenant of Narita's Star Alliance lounge, where I would watch planes all day.

Airports have also long piqued the interest of artists of course--from Brian Eno's "Music for Airports," to Steven Spielberg's "The Terminal," to 747-turned-designer hotels. Exhibiting equally the technical routines and the emotional excesses of 21st century civilization, airports serve as mundane settings for the dramatic and dramatic settings for the mundane--de Botton, as Heathrow's writer-in-residence, set out to capture both.

The assignment was simple: De Botton was commissioned by the British Airports Authority (BAA) to spend a week in the middle of Heathrow's bustling Terminal 5 and write about life at the airport. He got his own desk, was awakened by Air Canada every morning, and immersed himself into the airport logistics while living his usual ascetic life (judging from all photos, he wore his signature blue shirt all week). Most of the time he observed and conducted what design researchers would call ethnographic research--knowing that you can best study human behavior, on any given scale, when you're close enough to the action but not part of the commotion. The personal union of researcher and writer raises some interesting questions: Where exactly do you draw the line between observation and interpretation? Where does research end and authorship start? Is research even possible without storytelling?

But these are technicalities. Of bigger concern for reviewers appears to be the "precarious line between creative independence and commerce," as the Guardian calls it. Blog site Gawker, among others, was fast in chastising the unconventional book deal as a shameless and rather desperate PR stunt, but the alleged cynicism reflects more poorly on the critics themselves: Isn't the greatest cynicism of all to look for the cynical in all things? For the record, de Botton insists that BAA gave him complete editorial freedom and that his writing was thoroughly subjective and as unbiased as it can possibly be. He is not the first writer to experiment with commercial book mandates (bestselling author Fay Weldon shocked the arts world in 2001 when it emerged that her latest novel had been sponsored by Bulgari) and smart enough to know that his "Heathrow Diary" project might stir up a controversy. It would have been much safer, from his PR point-of-view, to not pursue it.

Yet de Botton's interest in airports seems genuine: "There are many places in the modern world that we do not understand because we cannot get inside them," he told the Guardian. Moreover, he believes the project is philosophically sound and in fact truly innovative as it revives an old tradition of underwriting: "That one of the largest organizations in the UK should take an interest in a book is almost quaint, like sponsoring a poet," he said. "On behalf of my fellow beleaguered writers, it's nice that writers seem to matter."De Botton already has plans for the next underwritten project: "I'd like to be a writer in residence at a nuclear power station."

And sure--why not? I think we have to overcome the notion that a distinction between marketing and publishing is still possible. Herman Miller's See magazine was one of the most artful and best-curated print magazines out there, Strategy + Business by Booz is one of the sharpest business publications, and there are countless other examples of high-quality corporate publishing. What is wrong with the idea that not only marketers need to be good writers, but writers can be good marketers, too--for the common good of public life? Brands, advertisers, and PR agencies shape the cultural fabric of our societies as much as museums, galleries, artists, and writers do--if the mechanics of their complex interactions are more exposed these days, this can only be a good thing. As long as the involved parties' agendas are transparent--as they were in De Botton's airport project--readers can judge for themselves how valuable they find the products of such collaborations: there is no free lunch, there is no free content, after all.

Aside from that, it is naïve to assume that PR agencies and brand marketers are all evil and unconditionally push for a lopsided, overwhelmingly positive expression of their brands. By now, most of them are happy to tune into the choir of conversational marketing evangelists who understand that authenticity trumps news which may be good but lacks credibility. In this vein, Dan Glover, creative director at Mischief, BAA's PR agency, told the NY Times that "If we funded a brochure that said how wonderful the airport was, people would switch off because they'd think they're being marketed to." Instead, he added, the Heathrow Diary campaign sought to stimulate "branded conversations" among travelers "through the experience of seeing a top literary figure at the airport--and potentially being a character in the book--and by receiving an exclusive copy to read on your travels. The overarching objective is to make a passenger's time at Heathrow the best memory of the trip."

It all goes back to the pillars of "meaningful marketing": Add value, create a (social) event, be a change agent, engage the audience, don't market products, produce! Clients turning to artists and storytellers to create "meaning" for their brands intend that the return-on-meaning transcends the original assignment--the wealth spreads and generates a "meaning surplus."

In this case, De Botton wasn't hired to write an image brochure for an airport whose bad reputation is well known. The "Art of Travel" author took advantage of the opportunity to study one of his favorite subjects first-hand, and rather than just bitching and moaning about the notoriously inhumane experience of having to spend time at Heathrow, he and his client actually did something to make the experience better for travelers. The result of his work, "A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary," was published on September 24, and BAA is distributing 10,000 free copies of the book to Heathrow passengers (it is not devoid of irony to create artificial scarcity by limiting the book's free distribution to one of the world's most frequented travel hubs). Afterward the book will be available for sale through Amazon's British Web site and traditional bookstores. De Botton's "Heathrow Diary" benefits the publisher, the writer, BAA, and travelers--a win-win-win-win and a story with a happy landing.

Read excerpts from "Heathrow Diary"

[Image credit: LA Times]

Everyone's talking about the new Kindle, but here's a product that may present an even more radical innovation in the e-book sector: The Talking Book, created and distributed by the non-profit Literacy Bridge, is a low cost audio player/recorder with special features for Knowledge Sharing and Literacy Learning. It was developed entirely by volunteers and costs less than $10. The device involves an ecosystem to produce and share locally relevant audio content, allowing users to record their own messages and distribute them within local networks through a device-to-device copying capability. Other features include slow play for reading practice and some interactive features (for educational lessons and games).

The man behind Literacy Bridge is former Microsoft program manager Cliff Schmidt, who studied artificial intelligence and spent much of his time thinking about how literacy can play a role in moving people out of poverty. Schmidt believes that in a country like Ghana having spoken information at hand will help people avoid lengthy trips to visit clinics or other offices. As a next step, he envisions using the Talking Books to reach women in Afghanistan (90% of whom are illiterate), but ideally the device could of course be used anywhere in the world.

While it may not have the media hype of the One Laptop per Child project (yet), the Talking Book may indeed yield greater impact. My colleague Jordan Kanarek nailed it: "The thinking behind the device is compelling, and the opportunities that come with using commodity components to create a rich service are fascinating."

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Last year, SMITH Magazine re-ignited the micro-format by asking its readers for their own six-word memoirs. Thousands submitted short life stories, ranging from the bittersweet ("Three marriages. Two divorces. BA .333"), poignant ("Look Mom: I've finally written something"), and sad ("I still make coffee for two") to the inspirational ("Business school? Bah! Pop music? Hurrah") and aspirational ("Next Life Van Morrison Backup singer"). The magazine collected almost 1,000 of these six-word memoirs in the book "Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure," including additions from celebrities including Stephen Colbert, Jane Goodall, Dave Eggers, and more. My six-word memoir is as follows: Blogging keeps me from writing more.

Is Apple's PR wearing thin?

Sure, there was the MacBook Air and the buzz around "thinnovation." But wasn't that--pun intended--too "thin" for a big media splash, especially compared with past years? Now that MacWorld is over, pundits are reviewing Apple's PR efforts, and when the expectations are so high (and a company is so good at it), it is not too surprising that some are disappointed with what they've seen this year. Frank Shaw, a PR professional at Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's lead PR agency, is one of them, and you have to give him credit for being so vocal in public despite his affiliation with the Apple rival. (It would be easy to dismiss his criticism as just a Microsoft cabal.) Shaw is wondering whether Apple's shock and awe, event-focused product launch PR philosophy has lost its relevance in a time of always-on communications:

"The concept of holding news, building expectations, and then unveiling a massive surprise has been super effective, and no more so than last year with the iPhone. It was a tour de force from a communications standpoint. This recent Macworld? Not so much."

He refers to the Feiler Faster Thesis, which states that people's ability to retain and process information has accelerated, resulting in significantly faster news cycles:

"So in this world, is a twice a year news bang sufficient? The answer could be yes--but there is little room for events like today in that world. Apple stepped to the plate today, IMHO, and hit...a single. The company won't be up to bat again for a while...if you are only up a few times a year, you better hit some home runs."

He admits that he's a proponent of "small ball" rather than "home run ball," and it's hard to judge whether that makes him old-school or PR avant-garde:

"I've never been a big fan of 'giving up control of the message' or 'information wants to be free' or 'user generated content will rule the world' or 'it's all about the conversation.' But I'm a huge believer in the value of ongoing communication, to the right audiences, about the topics they care most about, in a regular, sustained way."

iPhone guilt

But Apple products raise more than just PR questions. On the O'Reilly blog, Dale Dougherty takes Apple's 1984 slogan "The computer for the rest of us" as a starting point to meditate on the "rest of the rest of us"--those excluded from our high-tech frenzy and without the means to participate in the Apple universe of godly gadgets. He does so because he feels "iPhone guilt":

"Taking the iPhone out of my pocket in a public place makes me uncomfortable. Some people ask nicely about it: 'How do you like it?' But I'm keenly aware that others don't have what I have and they notice it. The iPhone is a great phone but I'm conscious that it's helping to define 'the rest of us versus them.'"

Dougherty's moral treatise poses some uncomfortable questions:

"Is the high-tech world indifferent to the problems of the poor? Do we have any competence that matters in helping them find a better life? Or are we just making 'the happy few' that much happier? What is a social network if the people facing the toughest problems are not part of it? They don't need more signs that tell them that they are on their own. The have-nots don't do networking. It doesn't get them anywhere."

"Whether it's the latest from Web 2.0 or Apple Computer, do we need to ask what it means for those who aren't able to take part? Does it help them catch up or put them further behind? That calculation is part of the social cost of any new technology. We might think of it like we're starting to think about our oversized carbon footprint and its impact on the physical world. Is there any way to offset the negative social impact of the technology that we're so busily developing?"

"It's a challenge for the 'best of us' to address."

Amazon has announced its entry into the eBook reader category with Kindle.

It's not in many people's hands yet or mine (CNET's reviewers have some first impressions), so these will have to be preliminary remarks. But I can say that I find it a schizophrenic device and hard to understand what it is trying to accomplish in its current form. It's easy enough to see where it's going, but ambition seems to have got ahead of what Amazon could actually deliver in the near term, and the ambition was not updated for reality. As a result, it comes across as very much a work in progress that lacks the elusive sexiness that can carry interesting yet unfinished products when they first come into the market.

First, it seems geared toward book geeks and authors, not the mainstream mass market. The price is too high for the hardware, and the price of downloaded books (nicely handled it seems, sans PC via cell phone network) is not that much less than what you will find the same book in hard copy on Amazon itself. More on that later.

The value proposition seems to be about carrying lots of books around in a device that does not grow physically in size, and for spur-of-the-moment purchases achieved through the wireless capability that does not require a monthly subscription. But much of Amazon's legacy has been built on delayed satisfaction--in other words, paying less to wait for delivery, rather than paying more and going to get it at a brick and mortar store right away. And they've been very successful at that, so it's unclear whether a mainstream market is really hankering for getting a book right now. Book geeks and authors, perhaps, but not most people.

OK, so perhaps the device has other compelling capabilities that outweigh more conventional books? The screen looks pretty good, a black on light gray "e-ink" type display that has high resolution and good contrast and supposedly works well outdoors. It looks like the screen in the Sony Reader, so it has competitive parity there. Battery life is supposedly days in duration, again similar to Sony's. However, because there is no backlight you cannot use it in the dark, so Amazon anachronistically offers an accessory clip-on reading light just you would use for a book!

But it's in the look and feel where things really fall apart. The industrial design is, frankly, ugly. It has none of the visceral "gotta have it I don't care what it costs" appeal of an iPod or iPhone. The Sony Reader is rather bland but it looks good next to Kindle (the Reader is also smaller and lighter with the same size screen). There is a gray grippy area on the back with a random pattern of embossed letters molded into it--an amusing detail but not particularly iconic. The whole design is unresolved and dated looking, with unsophisticated form, surface, color, and graphic detailing. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says that the goal was to make it nonflashy as a design. Well, mission accomplished there, but it goes beyond nonflashy to be actually unattractive, at least to my eyes.

The keyboard on the Kindle is a real puzzle--it looks '80s old school and not at all up to scratch in a BlackBerry and Treo world. It is also very large and fixed in place, but if you're reading fiction and light nonfiction, then there's relatively little need to type. A slide-out keyboard like IM-centric slider cell phones have would been far better.

A keyboard is much more useful for blog and newspaper reading, and the ambition of providing a "BlackBerry for blogs," as Guy Kawasaki calls Kindle, is compelling for heavy blog readers. But here, the ambition overreaches the realities of the shipping device, as blogs without color photos, embedded YouTube videos, and links to external sites are far less interesting (since there's no general purpose wireless data connection, normal Web surfing is impossible). And for the privilege of reading an inferior version of a blog, you actually pay 99 cents per month per blog.

The large buttons along the side of the device for flipping pages also look pretty old school in an iPhone world and seem like they will be easy to hit accidentally. There is a huge "Next Page" button on the right, and a large "Previous Page" button on the left, following the left-back/right-forward convention...except there's also a small Next Page button on the left too. Schizophrenic. Is Jeff Bezos left-handed?

Lastly we come to pricing: $399 for the device itself on its face seems expensive given the quality of the hardware compared with what you get in less expensive MP3 players and cell phones that do, for the lay person, basically the same thing if not more. Book downloads themselves on Kindle cost $9.99. Compare that with an average price of about $15 for the books on Amazon's Best of 2007 book list, and you'd have to buy 80 books to make up the difference in price between hard copy and Kindle reader, plus downloads. That's a lot of books, more than most mainstream readers will buy over quite a few years. The capacity of Kindle is about 200 books, and that is more books than some people will ever own in their lifetime. So unless you put a high premium on portability, the hardware price is a big hurdle. Again, the pricing seems set up more for book geeks and authors who will read far more than the mass market audience.

Inevitably the iPod is a point of comparison. It was decried as too expensive when it launched, but it succeeded because it took a systems approach to solving the heretofore complex problem of getting my music onto my MP3 player, and because it looked damn good doing it. James Patterson, best-selling author and endorser of Kindle, claims it simplifies life, but I'm not clear how difficult people find it to purchase a book or magazine in a store, or to order a book online, have it delivered to their house, open the box, and start reading. That would be more OK if the device was so screamingly evocative, so sleek, so thin, so gorgeous, so mind-blowingly innovative to use that you would knock over your grandmother in the mad dash out the door to get one. But sadly, it is none of these things. Instead, it feels like Jeff Hawkins' Foleo--not a bad idea, but 5 to 10 years too late both in concept and execution.

In a video Bezos talks about how much effort and thought went into Kindle. Firsthand experience will have to be the true test, but right now this seems like a half-baked product. At 4:51 into the video, there is the book "Fiasco" prominently shown next to the Kindle. Hopefully this is not a foreshadowing of what is in store for Kindle.