One + September 2010 - (Page 42)

> > H I G H -T EC H H U M A N I T Y You Can Go Your Own Way BY DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF << I JUST FINISHED MY LATEST BOOK, a list of 10 simple rules for contending with digital technology. While it may be my most mainstream and accessible title yet, I decided to go with an indie publisher. And as I review that decision, 42 I realize the pull toward going independent isn’t just a publishing trend, but one that affects everyone in media, entertainment and, yes, events. For me, going with an independent publisher right now was a no-brainer: I’m writing about the Net, which is almost impossible to predict. With a traditional publisher, I wait at least a year from the moment I ﬁnish my manuscript to the moment the book hits the shelves. An independent publisher, on the other hand, gets a book, improves it as much as possible and releases it immediately. No committees watering down my message, and no mainstream branding to worry about. Just the ideas, please. Thanks to Internet distribution, and the ability to reach my core audience directly, I have the same chance of success— maybe more—plus everyone gets to keep the proﬁts instead of paying for ofﬁces, bloated staffs and shareholders’ dividends. I suppose I expected myself to go down this route as an author sooner or later. The writing has been on the wall, or the computer monitor, for a while. But I didn’t see the events business following the same path, and certainly not for the same reasons. Events have always been centralized affairs involving airplanes, hotels, nametags and distant, appealing locales. We gather to see a dozen or more big names do their things on stage, with a few dozen of our colleagues on panels in between them. Then maybe some golf, a sightseeing trip or a former Top 40 act pushing for a revival. We all knew that the interactive communications revolution would change this, but not many of us understood quite how. It seemed as if decentralizing technologies would simply allow people to meet online instead of off, but it has tended to work in reverse: Now that we have so many colleagues and clients with whom we interact solely over e-mail, we value conferences even more. These are our main opportunities to meet real people. And so conference fever trickles down from the world of industry conventions through the realm one+ 09.10

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of One + September 2010

One + September 2010
Contents
Energy of Many
Impressions
Share Your Mind
Agenda
Thoughts + Leaders
Five Years Later
Focus
Overheard
What You Missed
Top Spots
Connections
Irrelevant
TMI at Your Peril
Men Behaving Badly
You Can Go Your Own Way
Falling for Food
Breaking Bread
Community Service
Controlled Chaos
The Quick Guide to Keeping Your Top Talent
Generation Why
What’s the Right Risk?
Let’s Talk
Get an (Economic) World View
Your Community
Making a Difference
Until We Meet Again

One + September 2010