Massively Networked

Want to be a DIY author? 6 Priceless pieces of advice from a first-timer

1. 1. Great writing requires creativity, and creativity requires a great system to keep it organized
   
   If you are writing a book with any original thought or research, first invest in a good content organization system.
   
   Creative, original thinking is a nonlinear and discontinuous process. You have a scrap of idea before you know where it fits in. You have another idea that kind of fits in, but you're not sure how. Some piece of research resonates with one of your ideas, but the connection is tenuous. Later, you will have a flash of insight that makes connections clearer.
   
   You need a system that lets you capture snippets of ideas and research without having to decide right away where they fit in. TheBrain is great for this (I'm a happy customer, not a paid endorser). You can note ideas and sources as they come up, without deciding how they fit together. You can literally draw connections between things that you think might go together, and dissolve that connection if the connection turns out to be tenuous.
   
   
2. Get feedback early and often, and don't be afraid to kill your babies
   
   Best piece of feedback I got? "Nobody gives a shit about 10 or 100 years from now. People only care about how things are affecting them now." That one sentence changed the course of my whole book. I ended up tossing 90% of the first draft – and you should be grateful I did. I only wish I had asked for that feedback before I'd already written the first half dozen chapters.
   
   
3. Publishing is a business – treat it like one
   
   If you want to be a DIY author and do it right, be prepared to run a publishing business. Set up a legal business entity (i.e., in the U.S. that would be a sole proprietorship, LLC, or s-corp), and plan how you'll track sales and pay taxes. Have a marketing plan in place. Hire a good developmental editor as soon as you have something to show. They can help you clarify your point of view, suggest where you could flesh out the content, and help identify what doesn't fit. Hire a copyeditor once your draft is complete. They can help refine narrative flow, identify gaps in logic, and let you know what needs to be clarified. Finally, hire a proofreader to catch typos and errors in grammar, and do fact checking. Don't think you can afford to? You can't afford not to, but there's help…
   
   
4. Be massively networked: let your family, friends, and colleagues in on the fun
   
   Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo help your friends help you. I offered three tiers of perks for three levels of funding for my book, Massively Networked: contribute $25 or more for a Limited First Edition hardcover copy, $50 or more for a signed copy plus a mention in the Acknowledgements, and $75 or more for the above plus a VIP book launch party. Between IndieGoGo and offline contributions I raised enough to cover all my editorial costs. Plus I got some good pre-release buzz going.
   
   
5. Don't rely on book sales to make a profit
   
   While I was weighing whether to go the traditional publishing route or self-publish, one of the significant factors in favor of DIY was keeping a greater share of the profit. In theory, that's true. In reality, not so much. Even putting aside all the start-up costs, taking orders and fulfilling them on your own is a huge hassle, and that's the only way you keep more profit. If you decide, like I did, that selling through online retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's Books, and having a print-on-demand company take care of fulfillment (I use LightningSource), is worth the time savings, you end up with just slightly more profit than you would if you had a standard traditional publishing agreement. In the end, it's a wash.
   
   The truth is few authors make much money on book sales. However, a good book can be invaluable for getting paid speaking engagements, consulting gigs, and building your credibility. If you want to make a profit from your book, decide in advance how you plan to use that credibility to your advantage.
   
   
6. Writing a book is a lot of work. And after the book is published, that's when the real work begins.
   
   An acquaintance chose to ghostwrite a book that ended up on the bestseller lists. Disappointed that she was getting zero credit for the accomplishment, she considered launching a movement to expose the injustice to ghostwriters when they aren't given due credit for their contribution.
   
   Having written my own book, I can understand how this ghostwriter might feel cheated by the lack of acknowledgement. Now several months into getting the word out about Massively Networked, however, I realize that writing a book – as hard as it might be – is not really the hard part. For a first-time author, the work starts once the book is out. Still, I am so glad I did it. It's worth the work.

Back to blogging!

After focusing my writing energies on completing and publishing my book, I am ready to contribute to the blogosphere once again. Keep an eye here for perspectives on everything that contributes to the emergence of the increasingly massively networked and creative world we are moving toward: emergent systems, augmentable reality, quantified self, artificial intelligence, DIY, maker/hacker culture, robots, the Internet of Things, social networking, crowdsourcing, persuasive technologies, and more.

First books going out!

 

The book has arrived!

My book, Massively Networked, has arrived. Photo from last night's launch party with Massively Network's developmental editor, Erin Reese. You can order your copy here: http://www.massivelynetworked.com 

Happy Autumn, everyone! The first draft of "Massively Networked: How the Convergence of Social Media and Technology is Changing Your Life" is now complete and in editing. If you are on Twitter, you can follow @pamelalund for the latest. All the best, Pamela

I am working full time on a book this summer. Will update this space as I have progress to share. In the mean time, you can follow me on Twitter @pamelalund where you'll be the first to get updates. Enjoy your summer!

Video: Skinput uses body as input device

Perhaps not for those who bruise easily:

SXSW 2010: It’s Alive! Real time, all the time, everywhere and all connected

My primary takeaway from this year’s SXSW is the barriers between the material, biological and data worlds are rapidly dissolving and being implicated into the infosphere. Whew.

Five years ago, “information” was generally synonymous with “data” and perceived to be more or less objective. Now information has begun shift from noun to verb – it’s more a process of enfolding and transforming stuff than objectifying stuff through description. This is a radical shift with interesting implications.

1. MORE DATA: We are feeding exponentially more data into the infosphere. According to Rob Gonda’s presentation “Real Time Everything,” in 2009 individuals generated more data than in all recorded history through 2008. Twenty-four terabytes of data are generated every second. Twitter has hit the 1.5 billion tweets a month mark according to founder Evan Williams.
2.  REAL TIME: Social media and live streaming data coupled with real-time aggregation make data instantly public. Most people are less concerned with maintaining boundaries between private and public, so access to real time data is easier than ever – which has both its positive and negative aspects.
3. ALL THE TIME: Data aggregators and transmitters (search engines, social media sites, wikis, databases, etc.) mean that information can be easily accessed whenever we want it.
4. EVERYWHERE: We are generating that data in a greater number of places than ever before due to the wide adoption of mobile technologies. Moreover, those places are recognized by technology through geolocation devices.
5. EVERYTHING: RFID tags, QR tags, barcodes, physical objects with servers “the size of credit cards” embedded according to WebOfThings.com authors, and ease of connecting them with basic web programming skills, make objects part of the infosphere.

I will be following up with more about possible implications in a follow-up post. Stay tuned.

SXSW 2010: Telepathy, Neuroscience and Marketing

Telekinesis and telepathy are here. Check out the video (link - not the video embedded above) of the monkey getting food by controlling a robotic arm with only its thoughts. DARPA’s 2010 budget includes a line item for the Silent Talk project, which “will allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals. The brain generates word-specific signals prior to sending electrical impulses to the vocal cords. These signals of “intended speech” will be analyzed and translated into distinct words, allowing covert person-to-person communication.” Basically, DARPA’s talking telepathic soldiers. Scientific American jouralist Christie Nicholson brought up both examples in her presentation "Is the Brain the Ultimate Computer Interface?"

Nicholson’s presentation may raise ethical issues that the vast majority of the world’s population remains unaware of. In the last few years, she reports, the rate of progress in working brain-computer interfaces has been exponential. The latest generation of brain to computer interfaces includes planting electrodes with growth hormone into the brain so that neurons begin to accept them as part of the living flesh. A computer chip was developed and successfully replaced a rat’s hippocampus – allowing researchers to directly upload “instructions” that were translated into physical commands much like the rat’s original hippocampus would. Optogenetics is a relatively new science that allows researchers to control a mouse’s brain through light via a light receptor implant.

All this is possible because 1) the brain is electric and 2) the brain is plastic. Electric impulses can be translated into complex algorithms and modified. Neurons can rewire themselves based on need – e.g., if the visual cortex is damaged, the aural part of the brain can rewire itself to compensate.

Challenges remain to creating a direct port into the brain for uploading instructions ala Neo learning kung fu in The Matrix. Much of thought is contextually relevant and temporally variable, so creating a “genome project for the brain,” decoding all its functions and translating into an algorithm may be quite complex. However, it was not long ago when the Genome Project seemed impossible until a leap of insight changed that reality. We already have devices on the market that control games via thoughts. Mindscape by Mattel is one. It doesn’t take much to imagine the trajectory from a EEG headset device like Mindscape’s toward increased comfort with more direct user interfaces between technology and biology. Quadriplegic Matt Nagle is an early example of this potential with his use of the BrainGate technology

Under these scenarios, the individual would either have to consent or be coerced to adopt brain-computer interface technology. Still, as a marketer myself, I am fully aware of the power of marketing as a coercive force. When presented with the upside of telepathy, it’s an open question whether the downside implications will be addressed or ignored.

SXSW 2010: Tips for surviving the zombie apocalypse (and delivering a great presentation)

Interaction/UX designer Eris Stassi spun an art-and-science double helix of a story about the future of user interfaces during her presentation, A Touchy History of the Future. In the description she said she’d “explore some progressive interaction models that go beyond touch and into movement, infrared, wearable computing, sound, ambient data to really give us an idea on what our immersive interactive future may hold.” Technology is and always has been about transforming human experience – from fire breaking protein molecules in raw meat, making it more palatable, to contact lenses that augment our vision. Now that the user interfaces between technology and biology are beginning to approach frictionlessness, the possibility of deciding what that experience will be - by developing those user interfaces purposefully - is within reach.

Stassi gave several examples of current biotech user interfaces like nanotech contact lenses that detect glucose levels to warn diabetics when they’re in danger, UIs that use the natural resonance of flesh and bones to manipulate data with sound, brainwave-operated computers and RFID tags that can interact with their environment.

So what about the zombies? The brilliant bit about Stassi’s presentation was enveloping the science and data about progressive UIs in its own immersive environment of the zombie apocalypse. She developed a story “user interface” between the technological facts and the minds of attendees by asking how best to design a UI for a jetpack, say, that would ensure your escape from brain-eating zombies.

To survive the zombie apocalypse, you would want a solution that the zombies themselves couldn’t master. Since zombies have motor skills, a joystick-operated jetpack would not do. Zombies, however, do not have brains so a brain-wave operated jetpack would be a good choice if you would like to increase your chance of avoiding zombies eating your brains. Once you’re aware of what experience you would like to create – in this case surviving zombie apocalypse – you can make intelligent choices about how you will build your user interface.

Each of the progressive UIs Stassi described were brought to life within this alternate reality scenario. Intentionally creating a “user interface” between what she was communicating and who she was communicating to through an alternate reality scenario made her point a meta-point. Only at SXSWi could one learn tips for both surviving a zombie apocalypse and for delivering a great presentation.