Net Prophet 2010 – Giving up Gutenberg: Shaping the future of Internet publishing by shrugging off the past (By Patrick Kayton)

Patrick Kayton has spent the better part of ten years putting ideas into people’s heads. As a content architect, Patrick has been responsible for the conceptualisation, design, development and delivery of creative, full colour and highly interactive educational materials, courses and comics principally in the areas of entrepreneurship and innovation. Since 2006, and in partnership with his brother, Barry, they have collaborated on the creation of Cognician, a powerful thought processing software application for the web. 

“You can’t shape the future unless you try to shrug off the past.”

“The ideas your content is structured around will have the greatest impact.”

A summary of Patrick’s presentation:

• Plan to innovate in order to shape the future – Pick an important problem to solve. All innovative ideas begin with a blueprint for the future.
• Slay a sacred cow – Think beyond what solutions already exist.
• Invent a solution – “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” (Allan Kay). You need to have an inventive mindset, without the fear of failure.

• Relating this idea to the publishing industry:

1. What are the important problems? There is a plethora of information that we need to deal with and manage.
2. What sacred cows? Books are the monologues with no conversation involved. Social media innovations are slaying sacred cows every day.
3. Is there a potential for inventing? Ways to manage information overload and distribution.

• Content should be more intrinsically:

1. Social: Dynamic content that allows for interactive participation, i.e. Copia is a network for online book clubs with heavy emphasis on community sourcing and aggregation; Dynamic Books provides electronic books that allow the community to update and rewrite.
2. Sensory: Emotionally driven. Touch screen devices (i.e. iPad) bring users closer tot he content than ever before.
3. Conceptual: Structured around ideas – The ideas your content is structured around will have the greatest impact.

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Category: Net Prophet 2010