Apple vs the Department of Justice - A page-turning whodunit

The case the Department of Justice (DOJ) has brought against Apple and five book publishers has been unfolding for weeks with all the drama of a page-turning whodunit. The villains, Apple along with HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, Hachette, Penguin Group (USA) and Macmillan are accused of conspiring to fix the prices of ebooks against the looming threat of renegade Amazon.

Kindle-carrying consumers are the witless victims while the DOJ casts itself as the justice-serving hero.

The story begins with Amazon having the audacity to sell ebooks for $9.99 thus wringing out much of the fat margin from book publishers. Steve Jobs knew this move quite well. The deceased Apple CEO's iTunes model did the same thing to the music industry. One can almost imagine the whack to the forehead as Mr. Jobs wondered why he hadn't thought of this first.

Rather than trying to get its share of the profits, and perhaps even beating Amazon at its own game, Apple allegedly schemed with the publishers to set prices at $12.99 or $14.99 and hence the conspiracy, or "restraint of trade" as the economics textbooks will cite, was born.

"As a result of this alleged conspiracy, we believe that consumers paid millions of dollars more for some of the most popular titles," said Attorney General Eric Holder.

Perhaps.

But was the consumer harmed? Or more specifically, will the DOJ "remedy" help more than the market mechanism that does a pretty good job of policing itself without lawyers.

Even if the companies all settle out of court, here's what's likely to happen.

1. The publishers and Apple will be fined and charged with legal fees. (The attorneys win.)
   
2. The fines will be distributed as vouchers toward future purchases to consumers who can prove that they purchased an ebook at these "inflated" prices. (Who saves this kind of receipt?)
   
3. Publishers and Apple reap extra sales if consumers cash in their vouchers. (The publishers and Apple win.)

In the interim, I don't see a lot of hand-wringing angst among the eReader crowd. They all seem pretty happy with their purchases--at whatever price they paid.

If allowed to develop on its own, without the Detective DOJ character, this story would have a much different ending. Clearly, no one advocates this type of collusion, but if and when it does happen, it seldom holds up for long. Human nature, or corporate greed as its usually dubbed, wins out in the long run as the incentive to cheat and gain market share takes hold. Conspirators become competitors, and the actions of the DOJ merely punish innovative American corporations.

And as with most good novels, there's always a plot twist. The real threat to the cozy publishing industry may not yet be introduced for several more chapters. The wise thing to do would be to stop trying to rewrite the script and just keep reading.

Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.

(Shutterstock photo)

Marketing Your Website - 1997 to 2012

I was sorting through some files today, not electronic files mind you, but dead-tree files, and I came across a folder that held the remains of a presentation I gave for small business owners in 1997 titled, "Marketing Your Website." Tucked in the back was an overhead transparency with the bullet points of my lecture. I remember I would often have to resort to this low-tech tool because there usually wasn't a projector in the room that would connect to a PC.

It was after all the early years of the commercialized World Wide Web.

Although social media, a huge part of web marketing today, is absent from my list, the points from 1997 are ironically still very applicable today.

• Clarify
  Define your objectives. What purpose will your web site serve? In 1997 as well as today, many small business websites are simply glorified Yellow Page listings. (And who even looks at a phone book anymore?)

  Although that type of site is better than no web presence at all, people go to websites to learn more about a business than what they could find through other channels. Pictures of the product or service, a map, and customer testimonials are just a few suggestions for a basic site that worked as well in 1997 as they do today. Trivia: The web service of Mapquest was born in 1996, and Google maps didn't launch until 2004!
  

• Commitment
  Maintain and promote your website as a part of the organization. The URL should be on business cards, letter head, print ads, etc. A website address is just as important as a phone number.
  
  
• Contact
  Make sure your customers/clients find your contact information--mailing address, phone number, and an email address that is checked regularly! This adds legitimacy to your web presence.
  
  
• Content
  Adding fresh content to your site keeps people coming back. If you own a nursery, offer up seasonal planting tips. A personal trainer can suggest healthful recipes. For clues as to the web content that makes sense for your business, think about what you might find yourself telling your customer/client in person. This advice is as relevant today as it was 15 years ago, but today the whole element of social media would be added.
  
  
• Connect
  Fifteen years ago, this meant ensuring that your site was listed on search engine sites. For my presentation, I had listed Infoseek, Excite, AltaVista (which used to be my personal favorite in that era), Lycos, Yahoo!, and Web Crawler. Eerily absent is Google. I'd be willing to bet that most people who are reading this either don't know or don't remember any of these search engines save Yahoo! Today, there's a whole science behind Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and connecting is even more relevant today.
  
  
• Concise
  Edit, edit, and then edit again. People have short attention spans when reading on the web. All pages should be easy to navigate. Omit unnecessary words. Content should be concise.
  
  
• Copy
  Proofread or better yet, have someone else proofread everything. The web can be a bit loose with spelling and grammar, but that free-wheeling attitude has no place in a business site. Many people will discount your credibility immediately if they see an error. If you don't pay attention to such public details, what does that say about how you manage a business?

All of this was good advice in 1997, and it's still good advice today. And now that I've committed it to a blog, I don't think I need that transparency anymore!

Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.

Ditching the overpriced and underused textbook

College students may have turned up the volume of their discontent about college textbooks, but grumbling about them certainly isn't new. In all of my years in higher education, the most consistent complaint that crops up on course evaluations has been about textbooks. They're boring. They're expensive. And perhaps most surprising, they're barely used.

And it's not just students floundering below C-level who aren't cracking them open. Even "A" students skip the book.

I never quite understood how this could be possible until I discovered what detailed class notes many instructors were distributing to their students. Perhaps without even realizing it, faculty were creating an abridged version of the text highlighting only those things that would be on the exam.

Except for the most judicious or naive, who would bother to read the book?

Last year, Steven Bell, associate university librarian at Temple University offered small grants to 11 faculty members to design their own textbook. Most used resources available through the university's library along with their own notes, and online resources that are freely available. It appears as if the alt-textbook experiment was an overwhelming success. Students saved some money, were more engaged in the content, and faculty tapped the most current information.

Textbook publishers have tried to keep pace with the shrinking attention spans and price fatigue of the typical college student by developing digital assets and other "ancillaries" as they're known in the business. But whether a textbook is consumed in its dead-tree format or on an e-reader, it's still an arcane relic from a by-gone era. Temple University may be onto something.

Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.

The Longevity Project - Why I'll live to be 90+

For more than 40 years, Rose Wartsky managed The Rose Petal bridal shop in Tucson. Even at an age north of 90, she didn't have plans to retire. However, the sagging economy finally forced her to close the store.

To my knowledge, Rose wasn't one of the subjects of the Terman study reported in his Longevity Report, but her passion for work, and her ability to overcome adversity (she and her husband emigrated to the U.S. with nothing after WWII) easily put her into a group who would likely live a long time.

The Longevity Report started in 1921 when Dr.Louis Terman of Stanford University began a study of 1500 children to determine what led to long life. Eight decades later, this book The Longevity Project summarizes some Dr. Terman's findings.

As it turns out, longevity isn't dependent on eating certain foods and avoiding others, exercising, reducing stress, or following any of the other conventional wisdom of today. Not that those things don't have some health benefits, but those healthy traits are a result of conscientious behavior, and that's the trigger for long life.

According to the research (and subsequent related research) "the best childhood predictor of longevity was conscientiousness--the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person, like a scientist-professor--somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree." That means I am well on my way to seeing my 90+ birthday.



I found it especially satisfying that the findings predict that it was not "cheerfulness or having a sociable personality that predicted long life across the ensuing many decades. Certain factors were also relevant, but the prudent, dependable children lived the longest. The strength of this finding was unexpected, but it proved to be a very important and enduring one."

Another surprising finding was that working long hours, (like Rose did in her dress shop) even in a stressful job, help add years. If you take some one's well-meaning advice not to work so hard, you  could be shortening your lifespan! That made me feel a LOT less guilty about working the hours that I do!

Changing the paradigm of manufactured education

One of the stark differences between learning online and learning in the classroom is the freedom it gives the learner. Virtual students can pause, rewind, replay, fast forward, and perhaps most importantly wander down side roads and explore tangents that are almost never allowed in the brick-and-mortar education model.

Rather than holding a student hostage in a captive audience, an online instructor must relinquish much of his/her control. That makes many educators squeamish because it doesn't produce the standardized conformity that's so prevalent in "modern" education.

Without the rigidity of a structured class, online students quickly learn that they can ask lots of questions--questions that instructors often haven't encountered before and fall outside of the answer key provided at the back of the book.

Online learning is definitely forcing us to re-examine the "traditional" ways of teaching and learning. This video featuring the insights of Sir Ken Robinson, British author and the recipient of the 2008 RSA Benjamin Franklin Medal provides some great insight to continue the discussion.

Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.

The Power of Words

I came across an inspiring little video clip this morning.  As instructors, we know how important our words can be. The words we choose to use can either demoralize or uplift. They can be heard as stern or concerned.

In the online universe, the words we choose to use are even MORE important because our audience doesn’t usually hear the inflection in our voice or see our body posture—two very critical components in communication—human or otherwise! Stop and think how often you know someone’s mood just by looking at them. No words required!

Good instructors will understand the power of their words and use them to motivate.

For example: If a student hasn’t appeared in your online class for several days you could don the “authoritative hat” and send a harsh note.

You have not posted to the discussion board. Please remember that you will not receive full credit if you wait until the last minute. If you have any questions concerning the grading policy, please let me know.

OR you could say…

I noticed that you haven’t been in class for a few days. Time seems to slip by so quickly doesn’t it? I just wanted to remind you that you need to be participating regularly on the discussion board. We all benefit from each others’ comments, and we want to hear from you! I know you’ll want to earn as many points as you can so please mark it on your “To do” list to post right away. I’m here if you need me!

Both messages essentially make the same point. However, the second message is far more likely to solicit a positive response from the student.

Now here’s the (short!) video clip that inspired this note.

Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.

Learning AND Remembering!

There are people who can remember all sorts of things that they did as a student, but I'm not one of them. My classroom years survive only as scattered bits of faded memories. Oh sure, I learned things. The fact that I can string together a coherent sentence is evidence of that, but most of the time I spent in the classroom remains extremely unremarkable.

However, I do have moments that I clearly remember.

I remember presenting a report on the country of Chile to my 4th grade class--back in the day when "research" meant reading the entry in The World Book Encyclopedia. For a visual aid, I assembled little bags of corn, rice, and beans to illustrate some of the nation's crops, and I drew a map and colored a flag.

I also remember the modern dance routine my partner and I had to design in 8th grade gym class. (Our teacher was the choreographer for the high school musicals.) I still remember most of the moves, and I can't listen to Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle without cringing a bit while I mentally rehearse the steps. 

In 10th grade, we studied Greek mythology, and for one assignment, we had to pick a topic to research. I selected the theater and built a model to present to the class. I can still tell you about the skene (the backdrop--known today as the scenery) and chorus. 

During my junior year of high school, one of my English teachers encouraged me to enter a poetry contest. Although I don't remember my entry word for word, I do remember the gist of it.

I could cite other examples too, but I had to ask myself, "Why do I remember these things? What makes these things stand out from everything else?"

And then came the "Aha!" moment. All of them involve creating and presenting.

We live in a digital age that allows us to create blog posts (like this one) and share them with the world. We expect to create our own ringtones, playlists, videos, and photo albums...yet many online instructors are still stuck in the old classroom mode. How often do you encourage or even allow that creativity and presentation?

This video has been circling the education circuit for a few years, and it makes a similar point. When I reviewed it again, I couldn't help but marvel at the speed of digital change. For example, the video quotes the statistic that in 2006, 2.5 billion Google searches were conducted a month. That number seemed extremely low. My web research puts the numbers today closer to 88 billion a month. ( http://searchengineland.com/by-the-numbers-twitter-vs-facebook-vs-google-buzz-36709)



Learning can take many forms, but if we want our students to really remember, we should encourage their natural desire they have to create.

Do you have a similar story? Share it!

Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.

An education database confuses Nevada for Arizona!

I was Googling around this evening checking out Pima Medical Institute's search engine optimization when I came across the Education Database Online. Clicking through the site I found the silouette of the state of Nevada masquerading as Arizona.

This was probably the result of a

1. coding error on the back end.
2. geography challenged web designer.

Considering the location of the image in the table--my money is on "B."