Encyclopaedia Britannica, the 244-year-old company, recently announced it would stop printing encyclopedias. Of course this triggered a flurry of talk about the end of printed books, magazines, and newspapers and a once-great company humbled by shifts in technology. But to fall into that narrative is to miss the greatest lesson of the story. Innovating, creating something new, playing the beginning of the game is the easy part. Britannica offers us invaluable insight into the much harder half of the innovation process: how to play the end game.You see, every game--chess, tennis, business--has an end. Every business will eventually die. We cannot escape this inevitability. Yet we hold on to the fantasy that somehow OUR company will be different, that our company is “built to last.” The key to long life in business is knowing how to play the end game so that you can position yourself to play the next game. Britannica seems to be doing that well.The Wi-Fi PatternTo understand what is going on here, think about Wi-Fi (wireless Internet) service. Ten years ago when you walked into a Starbucks you had to pay for Wi-Fi access. Now you get it for free. If something doesn’t cost anything to provide, eventually someone will give it away for free. Or as an economist would say, over the long run, the market price of any competitive product or service reaches its margin cost.Wikipedia has proven that there are lots of smart people out there who are willing to write content for free.... Continue reading at 'Fast Company'
[ Fast Company | 2012-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Barbara Kellerman, an academic leadership all-star, argues in her latest book that her own industry — the one that tries to teach leadership — is pointless in an era in which power has shifted from leaders to followers.To anyone who does not make a living peddling leadership courses, it might... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Kobo will launch its self-publishing platform this quarter and plans on expanding to “a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Stanfords Travel Bookshop is partnering with travel agents and other companies in a bid to become... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Group c.e.o of Hachette UK, Tim Hely Hutchinson, has told authors that substantial... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The government has announced it is to accept all the 28 recommendations made in Mary Portas... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Even as the publishing industry staggers through its geologic shift, one genre remains impervious to change or threat: the self-help book. These advice-packed tomes generally come in two distinct flavors: either a get-tough pep talk about discipline and self-control, the sort of thing one might... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2012-03-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The April 2012 issue of Fast Company is now available on the iTunes Store, and it's optimized for reading on the new iPad. The image below shows how much sharper the type looks when viewed on the new iPad with the Retina display. The images are in high definition, too, rasterized at four times... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The literary genre is white-hot in Hollywood, with filmmakers bidding on unpublished books and paying as much as $1 million for the rights to relatively modest sellers.The back-to-back blockbuster successes of "Harry Potter," "Twilight" and now "The Hunger Games" have turned the hunt for fresh... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Two thirds of UK online publishers are planning to increase the number of digital roles "on the back of product growth expectations", the Association of Online Publishers reported today, compared to 55 per cent which saw growth in 2011. Acco ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-03-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E-bookseller Kobo plans to grow device sales in the UK with a strong marketing push towards the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fast Company is now available to read on your iPad.Starting with the March 2012 issue, Fast Company is offering a digital version of each month's print issue on the iTunes App Store and Newsstand. This is first and foremost a way to read the complete magazine on your iPad, but it also includes... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-03-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The catalogue-based bookselling company Book Club Associates has collapsed following the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Billionaire Sam Zell is demanding a share of any money retirees and other creditors may win in lawsuits or legal settlements over the 2007 leveraged buyout he engineered of newspaper publisher Tribune Co. (TRB) The demand, made through the Zell-co ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It's a case of having one's cake and eating it, too. Or, in this instance, digitizing the works of others and reselling them online for a 40 percent cut. According to Le Temps, a controversial new law recently passed by the French government will see out-of-print books from the 20th century... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2012-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When the Independent Publishers Group couldn't come to terms with Amazon, the bookselling giant took 5,000 IPG titles out of their Kindle ebook store. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-02-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A central and eastern European specialist, an illustrated publishing-led list and a house... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-02-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Watermark Bookstore has revealed plans to expand in the UK, following the opening of the company... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harvill Secker has acquired rights to a thriller imagining a world where the Berlin Wall had... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-02-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HOUSTON, TX - February 6, 2012 - Macari-Healey Publishing Company, LLC, of Golden, Colorado has purchased Community Media of Colorado from ASP Westward. The Houston-based newspaper publisher had owned CMC since 2002. ASP Westward also ope ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-02-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins has announced publication of an enhanced ebook of bestseller Game of Thrones by... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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