Todd Sattersten :: Astronaut Projects :: The More Space Project

Learning the Printing Process - Part I

I spent the afternoon at Inland Press on Friday. I wanted to spend some time learning the process of printing a book. I spent almost 10 years in manufacturing and I found that if you understanding the production part, it can be leveraged in all sorts of ways in the design and engineering part. You can lower costs. You can shorten the time it takes to make something. You also can push the limits and understand the trade-offs. My tour guide Marsha was more than happy to help (if you look close she is quoted in the link above).

Most commercial book printing starts with a 23" x 35" sheet of paper. From this, you can get 32 pages of a 6" x 9" book. If you go to 8-1/2" x 11" on your page size, you can get 16 pages.

That sheet of paper is fed into a printer. Inland has a couple different kinds, but most of their printing is done on an 8 station set-up. Most commercial printing is done with a combination of 4 colors and the 8 stations allows them to prints on both sides with one run through the press.

Once the ink has dried, the sheet goes to the folder. This process folds the sheet over on top of itself four times and creates what is called a signature. Multiple signatures make up a book. If you at the edge of a book sitting near you, you will see those individual sections in the spine. If you design your book well, you can make your book with 7 or 8 eight signatures.

After all of the signatures are folded, they are loaded into a machine for a gluing and cutting process (forgot the official name). The machine stacks the signatures in the proper order, glues them together, waits a few minutes for the glue to dry, and then cuts the edges of the glued signatures. This removes the paper that was connecting the pages and creates the individual pages in the book. The result is called the book block.

Bill Ives talks about More Space

Bill Ives and Marc Orchant have been talking and Bill talks a bit about the project.

New Writer for the Project

Andrea told us last week that she had to drop out of the project.

After getting through the mourning, I asked Jory Des Jardins to fill the open spot. She gladly accepted and we are really excited about that.

Writers talking about their essays

Some of the More Space writers have been talking about their stuff:

• Johnnie Moore posted his proposal called Simple Principles, Lightly Held. He was worrying some today.
• Marc Orchant announced his addition to the project and talks more about his Productivity proposal.
• Lisa Haneberg is going to write about breakthroughs and she is inviting readers to take a survey on their experiences.

Open Slot(s) Filled

I sorry for the delay on announcing the final spots.

I am proud to announce that Marc Orchant and his Equation for Serious Productivity will be taking the 10th spot in the More Space project.

We decided to add an 11th spot (maybe it is a football thing). I wanted to make sure there is 10 essays for the project. This gives the project another person in case someone has to drop out. If no one does we will publish all 11 essays. Rob Paterson will be filling that additional spot with his The Reformation of Our Time essay.

I want to thank everyone for their submissions. They were amazing and outstanding. It makes me think we need to start planning Even More Space.

A short delay

My email is down.

Sorry about the delay in talking to everyone and telling them what is going.

Give a day or two and I will let everyone know where we are at the filling the final spot.

Again, sorry for the trouble.

I am just trying to build the tension :)

Proposal #8 - The New Killer App: Authenticity by Jory Des Jardins

The New Killer App: Authenticity by Jory Des Jardins

Calvin is a soft, technologically oriented man in his 50s whom I befriended at a personal development conference, and whom I consequently worked with at a media company that catered to the news and views of Silicon Valley. I’d gotten to know Calvin on a personal level and was quite surprised, the first time I visited his corporate office, at the bells and whistles he liked to use, or just collect. There must have been three Blackberries on his desk, four cell phones, two servers (one for his personal use, he later explained), two desktops and a laptop.

[more below the fold]

Proposal #7 - The Next Generation by Ben Casnocha

The Next Generation by Ben Casnocha

I would structure my essay around "the next generation." Who are the leaders in business of tomorrow? What are their concerns, ideas, potential obstacles, and bright spots? How do we nurture their participation in today's debates and conversations?

Outline:
1. What’s at stake?
a. America’s edge in business, education is slipping
b. Innovations increasingly take place overseas, tomorrow’s leaders increasingly bred overseas

2. Who is the next generation of entrepreneurs, thinkers, and do-ers? What attributes does this “Millenial” generation have?
a. Both general commentary and specific examples
b. This generation is critical to maintaining America’s edge

3. What does a world of accelerating change mean to them and what will the business landscape be when they enter into the real world?
a. Stimuli overload, information overload
b. The process through which information is consumed; the changing role and shape of media and journalism

4. Transforming the conventional educational institution into something as dynamic and powerful as the business world is and will be.
a. How can we stop neglecting the gifted young person and tomorrow’s true leaders?

5. Fostering a spirit of optimism to change the world
a. Connect the brightest minds
b. Use the internet to link ideas, people, and mentors
c. Identify real problems that can be changed

6. The role of government, business, and schools to nurture tomorrow’s leaders
a. Government: public policy that rewards innovations; overhaul in technology copyright law; focus on education; reduce deficits; engage them in democratic process
b. Business: create cultures of innovation, mentoring, and coaching; promote change management
c. Schools: produce engaged citizens and reward those students with promise and bridge the gap for those who are behind the curve. Equip students with the tools to lead in a global, information based economy.

7. Conclusion, looking ahead

Proposal #6 - [Effective Knowledge Management] by Jim McGee

I want to tease out the implications of the following thesis:

The most effective starting point for knowledge management in the organization is at the front stoop of the individual knowledge worker. If you can help and support them to do more effective knowledge management locally, most of the challenges of top down knowledge management disappear and those that remain become manageable.

I was once the Chief Knowledge Officer of DiamondCluster International as we grew from 25 to over 1,000 consultants. Later I created and taught one of the first business school courses on the topic of knowledge management while on the faculty of the Kellogg School. That course required students to maintain their own blogs and marked the start of my public blogging at McGee's Musings in the fall of 2001. Those experiences were more often characterized by disappointment and failure than by unqualified success.

What is it that makes it so hard to move from the simple notion that we ought to manage something so manifestly important to organizations to effective practice? The problem with most approaches to knowledge management in organizations is that it starts from an unexamined assumption that knowledge management is somebody else’s problems.

The blinding flash of the obvious that struck me a when trying to get traction on yet another KM initiative was this. The “jerk” who wasn’t contributing materials to the KM system was me. Wrapped up in the moment of getting a deliverable out to a client I got it done and moved on to the next demand. Six months later, I can’t find the appropriate file on my own hard drive. If I can’t manage my own knowledge, why should I expect to be able to take advantage of other knowledge in the organization?

If you move to that level of analysis, it raises a series of interesting questions. How do you use knowledge in your own work? How do you or should you reuse work you’ve done in the past? What does it mean to do knowledge work efficiently? effectively? What problems do you have with managing your own knowledge that you have to fix personally and locally? How can you enlist others in helping you solve your KM problems? If you define and solve your personal KM problem, what doe that leave for the organization to solve? What should organizations do differently if they want to empower their knowledge workers to do a better job of personal knowledge management? How does that help the organization? Is technology part of the solution or part of the problem? While these are the kinds of questions I've been trying to explore on my blog and in my work, they need more space to get to a next set of insights.

Proposal #5 - The Reformation of Our Time by Robert Paterson

The Reformation of Our Time by Robert Paterson

Here are my thoughts as to how the idea "The Reformation of our Time"
could address our core idea of business and also fit into a 10m word
scale.

The overarching metaphor is that once again we live at a time when a
dogma and not observed reality has gripped society. This time the
dogma is that the world is a machine. All our organizations are embued
with this premisss and as such increasingly work against the real
needs of humans, communities and the planet. The way of the world was
to aggregate more and more power and contro,l in central faceless
organizations both in business and in society such as health and
education.

While socialists and environmentalists has complained for years about
this, the grip of this world view has been so great that it has only
grown in power and ubiquity.

But recently, the largely unshakeable faith in the traditional has
been breached. New organizations are evolving such as eBay and Amazon
that use community as an important lever. Organizations such as
Southwest use an interla community to outperform all comeers. The
music and entertainment industry is being disinertmediated by direct
terchnology. Beyond the copyright issues what is emerging is a direct
model where the creative person is getting more control and the giant
centralizing middle man is losing it. We are all seeing a huge push
back as the forces of personal power gain strength.

We are just seeing the beginnings of health support groups who offer
so much more than a diagnosis and a prescription. Cancer, arthritis
and diabetes groups are making a profound difference to their members.
We are just seeing the emergence of online learning communities that
are all about group participation that that are the opposite of the
sage on the stage ccentral model.

Just as in the 16th century, we are seeing a technology that provides
a loud voice to individuals take on the power of the established
dogma. In my paper I would like to look at the following

1. Open with a few stories of the new - music, health, EBay
(especially the 400K busiensse s that use eBay as a platform - show
the rise of the direct and the community model where individuals give
up the mediating institution and deal direct. Look at the meaning of
the Dean campaign.

Go on to look at the cracks in the old system - Trust in business -
Enron etc the drug comanies etc In warfare where the use of force
alone causes you to lose the moral war which has become war today. We
see the cracks in healthcare - can't afford- it and in education -
fails most kids. We see the cracks in our political system where the
sound bite has replaced discourse - so none of the real issues can be
dealt with

2. Make the comparison between the press in the 16th andf 17th century
and soclal software today. Then extend it - Now a global link that
breaks through time and space. You can have a huge voice on a
planetary scle. What then happens when your voice gets linked to other
- the new media, (what is the lesson of the Tsunami?) the new view of
the "other" and a smaller less tense world?

3. I want to talk then about the idea of voice - we are regaining our
human voice which got lost in the machine world where we had to fit
in. What does the finding of voice mean? My idea - when we find our
true voice we find ourselves - we then can find others and we can
finally find nature and ourr place on the panet even in the universe.
Much of our terrible lonlieness leaves us along with so much of our
dysfunction. What might this mean? I think that it means a decisive
shift in world view away from a Cartesian world where we were split to
a whole view. This is the immesne aspect of the potential - a change
in how we see ourselves and our place. Here is where the value will
come more than any single change in anything that we do.

4. What does this mean then - to business, to health and education, to
war, to politics, to families, to communities and finally to the
world?

What about the reaction to this? We are already seeing the Inquisition
in music and film. Will w face the long and bitter conflict that we
saw in the 17th century. My bet is that we will for when 2 world views
collide there can be no compromise

5. What can we see now - where are the trajectories and where are the
forces gathering - can we use history to help us see the future - I
think that we can at least look at the patterns of the past as a guide

Proposal #4 - [Why Should Law Firms Be Different?] by Bruce MacEwen

[Why Should Law Firms Be Different?] by Bruce MacEwen

What would I write about? My expertise focuses on professional service firms, and on my blog I discuss issues including leadership, strategy, finance, globalization, IT, and marketing, among others. I try to be particularly sensitive to the sui generis cultural and interpersonal-relationship aspects of high end service firms, but I also try to make a habit of asking, “Does this particular financial or structural characteristic of (say) law firms have an analog in the ‘rest’ of the economy, and if not, why should law firms be different?” Putting it differently, my default assumption is that the economics of law firms should be no different than the economics of other service-sector firms. And if there is a difference, but no meaningful reason why there should be one, I ask how the world would look were the difference removed. (As a recent example, I had a post about how the landscape would change if law firms could go public.)

Proposal #3 - [The Future of Labor Unions] by Phillip Wilson

[The Future of Labor Unions] by Phillip Wilson
(again my title -t.s.)

It is easy to ignore unions today. They represent less than 1 in 10 private sector employees; they used to represent nearly half of all private sector workers. The average businessperson may simply shrug and wonder, “who cares?” when hearing these statistics. They view unions as just another artifact of an industrial economy. Yet, no matter your personal feelings about them, unions can offer an important and vital voice to workers, an often-underrepresented constituency in our economy. Further, the decline of unions offers lessons for all businesses and their survival depends on a radical transformation. If unions do survive, their transformation will offer even more important lessons for business leaders.

Observers sympathetic to unions offer a number of explanations the decline, focusing mainly on factors outside the control of unions (management hostility, legal obstacles, politics). These explanations, while tempting for labor leaders to adopt (after all, it places the blame somewhere other than on themselves), are largely irrelevant. This essay highlights two meta-trends that best explain labor’s decline. The essay also suggests how unions, and more broadly all organizations facing declining customer bases and shrinking markets, can transform themselves into vital, growing and important organizations once again.

The first meta-trend at play is economic conditions created by the globalization of the world economy. Unions, of course, often cite this as another reason for their decline; however, they get its impact exactly wrong. Companies have been forced by economic conditions (in order to remain competitive in increasingly global markets) to provide wages, hours and conditions of employment that, while perhaps less than what monopoly unions may have negotiated in their heyday, far exceed levels that significant numbers of employees would consider unsatisfactory (what I term union “benefit pre-emption”). In addition, companies in these highly competitive environments have very little flexibility to offer significantly improved conditions without hurting their competitive positions (what I term union “market pre-emption”). Simply put unions (as they have traditionally imagined their role) have less and less to offer private sector workers.

The second meta-trend relates to the fundamental narrative that informs virtually every labor sympathizer’s view of what makes unions necessary. The basic narrative of union supporters is that in a capitalist economy the incentive of representatives of capital (managers) is to provide the worst work conditions that available workers will accept, thereby maximizing the return on capital. The role of unions in this narrative is to achieve the best deal possible for labor – often at the direct expense of capital. It is a “zero-sum” game, and negotiations in this narrative are a “war” where one side wins and the other loses. This view of the role of management and labor, if it was ever true, is totally inconsistent with the view most workers and managers have of their mutual relationship today. This, by the way, is an important reason that the message of most union organizers does not “resonate” with many workers today.

This essay argues that both meta-trends have transformed the environment for organizing unions in the private sector. If unions are to ever be successful in organizing in the private sector (absent direct and unprecedented intervention by the government in supporting unions), they must confront the reality of these two meta-trends. Successful unions in the future must adopt a much different view of their relationship with both companies and members.

• The relationship with members must be re-defined as a worker resource association – in other words unions should provide benefits to members (whether or not employed by companies with legal bargaining obligations) that they demand; health care, child care, legal advice, financial services and the like.


• The relationship with companies must be viewed as that of organization development consultant. Companies must view unions as potential business partners that, in their role as representatives of labor, can help to improve the productivity and efficiency of labor.

For members the new unions provide resources they need and act as facilitators who assist with resolving disputes and, more important, provide employees a share of the profits earned through productivity enhancements. Labor in this role does not threaten management by withholding labor; instead its threat is simply that without its help management is leaving unrealized productivity and profitability on the table. Workers in this model are, in effect, already withholding their labor albeit unknowingly and unintentionally. This narrative is more positive for workers, unions and companies. This model also offers companies the opportunity to re-imagine their own relationship with their customers, suppliers and, of course, their workers (whether represented by unions or not).

Proposal #2 - An Equation for Serious Productivity by Marc Orchant

An Equation for Serious Productivity: How technology can change the way your organization gets things done by Marc Orchant

As an inveterate gadget freak and productivity maven, I've studied all
of the classic (and some pretty radical) approaches to enhancing
personal and group productivity. From Stephen Covey to David Allen to
Bill Jensen, I've studied and implemented best practices from their
time-tested advice and methods. At my company, we use a blend of
Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats, David Allen's Getting Things Done,
The Power of Focus (Canfield, Hansen, and Hewitt) and some home-grown
techniques to create and sustain a truly high performance work
culture.

We have developed a Contract for Communications that governs when
meetings ought to be held, how they should be run, and how the results
should be shared. We have developed an e-mail tagging system that
answers the question many people face every time they look at their
overflowing Inbox (Is this important? Do I need to act on this now?).
We have developed a method for using mind maps to structure and track
projects. And more...

I'd like to craft an essay that identifies the things that suck most and
provide some practical techniques that will, at minimum, make them
suck a lot less and ideally, transform them from negatives to
positives.

For example...

Meetings

Proposal #1 - The Social Customer Manifesto by Christopher Carfi

The Social Customer Manifesto by Christopher Carfi

If Cluetrain was the shot heard round the world, then this is certainly its echo.

It is clear that customers across all industries are getting really tired of being spun, misled, and lied to. Individuals like Jon Stewart are taking very public approaches to complaining about horrible service when they see it. Eliot Spitzer appears to be single-handedly taking down the insurance industry for shafting its customers (and it looks like he has his eye on the music industry next).

Customers simply aren't taking it anymore. And if an organization is not opening up to them, and not interacting with them, and not meeting their needs, those customers are going to make sure the organization knows about it. Maybe not today, but soon…and that's if the organization is lucky. More likely, those same customers will just go away and never come back.

On this front, there are a few trends that we've identified from the customer's point of view. They are listed below. And this is known to be an incomplete list.

We need to build it out together with stories, comments, criticisms, debate and insights. There are no spectators anymore.

Participate.

THE SOCIAL CUSTOMER MANIFESTO

• I want to have a say.
• I don't want to do business with idiots.
• I want to know when something is wrong, and what you're going to do to fix it.
• I want to help shape things that I'll find useful.
• I want to connect with others who are working on similar problems.
• I don't want to be called by another salesperson. Ever. (Unless they have something useful. Then I want it yesterday.)
• I want to buy things on my schedule, not yours. I don't care if it's the end of your quarter.
• I want to know your selling process.
• I want to tell you when you're screwing up. Conversely, I'm happy to tell you the things that you are doing well. I may even tell you what your competitors are doing.
• I want to do business with companies that act in a transparent and ethical manner.
• I want to know what's next. We're in partnership…where should we go?

The 10th Spot - Submitted Proposals

I have been getting a couple of proposals every day for the last spot on our roster.

They are amazing.

I am going to post all of them this afternoon. All of the submitters have given permission for me to do so (and if you submit one expect it will be posted here too). This is part of the transparency I was talking about. There is no reason not to share all of these great ideas with all of you.

I am going to put up each proposal will be a seperate post. If you feel partial toward one of them, leave a comment as a vote. I would love to know what topics readers would be interested in reading. It will definitely factor into our decision.

Expect more of this from Evelyn

Evelyn announced More Space today on her blog.

I can't wait to see what she come up for the project.

Some Skepticism For More Space Project

Rich at Hello_World is skeptical of the More Space project.

I am not sure if I have some big response. Pulling together a group of writers and self-publishing a set of essays is not new. The fact that each of those writers already has an online audience is a little different. That fact that we are giving it away is a little different - not new, be still unconventional. We are going to use design to make the book interesting. Take a look at books published today - that is definitely different.

It still comes down to writers composing good stuff. The essays have to be interesting and compelling. We need to get some people reading them and telling others that this is pretty good stuff. That is was is going to make the project successful.

Writers start to query readers

A couple of More Space folks have started asking readers for topic feedback.

Johnnie Moore is talking about leading his essay with what he calls the Southwest Paradox.

Rob is a little more general in his comments, but he's thinking about his love for business.

A Little Sparse

I know it is a little sparce over here. We will be gradually fixing things up here as we develop the design elements for the project. So, bear with us for a little awhile.

Otherwise it has been a good day. You can see my underwhelming announcement for the project and much better versions from Lisa, Andrea, Matt, and Curt.

Update: Here are the comments from Jeremy, Johnnie and Rob.

Looking for one more blogger

I intentionally left one open spot on the ten person roster.

We are also looking for one more participant for the project. You need to have a blog and write about the general subject of business. If you are interested, submit a one page proposal for your essay to todd at apennyfor dot com. The deadline for submissions is January 14th.

FAQs

What is More Space?

It is a community project whose goal is showcase bloggers who are writing about business topics.

10 bloggers will write about topics they are passionate about, the topics they write about every day.

Why is it called More Space?

One constraint with blogging is space. A typical entry can't normally go longer than 500 words without losing the reader attention.

I wanted to see what happen if you gave a blogger more space to talk about their passion. Each blogger has up to 10,000 words to talk about their topic.

Who is going to be involved with the project?

All of the writers are bloggers who write about business.

Our current line-up includes:

Evelyn Rodriguez from Crossroad Dispatches
Rob May from Businesspundit
Johnnie Moore from johnniemoore.com
Curt Rosengren from Occupational Adventure
Jeremy Wright from Ensight.org
Matt Homman from the nonbillable hour
Andrea Learned from Learned on Women
Lisa Haneberg from Management Craft
Todd Sattersten from A Penny For...

What kind of topics can we expect?

This is not going to be about blogging (Robert and Jeremy already have that covered).

The bloggers are going to talk about different aspects of business. These are going to range from the basics of PR to business law to the role of IT in business.

How will it be published?

The project will be available in four formats:

1) You will be able to reading it in a html format with any browser.
2) You will be able to download the essays as .pdf files.
3) You will be able to listen to the authors read their essays. These will be distributed in a mp3 format.
4) You will be able to purchase a book with all of the essays.

The project will be licensed using Creative Commons. We are not sure which aspects of the license we will use, but it will undoubtedly be free to distribute.

Why all the formats?

Why not? We want to make it as easy as possible for people to enjoy the project. Choose the format that works best for you.

Can you say anything more about the book?

The initial print run will be a special edition. We are working out the details of what that will look like, but I can assure you it will be cool. We want to give readers something they can't get electronically.

After the initial run, we are going use Print on Demand to produce additional copies needed.

How much will it cost?

Any format available on the internet will be free. Since it didn't cost anything to produce it, we don't see a reason to charge for it. What we will do is have a tip jar for those who would like to contribute to the project.

We are researching the costs associated with publishing and that will drive the cost of the book. More on that soon.

What will happen to the money collected?

We will first pay for an upfront expenses. There will be the initial print run. We plan on hiring some graphic design expertise. We are going to get some help editing. I also would like to get some help with PR.

Todd is going to be putting up the money to get the project started. So really we will be paying him back first.

All remaining proceeds will be distributed equally among the participating writers. One of the goals of this project is to show that it is possible for bloggers to make money for their effort.

When will the project be published?

September 2005.

Are there other goals?

Absolutely.

First, we want to show you can give content away and still have a business model. There are many examples of this ranging from Seth Godin to Wilco.

Second, we want to show that there are really good writers and thought leaders in the blogosphere. Too often the mainstream disregards what is going there.

Finally, we want to see if bloggers can develop projects to make money. This in no way is going to make a living for someone, but it may be another income stream.

Will you share how the project is going?

Again, absolutely. Our goal is to be completely transparent with everything. We are going to publish how much we have spent, how sales have been going, and all the vendors we are using for the project. We hope others can use our experiences to do similar projects.

How can I help?

We will be posting requests on our blog at http://www.apennyfor.com/morespace. We are also going to need a little help with PR. As I said earlier, I plan on paying people for their time. If you are interested in helping out, contact me at todd at apennyfor dot com.

Welcome to More Space

Welcome to The More Space Project.

10 bloggers.
10,000 words each.

I wanted to see what would happen if you gave some business bloggers more space to talk about their interests and expertise. Over the next four months, we are going to see.

Welcome!