Disclaimer: This is one of those blogposts in which I ramble quite a bit. I do have a core point, but I take winding roads around it. It’s also a post where I’m consciously naïve, this time talking about topics which may make economists react viscerally. My hope is that they can get past their initial reaction and think about “the fool’s truth”.

High-quality customer service is something which has a very positive effect, on me. More than being awed by it, I’m extremely appreciative for it when it’s directed towards me and glad it exists when other people take advantage of it.

And I understand (at least some of) the difficulties of customer service.

Never worked directly in customer service. I do interact with a number of people, when I work (teaching, doing field research, working in restaurants, or even doing surveys over the phone). And I’ve had to deal with my share of “difficult customers”, sometimes for months at a time. But nothing I’ve done was officially considered customer service. In fact, with some of my work, “customer service” is exactly the opposite of “what the job is about”, despite some apparent similarities.

So I can only talk about customer service as a customer.

As job sectors go, customer service is quite compatible with a post-industrial world. At the end of the Industrial Revolution, jobs in the primary and secondary sectors have decreased a lot in numbers, especially in the wealthiest parts of the World. The tertiary sector is rapidly growing, in these same contexts. We may eventually notice a significant move toward the quaternary sector, through the expansion of the “knowledge society” but, as far as I know, that sector employs a very small proportion of the active population in any current context.

Point is, the service sector is quite big.

It’s also quite diverse, in terms of activities as well as in terms of conditions. There are call centres where working conditions and salaries are somewhat comparable to factory work (though the latter is considered “blue collar” and the former “white collar”). And there are parts of the service industry which, from the outside, sound quite pleasant.

But, again, I’m taking the point of view of the customer, here. I really do care about working conditions and would be interested in finding ways to improve them, but this blogpost is about my reactions as someone on the other side of the relationship.

More specifically, I’m talking about cases where my satisfaction reaches a high level. I don’t like to complain about bad service (though I could share some examples). But I do like to underline quality service.

And there are plenty of examples of those. I often share them on Twitter and/or on Facebook. But I might as well talk about some of these, here. Especially since I’m wrapping my head about a more general principal.

A key case happened back in November, during the meetings of the American Anthropological Association, here in Montreal. Was meeting a friend of mine at the conference hotel. Did a Foursquare checkin there, while I was waiting, pointing out that I was a local. Received a Twitter reply from the hotel’s account, welcoming me to Montreal. Had a short exchange about this and was told that “if my friend needs anything…” Went to lunch with my friend.

Among the topics of our conversation was the presentation she was going to give, that afternoon. She was feeling rather nervous about it and asked me what could be done to keep her nervousness under control. Based on both personal experience and rumours, I told her to eat bananas, as they seem to help in relieving stress. But, obviously, bananas aren’t that easy to get, in a downtown area.

After leaving my friend, I thought about where to get bananas for her, as a surprise. Didn’t remember that there was a supermarket, not too far from the hotel, so I was at a loss. Eventually went back to the hotel, thinking I might ask the hotel staff about this. Turns out, it would have been possible to order bananas for my friend but the kitchen had just closed.

On a whim, I thought about contacting the person who had replied to me through the hotel’s Twitter account. Explained the situation, gave my friend’s room number and, within minutes, a fruit basket was delivered to her door. At no extra charge to me or to my friend. As if it were a completely normal thing to do, asking for bananas to be delivered to a room.

I’m actually not one to ask for favours, in general. And I did feel strange asking for these bananas. But I wanted to surprise my friend and was going to pay for the service anyway. And the “if she needs anything” message was almost a dare, to me. My asking for bananas was almost defiant. “Oh, yeah? Anything? How about you bring bananas to her room, then?” Again, I’m usually not like this but exchanges like those make me want to explore the limits of the interaction.

And the result was really positive. My friend was very grateful and I sincerely think it helped her relax before her presentation, beyond the effects of the bananas themselves. And it titillated my curiosity, as an informal observer of customer service.

Often heard about hotel concierges as the model of quality in customer service. This fruit basket gave me a taster.

What’s funny about «concierges» is that, as a Québécois, I mostly associate them with maintenance work. In school, for instance, the «concierge» was the janitor, the person in charge of cleaning up the mess left by students. Sounds like “custodian” (and “custodial services”) may be somewhat equivalent to this meaning of «concierge», among English-speaking Canadians, especially in universities. Cleaning services are the key aspect of this line of work. Of course, it’s important work and it should be respected. But it’s not typically glorified as a form of employment. In fact, it’s precisely the kind of work which is used as a threat to those whose school performance is considered insufficient. Condescending teachers and principals would tell someone that they could end up working as a «concierge» (“janitor”) if they didn’t get their act together. Despite being important, this work is considered low-status. And, typically, it has little to do with customer service, as their work is often done while others are absent.

Concierges in French apartment buildings are a different matter, as they also control access and seem to be involved in collecting rent. But, in the “popular imagination” (i.e., in French movies), they’re not associated with a very high quality of service. Can think of several concierges of this type, in French movies. Some of them may have a congenial personality. But I can’t think of one who was portrayed as a model of high-quality customer service.

(I have friends who were «concierges» in apartment buildings, here in Montreal. Their work, which they did while studying, was mostly about maintenance, including changing lightbulbs and shovelling snow. The equivalent of “building superintendent”, it seems. Again, important but devalued work.)

Hotel concierges are the ones English-speakers think of when they use the term. They are the ones who are associated with high-quality (and high-value) customer service. These are the ones I’m thinking about, here.

Hotel concierges’ “golden keys” («Clefs d’or») are as much of a status symbol as you can get one. No idea how much hotel concierges make and I’m unclear as to their training and hiring. But it’s clear that they occupy quite specific a position in the social ladder, much higher than that of school janitors or apartment concierges.

Again, I can just guess how difficult their work must be. Not only the activities themselves but the interactions with the public. Yet, what interests me now is their reputation for delivering outstanding service. The fruit basket delivered to my friend’s door was a key example, to me.

(I also heard more about staff in luxury hotels, in part from a friend who worked in a call centre for a hotel with an enviable reputation. The hospitality industry is also a central component of Swiss culture, and I heard a few things about Swiss hotel schools, including Lausanne’s well-known EHL. Not to mention contacts with ITHQ graduates. But my experience with this kind of service in a hotel context is very limited.)

And it reminds me of several other examples. One is my admiration for the work done by servers in a Fredericton restaurant. The food was quite good and the restaurant’s administration boasts their winelist. But the service is what gave me the most positive feeling. Those service were able to switch completely from treating other people like royalty to treating me like a friend. These people were so good at their job that I discussed it with some of them. Perhaps they were just being humble but they didn’t even seem to realize that they were doing an especially good job.

A similar case is at some of Siena’s best restaurants, during a stay with several friends. At most places we went, the service was remarkably impeccable. We were treated like we deserved an incredible amount of respect, even though we were wearing sandals, shorts, and t-shirts.

Of course, quality service happens outside of hotels and restaurants. Which is why I wanted to post this.

Yesterday, I went to the “Genius Bar” at the Apple Store near my university campus. Had been having some issues with my iPhone and normal troubleshooting didn’t help. In fact, I had been to the same place, a few months ago, and what they had tried hadn’t really solved the problem.

This time, the problem was fixed in a very simple way: they replaced my iPhone with a new one. The process was very straightforward and efficient. And, thanks to regular backups, setting up my replacement iPhone was relatively easy a process. (There were a few issues with it and it did take some time to do, but nothing compared to what it might have been like without cloud backups.)

Through this and previous experiences with the “Genius Bar“, I keep thinking that this service model should be applied to other spheres of work. Including healthcare. Not the specifics of how a “Genius Bar” works. But something about this quality of service, applied to patient care. I sincerely think it’d have a very positive impact on people’s health.

In a way, this might be what’s implied by “concierge medicine”: personalized healthcare services, centred on patients’ needs. But there’s a key difference between Apple’s “Genius Bar” and “concierge medicine”: access to the “Genius Bar” is open to all (customers of Apple products).

Sure, not everyone can afford Apple products. But, despite a prevailing impression, these products are usually not that much more expensive than those made by competitors. In fact, some products made by Apple are quite competitive in their market. So, while the concierge-style services offered by the “Genius Bar” are paid by Apple’s customers, costing those services as even the totality of the “Apple premium” might reveal quite decent a value proposition.

Besides, it’s not about Apple and it’s not really about costs. While Apple’s “Genius Bar” provided my inspiration for this post, I mostly think about quality of service, in general. And while it’s important for decision-makers to think about the costs involved, it’s also important to think about what we mean by high quality service.

One aspect of concierge-style service is that it’s adapted to specific needs. It’s highly customized and personalized, the exact opposite of a “cookie-cutter” approach. My experience at BrewBakers was like that: I was treated the way I wanted to be treated and other people were treated in a very different way. For instance, a server sat besides me as I was looking at the menu, as if I had been a friend “hanging out” with them, and then treated some other customers as if they were the most dignified people in the world. Can’t say for sure the other people appreciated it (looked like they did), but I know it gave me a very warm feeling.

Similar thing at the “Genius Bar”. I could hear other people being treated very formally, but every time I went I was treated with the exact level of informality that I really enjoy. Perhaps more importantly, people’s technology skills are clearly taken into account and they never, in my experience, represent a basis for condescension or for misguided advice. In other words, lack of knowledge of an issue is treated with an understanding attitude and a customer’s expertise on an issue is treated with the exact level of respect it deserves. As always, YMMV. But I’m consistently struck by how appropriately “Genius Bar” employees treat diverse degrees of technological sophistication. As a teacher, this is something about which I care deeply. And it’s really challenging.

While it’s flexible and adaptable, concierge-style service is also respectful, no matter what. This is where our experiences in Siena were so striking. We were treated with respect, even though we didn’t fit the “dress code” for any of these restaurants. And this is a city where, in our observations, people seemed to put a lot of care in what they wore. It’s quite likely that we were judged like annoying tourists, who failed to understand the importance of wearing a suit and tie when going to a “classy” restaurant. But we were still welcomed in these establishments, and nothing in the service made us perceive negatively judged by these servers.

I’ve also heard about hotel staff having to maintain their dignity while coping with people who broke much more than dress codes. And this applies whether or not these people are clients. Friends told me about how the staff at a luxury hotel may deal with people who are unlikely to be customers (including homeless people). According to these friends, the rule is to treat everyone with respect, regardless of which position in the social ladder people occupy. Having noticed a few occasions where respectful treatment was applied to people who are often marginalized, it gives me some of the same satisfaction as when I’m treated adequately.

In other words, concierge-style service is appropriate, “no matter what”. The payoff may not be immediately obvious to everyone, but it’s clearly there. For one thing, poor-quality service to someone else can be quite painful to watch and those of us who are empathetic are likely to “take our business elsewhere” when we see somebody else being treated with disrespect. Not to mention that a respectful attitude is often the best way to prevent all sorts of negative situations from happening. Plus, some high-status people may look like low-status ones in certain of these situations. (For instance, friend working for a luxury hotel once commented on some celebrities looking like homeless people when they appeared at the hotel’s entrance.)

Concierge-style service is also disconnected from business transactions. While the money used to pay for people providing concierge-style service comes from business transactions, this connection is invisible in the service itself. This is similar to something which seems to puzzle a number of people I know, when I mention it. And I’m having a hard time explaining it in a way that they understand. But it’s quite important in the case of customer service.

At one level, you may call it an illusion. Though people pay for a service, the service is provided as if this payment didn’t matter. Sure, the costs associated with my friend’s fruit basket were incurred in the cost of her room. But neither of us saw that cost. So, at that level, it’s as if people were oblivious to the business side of things. This might help explain it to some people, but it’s not the end of it.

Another part has to do with models in which the costs behind the service are supported by a larger group of people, for instance in the ad-based model behind newspapers and Google or in the shared costs model behind insurance systems (not to mention public sectors programs). The same applies to situation where a third-party is responsible for the costs, like parents paying for services provided to their children. In this case, the separation between services and business transactions is a separation between roles. The same person can be beneficiary or benefactor in the same system, but at different times. Part of the result is that the quality of the service is directed toward the beneficiary, even though this person may not be directly responsible for the costs incurred by this service. So, the quality of a service offered by Google has to do with users of that service, not with Google’s customers (advertisers). The same thing applies to any kind of sponsorship and can work quite well with concierge-level quality of service. The Apple Store model is a bit like this, in that Apple subsidizes its stores out of its “own pocket”, and seems to be making a lot of money thanks to them. It may be counterintuitive, as a model, and the distinction between paying for and getting a service may sound irrelevant. But, from the perspective of human beings getting this kind of service, the difference is quite important.

At another level, it’s a matter of politeness. While some people are fine talking financials about any kind of exchange, many others find open discussion of money quite impolite. The former group of people may find it absurd but some of us would rather not discuss the specifics of the business transactions while a service is given. And I don’t mean anything like the lack of transparency of a menu with no price, in a very expensive restaurant. Quite the contrary. I mean a situation where everybody knows how much things cost in this specific situation, but discussion of those costs happens outside of the service itself. Again, this may sound strange to some, but I’d argue that it’s a characteristic of concierge-style service. You know how much it costs to spend a night at this hotel (or to get a haircut from this salon). But, while a specific service is provided, these costs aren’t mentioned.

Another component of this separation between services and their costs is about “fluidity”. It can be quite inefficient for people to keep calculating how much a service costs, itemized. The well-known joke about an engineer asked to itemize services for accounting purposes relates to this. In an industrial context, every item can have a specific cost. Applying the same logic to the service sector can lead to an overwhelming overhead and can also be quite misleading, especially in the case of knowledge and creative work. (How much does an idea cost?) While concierge-style service may be measured, doing so can have a negative impact on the service itself.

Some of my thinking about services and their costs has to do with learning contexts. In fact, much of my thinking about quality of service has to do with learning, since teaching remains an important part of my life. The equation between the costs of education and the learning process is quite complex. While there may be strong correlations between socioeconomic factors and credentials, the correlation between learning and credential is seems to be weaker and the connection between learning and socioeconomic factors is quite indirect.

In fact, something which is counterintuitive to outsiders and misconstrued to administrators at learning institutions is the relationship between learning and the quality of the work done by a teacher. There are many factors involved, in the work of a teacher, from students’ prior knowledge to their engagement in the learning process, and from “time on task” to the compatibility between learning and teaching methods. It’s also remarkably difficult to measure teaching effectiveness, especially if one is to pay more than lipservice to lifelong learning. Also, the motivations behind a teacher’s work rarely have much to do with such things as differential pay. At the very least, it’s clear that dedicated teachers spend more time than is officially required, and that they do so without any expectation of getting more money. But they do expect (and often get) much more than money, including the satisfaction of a job well done.

The analogy between teaching and concierge services falls down quickly if we think that concierges’ customers are those who use their services. Even in “for-profit” schools, the student-teacher relationship has very little to do with a client-business relationship. Those who “consume” the learning process are learners’ future employers or society as a whole. But students themselves aren’t “consuming teaching”, they’re learning. Sure, students often pay a portion of the costs to run educational institutions (other costs being covered by research activities, sponsorships, government funding, alumni, and even parents). But the result of the learning process is quite different from paying for a service. At worst, students are perceived as the “products” of the process. At best, they help construct knowledge. And even if students are increasingly treated as if they were customers of learning institutions (including publicly-funded ones), their relationship to teachers is quite distinct from patronage.

And this is one place for a connection between teachers and concierges, having to do with the separation between services and their fees: high quality service is given by concierges and teachers beyond direct financial incentives to do so. Even if these same teachers and concierges are trying to get increased wages, the services they provide are free of these considerations. Salary negotiations are a matter between employers and employees. Those who receive services are customers of the employers, not the employees. There’d be no reason for a concierge or teacher to argue with customers and students about their salaries.

In a way, this is almost the opposite of “social alienation”. In social sciences. “alienation” refers to a feeling of estrangement often taking place among workers whose products are consumed by people with whom they have no connection. A worker at a Foxconn factory may feel alienated from the person who will buy the Dell laptop on which she’s working. But service work is quite distinct from this. While there may be a huge status differential between someone getting a service and the person providing it and there can be a feeling of distance, the fact that there’s a direct connection between the two is quite significant. Even someone working at a call centre in India providing technical support to a high-status customer in the US  is significantly different from the alienated factory worker. The direct connection between call centre employee and customer can have a significant impact on both people involved, and on the business behind the technical support request.

And, to a large extent, the further a person working in customer service is from the financial transaction, the higher the quality of the service.

Lots has been said about Zappos and about Nordstrom. Much of that has to do with how these two companies’ approaches to customer service differ from other approaches (for instance, avoiding scripts). But there might be a key lesson, here, in terms of distancing the service from the job. The “customers are always right” ethos doesn’t jive well with beancounting.

So, concierge-style service is “more than a job”.

Providing high-quality service can be highly stimulating, motivating, and satisfying. Haven’t looked at job satisfaction levels among these people, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were quite high. What managers seem to forget, about job satisfaction, is that it has an impact beyond employee retention, productivity, and reputation. Satisfying jobs have a broad impact on society, which then impacts business. Like Ford paying high wages for his workers, much of it has to do with having a broader vision than simply managing the “ins and outs” of a given business. This is where Hanifan’s concept of social capital may come into play. Communities are built through such things as trust and job satisfaction.

Again, these aren’t simple issues. Quality customer service isn’t a simple matter of giving people the right conditions. But its effect are far-reaching.

It’s interesting to hear about “corporate concierge services” offered to employees of certain businesses. In a way, they loop back the relationship between high-quality service and labour. It sounds like corporate concierges can do a lot to enhance a workplace, even  making it more sustainable. I’d be curious to know more about them, as it sounds like they might have an interesting position with regards to the enterprise. I wouldn’t be surprised if their status were separate from that of regular employees within the business.

And, of course, I wish I were working at a place where such services were available. Sounds like those workplaces aren’t that uncommon. But having access to such services would be quite a privilege.

Thing is, I hate privilege, even when I’m the one benefitting from it. I once quipped that I hated library privileges, because they’re unequally distributed. The core of this is that I wish society were more equal. Not by levelling down everything we have, but by providing broader access to resources and services.

A key problem with concierge-style services is that access to them tends to be restricted. But it doesn’t sound like their costs are the only factor for this exclusiveness. In a way, concierge-level service may not be that much more expensive than standard service. It might be about concierge-style services being a differentiating factor, but even that doesn’t imply that it should be so restricted.

I’d argue that the level of quality of service that I’ve been describing (and rambling on about) can be found in just about any context. I’ve observed the work of librarians, gas station attendants, police officers, street vendors, park rangers, and movers who provided this level of service. While it may difficult to sustain high-quality service, it does scale and it does seem to make life easier for everyone.

En guise d’avertissement: je parle ici de santé et de digestion. Vais pas entrer dans des détails, mais c’est pas nécessairement agréable à lire à n’importe quel moment. Si vous êtes sensibles à ce genre de truc, ce billet peut avoir un mauvais effet. Aussi, je n’ai aucune formation dans le domaine de la santé, je ne parle que de mon expérience personnelle.

Depuis trois semaines, je suis sur une diète très stricte, recommandée par une naturopathe. Nous essayons d’identifier la cause exacte d’un trouble digestif que je subis depuis une dizaine d’années. Je vous épargne les détails (!) mais après seulement quelques jours (moins d’une semaine), je pouvais déjà voir des effets positifs. Essentiellement, si mon trouble digestif est pas disparu, il a déjà une toute autre proportion que ce qu’il a eu, au cours des dernières années.

Un truc important à noter, c’est que comme n’importe quel aspect de la santé, aucune solution ne convient à tout le monde. Ce que je suis, comme diète, est très spécifique à mes propres ennuis de santé.

Parmi les hypothèses, j’en note trois, principales:

1. Maladie de cœliaque (intolérance au gluten)
2. Candida (infection fongique)
3. Parasite (assez logique, puisque ces troubles ont débuté au Mali)

Quoi qu’il en soit, voici les détails de ma diète…

Permis

• Riz brun
• Amande (y compris le lait d’amande non-sucré)
• Graine de citrouille
• Petits poissons blancs
• Millet
• Sarrasin
• Saumon du Pacifique
• Truite
• Riz blanc
• Tapioca
• Maïs
• Thé vert
  

  Légumes cuits (en petites quantités)

• Courgette
• Courge
• Algue
• Chou frisé (“kale”)
• Carotte
• Panais
• Fenouil
• Oignon
• Poireau
• Céleri
• Pomme de terre
• Pois
• Haricot

Restreint

• Sucre
• Gluten
• Produit fermenté
• Alcool
• Produit laitier
• Fruit
• Viande
• Levure
• Champignon
• Tomate
• Œuf
• Poivron
• Légume cru
• Café
• Thé noir
• Saumon de l’Atlantique
• Noix (autres que les amandes)
• Légumineuses (autres que les pois et les haricots)

Honnêtement, c’est pas facile à tenir, comme diète. Au début, ce sont surtout les fruits qui me manquaient. Ces temps-ci, j’ai surtout envie d’œufs. Il y a eu plusieurs moments où j’aurais vraiment aimé pouvoir boire du café. Et je m’ennuie de la viande. Sans compter que je peux pratiquement rien manger en resto.

Faut dire que plusieurs de mes plaisirs passent par la bouffe ou par des situations qui tournent autour de la bouffe. On a beau dire, le thé vert a pas le même rôle que l’alcool ou même le café. Et comme je suis maniaque de café et que j’ai été brasseur maison, c’est pas très agréable de devoir me passer de tout ça. Compte tenu, surtout, de mon approche hédoniste.

M’ennuie de la diversité!

Sans compter que les restrictions alimentaires forment un sujet de conversation assez peu stimulant. Parler de ce genre de chose, c’est le contraire de briser la glace. Pas que ça cause un froid, mais c’est un sujet qui peut facilement monopoliser l’attention et qui amène rien de très utile.

Donc, pour un papillon social, c’est spécialement difficile, comme situation. Oh, je m’adapte. Je suis pas comme quelqu’un qui essaie d’arrêter de fumer ou de boire. Mais ça bouscule beaucoup de choses, dans ma vie. Ma joie de vivre est difficile à maintenir, même si les choses se passent bien dans d’autres dimensions de ma vie.

Mais il y a des bons côtés. Y compris les effets positifs sur ma santé.

Un effet intéressant de tout ça, c’est que je me suis mis à cuisiner tous mes repas, parfois en assez grandes quantités. Ça faisait un moment que je voulais m’y remettre et c’était pas idéal comme moment, mais ça s’est assez bien passé jusqu’à maintenant.

Et j’ai fait quelques «découvertes pour moi-même». Par exemple, je me rends compte que j’aime bien le millet, le chou frisé et les algues. Aussi, les graines de citrouilles grillées font un peu l’effet des graines de sésame grillées. Certains craquelins de riz (“rice cakes”) sont plus intéressants que d’autres. Et mon goût pour le thé vert se modifie.

Selon ma naturo, je vais peut-être pouvoir ajouter des éléments à la liste des aliments «permis», une fois qu’elle aurait les résultats de certains tests. J’espère vraiment que ça va être le cas. Si je devais m’astreindre à cette diète sur le long terme, ce serait difficile à vivre. Quelques restrictions à la fois, c’est déjà pas évident. Mais tout en même temps… Ouf!

Mais, bon, il faut ce qu’il faut.

Playing Next

This evening, I’ll be a guest at a public conversation on playfulness. This event is organized by University of the Streets Café, a community development program at Concordia University’s School of Extended Learning.

This post will serve as a placeholder.

The video above is something I did for Ignite Montreal, and contains much of what I’ve been thinking about, in terms of playfulness. The content can be found here, in different versions:

http://Playfulness.in/

Guests: Marleah Blom, Alexandre Enkerli
Moderator: Jimmy Ung
When: 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Where: Arts Café, 201 rue Fairmount Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, H2T 2M8

More info in this Facebook event: http://lar.me/playtalk .

Let’s have fun!

[English above…]

Mise au jeu

Je participerai ce soir à une conversation publique au sujet de l’amusement, organisée dans le cadre de L’Université autrement: dans les cafés (un programme de Concordia). Ça risque d’être amusant. (Plus d’infos ici: http://lar.me/jouons ).

Le 31 mars, j’étais à l’émission La Sphère de Radio-Canada, histoire de parler de ludification. J’y étais en compagnie d’un autre ethnographe, Sylvain Letellier de BeSpoke Montréal (croisé lors d’un 5à7 sur l’innovation ouverte), qui voit des bénéfices à la ludification en marketing et en recherche qualitative.

Conversation intéressante. Mon intention était de parler d’alternatives à la ludification, y compris le jeu ouvert et la conversation. Pas parlé de conversation (à part une mention de notre conversation de ce soir), mais j’ai pu amener le point au sujet du jeu ouvert, ce qui est déjà pas mal.

Pour la conversation publique:
Invités: Marleah Blom, Alexandre Enkerli
Modérateur: Jimmy Ung
Heure: 19h à 21h
Lieu: Arts Café, 201 rue Fairmount Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, H2T 2M8

This discussion was sparked, in part, from a student’s question:

What good are the finding the sociologists obtain if the sociologists themselves are passive to the issues observed?

Very good question, and I feel that the discussion we’ve had in class scratched the surface of the issue.

My response could have related to my current work, which I have mentioned in class on several occasions. These days, an important part of my work outside of the Ivory Tower has to do with community organizations. More specifically, I do fieldwork for Communautique, whose mission is to:

Support civic participation by promoting information literacy, appropriation of information and communications technologies and contribution to their development.

Though I’m no activist, I see a clear role for activism and my work directly supports a form of activism. The goal here is social change, toward increased participation by diverse citizens. Thankfully, this is no “us/them” campaign. There’s no demonization, here. Many of us may disagree on a course of action, but inclusion, not confrontation, is among this work’s main goals.

I sincerely think that my work, however modest, may have a positive impact. Not that I delude myself into thinking that there’s a “quick fix” to problems associated with social exclusion. But I see a fairly clear bifurcation between paths and I choose one which might lead to increased inclusiveness.

I didn’t talk about my work during out classroom discussion. Though I love to talk about it, I try to make these discussions as interactive as possible. Even when I end up talking more than anybody else, I do what I can not to lead the discussion in too specific a direction. So, instead of talking about Communautique, we talked about Foxconn. I’m pretty sure I brought it up, but it was meant as a way to discuss a situation with which students can relate.

Turns out, there was an ideal case to discuss many of these themes. Here’s a message about this case that I just sent to the class’s forum:

Some of you might have heard of this but I hadn’t, before going to class. Sounds to me like it brings together several points we’ve discussed yesterday (activism, journalism, message dissemination, labour conditions, Foxconn, Apple…). It also has a lot to do with approaches to truth, which do tend to differ.

 

So… An episode of This American Life about Foxconn factories making Apple products contained a number of inaccurate things, coming from Mike Daisey, a guy who does monologues as stage plays. These things were presented as facts (and had gone through an elaborate “factchecking” process) and Daisey defends them as theatre, meant to make people react.

 

Here’s a piece about it, from someone who was able to pinpoint some inaccuracies: “An acclaimed Apple critic made up the details”.

 

The retraction from the team at This American Life took a whole show, along with an apparently difficult blogpost.

Interesting stuff, if you ask me. Especially since people might argue that the whole event may negatively impact the cause. After all, the problems of factory workers in China may appeal to more than people’s quickest emotional responses. Though I’m a big fan of emotions, I also think there’s an opportunity to discuss these issues thoughtfully and critically. The issue goes further than Apple or even Foxconn. And it has a lot to do with Wallerstein’s “World Systems Theory”.

 

Anyhoo… Just thought some of you may be interested.

Here’s the question:

Can there be such a thing as too much diversity?
Up until recently the rule for all immigrants was “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” This appears to have been replaced by “We’re not going to integrate but live as we did back home.”

Is it possible that at some point diversity becomes a detriment that divides society? Just look at how segregated some cities have become

Here’s my answer:

Funnily enough, I’m preparing an exam on material where this very issue appears. Unfortunately, this material isn’t online.
One of sociology’s core perspectives, functionalism, had “extreme diversity” among the conditions under which social order breaks down. The idea, there, was that it went against society’s integration, since the model was based on well-delimited groups.
That theory has been challenged multiple times. For one thing, very few groups have been that well-integrated. The modern notion of “what The Romans were” comes from a biased view and a limited understanding of what went on at the time. In fact, an episode of the Entitled Opinions podcast contains useful discussions of the very issue.

Same thing can be said about a number of other societies, including contemporary ones.
And this is where things get interesting. We’re probably living a transition from a period marked by the Nation-State (19th and 20th Centuries) to a period marked by fluid groupings, including social networks.
In the Nation-State (contemporary Somalia and Japan, along with the fiction of 19th Century France and possibly a short period of time in Ancient Rome), ethnic homogeneity is presumed and ethnicity is managed through a very complex bureaucratic system related to citizenship. The way ethnic groups are treated then is based on what Benedict Anderson called “Imagined Communities”.
In more fluid systems, which include most of human history, diversity is taken for granted and social integration comes from other dimensions of social life.
In the current context, we have an unusual mixture of rigid Nation-State identities in parallel with the reality of transnationalism, postnationalism, Globalization, and blurred boundaries.
So, to answer the question: is it so clear what the limits of the group are? If so, what are those limits based on? If not, why would diversity be a problem?

For those interested in fluid boundaries, a classic work is Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth’s “Ethnic Groups and Boundaries”.

I posted the following to the class forums for my two sections of SOCI203 “Introduction to Society”.

Version courte: depuis que je suis revenu à Montréal, je me rends compte qu’il fait bon y vivre.

Je suis né à Montréal en 1972 et, à part des voyages occasionnels, je n’ai pas vécu ailleurs jusqu’en 1994. Par contre, de 1994 à 2008, j’ai déménagé un grand nombre de fois.

Le premier de ces déménagements était vers Lausanne (en Suisse), la ville natale de mon père. J’y ai passé quinze mois dans d’excellentes conditions. D’ailleurs, si la Suisse vivait une sorte de crise économique à l’époque, le climat social était généralement assez positif pour des gens comme moi. Je m’y suis donc senti à mon aise.

Lorsque j’ai quitté Lausanne pour revenir à Montréal, en août 1995, je suis passé d’un milieu où les questions financières étaient taboues à un contexte où les problèmes d’argent dominaient toutes les conversations. Mon impression du Québec en 1995 était celle d’un marasme profond, surtout causé par la situation économique. Ma propre situation financière était relativement positive (elle s’est détérioriée assez rapidement), mais je me sentais comme si tout allait mal pour tout le monde. Les indicateurs économiques de l’époque contredisent probablement mon impression, mais c’est là la grande différence entre une approche macroscopique quantitative et l’expérience vécue.

J’ai passé quelques temps à Montréal depuis ce temps, mais c’est aussi pendant ce temps que je me suis déplacé le plus souvent. Par exemple, de février 2002 à décembre 2007, j’ai effectué 20 déménagements, entre huit villes différentes (au Mali, au Nouveau-Brunswick, en Indiana, au Massachusetts et au Texas). Je revenais à Montréal au cours de plusieurs de ces déménagements. D’ailleurs, je conservais un pied-à-terre à Montréal. Mais je n’étais «installé» nulle part.

Le 26 avril 2008, j’ai effectué mon dernier déménagement en date et je n’ai pas bougé depuis. Je ne peux pas vraiment dire que je me suis installé définitivement à Montréal, mais ces 1374 jours passés dans ma ville natale constituent la plus longue période de stabilité, pour moi, depuis 1994.

C’est d’ailleurs depuis avril 2008 que je redeviens Québécois. Étape par étape.

Si je suis revenu à Montréal, c’est en grande partie pour des raisons personnelles. J’aurais pu aller ailleurs, mais c’était tout compte fait plus facile de revenir ici, du moins temporairement. J’avais même pensé utiliser mon retour à Montréal comme un tremplin vers autre chose (même pensé à Edmonton, à un certain moment; ou même à la Corée). Revenir à Montréal, c’était une «solution de facilité», une “fallback solution”.

Même si mon réseau social s’est distendu au cours de mes déplacements du début du siècle, je conservais plusieurs contacts ici qui m’ont aidé à me reconstruire un système de support social. Revenir à Montréal, c’était renforcer mes contacts avec certains membres de ma famille et avec plusieurs de mes amis.

D’ailleurs, en ce moment, une grande partie de mes contacts sur divers réseaux sociaux en-ligne (Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn…) sont locaux. Pas que je sois chauvin ou fermé, bien au contraire! En tant qu’anthropologue, je chéris la diversité humaine et j’ai beaucoup apprécié ma vie hors de Montréal. Mais la base locale des réseaux sociaux est un aspect non-négligeable, dans mon cas. Beaucoup de mes rapports sociaux s’effectuent en face-à-face et, hormis quelques cas particuliers, c’est le cas de la plupart des gens. Autrement dit, nous avons beau passer beaucoup de temps en-ligne, les rapports sociaux ont généralement un ancrage dans les interactions directes, locales, «en présentiel».

Ainsi, le fait de revenir à Montréal était, pour moi, une façon de renforcer la partie locale de mon propre réseau social. Je pouvais donc retrouver une vie sociale qu’il m’a été difficile d’avoir lorsque je bougeais d’une ville à l’autre.

D’autres motivations étaient plus professionnelles. Par exemple, ayant enseigné quelques cours à Concordia entre 2006 et 2007, il m’était plus facile d’obtenir des charges de cours à cette université qu’ailleurs dans le monde (même si j’ai eu l’occasion d’enseigner à sept autres endroits, dont cinq aux États-Unis). Évidemment, mon réseau social a aussi contribué aux motivations professionnelles de mon retour à Montréal en me dressant un portrait assez positif de la situation de l’emploi à Montréal. En d’autres termes, je suis revenu à Montréal sur l’impression, provenant de mon réseau social, qu’il était maintenant possible de bien vivre ici.

Cette impression ne s’est pas démentie.

Austin (ATX), capitale du Texas, est le dernier endroit où j’ai habité avant mon retour à Montréal. Contrairement à de nombreuses autres villes américaines à l’époque (fin 2007 et début 2008), ATX était plus ou moins épargnée par la crise financière. C’est du moins ce qui se disait dans les journaux et bars locaux. Même s’il est possible de prouver que la situation d’Austin était plus fragile que ce que l’opinion publique en disait, le fait est qu’il n’y avait pas de marasme économique à ATX à l’époque. Ayant connu un véritable marasme à Montréal en 1995, j’étais à l’affût des signes avant-coureurs d’un problème similaire à Austin douze ans plus tard. Le fait que les gens parlaient quotidiennement de la crise et de problèmes d’argent allait déjà dans le sens du marasme, même si ces mêmes conversations sortaient explicitement ATX de ce bourbier. «Les choses vont vraiment mal, en ce moment. Mais nous sommes épargnés pour l’instant.» Puisque ma propre situation à Austin n’était pas tout à fait reluisante, rien de très encourageant de ce côté. Il est fort possible qu’un manque d’enthousiasme face à la situation économique des États-Unis et du Texas ait été une particularité des milieux sociaux auxquels je me mêlais, à l’époque. Néanmoins, tant dans le milieu universitaire (qui venait de connaître des coupures drastiques) que dans celui plus populaire des brasseurs de bière, un optimisme bien prudent semblait régner.

Le contraste, peu après mon retour à Montréal, était assez flagrant. Malgré divers problèmes économiques, les milieux dans lesquels je me suis (ré)inséré faisaient figure d’oasis de paix, en comparaison avec mon expérience à Austin en 2007–2008 (ou à Montréal en 1995). Ceux qui parlaient de leur situation financière faisaient rarement référence à un problème plus large. Plusieurs personnes quittaient des emplois stables pour se lancer dans divers projets plus risqués. Sans que l’on puisse parler d’euphorie, régnait ici une atmosphère plutôt paisible, face à la situation financière. C’était pas l’âge d’or du Québec (que l’on situe plus facilement lors de la période entre Expo 67 et les JO de 1976).

Il est fort possible que, tout comme celle que j’ai eu d’Austin, mon impression de Montréal provenait des milieux dans lesquels j’œuvrais. Entre autres, il y avait une certaine effervescence dans ce que j’appelle «la scène geek montréalaise». C’est parmi eux que se trouvaient certains des plus idéalistes, qui misaient une partie de leurs vies pour des projets qui leur tenaient à cœur. En 2008, il n’était pas rare pour des membres de cette «scène» de se faire proposer des contrats assez lucratifs sans qu’ils aient besoin d’effectuer des recherches approfondies. Les acteurs du Web, par exemple, trouvaient facilement quelque-chose à faire, sans avoir à chercher bien loin. On parle d’un groupe assez restreint (je l’estimerais à environ 500 personnes), mais la possibilité que j’avais de m’y insérée a contribué assez largement à mon impression de Montréal. D’ailleurs, depuis mon retour, j’ai obtenu plusieurs contrats très intéressants sans avoir à chercher bien activement.

L’autre sphère d’action de ma vie montréalaise, le milieu universitaire, me donnait aussi un certain air de sérénité. S’il y a très peu de postes permanents dans ce milieu, à l’échelle du continent, il m’a été possible de donner de plus en plus de cours, à Concordia. En fait, pour la première fois de ma carrière, je peux dire que j’ai commencé à me tailler une place dans ce milieu. Sans devenir indispensable et tout en gardant un fort sens critique face au milieu académique, je suis plus à l’aise avec mon statut de «chargé de cours + travailleur autonome». D’ailleurs, petit-à-petit, je commence à trouver plus de liens entre les deux dimensions de ma vie professionnelle. Assez confortable, comme situation. Pour moi, ça vaut plus qu’un gros salaire.

Puisque la situation financière du lieu où je vis a beaucoup d’implications sur mon expérience en cet endroit, c’est une bonne occasion de préciser ma pensée là-dessus. Ma propre situation financière a évidemment un impact important sur ma vie, compte tenu d’un système social qui accorde énormément d’importance à l’argent. Mais, ce qui m’affecte le plus, c’est le «climat social» dans lequel je vis. Un marasme ambiant a un impact négatif plus grand sur moi que des problèmes financiers. D’autre part, lorsque l’atmosphère générale est plutôt positive et que les questions d’argent font rarement leur apparition dans les conversations que je peux avoir avec les gens autour de moi, je m’en porte mieux même si ma situation personnelle n’est pas très reluisante.

Et c’est probablement un bon point où terminer cette réflexion au sujet de mon retour à Montréal. Je suis revenu à Montréal (et j’y demeure depuis près de quatre ans) parce qu’il fait bon y vivre.

Du moins, c’est la partie impersonnelle. Pour l’aspect personnel, ce sera pour un autre jours.

(Made easier by Brett Terpstra’s “Indented or Markdown to HTML Unordered List” Ruby script.)

• Don’t call it content
• Access to content
• Allowing students to contribute content
• Higher Ed
• Less about backpack
• Semi-autonomous learning
• Self-learning
• Autodidactic
• Realities of markets
• Sectors
• Creation
• Distribution
• Consumtpion
• But learning is different?
• Material to make you think
• Social media

• Hopes for Moodle 2.0, Sakai 3
• Lifelong learning
• Apple-branded learning management system?

• Not much hope for what it might represent
• Gradebook

• Beyond Numbers template
• Portfolios

• iWeb and beyond
• Online/Offline

• Flexibility
• Updates
• Index and search
• Modular
• Distraction-free learning
• Minisites and encapsulation

If indeed Apple plans to announce not just more affordable textbook options for students, but also more interactive, immersive ebook experiences…

Forecasting next week’s Apple education event (Dan Moren and Lex Friedman for Macworld)

I’m still in catchup mode (was sick during the break), but it’s hard to let this pass. It’s exactly the kind of thing I like to blog about: wishful thinking and speculation about education. Sometimes, my crazy predictions are fairly accurate. But my pleasure at blogging these things has little to do with the predictions game. I’m no prospectivist. I just like to build wishlists.

In this case, I’ll try to make it short. But I’m having drift-off moments just thinking about the possibilities. I do have a lot to say about this but we’ll see how things go.

Overall, I agree with the three main predictions in that MacWorld piece: Apple might come out with eBook creation tools, office software, and desktop reading solutions. I’m interested in all of these and have been thinking about the implications.

That MacWorld piece, like most media coverage of textbooks, these days, talks about the weight of physical textbooks as a major issue. It’s a common refrain and large bookbags/backpacks have symbolized a key problem with “education”. Moren and Friedman finish up with a zinger about lecturing. Also a common complaint. In fact, I’ve been on the record (for a while) about issues with lecturing. Which is where I think more reflection might help.

For one thing, alternative models to lecturing can imply more than a quip about the entertainment value of teaching. Inside the teaching world, there’s a lot of talk about the notion that teaching is a lot more than providing access to content. There’s a huge difference between reading a book and taking a class. But it sounds like this message isn’t heard and that there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the role of teaching.

It’s quite likely that Apple’s announcement may make things worse.

I don’t like textbooks but I do use them. I’m not the only teacher who dislikes textbook while still using them. But I feel the need to justify myself. In fact, I’ve been on the record about this. So, in that context, I think improvements in textbooks may distract us from a bigger issue and even lead us in the wrong direction. By focusing even more on content-creation, we’re commodifying education. What’s more, we’re subsuming education to a publishing model. We all know how that’s going. What’s tragic, IMHO, is that textbook publishers themselves are going in the direction of magazines! If, ten years from now, people want to know when we went wrong with textbook publishing, it’ll probably be a good idea for them to trace back from now. In theory, magazine-style textbooks may make a lot of sense to those who perceive learning to be indissociable from content consumption. I personally consider these magazine-style textbooks to be the most egregious of aberrations because, in practice, learning is radically different from content consumption.

So… If, on Thursday, Apple ends up announcing deals with textbook publishers to make it easier for them to, say, create and distribute free ad-supported magazine-style textbooks, I’ll be going through a large range of very negative emotions. Coming out of it, I might perceive a silverlining in the fact that these things can fairly easily be subverted. I like this kind of technological subversion and it makes me quite enthusiastic.

In fact, I’ve had this thought about iAd producer (Apple’s tool for creating mobile ads). Never tried it but, when I heard about it, it sounded like something which could make it easy to produce interactive content outside of mobile advertising. I don’t think the tool itself is restricted to Apple’s iAd, but I could see how the company might use the same underlying technology to create some content-creation tool.

“But,” you say, “you just said that you think learning isn’t about content.” Quite so. I’m not saying that I think these tools should be the future of learning. But creating interactive content can be part of something wider, which does relate to learning.

The point isn’t that I don’t like content. The point is that I don’t think content should be the exclusive focus of learning. To me, allowing textbook publishers to push more magazine-style content more easily is going in the wrong direction. Allowing diverse people (including learners and teachers) to easily create interactive content might in fact be a step in the right direction. It’s nothing new, but it’s an interesting path.

In fact, despite my dislike of a content emphasis in learning, I’m quite interested in “learning objects”. In fact, I did a presentation about them during the Spirit of Inquiry conference at Concordia, a few years ago (PDF).

A neat (but Flash-based) example of a learning object was introduced to me during that same conference: Mouse Party. The production value is quite high, the learning content seems relatively high, and it’s easily accessible.

But it’s based on Flash.

Which leads me to another part of the issue: formats.

I personally try to avoid Flash as much as possible. While a large number of people have done amazing things with Flash, it’s my sincere (and humble) opinion that Flash’s time has come and gone. I do agree with Steve Jobs on this. Not out of fanboism (I’m no Apple fanboi), not because I have something against Adobe (I don’t), not because I have a vested interested in an alternative technology. I just think that mobile Flash isn’t going anywhere and that. Even on the desktop, I think Flash-free is the way to go. Never installed Flash on my desktop computer, since I bought it in July. I do run Chrome for the occasional Flash-only video. But Flash isn’t the only video format out there and I almost never come across interesting content which actually relies on something exclusive to Flash. Flash-based standalone apps (like Rdio and Machinarium) are a different issue as Flash was more of a development platform for them and they’re available as Flash-free apps on Apple’s own iOS.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple’s announcements had something to do with a platform for interactive content as an alternative to Adobe Flash. In fact, I’d be quite enthusiastic about that. Especially given Apple’s mobile emphasis. We might be getting further in “mobile computing for the rest of us”.

Part of this may be related to HTML5. I was quite enthusiastic when Tumult released its “Hype” HTML5-creation tool. I only used it to create an HTML5 version of my playfulness talk. But I enjoyed it and can see a lot of potential.

Especially in view of interactive content. It’s an old concept and there are many tools out there to create interactive content (from Apple’s own QuickTime to Microsoft PowerPoint). But the shift to interactive content has been slower than many people (including educational technologists) would have predicted. In other words, there’s still a lot to be done with interactive content. Especially if you think about multitouch-based mobile devices.

Which eventually brings me back to learning and teaching.

I don’t “teach naked”, I do use slides in class. In fact, my slides are mostly bullet points, something presentation specialists like to deride. Thing is, though, my slides aren’t really meant for presentation and, while they sure are “content”, I don’t really use them as such. Basically, I use them as a combination of cue cards, whiteboard, and coursenotes. Though I may sound defensive about this, I’m quite comfortable with my use of slides in the classroom.

Yet, I’ve been looking intently for other solutions.

For instance, I used to create outlines in OmniOutliner that I would then send to LaTeX to produce both slides and printable outlines (as PDFs). I’ve thought about using S5, but it doesn’t really fit in my workflow. So I end up creating Keynote files on my Mac, uploading them (as PowerPoint) before class, and using them in the classroom using my iPad. Not ideal, but rather convenient.

(Interestingly enough, the main thing I need to do today is create PowerPoint slides as ancillary material for a textbook.)

In all of these cases, the result isn’t really interactive. Sure, I could add buttons and interactive content to the slides. But the basic model is linear, not interactive. The reason I don’t feel bad about it is that my teaching is very interactive (the largest proportion of classtime is devoted to open discussions, even with 100-plus students). But I still wish I could have something more appropriate.

I have used other tools, especially whiteboarding and mindmapping ones. Basically, I elicit topics and themes from students and we discuss them in a semi-structured way. But flow remains an issue, both in terms of workflow and in terms of conversation flow.

So if Apple were to come up with tools making it easy to create interactive content, I might integrate them in my classroom work. A “killer feature” here is if interaction could be recorded during class and then uploaded as an interactive podcast (à la ProfCast).

Of course, content-creation tools might make a lot of sense outside the classroom. Not only could they help distribute the results of classroom interactions but they could help in creating learning material to be used ahead of class. These could include the aforementioned learning objects (like Mouse Party) as well as interactive quizzes (like Hot Potatoes) and even interactive textbooks (like Moglue) and educational apps (plenty of these in the App Store).

Which brings me back to textbooks, the alleged focus of this education event.

One of my main issues with textbooks, including online ones, is usability. I read pretty much everything online, including all the material for my courses (on my iPad) but I find CourseSmart and its ilk to be almost completely unusable. These online textbooks are, in my experience, much worse than scanned and OCRed versions of the same texts (in part because they don’t allow for offline access but also because they make navigation much more difficult than in GoodReader).

What I envision is an improvement over PDFs.

Part of the issue has to do with PDF itself. Despite all its benefits, Adobe’s “Portable Document Format” is the relic of a bygone era. Sure, it’s ubiquitous and can preserve formatting. It’s also easy to integrate in diverse tools. In fact, if I understand things correctly, PDF replaced Display PostScript as the basis for Quartz 2D, a core part of Mac OS X’s graphics rendering. But it doesn’t mean that it can’t be supplemented by something else.

Part of the improvement has to do with flexibility. Because of its emphasis on preserving print layouts, PDF tends to enforce print-based ideas. This is where EPUB is at a significant advantage. In a way, EPUB textbooks might be the first step away from the printed model.

From what I can gather, EPUB files are a bit like Web archives. Unlike PDFs, they can be reformatted at will, just like webpages can. In fact, iBooks and other EPUB readers (including Adobe’s, IIRC) allow for on-the-fly reformatting, which puts the reader in control of a much greater part of the reading experience. This is exactly the kind of thing publishers fail to grasp: readers, consumers, and users want more control on the experience. EPUB textbooks would thus be easier to read than PDFs.

EPUB is the basis for Apple’s iBooks and iBookstore and people seem to be assuming that Thursday’s announcement will be about iBooks. Makes sense and it’d be nice to see an improvement over iBooks. For one thing, it could support EPUB 3. There are conversion tools but, AFAICT, iBooks is stuck with EPUB 2.0. An advantage there is that EPUBs can possibly include scripts and interactivity. Which could make things quite interesting.

Interactive formats abound. In fact, PDFs can include some interactivity. But, as mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of room for improvement in interactive content. In part, creation tools could be “democratized”.

Which gets me thinking about recent discussions over the fate of HyperCard. While I understand John Gruber’s longstanding position, I find room for HyperCard-like tools. Like some others, I even had some hopes for ATX-based TileStack (an attempt to bring HyperCard stacks back to life, online). And I could see some HyperCard thinking in an alternative to both Flash and PDF.

“Huh?”, you ask?

Well, yes. It may sound strange but there’s something about HyperCard which could make sense in the longer term. Especially if we get away from the print model behind PDFs and the interaction model behind Flash. And learning objects might be the ideal context for this.

Part of this is about hyperlinking.  It’s no secret that HyperCard was among HTML precursors. As the part of HTML which we just take for granted, hyperlinking is among the most undervalued features of online content. Sure, we understand the value of sharing links on social networking systems. And there’s a lot to be said about bookmarking. In fact, I’ve been thinking about social bookmarking and I have a wishlist about sharing tools, somewhere. But I’m thinking about something much more basic: hyperlinking is one of the major differences between online and offline wriiting.

Think about the differences between, say, a Wikibook and a printed textbook. My guess is that most people would focus on the writing style, tone, copy-editing, breadth, reviewing process, etc. All of these are relevant. In fact, my sociology classes came up with variations on these as disadvantages of the Wikibook over printed textbooks. Prior to classroom discussion about these differences, however, I mentioned several advantages of the Wikibook:

• Cover bases
• Straightforward
• Open Access
• Editable
• Linked

(Strangely enough, embedded content from iWork.com isn’t available and I can’t log into my iWork.com account. Maybe it has to do with Thursday’s announcement?)

That list of advantages is one I’ve been using since I started to use this Wikibook… excerpt for the last one. And this is one which hit me, recently, as being more important than the others.

So, in class, I talked about the value of links and it’s been on my mind quite a bit. Especially in view of textbooks. And critical thinking.

See, academic (and semi-academic) writing is based on references, citations, quotes. English-speaking academics are likely to be the people in the world of publishing who cite the most profusely. It’s not rare for a single paragraph of academic writing in English to contain ten citations or more, often stringed in parentheses (Smith 1999, 2005a, 2005b; Smith and Wesson 1943, 2010). And I’m not talking about Proust-style paragraphs either. I’m convinced that, with some quick searches, I could come up with a paragraph of academic writing which has less “narrative content” than citation.

Textbooks aren’t the most egregious example of what I’d consider over-citing. But they do rely on citations quite a bit. As I work more specifically on textbook content, I notice even more clearly the importance of citations. In fact, in my head, I started distinguishing some patterns in textbook content. For instance, there are sections which mostly contain direct explanations of key concepts while other sections focus on personal anecdotes from the authors or extended quotes from two sides of the debate. But one of the most obvious sections are summaries from key texts.

For instance (hypothetical example):

As Nora Smith explained in her 1968 study Coming Up with Something to Say, the concept of interpretation has a basis in cognition.

…

Smith (1968: 23) argued that Pierce’s interpretant had nothing to do with theatre.

These citations are less conspicuous than they’d be in peer-reviewed journals. But they’re a central part of textbook writing. One of their functions should be to allow readers (undergraduate students, mostly) to learn more about a topic. So, when a student wants to know more about Nora Smith’s reading of Pierce, she “just” have to locate Smith’s book, go to the right page, scan the text for the read for the name “Pierce”, and read the relevant paragraph. Nothing to it.

Compare this to, say, a blogpost. I only cite one text, here. But it’s linked instead of being merely cited. So readers can quickly know more about the context for what I’m discussing before going to the library.

Better yet, this other blogpost of mine is typical of what I’ve been calling a linkfest, a post containing a large number of links. Had I put citations instead of links, the “narrative” content of this post would be much less than the citations. Basically, the content was a list of contextualized links. Much textbook content is just like that.

In my experience, online textbooks are citation-heavy and take almost no benefit from linking. Oh, sure, some publisher may replace citations with links. But the result would still not be the same as writing meant for online reading because ex post facto link additions are quite different from link-enhanced writing. I’m not talking about technological determinism, here. I’m talking about appropriate tool use. Online texts can be quite different from printed ones and writing for an online context could benefit greatly from this difference.

In other words, I care less about what tools publishers are likely to use to create online textbooks than about a shift in the practice of online textbooks.

So, if Apple comes out with content-creation tools on Thursday (which sounds likely), here are some of my wishes:

• Use of open standards like HTML5 and EPUB (possibly a combination of the two).
• Completely cross-platform (should go without saying, but Apple’s track record isn’t that great, here).
• Open Access.
• Link library.
• Voice support.
• Mobile creation tools as powerful as desktop ones (more like GarageBand than like iWork).
• HyperCard-style emphasis on hyperlinked structures (à la “mini-site” instead of web archives).
• Focus on rich interaction (possibly based on the SproutCore web framework).
• Replacement for iWeb (which is being killed along with MobileMe).
• Ease creation of lecturecasts.
• Deep integration with iTunes U.
• Combination of document (à la Pages or Word), presentation (à la Keynote or PowerPoint), and standalone apps (à la The Elements or even Myst).
• Full support for course management systems.
• Integration of textbook material and ancillary material (including study guides, instructor manuals, testbanks, presentation files, interactive quizzes, glossaries, lesson plans, coursenotes, etc.).
• Outlining support (more like OmniOutliner or even like OneNote than like Keynote or Pages).
• Mindmapping support (unlikely, but would be cool).
• Whiteboard support (both in-class and online).
• Collaboration features (à la Adobe Connect).
• Support for iCloud (almost a given, but it opens up interesting possibilities).
• iWork integration (sounds likely, but still in my wishlist).
• Embeddable content (à la iWork.com).
• Stability, ease of use, and low-cost (i.e., not Adobe Flash or Acrobat).
• Better support than Apple currently provides for podcast production and publishing.
• More publisher support than for iBooks.
• Geared toward normal users, including learners and educators.

The last three are probably where the problem lies. It’s likely that Apple has courted textbook publishers and may have convinced them that they should up their game with online textbooks. It’s clear to me that publishers risk to fall into oblivion if they don’t wake up to the potential of learning content. But I sure hope the announcement goes beyond an agreement with publishers.

Rumour has it that part of the announcement might have to do with bypassing state certification processes, in the US. That would be a big headline-grabber because the issue of state certification is something of wedge issue. Could be interesting, especially if it means free textbooks (though I sure hope they won’t be ad-supported). But that’s much less interesting than what could be done with learning content.

“User-generated content” may be one of the core improvements in recent computing history, much of which is relevant for teaching. As fellow anthro Mike Wesch has said:

We’ll  need to rethink a few things…

And Wesch sure has been thinking about learning.

Problem is, publishers and “user-generated content” don’t go well together. I’m guessing that it’s part of the reason for Apple’s insufficient support for “user-generated content”. For better or worse, Apple primarily perceives its users as consumers. In some cases, Apple sides with consumers to make publishers change their tune. In other cases, it seems to be conspiring with publishers against consumers. But in most cases, Apple fails to see its core users as content producers. In the “collective mind of Apple”, the “quality content” that people should care about is produced by professionals. What normal users do isn’t really “content”. iTunes U isn’t an exception, those of us who give lectures aren’t Apple’s core users (even though the education market as a whole has traditionally being an important part of Apple’s business). The fact that Apple courts us underlines the notion that we, teachers and publishers (i.e. non-students), are the ones creating the content. In other words, Apple supports the old model of publishing along with the old model of education. Of course, they’re far from alone in this obsolete mindframe. But they happen to have several of the tools which could be useful in rethinking education.

Thursday’s events is likely to focus on textbooks. But much more is needed to shift the balance between publishers and learners. Including a major evolution in podcasting.

Podcasting is especially relevant, here. I’ve often thought about what Apple could do to enhance podcasting for learning. Way beyond iTunes U. Into something much more interactive. And I don’t just mean “interactive content” which can be manipulated seamless using multitouch gestures. I’m thinking about the back-and-forth of learning and teaching, the conversational model of interactivity which clearly distinguishes courses from mere content.

As far as I can remember, much of our discussion had to do with stereotypes. But I remember saying something as if it were common-knowledge yet clearly wasn’t: that Germans were “known” for great movies.

At the time, I probably hadn’t seen many German movies. Even today, I can’t really say that I’ve watched a lot of German movies. At the time, I was probably reacting from having watched or even heard of a single German movie. Come to think of it, it may even have been based on an Austrian movie I had seen something about. In other words, my statement wasn’t based on a true appreciation but on a vague impression which surprised those with whom I shared it.

Since that time, I seem to have developed an appreciation for German movies. Again, not that I’ve seen so many of them. But those I’ve watched I usually enjoyed.

Several of them came back through my mind as I was playing TRAUMA. Not that the game directly referred to any of these movies. But the game’s visuals did trigger my reminiscence.

So, a very short list of some German movies I’ve enjoyed.

1. Lola rennt (Run Lola Run)
2. Im Juli (In July)
3. Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire)
4. Erleuchtung garantiert (Enlightenment Guaranteed)
5. Bella Martha (Mostly Martha)

Yup, just five films. Of course, I could list many more French or Québécois movies I’ve liked. Thing is, I can hardly remember another German movie. In other words, it feels as though I have never watched a German movie that I didn’t enjoy. And there are some movies I haven”t seen but that I’d probably enjoy, such as Good Bye Lenin!

Not that there’s anything specific about German movies. As a kid, I probably believed in a sort of “national character” but my training in anthropology got it out of me before I watched most of these movies. But it doesn’t mean that there’s nothing common between those movies. Or that I’m not constructing my own “reading” of German movies on these few examples.

For one thing, it’s quite likely that German movies which are released outside of Germany have some specific features. Chances are, there are plenty of movies in Germany which never get released outside and these may differ quite a lot from what I recognize a German movie to be. After all, I’m not including in my short list the variety of movies in which Germans were involved through coproduction. And all of these movies are about some place in Germany, the same way stereotypical Irish songs (those created in North America) have to do with places in Ireland.

So I end up with a skewed, fragmentary, and artificial view of German movies from just a few examples. What’s funny about it is that, based on my experience with TRAUMA (as well as with a few German TV shows), my bias continues to affect my perception of other German productions.

Had I not been trained in anthropology, I might not perceive the severe limits of my views on German culture. In fact, because German Romanticism has been so important in the history of my discipline, my limited experience of filmic Germany clashes with different encounters with the complexities behind German identity and cultural awareness.

Maybe it just means that I should go spend a little while in Germany. I hear they have good beer.