KI Future of Publishing Report 5 11 2015

SAMI Consulting Ltd, The Rectory, 1 Toomers’ Wharf, Canal Walk, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 1DY, UK.
Phone +44 (0)1635 36971 e-mail info@samiconsulting.co.uk
THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING
Workshop Report 5th November, 2015
Debra Fox
debra.fox@knowledge-insights.com
In collaboration with:
SAMI Consulting, Knowledge Insights, and the Unlocking Foresight Hub
Tricia Lustig, LASA Development
Gill Ringland, SAMI Consulting

The Future of Publishing
1
Report Contents
Report Contents......................................................................................................................................1
Background .............................................................................................................................................2
Agenda ....................................................................................................................................................2
Study funded by Innovate UK, done by SAMI on The Future of publishing found:............................2
Unlocking Foresight Hub is first customer of Knowledge Insights......................................................2
Planning the Future.............................................................................................................................2
Foresight Yields Insight .......................................................................................................................3
............................................................................................................................................................3
Introduction to Causal Layered Analysis.............................................................................................3
The Workshop.........................................................................................................................................5
Publishing Challenges .........................................................................................................................5
LITANY.................................................................................................................................................6
SYSTEMS & INSTITUTIONS ..................................................................................................................7
WORLDVIEW & PARADIGMS...............................................................................................................8
MYTHS & METAPHORS........................................................................................................................8
Going back up the model........................................................................................................................9
“Ignorance is power.” .........................................................................................................................9
Group 1- A world where the intelligentsia form an underground movement:..................................9
Group 2 - A world where you only need to access the latest application:.......................................10
Group 3 - A world where knowledge is criminalised:.......................................................................10
Reflection..............................................................................................................................................11
Revisit your Challenges:....................................................................................................................11
Next Steps:........................................................................................................................................11
Insight: ..............................................................................................................................................11
Post Workshop Feedback: ................................................................................................................11
Appendix ...............................................................................................................................................12
Participants .......................................................................................................................................12
Further Resources:............................................................................................................................12

2
Background
The workshop on the Future of Publishing was hosted by Z/Yen at their offices just by the Guildhall
in the City of London. The seminar was divided into an introduction to Bite Sized Publishing followed
by three sessions using Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) to enable participants to explore the current
paradigms around publishing. Causal Layered Analysis helps groups to identify the paradigms and
world views upon which their industry is based allowing them to explore what is possible in the
future if paradigms are changed. The first two sessions consisted of a short briefing followed by
participants working together to develop ideas as they use the tool. In the final session closed with
sharing insights.
Agenda
1. Introduction to Bite Sized Publishing and the Unlocking Foresight Hub – Gill Ringland
2. Setting the context for Foresight and the Causal Layer Analysis tool example – Tricia Lustig
3. Uncovering existing paradigms, explore what change could mean to the future of publishing
4. Reflection and a chance to discuss with peers (captured in this short report)
Study funded by Innovate UK, done by SAMI on The Future of publishing found:
– Many publishers wedded to “book” or “e-book”
– “Crate rather than the contents”
– Many other organisations publish and are seeing new potential, e.g. membership
associations, consultancies, corporates…
– Customer focus, content from a range of sources, on any device, when they want it
– Set up Knowledge Insights to implement
Unlocking Foresight Hub is first customer of Knowledge Insights
1. Mission: to enable and encourage leaders to use Strategic Foresight to improve their
decision making and organisational viability into the future.
2. Foresight is defined as “knowledge or insight gained by or as by looking forward; a view of
the future”.
3. Unlocking Foresight Content in Professional Associations, Consultancies with access:
 like iTunes for information = bite sized
 on the device of your choice
 when and where you want
Planning the Future
We have an opportunity to shape the future, but we have to take it – our choices matter. The future
is very much a matter of vision and choice.
Foresight is not prediction or forecasting; it looks at a range of potential futures based on emerging
trends that we see today and the uncertainty about how these trends may unfold over time.

3
Foresight Yields Insight
Introduction to Causal Layered Analysis
Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) was developed by Sohail Inayatullah1
. He felt that the growing complexity
people face means that we need to examine futures from many different perspectives and levels. CLA
was therefore developed to work on a number of levels and to help examine issues from many different
perspectives, opening out people’s thinking. CLA can unearth deep cultural structures as you work your
way through the layers; it is easy to see and immediately apparent. Here’s an example of Causal Layered
Analysis (CLA) courtesy of Marcus Bussey, University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia:
1
To see Sohail Inayatullah talk about his work and some case studies, see his TEDx talk: www.bit.ly/tpSF09

4
Litany
It starts with the Litany -– the stories people tell about the way things work around here, the headlines
you see in the press, the things people gossip about or see on social media. It is the level of your busy
world where you look at the natural and social events that occur from day to day. This means you are
talking about your current operating assumptions. Often the first port of call at this level is to throw more
money at the perceived problem.
Systems and Institutions
Going a level deeper, you focus on the Systems and Institutions around you, you look at – and analyse –
them in order to understand the causes of the Litany. You look at how we collectively fix and maintain
things as well as how we build things. So, there are wider (and deeper) systemic causes for the initial
presenting problem. At this level you can begin to see that money isn’t the only key to fixing things;
actually it goes deeper – systems and relationships will need to change too.
Worldviews
Delving yet deeper, you uncover the Worldview – the values and knowledge that underpin the
institutions and systems of our world. At this level of CLA you are looking at uncovering paradigms and
exploring how language interacts with and frames a particular issue, perhaps even contributing to or
causing it.
Myths/Metaphors
Finally you look at the deep stories we tell each other, what is called the Myths/Metaphors level. This is
found in personal and collective stories about the world that underpin current worldviews2
.
As you go down the model, the timeframes get longer and longer. Working with a challenging
myth/metaphor, you work your way back up the model to gain insight and create alternative views
of potential futures.
2
Lustig, P. (2015) Strategic Foresight, Triarchy Press, www.triarchypress.net/foresight. Used with permission

5
The Workshop
There were 16 participants from various backgrounds (see appendix) using the Causal Layered
Analysis (CLA) Futures Tool to explore the paradigms around publishing in the broadest sense – the
meaning being that of making information and content public. These are the challenges people
thought existed for publishing:
Publishing Challenges
o Industry supply chain (middle men)
o Content moving from print to digital
o Offering cost-effective translation
o Boring flat print loses against sexiness
of interactive digital media
o Digital archiving and longevity risks
o Helping authors adapt to new forms
of content
o Breaking stranglehold of content
creators
o How to prevent commercial misuse of
copyright law to the detriment of
authors / creators
o Discovery / invention of new channels
o Finding exactly what I want
o Finding reputable content
o Content marketing is over-hyped and
skews the content landscape
o How do I protect my IP?
o Reaching the audience with what they
want in a timely way
o Publish more speedily
o Engaging with editors in different
time zones
o The length of time from submission to
publication
o Keeping the editor-in-chief engaged
with timelines
o Can I publish myself without a third
party?
o Free content culture
o Challenge of increasing free content
o Fragmentation – too many actors
o The continued rise of the internet
o How can I get people to respond?
o Change in customer behaviour
o Digitisation of back catalogue
o Technology
o How can I make sure I’m publishing
something new?
o Understanding finding quality
o Making complex issues digestible and
understood with decreasing attention
spans
o How do I access readers?
o Getting content to the right people
o Monetising content
o So much is free
o The format in which content is
published (typically flat PDF)
o Literacy / universal comprehension
o Everyone can publish content
o Overload (strategy bulleting daily….)
(Stanford alumni daily….)
o Pricing
o Moving from strategy of creating
value to harvesting it from network
o Comparative cost advantage of
delivering digital versus printed media
o Monetising back catalogue
o Political correctness / orthodoxy /
‘social’ censorship
o Encouraging users to access the
content
o How can I get people to read my
stuff?
o Allowing the providers / authors to
say what they want
o Providing access to publications (both
hard and e-copy)

6
LITANY
o Distinguishing content with an agenda
from neutral
o Hard to find what I want
o What is it that editors do anyway?
o Content curation is required
o “Tl:dr” (too long: didn’t read)
o Novelty, Fashion, Vanity, Fads,
Uncertainty, Audience, book,
copyright,
o Internet driven by advertising
o Too much everywhere
o Too much poor quality stuff
o Too much content – how to identify
the “good stuff”
o So easy to get your great novel out
there
o Find things faster in physical book
o Nest for holidays
o Still like the feel of a book
o The compensation I received for
publishing isn’t worth it
o Ease of access online – to buy – to
read
o Too much information available
o Everything is so commercial
o Look it up on YouTube or Google it
o Overflow of stuff out there: most no
quality
o It’s a whole experience and choice
(e.g. cookbooks, how to video, online
recipes etc.)
o Content no longer just locked into a
book
o Disintermediation
o No money in it (supplier view)
o Changing value proposition
o “Copyleft” (with attribution)
o Comparatively expensive in hard copy
o Total convenience of interconnected
online info
o Dangerous consolidation of channels
o Supply chain, not effective
o If it doesn’t contribute to my tenure,
I’m not interested
o Marketing, 2-Way, Social Media,
Digital, Search engines
o Heterogeneous multi-media
o Revolution
o Mass collaboration
o Print is out date (dead)
o Piracy
o New channels
o Newspapers dumbing down ( aka
buzzfeed)
o Why can’t we have early CITE?
o Kids don’t read anymore
o Ease of finding “stuff”
o Our content is heavily text – bored –
we want to deliver it in a different
ways
o Too difficult to make money
o Expensive
o Open access will not work in our
territory
o Expect that digital content should be
free / cheap
o Monetising content is difficult
o Producer – Consumer dialogue
o Internet enables free speech
o Censorship by all means
o Democratisation

7
SYSTEMS & INSTITUTIONS
o Aspirations (dream of getting your
ideas recognised)
o Academics must publish
o Most self-publishing no monetary
value
o BBC
o Transmedia – consumer – producer
link
o Back & forth across media – book –
TV – games – books series, story arcs
o Internet
o Advertising industry
o Libraries
o Marginal cost of additional units zero
o E book providers
o Google
o YouTube, Vimeo, Reddit, Imgur
o Microsoft 7 OS and Apple
o Easier to satisfy aspirations
o Publishing bigger – easier access
everywhere means spur of the
moment reading is classless
o Layout / graphic design experts
o Reviews, reviewers, quality and
reputations, from single point and
local to crowd sourced and global.
o Literacy
o Financial resources
o Marketing and advertising
o Amazon
o Spotify
o YouTube
o ITunes
o Publishers
o Academic review
o Peer review
o Hive
o A publisher / commissioning editor
takes a considered risk, makes
investment to make profit and adds/
creates value
o Supply chain has parts that don’t add
value – non fragmented
o Bite sized
o Education- reading & writing & video?
o Re-invention – How do publishers add
value today? And all in chain?
o People now trying to do all parts of
supply themselves.
DISINTERMEDIATION
o Record labels
o Private enterprise
o Film distributors
o Creative commons
o Print content converted to other
media (more money made from other
media than print)
o Commission content not books
o Call for papers
o Peer review
o Reviewers
o Curation
o Government – law- public info. –
censorship
o Retailers
o Printing
o Book shops
o Archivists
o News aggregators – Reuters /
Bloomberg
o Zeitgeist
o Film studios
o Commissioning traditional supply
chain
o Machine based recommendation
o Clear author – reader divide
o Printing industry
o A & R
o Newspapers
o Paper and ink manufacturers

8
WORLDVIEW & PARADIGMS
o CRIMINALITY (black market in
knowledge)
o Digital technology will change the
world
o Better informed you are, the better
your decisions
o Can you define “publishing”?
o Author not necessarily the exert
o Publisher’s capitalise on author’s
need for self- actualisation (Maslow)
o Vanity publishing more ubiquitous,
less looked down upon
o Publish to get your “voice” heard
o More choice now – do it on the
internet
o Publishing no longer seen as a highly
regarded profession
o Getting something published raises
“author’s esteem, status and
reputation
o Publishing is about influence
information
o Is about ideas
o Is for profit
o New dis-intermediated business
models
o Disseminates the word(s) of
God/Allah /…
o Dis-informing/misinforming
o More knowledge make world more
dangerous
o Move knowledge spread around
makes things better
o Distance-independent communication
of know ledge efficiently
o API economy public A>I> software
o Data is owned, IP can be bought
o Machine – based curation
o Slander vs Libel
MYTHS & METAPHORS
o books are about learning and intellect
o author as hero (solitary)
o book is a wealth, source, treasured in
Nepal
o freedom of the press
o Pygmalion
o “you could read him/her like a book
o “digital storage is safe” Vincent Gerf
o “Would you allow you’re (wife / child
/ servant) read this book?”
o Myth of omniscient author
“everything on the internet is true”
o “Publish and be damned!”
o Book is scary if you can’t read
o Book is permanence
o Fahrenheit 457 myth book burning/
banning can stop spread of
knowledge
o The notion of the great work
o There is a truth
o Myth that an old book / work is a
classic
o Books so valuable we look them up –
making them inaccessible
o The truth will set you free
o “In the beginning was the word”
o “Books are a load of crap” Phillip
Larkin
o Knowledge is power
o Publishing is about making public
o Reporter as hero. The Scoop
o Publishing is glamorous
o Books can be powerful and dangerous
o The law only exists if you believe in it
o The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy
o “The Great Author” is part of the
mythology
o A book is something valuable
o All the world’s a stage

Going back up the CLA model
To get the best results with CLA, you need to get multiple cultures into the room with you as you
work through the levels. Since we were not a very diverse group, we turned a myth/metaphor on its
head. If we had sufficient diversity we could instead have picked a myth that was particularly
challenging to the group and worked with that. In this case, the myth we chose was;
“Knowledge is power.”
We turned it on its head and worked with its opposite
“Ignorance is power.”
In the three groups we worked through the whole sequence providing three alternative views to a
future where “Ignorance is power.” Initially the groups struggled slightly to understand what kind of
a world would believe that “Ignorance is Power”:
Group 1- A world where the intelligentsia form an underground movement:
Worldviews and Metaphors:
o Educated people are powerless, marginalised, form underground culture “samizdat”
o People like sharing knowledge “knowledge will find a way”
o Firewalling knowledge- turning back the clock
o Publishing under sway of mob mentality
o Tight control required to prevent info from suspect sources contaminating society
o “Buzzfeed” news & literature models
Systems and Institutions:
o Peer reviewed academic journals become Facebook reviewed ‘TL:DR’
o Crowd Sourced “buzz” direct to media
o Paparazzi
o Daily “Top10” lists
o “Happy Tractor” you are told what to think, boundaries of thought
o Collapse of society of ignorance from antibiotic resistant diseases
o “collective forgetfulness”
o Samizdat block chain – encrypted pamphlets
o New pamphleteer movement, underground coffee shops, growth bizi manual typewriters
o Dissemination from info underground. Project loom and new internet. REDDIT
o Robin Hoods of information, steal from the wise, send to the poor
Litany:
“Just found this great cache of old book.” “Do you know anyone who can open .docx files? I just
found the original article drafts of…” “Buzzfeed- two decades of outstanding loss in dumbing down.”
“Challenge to publish individual: deal with archiving; make easy to use apps; flames of
enlightenment in dystopian society.”

Group 2 - A world where you only need to access the latest application:
Worldviews and Paradigms:
o Education not necessary, just know how to access; get the app
o The internet of things, what I need, when I need it – no need to LEARN (e.g. no need to plan
just get in the car and enter the postcode)
o Rely on and trust the tools, apps, technology, don’t have to think.
o No blame – I didn’t know – no responsibility
o No need to learn – can access it immediately
o No need to share info
o Ignorance is the network (Uber, Airbnb)
o Bite-sized video content
o Context is king (audio for all, video elsewhere, text dead)
o Death of books, no one wants a continuous narrative
o Lynda.com
o Everything is tuned into a game
o The app is king (codifying information)
o Virtual worlds that are entertaining (x-factor)
Litany:
“No news because we don’t need to know”. “If you are a knowledge workers you’re lowly and can’t
afford the app”. “Artificial Intelligence in my fridge broken so I’ve got nothing to eat”. “Artificial
Intelligence runs our lives”. “We can’t all be Uber drivers all of the time”. “Wall – E”. “Amazing apps
– sharing the latest”. “Nothing is hard or difficult – we all are hedonistic”.
Group 3 - A world where knowledge is criminalised:
Worldviews and Metaphors:
o Publishing is evil
o Unlearning
o Constantly amazed
o Child-like creativity
o Trial and error make it work
o Governance with precedence
o Governance, but not as we know it
o Absence of institutions
o CRIMINALITY (black market in knowledge)
Litany:
“Too clever by half”. “Knowledge is witchcraft / wizardry – evil”. “Taliban / Khmer Rouge”. “Prisons
are places of solitary confinement until they reach state of ignorance is bliss”. “Sensual Art –
emotional reaction with economic value”. “Criminals establishing schools”

Reflection
Revisit your Challenges:
 Has anything changed?
 Are there other challenges you’ve become aware of?
 Have some challenges disappeared?
 What other new worldviews can you imagine might emerge for publishing?
Next Steps:
 Which of these are the low-hanging fruit?
o Easily implement within the next quarter?
o Implement cheaply?
o Already have the skills to implement?
o Staff or customers already enthused?
 Which of these ideas could potentially transform the industry?
o Change the game entirely
o Open up new markets
Insight:
• Personal?
• For your part of the industry?
• Publishing-wide?
Post Workshop Feedback:
Ian Harris, Z-yen - I very much enjoyed the afternoon, and found it very thought-provoking:
“On the publishing ideas and your nascent venture, one aspect that came to my mind that evening was
the complete absence of discussion around the second hand market in published artefacts. It occurred
to me, as I sat down in my own living room, how many of my books were in fact second hand, many of
which having been purchased on “hunting missions to Hay-on-Wye” – a behaviour I engaged in
regularly back in the day which seems archaic now that I am a few clicks away from almost any second
hand book from the comfort of my own living room. Similarly, my old vinyl records (and even many of
my CDs) were acquired more through my local second hand recorded music shops than through
buying stuff first hand. Indeed, thinking back further, much of my reading for the first 25 to 30 years of
my life was done through library books; I often go to the shelf to get a novel or play I remember reading
when younger, only to remember that I never owned that one. I’m sure that many of my friends who,
like me, were from backgrounds with modest means but educational aspirations, behaved similarly.
I’m not sure whether your nascent venture really is the digital replacement for those behaviours. Nor
am I sure whether the socio-economic demographics are equivalent (I suspect that they are), but I
suspect these factors are important and that your nascent venture needs to provide “relatively low
cost/subsidised cost” access to knowledge that impecunious people want/need, while also (this is the
wonder of the digital era) a conduit for those people to upscale their use through your service once
they are better off and/or working for organisations that can afford to pay a better rate.“
Overall participants enjoyed the event and particularly the opportunity for reflection with a group of
colleagues which provoked some interesting thoughts around the challenges that people in
publishing and the wider publishing industry are facing.

Appendix
Participants
Cathy Dunn, Mosaic Learning Solutions
Chris Wallis, Crowd Emotion
Debra Fox, Knowledge Insights
Gill Ringland, Knowledge Insights
Huw Williams, Sami Consulting
Ian Harris, Z-yen
Jonathan Soar, Restoration Partners
Lizzie Hall, Emerald Group Publishing
Martin Hazell, Simplexity
Megan Hardeman, Emerald Group Publishing
Lindsay O’Conner, The Law Society
Richard Burton, Infinite Ideas
Tom Christie-Miller, IOD
Tony Diggle, SAMI Consulting
Tricia Lustig, LASA Development
Wendy Schultz, Infinite Futures
Further Resources:
Emerging Trends in publishing: http://www.pearltrees.com/t/emerging-
trends/publishing/id7377862 courtesy of LASA Development.
Knowledge Insights: http://www.knowledge-insights.com
LASA Development: http://www.lasadev.com
SAMI Consulting: http://www.samiconsulting.co.uk
Unlocking Foresight: http://unlocking-foresight.tizrapublisher.com/
Strategic Foresight Book: Learning from the Future www.triarchypress.net/foresight

KI Future of Publishing Report 5 11 2015

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