This is a comment added by Mr. Charles Wilkes to my post the other day about a source for 20,000+ free eBooks. I don’t know if I kin to Mr. Wilkes (I am closely related to lots and lots of Wilkes), but I hope I am just like him when I’m 82:

I got my Kindle last Dec. 4th, love it more and more every day, and now have over 600 books in my directory storedon my 8 GB memory card, with enough room left for more than 10,000 more. But I have thousands of paper books — over half hard bound — that I no longer want, and will never try to read again. I do want my heavily colored illustrated books, since my Kindle cannot replace those — how I wish it could, but it can’t.

My problem then is how do I reduce my regular books which are truly a burden in my home. Obviously I would like to sell as many as possible of these for at least something, or all that I can. I guess there is always EBAY and other auction sites, but they are a lot of work to set up to sell, and then deliver via the mails. And this is not as easy as it once was, since I’m now 82 years old. What I really hate to consider is that under current practices, these will some day end up in a land fill or recycle bins. They contain the knowledge of this world, and many many young people really need access to this, and what with the closing of school libraries and financial problems in supporting public libraries, this is getting harder and harder for them to obtain.

So if any of you have any better ideas of how to give these books a more extended life amont those who would really read and appreciate these, please give me your ideas. I am sure many are in the same position.

Any advice to Mr. Wilkes?

Over the years, it’s been fascinating to watch the light turn on for certain people regarding what’s taking place in the marketplace of “content” (excuse me, Doc). For example, today, Paul Krugman writes an “a-ha” piece after using an Amazon Kindle for a couple of months.

Quote:

“Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors’ other activities, such as live readings with paid admission. Well, if it was good enough for Charles Dickens, I guess it’s good enough for me.

Whenever I read something like that, I have to take a deep breath and admit to myself that not everyone has spent the past 20 years obsessed with this topic. Whenever I read something like that, I wish I had a place to point people to a few seminal writings that have provided similar a-ha-moments to really geeky folks (like me) — but a long time ago.

If you have some more writings that provided an a-ha moment to you, please add them to the comments.

Here are a few of my go-to ones:

1. The Esther Dyson essay, “Intellectual Value,” written in the July, 1995, issue of Wired magazine. (Krugman quotes Dyson in his piece today, but does not link to it.) Go ahead, commit it to memory. It’s like the Gettysburg Address.

2. The book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, grew from this now “read-only landmark website.” (Here’s a place to read the book for free.) It pretty much foresees everything that marketing is becoming. It’s like when Luther nailed his 95 theses to that door in Wittenburg.

3. While not a specific article, I find myself referring often to the concept Paul Saffo coined “macro-myopia.” It relates to forecasting the impact of new technology and means, roughly, “in the short term we overestimate, in the long term we underestimate” the impact of new technology. This is an idea I’ve written about several times over the years (on the Cluetrain listserv in 2000, here in 2002 and in 2004 when Paul explained his role in adding to a concept developed by Roy Amara, Ev Rogers and others. The importance of the concept today is this: When those of us who are obsessed with technology see something that we know is going to change everything, we delude ourselves into thinking the change will be overnight. Technology adoption has a very predictable cycle and even those technologies that look like instant hits are likely catching a wave that was two-decades in the building.

Two bonus long reads for those who find comfort in realizing all these new ideas have been around a long, long time.:

4. The 1945 article, “As We May Think,” by Vannevar Bush (synopsis).

5. The Machine Stops, a 1909 science fiction novella (12,000 words) by E.M. Forster.

One of Nashville’s great business leaders, Bobby Mathews, passed away yesterday. (Coverage in NashvillePost.com and The Tennessean).

This quote from NashvillePost.com captures his role in the development of Nashville:

“Besides building a family, he helped build the city of Nashville. There hasn’t been much in Nashville over the past half-century that Mathews wasn’t involved in either building or renovating.”

A lot will be written about his role in building (and preserving) many of the buildings and developments that have transformed the city, while embracing its past. However, I’d like to add a word about the first part of the quote — the “building a family” part. My wife and I, along with our children, have many close friendships among the children and grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. Mathews. Our thoughts and sympathies are with them today.

Mr. Mathews passed on his legacy of love for Nashville to his children — and to all those who experienced his zeal for the city’s past and promise — including me. Today, many Nashvillians, because of his leadership and influence and passion, carry on the commitment to his civic vision. He will be missed, but his lasting contributions to Nashville will be with us for the ages.

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