Shelf of my notebooks (1/2 dozen more somewhere)

After my last post, I started thinking about all of the pieces of my personal information system.  It turns out that it is surprisingly complicated.  I have tried many social media services, online information services and quite a few desktop personal information products.  I have abandoned a lot of them because they take more time and energy than they are worth.  Some I have abandoned include StumbledUpon.com, digg.com, delicious.com (imported to Evernote), filtrbox.com (now owned by Jive), Jigsaw.com, sparknotes.com,  pluck.com, me.dium ( I was an employee at the time), plaxo…

When I thought about how many I have quit using, I started thinking about how much was left. And of course, I made some notes (yes, in the margin of a notebook).  After a couple of minutes, I decided I needed to start over with two full pages. Below is a scan of the map of my Personal Information System–click on it to embiggen. I use RSS feeds (Google Reader) daily and LinkedIn, but they don’t seem to fit because nothing I use integrates well with LinkedIn and articles in my RSS feed that I want to keep become Evernote notes.  It is still pretty complicated but (I think) I currently value all of the pieces.

Dr. Skippy's personal information system

Over half of the responses of those indicating they read ebooks indicate ebooks are read on more than one device.

The top multi-device combinations for 2 and 3 devices are shown below.  Desktop plus iPhone is an important combination for publishers, ebook sellers and device makers to consider in their product plans.

Top three device combinations for users of 2 and 3 devices.

When readers expressed their preferences for using multiple devices and keeping them in sync, they responded consistently with the results above.

Readers value multi-device support.

Readers value synchronization between their devices.

Tagged: Books, Dear Author Survey, eBooks, eReaders ]]> http://blog.drskippy.com/2010/03/24/ebook-readers-want-portability/feed/ 2 drskippy27 Top device combinations Users value multi device support Readers value sychronization between their devices http://blog.drskippy.com/2010/03/22/free-ebook-download-promotions-drive-sales/ http://blog.drskippy.com/2010/03/22/free-ebook-download-promotions-drive-sales/#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:30:54 +0000 Dr. Skippy http://blog.drskippy.com/?p=496 ]]> Dear Author Reader Survey results I posted earlier contain a couple of questions about free eBook promotions.  The survey asks if readers have downloaded a free promotional eBook and whether the promotion prompted them to make purchase.  The results for this audience are clear: they respond to the promotions and they make purchases based on downloads.

EBook promotions and resulting purchases.

EBook promotions and resulting purchases data.

A summary of the survey results can be viewed here.

Of the 2724 responses to the survey,  681 indicated they have illegally downloaded an eBook (25%).  It is difficult to judge from the audience whether this is a greater or smaller proportion than the general population of readers (even defining that is difficult 1+ books per year?).  But the comparison of the two groups within the population that took the survey is interesting.

Here is how the “Illegal Downloaders” compared to the only legal downloaders (I call them “Non-Downloaders” in the charts below.)

Piracy skews young.  The crossover seems to be mid-30s somewhere. More on this point later.

Age distribution of Illegal Downloaders vs. users who do not engage in illegal downloads (Non Downloaders)

Looking at complaints about eBooks, Illegal Downloaders are proportionally less satisfied in every category except the requirements for technical proficiency and “Other.”  Illegal Downloaders are significantly less satisfied with Selection (access to books), eBook Quality and the Ability to share eBooks.  The last is a little surprising since Illegal Downloaders have access to DRM-free versions of the books they downloaded and can share more easily than others–does this indicate they would rather be sharing legally?

Compare eBook complaints Illegal Downloaders vs. only Legal Downloaders (Non Downloaders)

When answering the question about the maximum price for an eBook they would be willing to pay, Illegal Downloaders have nearly the same distribution as Non Downloaders with a slightly higher fraction expressing they would be willing to pay on $5.99 for an eBook.

Compare max price distribution for Illegal Downloaders vs. those who do not engage in illegal downloading of eBooks (Non-Downloaders).

When asked what changes would stop or curtail illegal downloading, Illegal Downloaders expressed that both removal of DRM and a decrease in price would have an effect, while sharing would have less influence. Non Downloaders who answered this question showed that they had the same perceptions based on their imagined downloading influences–I like that they went out on a limb to predict their feelings about their hypothetical behavior.

Compare responses to influences on downloading behavior for Illegal Downloaders and Non Downloaders

Summary

The age distribution poses challenges for the future. There is no reason to think that illegal downloading of eBooks is static generational problem for publishers.  As the population ages, older people will be downloading as much as younger people.  eBook piracy will become a feature of the business landscape for all age groups.

Piracy seems to be about access and content portability.  These complaints mirror the complaints about music.  The quality and portability issues with music are clearing up slowly (e.g. iTunes now sells DRM-free, near CD quality tracks).

Piracy also seems to be about price.  This survey doesn’t seem to indicate a solid floor. While one may be able to price non-DRM or portable eBooks higher than the alternatives, the pressure on naked price seems unrelentingly down. Most readers indicated they believe $9.99 to be a fair eBook price while a higher proportion of Illegal Downloaders  than Non-Downloaders indicated that $5.99 is a fair eBook price.  This survey doesn’t explore readers perceptions of eBook pricing over the life of the book (and there is no “used” eBook market in which to explore that question).

It isn’t clear that the current structure of authors, publishers and book sellers can make it all work well at $9.99 so this seems a real problem of perceived value.  Readers seem to intuitively know that copying eBooks is free (you can get people to volunteer their time and resources to do it) and assume that means that eBooks should be very nearly free as well. But the same might be said for music where track prices seem to be finding some equilibrium between $.89 and $1.29.  eBook pricing seems much more up in the air. We’ll see…

To do something beside coast on the hard work of others, I spent a few nights working up the results from the survey.  My motivation was to dig into the questions about eReader functionality and eBook piracy.  Dear Author was kind enough to give me permission to put some of the results here.  Check in over the next few days for posts on observations conclusions from the survey data.

In the meantime, here are the complete results from the survey.  Enjoy!

Dear Author 2010 Survey Report (pretty charts and such)

If you prefer to see the data at one of the lower levels, visit one of these.

Dear Author 2010 Survey raw data download

Dear Author simple report (mine, text)

Dear Author cross tab (mine, csv)

First, what happens if subsets of the group meet and some of those parties sway others or reach compromises in order to form coalitions?

Second, taking this idea further, can we investigate a variety of decision processes to find an optimal process for a desired outcome and design coalitions in order to reach a desired outcome?  In terms of the example situation,  this is the problem of finding coalitions that will drive a desired result from those we predicted last time.

Again, here is the prediction from the last post:

party     :    Pos        Inf(Norm)    Sal
-----------------------------------------------
d2        :    15        0.03774        80
ctcust    :    35        0.09434        5
ctsal     :    35        0.03774        5
er        :    50        0.01887        20
eng       :    60        0.07547        99
me        :    75        0.15094        99
d1        :    75        0.15094        99
adv       :    100       0.15094        20
legal     :    100       0.13208        95
inv       :    100       0.15094        5
-----------------------------------------------
Position (weighted avg):        76.4
Position (balance of power):    71.7

TABLE 1

To answer the first question, we need to build a simple model that replaces a coalition with a single new entity. In the model, the choice was to add the Influence of the parties of a coalition.  The new position was the weighted average of the positions as described before.  For the Salience, we need to reflect the idea that the most interested party in a coalition will drive the others and use their influence to support the new positions but with some skewing toward their Salience.  To model this simple, replace the new entity’s salience with 20% of the average Salience + 80% of the max Salience.  Many other choices can be made and explored using the tools here.

To answer the second question, we need a way to generate all of the possible coalitions.  This amounts to generating a set partitioning of all the parties.  TABLE 2 shows a simple example with only 4 parties.

Parties    :     ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']

<<<  15 Partitions  >>>
-----------------------------
[['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']]
[['a', 'b', 'c'], ['d']]
[['a', 'b', 'd'], ['c']]
[['a', 'b'], ['c', 'd']]
[['a', 'b'], ['c'], ['d']]
[['a', 'c', 'd'], ['b']]
[['a', 'c'], ['b', 'd']]
[['a', 'c'], ['b'], ['d']]
[['a', 'd'], ['b', 'c']]
[['a'], ['b', 'c', 'd']]
[['a'], ['b', 'c'], ['d']]
[['a', 'd'], ['b'], ['c']]
[['a'], ['b', 'd'], ['c']]
[['a'], ['b'], ['c', 'd']]
[['a'], ['b'], ['c'], ['d']]

TABLE 2

For 10 parties, there are 115,974 games to play out.  (See Donald Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming Vol 4 F3).  You can download output of all 115,974 games.  The interesting games are the extremes: the game that results in the maximum position and the one that results in the minimum position.

Game A
maxPos : 83.22147
party                           :    Pos        Inf(Norm)    Sal
----------------------------------------------------------------
eng                             :    60        0.07547        99
_d1+d2_                         :    64        0.18868        95
_er+me_                         :    74        0.16981        83
_adv+ctcust+ctsal+inv+legal_    :    97        0.56604        77
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Position (weighted avg):    83.2
Position (balance of power):    77.1

(Game # : 2089)

Game B
minPos : 66.27527
party                    :    Pos        Inf(Norm)    Sal
------------------------------------------------------------
_ctcust+ctsal+d2+inv_    :    32        0.32075        65
_d1+eng+me_              :    72        0.37736        99
_er+legal_               :    98        0.15094        80
adv                      :    100       0.15094        20
------------------------------------------------------------
Position (weighted avg):    66.3
Position (balance of power):    51.2

(Game # : 47615)

TABLE 3

In Game A, a coalition of d1+d2 and er+me results in the most extreme high-number position. The final position realized was 100 and these two coalitions were instrumental in the outcome.  To design for to most extreme high position, these are the coalitions to nurture.

In this case, however, d2, the biggest stakeholder in the low-number position, would have achieved more of their goals had they designed the decision process around the coalitions shown in Game B.  By building a relatively strong coalition around ctcust+ctsal+d2+inv and a diffusive coalition around er+legal, a much lower position is achieved.

There is a second hint here too.  If the decision process could be more focused on Balance of Power rather than a salience/influence weighted average, a position of around 50 might be reached.   This might be done, for example, by getting all the parties to agree to a final vote with 1 vote per person, winning position takes all votes, then voting in rounds sequentially through the coalitions of Game B top to bottom.

Download the Python model modules: MultiPlayerGame.py MultiPlayerNegotiationsModel.py Partitioner.py

The first things I read when leafing through BBS was the research on the genes one needs to build a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger used to have. It turns out that we can currently identify 4.  This means that there of some variations in genetic disposition to build large muscles with people having all four in the “on” position having a clear, measurable advantage when it comes to building muscle. This knowledge undermines much of the current body building industry–if you don’t have the genes, there is not workout regime, personal trainer, magical powdered drink or incantation that will make you grow big muscles. (Steroids appear to be the exception.) Given the constraints, however, most people can become stronger than they are now.  Body by Science tries to answer how that is most effectively done.

After reading the sections on metabolism and muscle growth, it seemed clear that BBS was serious about recommendations based on evidence so I committed to try the workouts. I hate lifting weights.  I learned the high-school “state of the art” 20 years ago, but never really caught the bug.  The routine then was 3 sets with tapering reps 25, 20, 10 or something like that.  Recommendations were to work out 3-5 times per week for 30-45 min and do lots of different exercises.  You need to work out hard and stick with it.

Body by Science starts by recognizing that there are only two phases to muscle growth: first work a muscle very intensely, then rest long enough for the muscle to recover and grow.

“Work” in this case means one set of 9-11 repetitions done very slowly (10+s per rep) with muscle failure coming after about 90 seconds.  Work large muscle groups and use machines (since working to complete failure.) The recommendation is to work only 5 muscle groups during the first 15 weeks.

This means the schedule is to workout for about 23 minutes per week.

Rest means 7-10 days between workouts–that’s 1 or fewer work outs per week. One obstacle to this program is that you don’t feel like you paid your dues. The big advantage is that the investment of time and effort is sustainable.  If progress slows, add a day of rest.

Is the science sound? One anecdote is not evidence that it works for everyone, but it seems to be working for me. I just completed week 10.  Results charted below.

The unanticipated challenge of this system is finding the weight that results in muscle failure at 90-100 seconds.  This is because one’s strength changes quite a lot from week to week.

Percent change in strength

From the percent change chart, it is clear that there are 2 (maybe 3, see below) different growth rates for muscle groups.  The chest and leg muscles gain strength most rapidly, with arms and shoulders growing more slowly.

To give some reference, here are the actual weights moved in the workouts.  As you can see by the very steep rise at the beginning, I started with too light of weights and had to increase a lot the first week to reach failure in less than 12 reps.

Weights (machine) week by week.

One mistake I persisted in was with Pull Downs.  I increased the weight too quickly in week three and didn’t realize how important thorough muscle fatigue is to strength building.  The weight was too heavy and I was only able to do 4-5 reps.  I thought I would improve enough during the week (based on my other exercises) to use the same weight the next week and reach failure in 9 or 10 reps.  But strength didn’t improve nearly enough.  In my last workout, I decided to reduce the weight down to 175 lbs in order to completely fatigue the muscle.  The next few weeks should tell if this diagnosis is correct. If so, the red line should start taking off like the other smaller muscle groups.

On hearing about this experiment, a friend pointed me to an older book with essentially the same message.  Check out The power of ten if you want a second opinion.

Energize Your Heart: In 4 di… Bair, Puran and Susanna
My Name Is Red… Pamuk, Orhan
Open Road, The: The global j… Iyer, Pico
Daemon… Zeraus, Leinad
History of Last Night’s Drea… Kamenetz, Rodger
End of Certainty, The: Time,… Prigogine, Ilya
Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be … Keret, Etgar
Gnostic Gospels, The… Pagels, Elaine
Difference, The: How the pow… Page, Scott E.

Her first and best idea for combating this? She wrote a book: The Age of American Unreason, criticizing what she identifies as a particularly American Hostility to knowledge.  That is an ironic strategy. No one who is hostile to knowledge will read the book.  In fact, the curious and informed (turns out the curious always become informed!) have already noted her point and feel her frustrations. Possibly Ms. Jacoby knows that that moment of empathy and identity will help sell the book?

I have not read the book.  And my to-read stack is so high it is a hazard to pets and visitors to my home, so I may not. I have been overheard lamenting the lack of knowledge, the ignorance-promoting antics of the current administration, etc.  But I have increasing uneasiness with my polemics. 

What is the problem with, for example, college students not being able to find Iraq on a map?  Should they be planning a trip there soon? Or be preparing to make a return trip, in case they are somehow transported there without a map? A World map or globe is quite abstract with its colors and words and lines—I’m guessing none of which are found on the ground in Iraq. Should we be suggesting topo maps instead of globes?

The only way knowing “where” (in the sense of pointing to it on a map) Iraq is located is a practical question is if you believe a number of other abstractions are also practical questions: Who lives near the Iraqis? What do Iraqis eat? Is it cold or hot in the north? Why do they have a mix of religions, ethnic groups? Why the history of episodic intense interest of the US and Great Britain? And so on… 

But these abstractions are only practical in the sense of providing plausible explanations (more abstractions!) for this or that event.  Once we make this leap, the rubber finally meets the road when one are asked to do something practical like vote or shoot at someone based on this long, long trail of abstractions about where Iraq is and how it matters.

If the only reason for knowing the location of Iraq is so one can participate in a long narrow trail of manipulation through abstractions, then people will continue to be hostile to knowledge. How can it be otherwise?  The curious people I know, experience this knowledge as a rich web of interconnection, explanation, appreciation, beauty.  For a long time, the curious among us have taken great trouble to turn abstractions of all kinds into experience.  Our trouble with teachings isn’t that we need louder, shiner, more elaborate, better refined or brightly colored abstractions, maybe we simply need to design richer, more accessible experiences.