By Martin Vogel
There are some revealing quotes from the publishing industry in this Guardian piece on Amazon’s struggle with publishers over the pricing of ebooks.
Amazon is appealing to customers to “vote with their purchases” against publishers who insist on an agency model, whereby the publishers set the price of books rather than let retailers introduce discounts.
Publishers are understandably alarmed at the threat to their revenue streams that ebooks represent.
By Martin Vogel
Camden Council in north London, where I live, is considering changing the ethos of its libraries – to allow people to bring in food and drink and use their mobile phones. The intention is to make libraries more appealing to young people.
As both a library user and the parent of a young person, this strikes me as an unfortunate and misguided idea. Libraries are one of the few public spaces in the inner city to which people can turn for quiet. Swiss Cottage, in the borough, hosts one of the best public libraries in the capital. Young people constitute a significant proportion of the users. They go there to find space where they can give unashamed attention to learning. It’s a place of thought, study and contemplation. It is wholly unsuited to be a stage for mobile phone conversations or snacking. Urban life provides an abundance of venues for these activities. The library offers an alternative realm.
By Martin Vogel
When I talk to people in the financial sector, I understand the meaning of the current turmoil being a crisis unprecedented in our lifetimes. The experience of redundancy is unlike that any of us are likely to have come across before. With banking institutions disappearing at a rate of knots, others laying off staff in their thousands and many of the remainder uninterested in hiring, the impression of alternative options rapidly closing down throughout the world can only compound the sense of shock for those who have suddenly lost their jobs.
I’ve seen plenty of advice to bankers along the lines of: polish up your CV and interviewing skills, tap into your network and be prepared to move. There may be a place for these tried and tested career tactics. But I wonder whether it is adequate to the moment to rely wholly on this approach. When people suffer a shocking loss, they typically go through experiences such as denial, anger and depression before they feel able to accept the situation and engage with it constructively. The slightly frenetic character of well-intentioned advice on job search skills seems to me to risk encouraging people into activities which – for some of them, at least – may be counter-productive.
By Martin Vogel
Why do we love Google? A question prompted by its tenth anniversary and the launch of the game-changing Google Chrome browser. I’m in a love-hate relationship with Google – delighted by its products, worried about its encroachment into my life. The dark side to Google’s brand foretells difficulties in the years to come.
By Martin Vogel
Close to where I live in north London, Camden Council’s road maintenance team have upset residents by resurfacing part of an 18th century cobbled street with tarmac. Perrin’s Court in Hampstead is a quiet, semi-pedestrianised alley with pavement cafés. People while away a pleasant hour here in what’s something of an oasis from the heavy traffic which cuts through the rest of the neighbourhood. It’s no surprise then that they should turn apoplectic at the desecration of a charming environment.
No surprise, that is, except to the bureaucrats in Camden town hall whose sense of empathy failed them.
Vogel Vault 