Based on a strange twist of circumstance, Jay Cross and I will be leading a discussion on the future of publishing in an online era here in the Bay Area next Monday (July 28). He and I prepared some days ago, and came up with several issues, including who owns IP, new business models, moving from content to experience, increasing rates of change, and more.
The fact of the matter is that the day of the (non-fiction) book is at an inflection point. That’s not to say we won’t still want to read books from time to time, at least those of us ‘of an age’ ;). But what, where, when, and how will be our primary sources of information, moving forward? 
Certainly there are some interesting experiments going on. On ITFORUM, Bev Ferrell and others have been citing a number of initiatives of self-publishing and open textbooks. Certainly fodder for thought (particularly when I’m working with publishers on several projects, and have had a book published!).
We aren’t providing answers, but we’ll be with a very knowledgeable cohort and hope to work through to some interesting ideas. If you’re in the area, and are interested, let me know and I’ll lob coordinates at you.
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