Now This is a Good Vision Statement

This is what Jeff Bezos said about the Kindle: Amazon’s Wireless Reading Device at a Monday press conference: “Our vision is every book ever printed in any language all available in 60 seconds.”

Here’s why that is a good vision:

It’s simple.

It’s clear.

It takes things all the way: “every book ever printed in any language.” Yes! It’s not “most books” or “95% of books.” To be remarkable, you have to be bold and go the full distance. 95% does not inspire. But 100% — that’s amazing.

Its fulfillment would be a tremendous service to the world.

Now, here’s something not so great:

Some publishers and agents expressed concern over a new, experimental feature that reads text aloud with a computer-generated voice.

“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”

Here we have a recommendation that the kibosh be put on a really great idea because “they don’t have the right to read a book out loud.” This is another example of how innovation is stifled and how good ideas get killed. Sure, there may be issues, but let’s figure them out. Let’s not point to process and say “well, this shouldn’t be done.”

What about the copyright law, though?

An Amazon spokesman noted the text-reading feature depends on text-to-speech technology, and that listeners won’t confuse it with the audiobook experience. Amazon owns Audible, a leading audiobook provider.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the Kindle, or a device like it, could by means of this audio feature bring great access to books into societies with currently low literacy rates? In other words, such a device could perhaps make it possible for those who can’t read to still “read” some great books by listening to them via the text-to-speech technology. And what if everyone was given one?

Someone could say “well, you would run into problems with recharging those devices because electricity would probably not be reliable or available, and beyond that if the literacy rate is this low, probably food and water are higher priorities. Also, people just might not be interested in that.”

Well, good points. But the way forward is not to then stop and give up on the idea (whether this one or any other), but figure out if there is a way to do it which overcomes the obstacles. Maybe not. But don’t kill ideas too early. At the very least, exploring them could lead to something different, more workable — and better.

February 10, 2009 | Filed Under Technology | 7 Comments

Comments

7 Responses to “Now This is a Good Vision Statement”

Jessica on February 10th, 2009 5:32 am

They found a way out of the electricity problem with One Laptop Per Child…it is manually chargeable/powered by a crank. It could work.

The text-to-speech feature isn’t just for low-literacy. It provides access for the blind and visually impaired, too, who have a right to access the information.

Great vision statement.
Matt on February 10th, 2009 8:09 am

Amen. Very true: Huge implications for the blind and visually impaired as well. That’s big.
Brian Current on February 10th, 2009 12:31 pm

I’m imagining myself reading in the morning before work.. then switching the device to audio-mode as i step into my car to continue the book while i commute!
J. Gary Ellison on February 11th, 2009 3:40 am

Speaking of remote areas with low literacy rates, my family spent a week in Leviamp, Malekula in Vanuatu in December, doing a Christian youth camp. There was no electric or plumbing or telephone service. Even mobile phones were out of range. But the church and school headmaster of the village had generators so everyone came to charge their battery operated gadgets (phones, mp3 players, and even a computer). Solar powered lights were charged every day. The school headmaster is doing such a good job that some of the young people from that church and village are now in university.

Some ministries such as Global Recordings (http://globalrecordings.net/) have Saber hand wind mp3 players with the messages, portions of Scripture or the entire Bible on them. MegaVoice (http://www.megavoice.com) units are “message secure” because they are designed to play messages that cannot be changed by end users of the MegaVoice players. This means that they can only be used for ministry purposes.

The Kindle units could eventually be used even in remote areas such as Malekula because people hop on a truck to go to town where there is mobile phone service, and while Internet service is still limited and very expensive, a colleague on the island north of Malekula accesses the Internet wirelessly from his home where he does not even have a landline phone.

On the other hand, the negative societal impact of the flood of DVD’s shows that all this new technology can open new avenues for evil as well as for good.
Bryce on February 11th, 2009 12:10 pm

Hey Matt, I’m interested in what you said at the beginning about it being a good vision statement. How do you find the balance between an inspiring vision and a realistic vision? If you go the route of inspiring only (i.e., 100% of books, instead of more realistic 95%), don’t you run the risk of setting peoples’ expectation too high, and then letting them down eventually?
Matt on February 11th, 2009 10:14 pm

Bryce,

A lot could be said. My first thought is that you can’t separate out what is realistic from what is inspiring so clearly. Maybe 95% would only be more realistic because of the fact that people “think” that’s most likely, and so they settle. Whereas if you set the goal at the top, that becomes part of the means that brings you to the reaching of the goal.

The default should be to stretch — you want what Jim Collins calls “big hairy audacious goals.” And I think that what is realistic is often far beyond what we first think. A great example of a very big, stretch goal is “put a man on the moon by the end of this decade and return him safely.” That’s ambitious and amazing, and we didn’t know how to do it at the time Kennedy said that. But our vision to do it made it happen. Of course some things are manifestly unrealistic for the time–the vision was not “land a man on mars by the end of the 60s.”

Last of all: With the Amazon, let’s say that in 10 years, they are at 98%. I think everyone involved would feel that is a success. But you put the goal at 100%, in the same way that, back in school, my goal on every test was 100%. I didn’t always make it, but that was always my goal. If I got less than that, I didn’t consider it a failure. But it was an incentive to keep improving. If we set lower goals in the name of realism, we may simply be lowering the bar.

That’s where I lean. I hope that’s a little helpful at least.
Tengon on August 26th, 2012 9:40 pm

Please I need some of the hints of how to do vision statement and Mission Statement

God bless

Tengon Taabuke