On Tuesday I went to Jeffrey Archer's flat overlooking the Thames It must be one of the best metropolitan views in the world. I was there, along with a large number of his friends, for his and Mary's traditional shepherd's pie and champagne pre-Christmas party. It was, as ever, a place to spot politicians and other celebrities and this year the prize specimen was undoubtedly Margaret Thatcher who was just as you imagine her to be. It was a classic example of social networking.

And then on the dreaded early flight to Stuttgart (not a lot of social networking at Heathrow at 6.00am) which was looking good in that wonderfully German gemuetlich way.

On the plane, along with working on some board papers, I read the piece below by Karen Christensen and I have her permission to publish it here - she thinks it's too long and over-complicated but I think it's really worth the read. It describes a not-so-classic example of social networking:

'I'm a lover of old books who also blogs. I grew up in the Silicon Valley but have become a a skeptic when it comes to exaggerated claims made for the social benefits of human-computer interaction. I am fascinated by possibilities of Web 2.0 publishing, but I have shocked friends who are true believers by pointing out that not everyone knows the difference between a wiki and a blog. This article is an attempt to explain these different worlds.

The Evangelists

People involved in social media are almost fanatical about them, while traditional businesspeople seem to dismiss them as fad rather than seeing them as phenomena with truly transformative potential. You've no doubt read the evangelists' claims, heard the shorthand (Web 2.0, the "long tail," the "tipping point"), and probably experienced the tent meeting atmosphere of a lot of conference keynotes. Bloggers who say that we should get rid of all editors and just let the people speak. Internet experts who think that publishers just print books. Overexcited journalists who write, "When it comes to information, the balance of power has truly shifted to the consumer." (One assumes the writer doesn't think his own job should be done by the magazine readers, though.) Web media producers who boast that they do everything online. (Surely not everything?)

When they paint a picture of the future as they see it-a future dominated by online interaction-social-media zealots appear to assume that teenagers (the age group most switched on to social media, and the one the zealots focus on) are going to be doing exactly the same things at 40 that they're doing today. They fail to take into account the fact that teenagers have considerably more free time than 40-year-olds. People with families and careers and community activities, however tech-savvy, can't spend all their free time downloading humorous video clips and chatting in MySpace. If a renowned professor and a high school kid get into a debate on Wikipedia, the student will win. He has the luxury of time, which successful professional people do not. Online, fanatics often rule.

The Skeptics

Then there are the detractors. I'm thinking of the senior business development person who said, "Social what?" when I asked what her company, a major global publisher, was doing to incorporate social media into their online platform. "Oh, sure, we're doing all that," she eventually said, "but that's just icing."

In a way, she was right: users expect core content to be maintained, and when it comes to academic content and business information, stakeholders in the existing models will do everything possible to maintain the status quo. But times, and user expectations, are changing. The value added by that icing is going to be immense, and the companies that realize that using social software isn't just a sop to throw to consumers but something that can genuinely improve their businesses-with greater efficiencies, and far more market understanding-are going to be ahead of the game.

There are two types of detractor. Some are manifestly uninterested in the new technologies and are just hoping that the revolution doesn't happen until they've retired to Santa Fe or the Berkshires. They want to use the Web to connect to peers, but they don't really want any challenges thrown their way.. The others may be quite tech savvy and active on the Internet, but they don't understand the power-and difference-of social media.

Explaining Social Media

The online interfaces that make possible this brave new world are known collectively as social media. Weblogs (blogs) are an example of a social medium in which an individual addresses and receives feedback from a large audience-from the one to the many. Bulletin board systems (BBSs, or forums), relationship management media (sites such as MySpace or Cyworld, or even Mappr), massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), file-sharing systems (for music, photos, and videos), and wikis (for collaborative editing of webpages) are examples of social media in which many people interact with many other people-from the many to the many. Finally, and of particular interest to businesses, there are corporate feedback forums that let people give a company feedback on their experiences with the company's products-from the many to the one.

Interest in these media vary around the world. BBSs are, for now at least, the most important social medium in China, with an estimated 53 million people in China making use of them. They are easy to use and allow for anonymous communication, which, in a restrictive society such as China, gives people a feeling of liberation. The Chinese enjoy the social, community-oriented (as opposed to individualistic) nature of BBSs; in general Chinese people are not so eager to stand out. Blogs are extremely popular, too, but unlike in the United States, they tend to be personal, generally written just for friends and family.

What it's all about is new relationships, and in fact the webs of overlapping relationships we call community (or at least some semblance of it). This isn't for everyone, and some of the reasons for the surge in virtual community is that our world offers less in the way of actual community. Blogs, forums, and relationship management sites provide some of the benefits we used to find in real life public spaces like barber shops and even street corners. They let people:

*        Stay in touch

*        Discuss and debate

*        Share content with friends

*        Share opinions (with ratings and social tagging)

*        Publish content (in the hope that others will find it useful or entertaining-and that expertise or talent will be recognized)

*        Collaborate (in creative writing, building directories and
information sources, and gaming)

Some of these are one-to-many, some many-to-many, and they can be designed primarily as expert to individual (allowing for questions and feedback) or as purely peer-to-peer. Even in peer-to-peer, leaders do arise, and certain people try to dominate. The online world is not without personal conflict and awkward social moments.

Hopes and Fears

So what do these new social media mean, for any media company? That the old top-down ways won't work with many audiences. The entertainment industry is already experiencing this, but close behind are any businesses that depend on a purveyor of abstract knowledge handing down words of wisdom from on high. People these days are much more interested in hearing from someone who has lived through the experience and can describe the problem and solution from a personal perspective-that is, they're interested in hearing from school-of-hard-knocks experts rather than ivory-tower ones. Of course, the danger with experiential expertise is that the stories are anecdotal; they may not reflect overall trends, and people relying on them may miss vital information that a person with "book knowledge" but no experiential knowledge might be able to impart.

People have other fears, when it comes to social media. In the United States, there is much concern about predators online; in the United Kingdom and China, there is more concern about what is termed "Internet addiction." Although the evangelists of social media avert their eyes from the serious environmental impact of computing and mobile devices and from the social and economic consequences of diverting activity from local communities, corporate social responsibility may one day come to include not only improvements in remanufacturing and recycling capacity, but also responsible software and site design.

Many companies are trying to capitalize on the young eyes-and associated wallets-of those who congregate at MySpace and similar sites. But perhaps they should beware: many people don't like too much commercialization, and the MySpace crowd is likely to pick up and move if it feels too hassled-and companies may find themselves chasing their target demographic around cyberspace.

Companies engage with social media to differing degrees. Some love to wait and see. Others proudly announce a blog and then use it to post press releases. Others decide to add every kind of whiz-bang interface they can find, without ensuring that there really is a community-in-waiting. Virtual communities need some initial spark to animate them. Sometimes it's a political issue, or a crisis of some kind. Often there's an offline community, or many small communities, ready to come together in a new way. (There are risks: what if your community-in-waiting is a bunch of annoyed subscribers?)

The Promise and the Problems

An experience I had recently shows both what's wonderful about social media and what the drawbacks are.

At Berkshire Publishing, we use online project management software called Basecamp, and I wanted to post my Outlook calendar so staff, reps, and our publicist could easily access it, in real time. But
Basecamp is built on open source, and Outlook is from Microsoft. I clicked on Help and found myself at a forum, hosted by Basecamp, where people discussed solutions to this problem. I was fascinated. The participants sounded so knowledgeable and cooperative: "I tried your solution and it worked, except -"

The discussion went on for pages, and I felt more and more hopeful. These guys would surely solve the problem, and I would be able to impress my IT guy with having figured this out myself.

But the more I read, the less certain I felt that there was a clear solution that I would be able to execute. Because, you see, there is no editor or publisher to delete the well-intentioned dead ends, to rewrite the explanations that are too long and complicated, and to test the final instructions. Because in a medium like this there are no final instructions.

Forums are full of good ideas and bad ones, and if it's your special subject, and you don't have anything else planned for a rainy afternoon, you might want to while away the time this way. But after first creating trust-key to any social network-the tech forum lost me because it didn't answer my question in a way I could understand. And that is good news for publishers, because it means that they will continue to have a role to play in the world of online and social media.

Part of what publishers do-and what our customers pay for-is to weed out most of the material we see. Most publishers reject 99% of the submissions they receive, and in general that's to the customer's benefit because it saves them time and money and gives them what they want without frustrating searches.

Going Forward

Perhaps the greatest challenge social media pose to corporate media companies is blurred boundaries between producer and consumer. Publishing companies may well need to be more than processors and enablers; the ones that have in-house creative and intellectual capacity and the ability to build active, ongoing relationships with creative people are most likely to take full advantage of social media.

Better technologies are also necessary if we are to have really effective, but affordable, interactivity. And the barriers need to be much, much lower: while the tech-savvy think that everyone can publish now, most people have absolutely no idea what a <strong> tag means and would no more edit a page in a wiki than try to drive a Mac truck. But one thing is certain: whether or not social media will turn out to be our bread and butter, it is far more than icing on the cake.

Karen Christensen is cofounder and CEO of Berkshire Publishing Group, to which readers have turned to for over a decade for award-winning titles on topics of international interest. Karen was senior editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Community and oversaw the publishing of Berkshire's two-volume Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. An expert on Chinese guanxi (business relationships) and online community building, she serves on the board of the content division of the Software & Information Industry Association, and spoke about social media in China at the first Global Information Industry Summit in Amsterdam in September 2006. She blogs
here.'

The latest top five paperback fiction bestsellers in the UK are:
 
1 The Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger HarperCollins  35,573

2 Looking Good Dead  - Peter James   Pan Bks.   27,654

3 Winter in Madrid - C.J. Sansom   Pan Bks.   19,420

4 False Impression - Jeffrey Archer Pan Bks. 18,781

5 The Island - Victoria Hislop  Headline Review   16,826

and it's great to see a really strong performance from Pan.

Almost as gratifying is to see another top five list where we don't appear.
 
1. Confessions of an Heiress - Paris Hilton

2. Made In Portugal - Jose Mourinho

3. Jordan: A Whole New World - Katie Price

4. Jade's World - Neil Simpson

5. Managing My Life - Alex Ferguson
 
I expect you've already guessed the criteria for this list - the most discarded books in Travelodge hotel rooms!

As Christmas is approaching I thought you might like to switch on the audio on your computer and click here.

On a much more serious note, millions of people in developing countries die each year from diseases that are treatable or preventable and three diseases alone - AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria - kill over five million annually. But standard diagnostic tests which could significantly reduce the death toll are imperfect. For instance, the standard TB test misses half of all cases. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is committed to improving diagnostic health technology for the developing world and has worked with Nature to produce a special report which is available free online to everyone. It is a hugely important publication.

Last night I was fortunate enough to be invited by the private equity group Apax Partners to the Tate Britain for a party and a viewing of the Holbein in England show. The amazing success of private equity in recent years has always baffled me. They seem to make money appear out of nowhere and they continue to do so. I have had the trick explained many times but, rather like watching a brilliant conjuror, I still can't see how they do it!

Apart from marvelling at Holbein's technical expertise I came away certain that Henry VIII would have made an excellent rugby front row forward - see below.

Exact Editions is a company set up by some old friends of mine about a year ago. Much as I dislike vacuous mission statements and straplines I think theirs is both straightforward and true - Bringing magazines into the digital age. Unlike many start-ups they don't have wealthy individual or corporate backers and, as far as I know, they don't have glossy business plans with absurd projections of growth and pretty pictures throughout. They are testing the market for online magazines by spending as little as possible on themselves and using brainpower and hard work to attract readers (and publishers) to their site.

And one of the founders, Adam Hodgkin, posts regular insightful pieces on their blog. Adam is by training a philosopher and the pieces tend to be pretty intellectual. Fortunately he is from the pragmatist school of philosophy which is important when involved in business.

The most entertaining thing about the site at present is the random nature of the magazines represented (inevitable with a start-up) - Baptist Times jostling with The Spectator and Green Parent and Today's Flyfisher for our attention. Actually, it's just like going into a traditional newsagent.

Yesterday I wrote about the problems facing libraries. I should have mentioned two links if you're interested in more information - Tim Coates's Good Library Blog and Karen Christensen's Berkshire Blog which is about much else as well, including the fascinating Love US Hate US debate about what the world (and Americans) really feel about the USA. And if you're in the least bit interested in the challenges and opportunities in book publishing in the coming decade I recommend this special report in Forbes magazine.

You may have noticed that I went to two meetings last week where the 'Chatham House Rule' was applied. It seems that more and more activities are subject to some degree of restraint when it comes to expressing opinions. I sometimes think that leakiness and ill-considered statements are at an all-time high but I was pleased to be sent a copy of a recently declassified letter from Eisenhower to General George Patton sent on 29 April 1944.

Dear General Patton

My attention has been called to a statement of yours in which you expressed an opinion as to the future political position of the United States, Great Britain and Russia. I have examined all available reports in the case, including that brought to my attention by your Chief of Staff, and I thoroughly understand that you thought you were talking privately, and moreover that your statements were made on the spur of the moment. Nevertheless, I must tell you frankly that I regard this incident with the utmost seriousness and you should understand thoroughly that it is still filled with drastic potentialities regarding yourself....

I have warned you time and agan against your impulsiveness in action and speech and have flatly instructed you to say nothing that could possibly be misinterpreted by your own subordinates or by the public....

I am throughly weary of your failure to control your tongue and have begun to doubt your all-round judgment, so essential in high military position....

I want to tell you officially and definitely that if you are again guilty of any indiscretion in speech or action that leads to embarrassment for the War Department, any other part of the Government, or for this Headquarters, I will relieve you instantly from command.

Sincerely,

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Commanding General European Theater of Operations

Phew. That's telling him. I wonder whether there was a reply and, if so, what it said.

Back in September I wrote about a Pan nostalgia website. Just for fun and with the polonium case in mind I reproduce one item.

This great website is run by Tim Kitchen and he wrote to me recently. It seems that people's interest in what his wife calls an obsession and he calls a hobby has encouraged him to do even more:

'I was going to stop at about 1963 when the number was added to the logo on the front cover and I do have all 1500 titles apart from two and these are all on the site. I then carried on with the later titles which still used PAN's eclectic number system. I definitely stop where ISBN comes in. Of the later titles I have over a thousand still to scan in with about 200 left on the wants list.'

On Thursday I attended a round table meeting at the Smith Institute where a group of very senior politicians, librarians, and managers met to discuss how best to ensure a first-class public library system in the UK. The debate was intelligent and constructive and clearly everyone is aware of the issues of efficiency, management and the need to deliver a service which the citizen wants. The Museums, Libraries,and Archives Council is the body charged with strategic oversight of libraries and they have produced a number of excellent reports over the years.

I have two concerns. First that, in spite of much protestation to the contrary, I'm not sure that books are really seen as central to the library system by some of of the participants. These are the objectives for libraries as set out on the MLA website:

Last night I attended one of the regular dinners of this society founded in 1921. It meets eight times a year at the Savile Club in Mayfair.

The Chatham House Rule applies, so I cannot share with you what was said by whom and technically I cannot reveal the name of the speaker (but I do have his permission). It was Stephen Prickett and he gave a fascinating description of his current job which has one of the longest titles in my experience - Director of the Armstrong Browning Library and Margaret Root Brown Professor for Browning Studies and Victorian Poetry, at Baylor University, Waco, Texas, as well as Regius Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow, Scotland - phew.

But the most embarrassing moment was when neither of us could remember what he'd worked on for Macmillan. He edited the series 'Romanticism in perspective'.

If the Society of Bookmen has a rather traditional feel, the Centre for Creative Business could not be more 21st century. It is a partnership between the London Business School and the University of the Arts London which I represent on their committee. The strange thing is that both the Society and the Centre have very similar aims - to inspire, facilitate, network, enjoy and help sustain creative businesses, the former restricted to writers, booksellers, publishers and other members of the book trade, the latter a wider group.

Off to rainy Basingstoke today. Apparently there are rumours that Basingstoke can deploy nuclear weapons in less than an hour. I'd better check out this new element on the axis of evil.

And finally an excellent piece by Bryan Appleyard in The Times about the importance of popular science books. His last para says it all.

'These new, humble, wondrous books — and, indeed, that great TV testament to wonder, Planet Earth — are an unalloyed good. They restore the true faith, and will, in time, send children to seek out whatever maths and physics courses they can find amid the debris of the science faculties.'

Every now and again I feel moved to do an update on Macmillan New Writing, our programme for finding new fiction talent which was memorably described as a Ryanair (cheap and basic) concept in Charlotte Higgins's piece in The Guardian. The publishing business model is quite simple. If we can avoid losing money on individual titles the occasional discovery will allow us to make a modest profit overall. We've managed the first part of the equation successfully. All the titles have performed decently but none of the authors has 'broken out' into the really big time. We think we may have found our first mega-seller and I've asked Will Atkins, the editor of MNW, to tell us about it.

'Never Admit to Beige puts Jonathan Drapes firmly on the map as one of Australia's most talented new writers.' - The Big Issue

On Wednesday night we launched Jonathan Drapes’s novel Never Admit to Beige. There were canapés, inflatable palm-trees and (this being an Australian novel by an Australian author) plenty of wholly ungracious bragging about the cricket.

BBC Five Live’s Simon Mayo Show has recently begun a Book of the Month slot and Never Admit to Beige is its December selection. It’ll be discussed live on Five today from 3pm, with Jonathan and a panel of guest reviewers; there's also an online forum where listeners can comment on the book.

Never Admit to Beige is the fourteenth Macmillan New Writing novel to be published since our first books appeared in April. It's an anarchic comic romp across Australia's Gold Coast, following guileless young Englishman Trigger Harvey as he searches, with increasing futility/desperation, for his lost luck. (Jonathan, incidentally, tells me he hadn't heard of his character's Only Fools and Horses namesake when he wrote the book). It includes shootouts with Japanese mafia, a run-in with a couple of coke-dealing OAPs, and probably the most violent round of golf in literary history. It's also turned out to be rather hard to classify - on its website, Five Live has a commendable bash: 'A kind of James Bond meets Inspector Clouseau with Men Behaving Badly'.

The Five Live Book of the Month slot is relatively new, so its impact on sales remains to be seen, but we've put through a pretty sizable paperback reprint, and Borders will be carrying the book in their Christmas 3 for 2 promotion.  Never Admit to Beige is funny and loveable and bursting with energy; turns out it's also rather prophetic:

“Next Ashes series,” one of the novel’s minor characters goads Trigger, “you guys don’t stand a bloody chance. Not if Warney’s on form.”