Publishing is worried. I know because I work in publishing. But Publishing should not be worried. Publishing should be angry. And we should channel our anger into an effort to win the public imagination away from its little device fetish. We should channel our fear into a passionate effort to communicate the value of ideas, the value of emotional experience that defines our work. Publishing is the Idea. Publishing is Feeling. We have the history of human meaning and understanding on our side. What does Technology have?

Technology has Steve Jobs. Last year, Steve Jobs said people don't read. It was a lie. Steve Jobs knows the power of ideas and words and language. That is why he delivered his message with a good old-fashioned press conference. He did not sing the words. He did not tweet the words. He did not deliver his message via app. But Steve Jobs knows the public imagination is so important that he is willing to lie through his teeth in order to win it. He knows how powerful it is to suggest to people that it is popular and right to spend time downloading apps instead of spending time reading the paper.

Where is the response from Publishing? Where is our Steve Jobs? Where is our voice? Why does Publishing turn the power of its pulpit over to Steve Jobs—a man who has publicly admitted his disdain for the work that gives our very lives meaning? Does our leadership even believe in our work? Are we so busy trying to keep our banks and our shareholders off our backs that we no time left over to think? Who is running the show? Filthy Lucre? Mammon? Or is it the Idea? The Feeling?

I am not advocating abandoning technology. This is not a Luddite screed. This is about persuading humanity that the work of Publishing matters. That the work of Publishing is more important than gadgets and always will be.

The Internet, Twitter, Facebook, the iPhone, Kindle—these are updated versions of the cave wall. Brevity, speed, and convenience—the selling points of technology—have limits (assuming humanity rejects brain implants). Physical limits and qualitative limits, the law of diminishing returns suggests both physical improvements will slow and value for the consumer will reach an end point. The New York Times is already chronicling the diminishing value of technology: A teenager's grades drop due to chronic texting, a man is in trouble with his wife due to surreptitious dinner-time peeks at his BlackBerry, a writer suffers the sensation of decreased attention span thanks to his hundreds of RSS feeds.

Publishing can and should work to hasten the coming of diminished value for devices. Value is perception; Publishing is persuasion. We have the voice to change the public imagination. We have the soap box. We ARE the soap box (maybe not for long but we still have power). Let us use it to communicate the value of our product. Let us be aggressive, assertive, consistent and repetitive.

Our product has value, remember? We have selling points.

The Constitution of the United States, an important set of ideas, is a written document that takes longer than 140 characters to communicate. When the President makes a speech, no matter the topic, he uses more than 140 characters. Policy makers, judges, state officials, community leaders: The halls of democratic power require ideas and communication that are longer than 140 characters.

To succeed in the world of commerce, individuals and organizations must be capable of long-form thought. Whether you are training or being trained, explaining, justifying, arguing, making a presentation to the board, pitching an idea to your boss, talking around the water cooler. Working requires long-form thought.

To advocate for oneself, to advocate for one's family and community, whether you are dealing with an insurance company or a government office. Requires communication longer than 140 characters.

To relate to family, to relate to friends, to date, to partner, to raise and rear, to participate in community, to listen, to support, to empathize, to love, to hate, all require thinking through complex inputs, all require an attempt to process long-form feelings and experience.

Colleges and Universities, high schools and grade schools, in order to prepare our youth for service, for meaningful life and work, we communicate daily in forms that are not tweets. Even as we prepare our young people to enter careers in the technology field, it is a field that would not exist without the underlying structure of ideas.

Even musicians talk, even artists talk, even scientists talk.

To prioritize, to contextualize, to form stories from the raw material of existence, to cogitate in our quiet, private moments, these very human

Communication, whether it is written, spoken, texted or emailed, communication is the domain of Publishing. We teach people to communicate. We provide fodder for communication. We provide support. We provide context. We provide experiences that allow people to day dream and imagine and feel. This is the value of Publishing. It is currently undervalued in the public imagination. The onus is on our leadership to aggressively assert the importance of Publishing. Let us stop wringing our hands and start pounding the collective table. Let us turn humanity's attention toward ourselves, and let us use our artistry to hold that attention and never let it go.


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“As fathers and parents, we’ve got to spend more time with them, and help them with their homework, and replace the video game or the remote control with a book once in a while.” Barack Obama