Digital Convergence Phase 2: A Field Guide for Creator-Collaborators

Rating:
Summary: Extremely useful technology primer
Review: I am the very definition of the creator collaborator that Andy Covell describes in his second book on Digital Convergence. I have a doctorate in English, but I make my living as the Webmaster for the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill. And now I teach courses part time at UNC-Greensboro that help students put into practice the very ideas Covell talks about in this book (the course syllabus is online at http://www.unc.edu/~pyoung/eng524).

Both books are extremely helpful for anyone who wants to have a better grasp of the technological revolution where the rubber meets the road, not only in terms of where and how technologies converge (book 1), but where and how we can creatively make them converge (book 2, this book).

Different audiences will find different values reading this text and Andy Covell's previous one. If you are a layperson who simply wants to understand the impact of technology, which includes far more than its current shining star, the Internet, then you will find both of Andy Covell's books accessible and easy to read. If you are a layperson interested in flexing your own technological muscles to express yourself to the world, then this book is a definite must read. The Interent has sidesteped the gatekeepers (publishing houses, TV Newsroom editors, radio programming directors) of the traditional routes for publishing information and opened up the entire world to public expression. A good companion text would also include Lawrence Lessig's The Future of Ideas, which on its own is a challenging read (but far more accessible than most books written by lawyers).

If you are a technologist (a company Webmaster, university IT department head or support staff, or an IT training specialist), then you will find this an excellent book to assign as primer for discussion about how technology works and fits into our super-industrial, modern society. Get your administrative personnel a copy for a birthday present or some upcoming holiday (President's day, Columbus Day, Bosses Day). They will be better informed about technology without having to take a computer science course, and they'll better understand your work.

Covell does something I find valuable in a number of writers across a number of diciplines, Lawrence Lessig (law), Stephen Gould (natural science), Walter Truett Anderson (cultural studies), Ann Berthoff (writing), and Mary Pipher (psychology); he makes complex ideas accessible without losing the complexity of the idea. In this second book he encourages people generally, not specialists to look to the future and see all the possible things they can do BECAUSE technology has become so accessible. I know my students, several of whom started out with no knowledge of how to design a Web site and no prior knowledge designing marketing material (a brochure and PowerPoint), became powerful creator collaborators by the end of my course (just 15 weeks). Projects included an online cookbook business site, a health food site, a site for a local church, a business site for writing romance novels, and so on. My students brought together, print, photo, and Web technologies to create businesses and professional hobbies and/or support organizations.

This text is a most helpful text that I highly recommend.