David Berlind at Harvard
David Berlind's luncheon talk at Harvard's Berkman Center was interesting, but we have different approaches to predicting the future. David takes the traditional journalist's perspective of discovering who is doing what to effect change, while I try to figure out why people will adopt that change and whether they have ever made a similar decision in the past. For example, David recounted the various software, standards making, and political activities taking place in an effort to replace Microsoft Office with an open standard. While I, on the other hand, tried to find any sign of people looking for an alternative to Office. Of course Word is buggy and cumbersome, but I can't remember any time in the last few years when a real end-user has told me that they wish they could switch from Word to something else. Are they too dumb to realize they would be better off with a replacement for Word? No, I think they are too smart to waste their time looking for alternatives when they just want to get their work done. They aren't lazy, they're busy. If you want to beat Word's monopoly, you have to give people a powerful reason to switch, you can't just point out a better alternative. In marketing terms you can't just present a better mouse trap, you have to convince people that they have mice and that not getting rid of them will cause serious consequences. This isn't meant as a criticism of David. What he does serves a valuable purpose, and he certainly knows his stuff when it comes to the issue of alternatives to Microsoft. He also needs to incorporate a more market driven and historical perspective into his analysis.
I made my pitch to get David to use the term copy protection instead of DRM. He was sympathetic to the issue, but not too interested in making the change. He understands the issues of DRM so much better than I do, including the legal aspects, that he sees the problem of DRM as much greater than just not being able to move content to a new computer. He is right, but you aren't going to get people upset enough to demand change by providing more details. You need a simple hook. Maybe copy protection isn't scary enough. I'm not great at coming up with really compelling marketing terms, but I do know how to recognize them. When I find a way to describe DRM that makes people's eyes go wide, I'll know I've hit the target. If you have any suggestions for a really repulsive name for DRM, please let me know. I'll do my best to promote it.
