LN Author’s Forum

Today, I joined more than a dozen other Leadership Network (LN) authors, LN staff, and publishing representatives from Jossey-Bass and Zondervan for an extended dialogue. Greg Ligon of Leadership Network hosted the web-based forum. Each author opened personal shutters to reveal a little about what is going on in their world, their current writing project(s), and “what keeps them awake at night.” Get creative people together and ideas overflow the banks rather quickly. Just a brief window into their worlds of thought and passion was dynamic.

Our publishing cohorts prompted us to consider contemporary changes in the ways people choose to learn. Preferences in how we elect to receive information are already and will increasingly influence “books” and the broader publishing industry. If not already, you will soon be able to read a digital book with embedded video segments and other media formats to augment learning. Where authors previously described an image with words, soon he or she will simply include the image “in the text.”

The whole process of writing changes when the forms of media begin to overlap. What an intriguing era to be a professional wordsmith.

I would be interested to know how many of you prefer a Kindle or other digital “book” format rather than ink on paper. If both formats are available, which do you buy today? On what are your preferences based?

In this season of change, I am reminded that when the Word became flesh, various forms of communication comingled. He pioneered pathways of excellence in communication.