Brainstorming a Book Title

Book titles are important ... They sell the book. Or is it the cover that sells the book? Forget about all the work put into writing something of quality. It's all in the cover and the title (?).

I've been stuck on Learning Log as the title for my book, but I've never been 100% sure that it was the right title. In the process of thinking through what would be an author's introduction to the book, writing a short white paper about how KM instructors might use it in structured training, and thinking about how to "sell" the concept of the book to a publisher, I've had to look at the book from a 50,000 feet perspective.

Talking about the book to people has forced me to explain and to focus on the big picture. That in itself has been very useful.

As I was doing all this thinking and drafting an author's introduction, I was reminded of a book that had a significant influence on me a while back, Donald A. Schon's The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action.

It dawned on me that the main character in Learning Log is a "reflective KM practitioner," or at least she tries to be.

Now I have more than more titles to consider and I still don't think I've got the right one.

• Learning Log: A Knowledge Management Novel (current title)
  
• The Reflective Knowledge Management Practitioner: A Novel

Let's go a little crazy now!

• RKMP Certified: A Novel
• Experienced RKMP Wanted: A Novel
• The Learning Organization: A Novel
• The KM Practitioner's Guide to Thinking while Doing: A Novel
• The (learning) Loop: a Knowledge Management Novel
• A Year in the Life of a KM Practitioner: A Novel
• The Knowledge Manager: A Novel
• Deputy Chief Learning Officer: A Novel
• The Deputy: A Knowledge Management Novel

Wow... now I can't stop. There could be variations in the subtitle.

• ... An Introductory Novel
• ... A Novel for Beginners
• ... A KM 101 Novel
• ... A Novel to Demystify Knowledge Management
• ... A Novel for KM Practitioners
• ... A Practitioner's Novel
• ... A Novel Introduction to Knowledge Management

A hint of humor wouldn't hurt.

Related resources:

• How to Write a Book Title Using a Few Simple Brainstorming Techniques
• Brainstorming a Working Title
• Six Keys to Choosing Your Book Title
• Seven Ways to Select a Book Topic that Sells
• Eight Ways to.... (just kidding!)
• Selecting and Protecting the Title of Your Book
• The Importance of Selecting a Great Book Title
• Choosing the Title for Your Book
• How to Choose the Right Title for Your Book
• Choosing the Right Name for Your Story
• How to Choose the Title for Your Story: Four Tips for Naming Your Books
  
• Choosing the Best Title for Your Story

Now think for a second... aren't these article titles a reflection of how I searched for information on the web? Wouldn't you want your book title to reflect how people might search for topics related to your book?

There are so many people on the web with advice, it's amazing. I feel perfectly justified in adding to the cacophony.

Here is my piece of advice regarding book titles: If you are trying to find a good title for your book, brainstorm first, then read all the advice articles listed above (and more). Reading the advice first might kill your creativity.

What's your Element?

I can't remember what college application essays ask you to write about. At some point in senior year of high school, students applying to college are asked what major they're thinking about. Thinking in terms of majors is really the wrong way of thinking about a college education. Unfortunately, many of our education decisions are based on taxonomies that have been created for purposes that are no longer valid. The decision about a major is something forced upon students as necessary to build up the right credits in a particular focus area in order to graduate. Instead, seniors should be encouraged to reflect upon the following question: "What is your element?" And, if you're not sure what your element is, "How are you planning to look for it?"

I've been reading The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, by Sir Ken Robinson. I came to this book via his TED talk (Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity), which constitutes the first chapter of the book. He's a great speaker, there's no doubt about that, and the book is an easy read, full of stories of people who have found their element at some point in their life -- and often not particularly early in their life. It's a book that would have a certain appeal to anyone who has found his/her element. On the other hand, if you haven't found your element or you haven't been able to define it sufficiently well, the book is short on advice about how to find it.

Often, the most interesting books are those able to make you think about your own circumstances. They allow you to make new connections between your experience and that of others. A few things in The Element stuck for me (.. to me):

1. Imagination is not the same as creativity.
Creativity is essentially "applied imagination". You can have a lot of imagination but if you don't do anything with it, it's just in your head and you're not sharing it with anyone. I've spent many, many years in the imagination world, with stories in my head that never made it to the paper and never had any kind of "application." I don't think there's anything wrong with that but I'm now interested in applied imagination... turning this capacity for story making into something that can be shared with others. I'm also interested in combining that with what I've learned over the years as a professional.

2. Once people discover their element, they need to find their tribe.
The tribe is essentially a group of people, a community that shares the same passion and/or understand each others' passions. They're a necessary support group. I definitely have not found my tribe. I didn't grow up in an environment that was particularly supportive of what I was doing. I don't think my family knew what I was doing since most of it was happening in my head and I developed a habit of destroying whatever I did write down on paper.

For more about tribes, see also Seth Godin's book, Tribes and his TED Talk "Seth Godin and the Tribes We Lead," although Godin and Robinson are talking of tribes in slightly different ways.

3. Your element doesn't have to become your work
If your work is boring and you can't wait to get out of the office to do what you really like to do, then work is just about "making a living". In the book, Ken Robinson talks about a number of people who's work is not their primary passion but who have managed to combine a rewarding professional career with their passion.

I've thought about quitting my job to take on writing as a full time job on a few instances I can count these instances on the fingers of one hand. I've never been sufficiently dissatisfied with my work situation to consider it seriously and I've been fortunate enough to carve enough time in my life to do the writing on the side. When these thoughts reemerge, I remind myself that it would not be as fun to write full time and try to make a living out of it. There would be too much pressure to come up with publishable quality text. At this point I'd rather remain an amateur. The alternative explanation is that I'm a chicken.

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• Video: Who Inspires You? (casesblog.blogspot.com)
• Do Schools Kill Creativity? (theelasticmind.blogspot.com)
• Ken Robinson talks about creativity and talent (francescofederico.net)
• Mae Jemison: The arts and sciences are not separate (presentationzen.com)

Creative Forms of Publishing

Until recently, I didn't think much about publishing. I've been interested in writing fiction most of my life but it's always been an activity that had intrinsic value for me, and I wasn't seeking to share any of it with a broader public. The fact that I didn't know anything about publishing probably had something to do with it as well. I read a couple of books with titles such as, "Get your book in print" or "So you want to get published," and it seemed so complicated and time consuming that I essentially gave up before even trying. I didn't see it as worth the time and effort... and I certainly didn't think I had anything worth publishing under these conditions. I was much more interested in the writing than in the publishing.

Then, I was given the opportunity to co-author a non-fiction book, Making the Connection: Scaling Telecenters for Development. It was published by the organization I worked for at the time, and didn't require going through any kind of submission process, approval, etc... At the same time, there is something really tangible about holding your book in your hands. Even though it wasn't fiction, it gave me an additional ounce of confidence. At that point I knew I could do it.

It is now apparently quite easy to publish something without having to go through the process of finding an agent, finding a publisher, etc... etc... Vanity presses have probably existed as long as books have been printed but there's a revolution afoot. It used to be that if you didn't publish your book through a serious publishing house, your book wasn't going to be taken seriously. Nowadays, if you want your book to be "in the market" quickly and you're sufficiently networked to your target audience, you can publish and sell your book almost on you own. This seems to be especially true if your books isn't meant for a large audience and you're likely to know your audience better than any publisher. Here comes LuLu and probably a few other online publishing companies I haven't discovered yet.

See "What would Andrew do?" by Jay Cross, in the LuLu marketplace for an example.

The novel I am currently working on would NOT work as a traditional book (even if it ever becomes good enough to be published). I wrote it in a wiki format and if it is used as I am envisioning it, it would not only need to be a digital document (an ebook), it would need to be published in a collaborative environment. Places such as LuLu would allow me to publish the book in an electronic format, bypassing the need for a physical book but I don't think it would provide the collaborative environment I'm thinking of.

Perhaps what I am trying to write is a hypertext didactic novel. It's not an interactive novel in the traditional sense. I'm not asking the readers to pick a point of view or help create their own version of the novel. There is only one path through the novel. The interaction with the novel isn't in the form of manipulating the text itself or making decisions about characters and plot, it's in the form of discussing and learning from the specific issues discussed in the novel. In that sense, it's more aligned with a book club discussion.

I promised myself that I would try to tie my posts back to the "knowledge for development" theme (or change the website name if I have completely changed track). It may seem that I've gone seriously afield with my "explorations" and "experimentations" with fiction but I'm confident that I'll eventually come full circle to write something for and about development. I have lots of ideas, just not enough time to work on everything at once.

Ten years from now I might be teaching international development using a collection of completely fictional short stories. Who know?

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"Novelists Plot the Future of Homeland Security"

According to an article by David Montgomery in today's Washington Post, the US. Department of Homeland Security has reached out to science fiction writers. The objective isn't so much for science fiction writers to map out the future but rather to "help managers think more broadly about projects, especially about potential reactions and unintended consequences." Essentially, talking to science fiction writers --who often know a lot about science -- is helping government folks think outside the box and "break old habits of thought."

Source: David Montgomery, "U.S. Mission for Sci-Fi Writers: Imagine That," May 22, 2009.

* See also Sigma -- The Science Fiction Think Tank