Over the past couple of months I have come across a number of published authors that are doing their second and third books on their own. I have been curious to ask them why. One such person is Joshua Porter. He has a large readership (20k+) at Bokardo.com where he writes about social applications and design. In 2008 Porter wrote Designing for the Social Web for New Riders. The project was successful enough that a second edition is in the works.

I met Porter at IDEA2009 and asked why he wanted to publish his second book under his own banner. One of his answers was a real surprise — he said he felt the publishing process was too fast and he would rather go at his own pace. Apparently some publishers ask authors to submit chapters as they complete them instead of waiting for the entire book to be done. No wonder some books aren’t cohesive! I also asked Porter what had surprised him the most about going it alone. Check out the embedded interview for his answer and more.

P.S. Yes I am a total spaz and uploaded this video as 16:9 instead of 4:3. YouTube is not my friend today. Hopefully the black frame is tolerable.

Look for my interviews with Dave Gray and Louis Rosenfeld later this week.

As close readers of this space may have noticed I have been on a ‘change-from-above’ kick lately. The digital marketing team is modeling the future of the business but that doesn’t mean anything until the executives at a company move heaven and earth to avoid the innovator’s dilemma. I think ‘social business design’ is powerful enough to get c-levels to act. Stay tuned.

And speaking of idea09 let me share some other stuff:

Christina Wodtke lectured on what digital folks can learn from radical architects. How Buildings Learn got some attention. That is a book I have read. Wodtke referenced A Pattern Language. That is a book I haven’t.

Thomas Malaby talked about how Linden Labs introduced inefficiencies into Second Life to make it a better city experience. The designers were inspired by Jane Jacobs but the Second Lifers hated the changes. Malaby posed the question: when is ignoring the democratic throngs the right thing to do?

The talk by Mary Newsom of the Charlotte Observer reminded me of something I read last week. In a story on Craig’s List wired.com’s Gary Wolf passed on this nugget: the public is motherf**ker. Newsom didn’t use that phrasing but she made it clear that handling a newspaper’s inbox and forums ain’t pretty and it ain’t new. Letters to the editor have long attracted the loons. Ironic really. Newspapers knew the lesson of Craigslist long before Craigslist, that is why (partially) they were so resistant to change and allow reader feedback, which in turn lead them to lose mind and marketshare and be eclipsed by  Craigslist.

Presenter Leisa Reichelt has been working on redesigning Drupal. For her ‘”Community is the design challenge”.

Luke Wroblewski also shared a good line about community management “No one smokes in church, no matter how addicted.” – Richard Farson

For more tweets from IDEA2009, check out Whitney Hess’s post on Day 1.