This is a little out-of-date, but very pertinent to a company like Exbiblio that puts values at the top of its agenda. In May, the IABC Research Foundation published a report saying that less than half of companies encouraged staff to discuss ethical dilemmas.

I wonder, have there been any interesting dilemmas at Exbiblio? How were they resolved?

(Link via Neville Hobson who has also been writing about Exbiblio here.)

Sand Storm is the latest literary blogger to predict the end of the book as we know and love it. He also points out that according to the International Digital Publishing Forum, some $11 million of digital books were sold last year. There are some other useful links in his post related to this topic.

I think that reports of the book’s demise have been exaggerated. Sand Storm compares the digital book to the iPod. It’s true that music downloads are giving the CD sellers a hard time, but then again, CDs haven’t been around for centuries. Books are deeply ingrained in our culture. They are going to be tough to dislodge from our shelves and our hearts.

For the foreseeable future, digital books will supplement print. You can search digital texts, annotate them, copy them, and share them easily. Exbiblio plans to closely integrate the print and online experience. But I don’t think you can write the obituary of the book just yet.

There is one fact about Exbiblio that it is impossible to get away from: Martin King, the founder, was diagnosed last year with a fatal illness called Multiple Myeloma.

You would not guess that this is a man who has been given a short time to live. He looks well, he discusses many topics with great vigour, and retains the passionate enthusiasm of extreme youth. The only outward sign of anything untoward with his health is his inability to carry a weight above 10LB. Even his beloved Mac Powerbook gives him some discomfort when he brings it to work.

His demeanor shows no trace of fear or self pity. He cheerfully states that his illness will turn his bones into something like Swiss Cheese. The first time he mentioned this to me, he prefaced it by saying that his illness was “fascinating.” He takes large doses of steroids every other day, and these lead to powerful fluctuations in mood, with “up” days and “down” days – but he hides these fluctuations well.

The courage of the man strikes me as quite remarkable, though he modestly states that he is not brave, he merely has no fear at the moment.

“Bravery is about confronting fear. Those who aren’t fearful aren’t brave,” he says.

“Isn’t it natural to be afraid of the unknown?” I ask.

“Or Excited” he reposts – but I think this is just for the sake of argument.

He is willing to approach any subject, even his own demise, with intellectual curiosity. He has come up with a creative way to end things early, if the need arises.

I hope this gives just a little flavour of the man. But obviously this situation has a great bearing on Exbiblio. There is a sense of urgency about Exbiblio’s mission, which might not be quite so intense under other circumstances. Time is really short to get things done. There is also an immediate need to find a new CEO, and that has to be somebody who shares Martin’s values and approach to life, as well as his technical abilities. It’s a tall order.

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An Inline Comment From Martin

Not my favorite post – it offends my false sense of modesty. My
fault, not Hugh’s. If anyone cares to know more, I have explained in a seperate post.

There are plenty of books around the Exbiblio offices, including a good selection of classic novels. This is quite natural, as the technology Exbiblio is building has a great deal to do with books. There is also a small selection of business books which seem to have inspired some of the company’s values. One of them is called, The Corporate Mystic. A sentence from near the beginning reads:

“Imagine the power of an organization where everyone was empowered to be a visionary?”

My question is whether this is a recipe for productive and creative chaos, or just chaos?

Values are very important at Exbiblio. The website as it currently stands ranks them as the second tab after “home,” coming before what the company makes or does. The aim of recruitment at the company is to collect together a set of people with values that match Exbiblio’s values.

I’m told that job interviews begin with the question, “Tell me, what is the appropriate response when a pan-handler (a “beggar” in UK speak) asks you for money in the street?” Apparently, there is no single correct answer.

It’s also important that people coming to Exbiblio understand the implications of getting involved in a start-up and that it means a seamless integration between work and personal life. The theory runs that if people make the distinction between work life and personal life, then there is something very wrong going on.

It’s not an aggressive interview by any means. The approach is that Exbiblio is applying to be the employer, but Martin, the founder, admits that he is looking first and foremost for people he would enjoy working with. The conclusion that I draw from this is that the “personal” element is unavoidable in business as elsewhere in life.

I want to be open about a challenge I face in my role as an outside blogger for Exbiblio. I believe it reflects a common situation at start-up businesses. Let’s call it “The Founder Question.”

The founder of Exbiblio is a man of very strong character and vision called Martin King. He knows that the time will come for him to bow out of his leadership role. As it happens, in his case he is far more acutely aware of this eventuality than most – but that’s an important story for another time.

Martin has asked me to minimise mentions of him in this blog and to “depersonalise” where possible. This is understandable. He wants Exbiblio’s values and culture to become so deeply rooted that they last for long after he has stepped back from the company. To quote an influentual book, “Built to Last”, a “visionary company” is far more enduring and has more impact that a “visionary leader”.

But the story of a start-up without the founder is a bit like Hamlet without the ghost (or even without Hamlet). The plot would not make sense. Inevitably, this blog will have to cast him in a central role, although I will try to meet his concern where possible.

“The Founder Question” has many aspects, and is surely one that almost every start-up has to come to terms with and solve. It all boils down to knowing when to let go. It’s an interesting topic to which we shall be returning.

Hi there,

I’m Hugh Fraser, and I have the privilege of being an outside observer of Exbiblio. I’m a journalist turned blogger based in London. The plan is that over the next year or so, I will write up what I see and overhear at Exbiblio on this blog. I have a licence to write as I see fit: the good, the bad and the ugly. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.

I’ve had some unusual assignments in my life, but this is probably “takes the biscuit” as we say in England for out-of-the-ordinary. I’m going to be dropping in on Exbiblio’s office in Seattle about once a month (It’s a ten hour commute from London), and sitting in on any meetings that take my fancy, visiting business partners, and taking notes on all that I see. I hope to get some audio and video going too. I suppose I will be Exbiblio’s “fly on the wall.”

While I’m here in London, I’m getting used to thick and fast Instant Messaging (which I’ve always shunned before) and working evenings on Seattle time.

Exbiblio is a high-tech company that wants to take one of the oldest media in the world – ordinary, crinkly, paper, and turn it into something as interactive as your computer. The inner workings of their technology and ideas completely are beyond my understanding. I will be giving my attention to the culture of a start-up, and I hope highlighting issues that will be of use to anyone involved in any type of business.

Exbiblio has some highly unusual aims. It’s as much about building a shining example for ethical business practice, and funding some altruistic projects, as it is about making money for its backers. In fact that last sentence doesn’t begin to capture extent of its ambitions to change the world for the better, but all will become clear in the posts that follow.

It’s a very young company, and often people start with the best of intentions and lose them later. My feeling about the people at Exbiblio is that they are truly determined to stick to their principles all the way. We shall see….