Tools of Change, or TOC for the acronym lovers in the crowd, is a technology conference for publishing that O’Reilly Publishing started in 2007. I’ve had the pleasure of attending the past two years and am looking forward to TOC 2011 this February.
Tools of Change for Publishing, in my humble opinion, is one of the more important conferences to attend if you are at all interested in publishing and technology. The conference has endeared itself to all and sundry and has also led to many knock-off conferences about publishing and the digital space. However, again in my humble opinion, none of the pretenders can really claim the influence or breadth that TOC offers, (except of course BNC Tech Forum—but I might be a tad biased).
I am once again hoping to hear from leading technology providers, cross-platform media companies, artists and publishers about what the emerging trends are at the intersection of publishing and technology. I mean, this is what BookNet is all about, and this is what O’Reilly is really good at, both as a publisher and as a conference organizer.
In previous years I sat in on talks about XML workflow, QR codes, ebook trends, transmedia, cloud storage and more. I have heard about the shift in reading habits that technology will exploit. I have heard about using social networks to build your brand. I have heard about experiments with digital distribution. I have walked away from this conference with my head spinning with possibilities, the possibilities that owe their existence to digitization and the internet. It is an action-packed 3 days (if you do the workshops as well) that pulls together an audience of over a thousand to brainstorm the future. This year I can only hope I see a pilot of a project that one Kobo employee’s tweet suggested:
