Cohen on Changing the Sacred Rite of Peer Review

Patricia Cohen had an interesting piece in a very recent issue of New York Times. Essentially, she reports that a "trailblazing" experiment is under way, particularly in the humanities, on alternative ways of vetting scholarly works for publication in journals, and even books, that were traditionally peer-reviewed. All of this assault on the citadel, which remained essentially 'unassailable' during the second half of the twentieth century and even farther back, is thanks to the wider spaces and resources increasingly made available by the web to both sides of the publishing divide -- the publisher and the (would-be) published -- as well as the digital divide itself.

In this new dispensation, the power to pass judgment on the quality and publishability of a scholarly submission is to be devolved well beyond small rings of anonymous experts (peer reviewers) to online "brown-bag" sessions -- a shifting kind of e-brownbag community, if you like -- in which as many experts and apprentices ('grad students') with "the time" can equally participate.

There are a number of reasons why scholars in the developing world would view this new trend with even more interest than she probably imagines when she writes:

"Clubby exclusiveness, sloppy editing and fraud have all marred peer review on occasion. Anonymity can help prevent personal bias, but it can also make reviewers less accountable; exclusiveness can help ensure quality control but can also narrow the range of feedback and participants. Open review more closely resembles Wikipedia behind the scenes...".

Still, as Cohen notes, this "open-door policy" poses some dangers:
1. Peer review would turn into some kind of "American Idol" spectacle [Now, only a select few pick the idols: who are typically American in American publications, and European in European ones].
2. Reviewers might not be as, at once, incisive and 'blunt' in public as they have been in private, working "blindly" [Which was a good thing].
3. Comments might not be as "comprehensive and conceptual" as they have been, and instead become "short and episodic" texts, fired at "warp speed" [Which, putting the speed aside, would be 'degenerate'].
4. 'Know-nothings' would rule the process [Which would be a terrible blow to professionalism and disciplinary excellence].

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On Why Focusing on Core Business May be the Route to Oblivion

The mantra of top business minds (at least since Tom Peters made the call) and leading business schools has been: "Focus on your core business"; that is to say, on your core competencies. Diversions were to be avoided at all costs.

Now Adam Harting warns, in a Forbes article, that doing so is a sure route to oblivion. Being nimble-footed -- able to shift gears as quickly as rapidly changing fields of play demand -- is what is called for; better still, being able to juggle several balls of commitment and focus at the same time, to multi-task, to diversify activity, to hedge risk and even to anticipate the future -- as Google seems to be (as AIG was not) good at.

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The Risk of Online Share Trading

Online share trading poses many risks to the investors, particularly on platforms with non-existent or rudimentary security systems. One suspects thatthere are plenty around in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa.

Occasionally "testing the system" in order to ensure security is not sufficient to give 'bankable' assurance, and so does not give comfort to the savvy investor. From the start, Online Share Trading services are typically fully covered, through carefully worded disclaimers in small-print, against litigation by their client-investors who may be hit by fraudsters. No one will fully compensate the investor who loses assets through online fraud undetected in time by otherwise aggressive service providers.

One way to eliminate this risk is to stay out of online trading completely. Another, for the more tech savvy operating in vulnerable/hackable environments, would be for service providers to offer the opportunity to buy, but not to sell, shares online. Who would want to buy shares for me, secretly? There is no palpable danger there. But a byzantine underworld of hackers may easily plot and remotely execute fraudulent "sell" orders using stolen email and share-account passwords, accompanied by illegal and lightning (and irrecoverable) transfers of funds out of investors' accounts.

It seems to me that the safest sell orders will always require long paper-trails.