Winds of change is happening everywhere but the mission of Kanok Bannasan will not change.
I am a late Baby Boomer born in the provinces. (The Baby Boom generation is most often defined as those individuals born between 1946 and 1964.) บางคนกล่าวว่าเป็นยุคลหลังสงครามโลกครั้งที่ 2 Personally I’ve never experienced the reality of the war although I heard about the Vietnam War but it felt distant from me. When I came to study in Bangkok, writing letters was the easiest, cheapest and most convenient mode of communication with folks back home. But whenever there’s an urgent matter (mostly related to money) I will call the shop next to my house and leave a message that I’ll call back in ten minutes and to please get someone from home to come and take the phone call. Long distance phone calls were very expensive. And the receiver (my family) will have to pay a service charge to the shop owner as well.
About ten years later, my family applied for telephone connection in the house and I began to use public telephone to contact my family. Letter writing became less and less. Nowadays, communication with folks back home in the provinces becomes even more convenient with the use of mobile phones. Other than having a conversion, we can also send pictures to each other. And if we wish to see the person that we’re having a conversation with, we can turn on the video and communicate “face to face”.
The world has changed tremendously. But communication still remains.
I first started work during the era of technology changes from the manual typewriter to electric typewriter and then to the computer. Then from the telex machines to fax machines. I remember my excitement at that time with the fax machines that can send a copy from the sender to the receiver as good as the original copy. Many friends then were apprehensive of the changes and the need to learn new things. But I was excited with these new tools and equipment because they made communication easier and faster, instant and using minimal time. In the past, when typing a letter you need to re-read it for typos. To correct a mistake means retyping the whole letter which is time consuming. Now it’s very easy to make correction on the computer. Besides there’s the ‘spell check’ that highlights any typing error. Not many places use fax machines these days whereas it was in popular demand before. Technology has advanced greatly. Many things can be done on the computer, including sending faxes, electronic mails, type documents, write reports, keep document files, draw pictures and many other functions which I can’t keep up with learning all the different programs.
I’ve passed from the 1G generation to the 5G generation. I’ve observed that technological evolution has advanced at a tremendous pace. It affects our life, the thinking and perspective of the new generation, and modern work management. But one thing that doesn’t change throughout the ages is that man needs to communicate with each other. Communication is essential in the family, school, business or in the society we live in. A world without communication would be chaotic because the other party won’t be able to know or acknowledge unless something is communicated. The truth is that “substance or news” that we want to communicate is still there. But the “media” which is the means or ways of communication has advanced.
In the same way, Kanok Bannasan began our ministry under the name “Kanok Bannasan” in 1970. You can say it was born during the end of the Baby Boomer era. Which means we as a publisher has been with the Christian community through many generations until the present time as we enter Generation Z (which refers to people born after 1997). Our core mission has always been to print and distribute Christian literature and evangelistic media in order to build up Christians, churches as well as for the general public who are interested. We’ve been communicating these literature in the form of printed material and books. Some people have asked why Kanok doesn’t produce E-Books since we have already changed into the digital world. More people are reading E-Books. How will Kanok respond to the needs of the new generation?
We accept this recommendation with gratitude. Your question made us realise that we need to study the needs and reading pattern of our readers. And we found out that the Thais usually read short articles on electronic media, reviews or short news items. By nature Thais like to read short articles. Some people may read books that are more than 100 pages long but very few do so. Most people still prefer books that they can feel or touch, open to read, write notes in it or underline it, and even to turn back to pages which impress them. The result of a recent research done in the United States of America concluded that students prefer to read from Text Books more than E-Book. Although it seems that E-Book may play a bigger role in the current world, but it is still not able to replace the importance of physical books as they still hold an importance place for most readers.
But one thing that has been affected more quickly than books are journals and magazines whether it’s weekly, bimonthly or monthly that has been replaced by Digital Magazine and E-Magazine. Many magazines have to cease their publication. Or else they need to change from paper format to digital or electronic.
Kanok Bannasan has similarly been affected. Kanok had in the past (since 1986) published a newsletter called “Reader’s Friend” (later changed to “Kanok News”) every three months. The aim of this newsletter is to communicate with our readers with articles of encouragement, to promote new books, and to inform about our various projects. Every quarterly we sent out more than 2,000 copies of the newsletter. Over time we discovered that the response to the newsletter has been decreasing. At the same time, we find that the medium of disseminating information through social media has increased considerably, faster and to a much wider contacts. It is cost saving compared to sending out paper copies. From our own survey, we discovered that our Christian friends communicate with us mostly through Facebook and Line.
Therefore, we’ve decided that we will continue to send news and communicate with all our friends. But we will change the medium of communication from the colored paper newsletter to using social media where you can continue to access information about Kanok Bannasan through these mediums.
Website: www.kanokbannasan.org
Facebook: กนกบรรณสาร (OMF Publishers)
Line ID: Kanokbannasan
Email: orders@kanokbannasan.org OR info@kanokbannasan.or
Kanok Bannasan hereby informs you that from 2019 onwards we will stop publishing and distributing the newsletter “Readers’ Friend”. But we will continue to communicate with you with words of encouragement, recommend new books and various projects of Kanok through various means as mentioned above which would be faster and more convenient.
Kanok is committed to produce quality literature to strengthen the spiritual lives of Thai Christians and churches as well as to produce evangelistic material that is suitable for the Thais and Thai culture. We desire to be the Publisher that comes alongside the church and Christians always. We continue to publish literature in book form and we’re in the process of developing some books in digital and audio format. Although winds of change is happening everywhere but the mission of Kanok Bannasan will not change. Because the news that we want to send out remains. But the medium that we use to communicate may change in order to reach a much larger and wider readership.
Let’s encourage each other and serve together with us.
Tasanee Yanasiddhi
