Somebody else: Congratulations on winning the election!
Me: Thank you ... it literally feels like a dream right now.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
It ain't over til it's over ... and maybe not even then.
I've talked to a couple of people recently who have said something like "I'm going to be done with my work blog after Learning 2.0 is over."
Now, these are not one-post-and-done, fulfill-the-assignment "bloggers."*** Both are people who have posted semi-regularly, and not "here's my blog entry, dum-de-dum, etc." either - there are some important questions about library policy and practice, observations about what we do, and actual discussion being generated because of what they're posting. So my question is:
Why would you quit?
Except for the fact that participation in Learning 2.0 by senior management has been minimal - very few were in evidence at the Michael Stephens presentations, and it's doubtful many of them have actually read more than two blog posts ... yes, I can see that that could be construed as discouraging.
But you have to allow time for the medium to catch on, and time to build an audience, and time for the interesting conversations to get back to senior management with the phrase "and I saw this discussion on so-and-so's blog!"
Influential library bloggers like Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens had to get their start somewhere. Though for many people, blogging about library stuff is not their thing. But I put it to those for whom it obviously IS their thing: Keep writing. I'll read your blog! And so will my librarian friends. (If it's not clear that I'm reading it, email me to make sure I'm living up to my promise.)
***Which is NOT to say that there's anything wrong with posting once to fulfill the assignment!!! That's what we wanted you to do. If you did that, way to go! I'm just saying that some people took to it more than others.
Now, these are not one-post-and-done, fulfill-the-assignment "bloggers."*** Both are people who have posted semi-regularly, and not "here's my blog entry, dum-de-dum, etc." either - there are some important questions about library policy and practice, observations about what we do, and actual discussion being generated because of what they're posting. So my question is:
Why would you quit?
Except for the fact that participation in Learning 2.0 by senior management has been minimal - very few were in evidence at the Michael Stephens presentations, and it's doubtful many of them have actually read more than two blog posts ... yes, I can see that that could be construed as discouraging.
But you have to allow time for the medium to catch on, and time to build an audience, and time for the interesting conversations to get back to senior management with the phrase "and I saw this discussion on so-and-so's blog!"
Influential library bloggers like Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens had to get their start somewhere. Though for many people, blogging about library stuff is not their thing. But I put it to those for whom it obviously IS their thing: Keep writing. I'll read your blog! And so will my librarian friends. (If it's not clear that I'm reading it, email me to make sure I'm living up to my promise.)
***Which is NOT to say that there's anything wrong with posting once to fulfill the assignment!!! That's what we wanted you to do. If you did that, way to go! I'm just saying that some people took to it more than others.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Stephen Abram presentation from September
I meant to link to this earlier, but better late than never - Stephen Abram did a presentation in September to kick off our Learning 2.0 training, and now that we're hearing another presentation, it might be a good time to check out that one if you missed it.
Michael Stephens
I first met Michael Stephens when a bunch of us from ACPL went to St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend, which is where he was working at the time. (It resulted, among other things, in this infamous picture).
He's very charismatic and very convincing. If you have the chance to see him at 10:30 today (Dec. 14), you should go. Here are a few points from his 8 am presentation:
A book he recommends is The Cluetrain Manifesto.
He points out Ann Arbor District Library, which has a totally blog-based web site.
One of the best things libraries can do on their blogs is tell stories.
Libraries should be as transparent as they possibly can - letting the community know what you're doing and asking their opinion and help.
On social networking: people want to talk to each other. What about letting them comment on materials right in the catalog?
Go where the users are - the Digital Collaborative is always interested in figuring out how to put our institution in front of users where they are already - like MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, etc. Got any ideas?
How do you use social networking to promote the library, and why aren't we doing it already?.
Michael points out a lot of things that other libraries do that we're either doing already, or that we have plans to do. Go us!
"Are we failing to innovate because of fear?" "Throw out the culture of perfect" - meaning it doesn't have to be perfect before you launch it! It's okay to make mistakes and okay to talk about them. It's a gamer mentality - you make a mistake, you back up a little bit and go a different way.
Web/Lib 2.0 is open and participatory. It needs an atmosphere of trust. It's a cultural shift, not a new toy.
We should relate all the stuff that we're doing that utilizes 2.0 tools to our mission statement.
5 things you can do: be a trendspotter, try learning 2.0, create a what's new blog, explore presence, and okay, I missed one, he was going pretty fast.
He's very charismatic and very convincing. If you have the chance to see him at 10:30 today (Dec. 14), you should go. Here are a few points from his 8 am presentation:
A book he recommends is The Cluetrain Manifesto.
He points out Ann Arbor District Library, which has a totally blog-based web site.
One of the best things libraries can do on their blogs is tell stories.
Libraries should be as transparent as they possibly can - letting the community know what you're doing and asking their opinion and help.
On social networking: people want to talk to each other. What about letting them comment on materials right in the catalog?
Go where the users are - the Digital Collaborative is always interested in figuring out how to put our institution in front of users where they are already - like MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, etc. Got any ideas?
How do you use social networking to promote the library, and why aren't we doing it already?.
Michael points out a lot of things that other libraries do that we're either doing already, or that we have plans to do. Go us!
"Are we failing to innovate because of fear?" "Throw out the culture of perfect" - meaning it doesn't have to be perfect before you launch it! It's okay to make mistakes and okay to talk about them. It's a gamer mentality - you make a mistake, you back up a little bit and go a different way.
Web/Lib 2.0 is open and participatory. It needs an atmosphere of trust. It's a cultural shift, not a new toy.
We should relate all the stuff that we're doing that utilizes 2.0 tools to our mission statement.
5 things you can do: be a trendspotter, try learning 2.0, create a what's new blog, explore presence, and okay, I missed one, he was going pretty fast.
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