David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

My Boss is Blogging!

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Rob Banks, the Deputy Director of Operations at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library (and my awesome boss), has started a blog called Library Admin Musings.

Everyone should read it (and I’m not saying that ’cause he’s my boss – really :-). Why? Read this from his first post: “I am intrigued and often excited about the possibilities of new technologies and trends, frequently referred to as Web 2.0 and/or Library 2.0. Many people do a great job of commenting on these issues and I do not want or need to duplicate their efforts. However, I have not found a regular discussion of those trends from a library administrator’s point of view.  Hopefully, this blog can provide a place for people to look at these technologies and trends and comment on the possible hopes and fears related to implementing them in our libraries.”

How’s that for starting with a small goal? Seriously, Rob and my library’s director, Gina Millsap, have been discussing technology, tech trends, and library 2.0 transformations for probably 2 years now, and have started implementing goals and organizational priorities that stemmed from those discussions (my job is one of those implementations).

In fact, they are giving a SirsiDynix Institute presentation in September – Dump the Org Chart: get ‘Er Done!: Management for a 2.0 Library. here’s the blurb for the talk: “Did you get your MLS in the previous century? Is there a digital divide in your library, not just for customers, but for staff? Are innovation and risk organizational values or … not so much?” Should be pretty interesting!

So – go subscribe right now, and start participating in the discussion … especially if you are a manager or administrator.

And I’ll leave you with this: how many of YOUR supervisors have a blog?

Nielsen Doesn’t Get 2.0

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At least, as far as i can tell. His latest Alertbox article is a good example. The article discusses why one should “write articles, not blog postings.” His summary states: “To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.”

Then he goes into his usual charts and graphs that show that well-written, thorough content is much better than shallow, quickly-written content.

I have a question: how come a blog posting can’t be “thorough, value-added content?”

Neilsen seems to be confusing the content with the container. A blog is nothing more than an easy-to-use CMS (content management system) – the content can be shallow or thorough. It depends on the individual author.

For example, Neilsen’s Alertbox articles, which I usually find to be “thorough, value-added content” could easily be blog postings… all he has to do is offer an RSS feed and allow comments, really (yes, I know, he’d need to use some type of blogging software for it too be a REAL blog…). If he did that – added a way to subscribe to his articles via an RSS feed – would that suddenly turn his well-thought-out articles into “quickly written, shallow postings”?

I don’t think so. Do you?

A Blog from Britannica Should Know Better (or, Gorman is blogging?)

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I’m sorry. It’s just so hard to not write about this! If Gorman were a mainstream celebrity, and I was, say, Jay Leno, I’m be lampooning him heartlessly on late night tv. But I digress…

So… MG is blogging. (Reader: Hmm… didn’t he coin the term “blog people” a couple years ago about those people who “read what they want to read rather than what is in front of them… ?” David: Yep. Same dude.). Upon first read, I wanted to pick apart his two posts bit by bit. And then it dawned on me – I don’t have to. Instead, I can complain about the Britannica Blog!

On the Britannica Blog, under the “About this Blog” section, it states: “We’ve given our writers encouragement and a lot of freedom.” I’m guessing that also means the Britannica Blog doesn’t have an editor. Case in point: read the title of Gorman’s [cough cough] “blog posts,” and then read the posts themselves.

The articles are titled “Web 2.0: The Sleep of Reason” – so you’d think the articles would actually be about web 2.0, right? Wrong. His two articles focused on how “printed authoritative sources” are somehow better than online sources (part 1) and on how young people prefer collective rather than individual sources (part 2).

So… how are those two topics about web 2.0, you ask? Beats me. He DID mention the Internet and Sergey Brin of Google… but he didn’t actually write ANYTHING about web 2.0. Not one jot or tittle. Nada. Nothing.

Come on, Britannica – you can do better than this. Your blog is subtitled “where ideas matter.” At the least, let’s get a clear idea up there… not a loose ramble.

As for Gorman, he claims “I’m no Antidigitalist.” And yet, he has written about the evils of blogging and attempted to write about web 2.0 being the “sleep of reason” (although again, he didn’t actually manage to mention anything remotely web two point oh-ish). I begin to wonder… since Gorman is now blogging, and his blog posts to date simply don’t make much sense, I think it’s “entirely possible that [his] intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs.” Instead of, say, the Wikipedia article on web 2.0.

(For some reason, I keep hearing the song, “I am My Own Grandpa” playing through my head… [stop it, David!] 🙂

Single Greatest Point of Value from Blogging

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CK’s Blog recently posted something that might prove rather useful when you are explaining the benefits of blogging to others. CK polled readers of her blog, asking them “what is the single greatest point of value you receive from blogging?” Then she condensed everything into a handy-dandy little pdf file.

Check out the PDF file! There are some great quotes there, including:

  • Feedback: “our blog has allowed us to get instantaneous feedback on our work”
  • Knowledge: “I get to interact and learn from marketers that are smarter than I am…”
  • Self Improvement: “Blogging makes you better at what you do”
  • Organize My Thoughts: “it gives me a whiteboard to organize my thoughts”
  • Learning: “I love the chance to learn by doing that blogging represents”

(Found on the Church of the Customer blog)