
Derik Badman's creative sketch!
Hey, check out Derik Badman’s terrific sketches of speakers at Computers in Libraries 2009.
Jane Dysart, Conference Program Chair
Derik Badman's creative sketch!
Hey, check out Derik Badman’s terrific sketches of speakers at Computers in Libraries 2009.
Jane Dysart, Conference Program Chair
How can something be both dead and innovative? Michael Sauers, who is sitting next to me, suggested that probably means not at the same time. I thought maybe it really means “deadly innovative”. With a slate of speakers like this, it will certainly not be dull and boring! (Notice that this is an executive level session–the speakers got overstuffed chairs!)
(L-R) Marshall Breeding, Amanda Etches-Johnson, Steve Abram, Aaron Schmidt, Darlene Fichter
I wrote the above while waiting for the session to start, and it was certainly anything but dull and boring! It was fast paced, thought provoking, forward looking, and controversial in spots. Here are some brief summaries of what the panelists said.
Marshall Breeding noted that he is not so much a mover and shaker but a survivor. He certainly is a survivor–he has compiled a remarkable record of attending all 24 CIL conferences! He has this view of library technology:
Libraries are good at taking the technology of the current and applying it to the reality of their last generation and calling it next generation! We do not have a great track record at moving forward at the pace of change. The transition to electronic content has been underway for a decade, but we still lack effective tools to manage them effectively. We continue to cling to hopelessly ineffective tools. Some of our technologies should be dead but in clinging to them, libraries are being held back.
Amanda Etches-Johnson looked at 5 technologies and asked the audience whether each one was alive or dead. The results are interesting. Only one is alive:
–Many blogs are dead, but engaging, authentic blogs are alive and well.
—Twitter is dead. The corporatization of any social network kills it!
—Information architecture is dead. It is all about user experience right now, not building that great taxonomy.
—Second Life is dead. There’s nobody there.
—Usability is alive and well. It can be as simple as doing testing with users or writing content that users understand.
Aaron Schmidt speculated on what the future might look like. He sees a promising future for RFID technology. We are entering a post-desktop world and moving into mobile devices and the age of ubiquitous computing. Soon everything will communicate with RFID, but nobody knows yet what the human interface will look like. Many things are going from analog to digital, so there is a lot of money to be made. RFID chips now cost pennies instead of dollars and it will be possible to integrate them widely into applications.
We can access a huge amount of information from the Web. Information is going to multiple places as devices can synchronize themselves. A new markup language, EEML (Extended Environments Markup Language), is forming to monitor data, track positions, etc. Everything potentially has a URI–the challenge is what are libraries going to do?
Darlene Fichter noted that the mass media revolution has become the personal media revolution, and information will become a media age. She knows 3 things:
Steve Abram gave his usual fast moving talk covering lots of ground and providing advice for libraries who want to survive in the future. He thinks that some of the service practices at the Hyatt (the conference hotel) can be used as a model for what libraries should not do to provide good service, such as: keep the bar closed all day, never make eye contact with customers, keep the coffee counter closed most of the day, and staff should move as slowly as possible–backwards in time if possible. He thinks the Hyatt’s motto could be: “Putting the frown in our logo every day”!
Stephen’s points to ponder:
History has shown that every time we have a recession, we create a new economy. We’re now entering an information economy.
What is the deadest technology for libraries? The attitude that “We don’t want to evolve because we want to wait for the climate to change.”
Watch the kids and their toys. They’re doing interesting things, and they’re different.
Are we going to a totally build-it-yourself world? Imagine Ikea merging with GM! Maybe cars will be delivered like this:
The "IKEA car"
So when journalism goes away, will you be ready to assemble your own books and newspapers–like this?
Do-It-Yourself Newspapers
If we’re going to worry about the container and not the knowledge, we’re in trouble.
How do your community surveys do? Do you offer podcasts? Are your content displays innovative? Can you circulate books from anywhere, like the parking lot, nursing home?
How do we support kids as they grow up? The people in charge of leading school organizations are the least knowledgeable about the 21st century?
How do we get the confidence to cope with change?
We can only lock up our computers so far, and we cannot control the way people are using their computers.
How are our libraries evolving?
How do make sure we know that there’s an elephant in the room and we have to address it?
There are many routes to the future–what’s your bread and better? Do you create a user experience? Does knowledge get created? It’s not about storing stuff.
Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2009 Blog Coordinator
Wow what a day! We, our conference twitter bunch using #CIL2009 in our tweets, are a top trending topic on Twitter today! We rock! Follow the Twitter stream for CIL here. We figure there about 60 tweets a minute from CIL. Amazing.
Following this morning’s keynote, I was walking with our keynote speaker Paul Holdengraber of NYPL who was checking his blackberry. He showed me a message from a NYC friend that said, “You really wowed them at CIL”. Paul said to me,”This came in not a half hour after my talk. How did she know?” I said, I suspected she saw it on Twitter. I shared with him the stream of comments about his talk. He was most impressed with everyone’s comments. Apparently the NYPL has been trying to talk Paul into twittering and suggested he would have lots of followers. Well, Paul, we know you’ll probably have at least 2000 information professionals who will be following you as soon as you sign in and probably many more thousands around the world. See on Twitter soon.
Jane Dysart, Conference Program Chair
If you enjoyed our Tuesday morning keynote, make sure you check out tomorrow’s keynote speaker, Michael Edson, Director of Web & New Media Strategy, Office of the CIO, Smithsonian Institution. Under links on the right hand side of this Infotodayblog web page you’ll find the link to the live stream. We’ll be archiving it too so you can look at it again and again. Should be fun.
BTW, here’s Michael tweet from a few days ago: “Working on keynote for Computers in Libraries Wednesday. Need to write new talk about the public domain. Inspired by James Boyle, Jefferson”
Unconferences Panel (L-R) John Blyberg, Steve Lawson, Stephen Francoeur, Kathryn Greenhill
We’re all here at CIL and it’s hardly necessary to say that it is a conference. It has keynote addresses, speakers, exhibitors, a program, and a well designed infrastructure, all overseen by a very competent Conference Planning Department at ITI. But what’s an “unconference”? Does it have any of these features? Are they necessary? Evidently some people don’t think they are, and unconferences are a new type of event that is becoming popular. (I have noticed some of these events beginning to appear on the conference calendars, and have included some of them on the ITI Conference Calendar. )
Unconferences use open space technology and don’t have a pre-determined program. Instead, the start of the event, attendees decide what will be discussed. The book Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide by Harrison Owen has many guidelines for unconferences, such as:
Unconferences started in August 2005 in response to O’Reilly’s FOO Camps when someone who thought he was not invited arranged “an open welcoming yearly event for geeks to camp out with Wi-Fi and smash their brains together.” They go by a number of names: Barcamp, Podcamp, Library Camp, Libcamp, Bibcamp, Mashed Library, etc. But many people think that it doesn’t really matter what they’re called.
Here are some of the guidelines and experiences mentioned by the panel:
Typical giveaways from recent unconferences
Unconferences won’t replace traditional ones, but they inject intellectual thought into the time between them and re-energize people. You can get a lot of results from an unconference and build a continuing community as issues come up. They are an interesting phenomenon and one worth watching as they develop.
Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2009 Blog Coordinator
David Lee King speaks with Helene Blowers before his presentation
David Lee King (his blog) recommends the book Experience to get an understanding of what experience is and how we are becoming an “experience economy”. We can use this concept in designing the digital experience. There are three paths.
Structural path. Create a better experience by making your website easier to use–focus on their goal instead of how to use the site. Stay out of the user’s way. They aren’t interested in your site’s structure and all its cool features! Be quick and fluid and get improvements out quickly. Look at your site with critical eyes and don’t think about the potholes. Don’t make your users think–if they have to think about how to use the site, you have failed.
Community path. Create a memorable community-based experience created through online participation in a community. Give users the ability to create reviews; have real conversations through commenting, instant messaging, online forums, etc.; invite user participation by issuing invitations to interact and share their thoughts; and let them tell their stories. (See what David’s library, the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library is doing.)
Customer path. Improve the experience for your customers. Many consumer companies have discovered this. For example, Starbucks has lots of information on coffee on its website, and Harley-Davidson has the motorcycle experience allowing customers to meet fellow Harley owners, which focus on the experience surrounding the product. Libraries could offer book discussion groups on the Web and extend the physical experience into the digital space. Think about how you can improve on the ordinary (David mentioned how WD-40 cans now have the straw attached). If you were to start over with your website, what would you do differently. Compare your site to those in other industries, not other library’s sites–your customers are not using them! Surprise and delight your customers.
What’s Next?
Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2009 Blog Coordinator
Jane and Paul study the feedback after the keynote
Talk about instant gratification… right after the keynote with Paul Holdengraber, he and Jane Dysart search the Twitter feeds to see what attendees thought of his interview.
Helene Blowers speaks on Digital Natives
Who are Digital Natives? According to an accepted definition, they are people born after 1980. Some of them are as young as 1-1/2 years old! In 1983, the first cell phone was introduced–they were 3 then! As we build services for them, we must keep in mind that they have always been surrounded by technology.
The first Web was built on “Find”, now it’s built on connecting and access. Engagement is critical; it won the election of 2008. Lots of people are still chasing information instead of learning how to get it to come to them. If you’re not using social media, you are still stuck back in the “Find” era.
Here are 9 Realities of Digital Natives:
What does this mean for libraries? Young minds, virtual users, and power users lead to enhanced opportunities to read and grow, connected individuals and communities, and wildly enthusiastic users. Customers must connect with library staff, services, and each other in meaningful ways. Blowers said that at the Columbus, OH Metropolitan Library, where she is Digital Strategy Director, strategies of engagement, enrichment, and empowerment form the framework in defining new services for users.
What’s a great birthday present for a Digital Native? Buy them their own domain name!
Helene’s slides are on Slideshare.
Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2009 Blog Coordinator