Archive for June, 2006

Blog evangelism

Published on 22 June 2006 in Uncategorized. 11 Comments

I’m not sure if I’ve completely embarrassed myself. Gave a talk yesterday to a group of colleagues from West Australian academic libraries - the talk was “New Technologies in Libraries” (the subtitle in my head being Web 2.0? Library 2.0? Where to?) .

It was to have been a pretty ordinary talk, I thought, complete with requisite PowerPoint slides. My colleague SGS and I had thirty minutes to set the scene and introduce a few of the tools and concepts. You know, blogs, RSS, wikis, and a mention of the whole Web 2.0 thing. Easy-peasy, I thought, given that we’ve given versions of this talk about four times already.

Well, for some reason I got completely carried away and just went on and on talking about the possibilities and all sorts of flights of fancy. Let’s connect, let’s talk, let’s look at stuff! Hallelujah! And I mean no disrespect to Christians - but thinking about it, it was like I was a preacher, extolling the virtues of seeing the light (of blogging - HAH) … much fervent gesticulating and so much to say…

I went over the allotted time by fifteen minutes and was mortified when I realised - but no one stopped me and they even seemed to enjoy the talk. Or at least I thought so. Were the smiles from the audience really just the polite grimaces of people watching a horror spectacle (the sort you can’t tear your eyes from even though it is awful)??

I feel exhausted and hungover today. Coming down from the adrenaline overdose, I think.

If anyone has come here from following the trail I left at the event’s wiki, please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you thought. Or email me if you’d like to commiserate.

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It was GREAT to finally meet, though, K! Looking forward to more talking, working and playing with you! :)

Perth bloggers meet up, June ‘06

Published on 21 June 2006 in Uncategorized. 6 Comments

Attended my second bloggers meetup last night - I had a great time and met more new folks. There were around thirteen of us there: Dee, Bret, Tama, Viv, Matt, Kay, Dave, Rachel, Rachel’s brother (sorry! forgot your name), Simone, Nic and someone else I didn’t really speak to.

My favourite comment of the night: Matt, expressing his frustration at reading print media and not being able to comment in response to inaccuracies or just to give his point of view.

Had a great chat with Rachel, and loved her vision of libraries as the information hub for communities - libraries to facilitate and provide the tech know-how, wireless, space etc for communities! I’m going to have to look out for more opportunities for Rachel to come and talk to us librarians, maybe even hook up with some of my public librarian friends. As for Family 2.0, I guess I am still very much a 1.0 in that aspect ;)

Also enjoyed chatting with Tama of Ponderance about the use of blogs in universities (still limited - at least here in the West - although judging by this article on Sydney Uni’s blogging project, blogging is probably going to get more attention in coming months - thanks K and S for the article!), MySpace and privacy, Google, and so on. Tama I hope you do set up a virtual UWA campus on SecondLife!

Skribe, Toxic Purity and JOOB, Richard and Jon you were missed!

I brought my camera, but, true to form, I forgot all about it until I was on the way home… so no pictures (sorry).

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Disjointed Non-post

Published on 20 June 2006 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Or, what happens when you try to do a few things at once - read, write, add information on wiki, eat breakfast, and answer email - is not working well. Better not give myself indigestion.

I wish there were more hours in a day. Been busy sticking stuff on a wiki for a presentation I’m giving on Thursday. Thank goodness wikis are pretty easy to work with when it comes to adding content!

For my recent annual review I wrote that “the knowledge and skills I’ve gained [from the blogging, RSS, podcasting, wiki projects] will continue to inform and invigorate my professional practice”. I was quite amused at how positive I was able to be - in previous reviews I felt like I was just writing something for the sake of writing it, because I had to, trying not to be too smarmy or too negative - this time it all just flowed quite naturally. The Boss even noted my “enthusiasm” in his section of the review form! Now I wonder what the Uber Boss will say (she has to sign off on it).

It’s going to be a busy day today. A couple of meetings, then I must finalise the presentation and keep getting through my backlog of emails.

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