Is there a "Ning Effect"?

I had a hallway conversation last week with someone who wondered about a specific group on Ning and the lack of activity in that group. While I'm not sure if this is true, I described it as the "Ning Effect".

It is easy to create group or topic areas in Ning and for people to join in. Often people join with the intention of being active, but what happens? It could be that people doing have time to be active. It could be that the group doesn't engage people well enough. It could also be that joining doesn't mean that the person is saying that he will be active, but rather an acknowledgment that the topic is of interest. So Ning allows people to say that they like a topic without ensuring that they will be engaged in the topic.

If this describes you, you are not alone because this also describes me. I'm promising to change by first removing myself from groups where I really am not going to participate and then creating time to participate in those groups that truly interest me. If you are using Ning and have joined groups that you are not actively participating in, you may want to do the same.

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Technorati tag: Ning

Google bashing? No, but some truth-telling.

I heard after the SLA conference that a few people felt we had done some Google bashing in the session "Wikis, Tweets, and Blogs, Oh My" about social media and copyright. (blog post) I don't think we did, but here's what I remember us talking about in regards to Google...

Michael Moynihan, Senior Editor for Reason Magazine, talked about Google "Scholars" at the start of his remarks. He wasn't bashing the Google product, but instead was talking about those people who base their knowledge on the search results returned in Google without conducting further research. These "scholars" (and we use the term loosely) may believe in and propagate misinformation, making it more difficult for the truth to be apparent.

I was asked to comment on the Google Book Search settlement. While it is a topic that I've written about and am tracking (see Related Posts below), I feel as if I don't know all of the nuances of the settlement. (Keith Kupferschmid, Senior Vice President for Intellectual Property Policy at SIIA agreed that there is much to understand in the document and felt that most had not read the entire thing, but were relying on the commentary of others.) My main point in my comment was that Google is a for-profit company that is involved in many areas including software and hardware development, search engines, content creation, and marketing & promotion, etc. While we are the beneficiaries of their efforts, they have their own best interests in mind (and those of their stockholders), not ours. Moynihan also spoke briefly about the complexity of the agreement and its impact. Thankfully there are people and organizations who are delving into the details and filing amicus briefs (friends of the court documents) in order to bring more voices and concerns to the table.

I don't remember other mentions of Google; however, I'm sure that the audio/video of the session -- once online -- will bring any other mentions we made to light.

Related posts and articles:

• Society of Ohio Archivists Annual Conference (What We Are Learning From Google & Flickr About Digitization and Partnership)
• Brewster Kahle weighs in on the Google Book Search settlement
• More information on the Google Book Settlement and how to opt out
• Rights holders have a limited time to opt out of the Google settlement
• Article: The End of Snippet View: Google Settles Lawsuit with Book Publishers
• More on the Google settlement: Is it all good?
• More on what the Google Book Search settlement means (and my vision of Google's future)
• Article: Is Google Deal a Setback for Rival Digitization Efforts?

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Technorati tags: Copyright, Google, SLA2009

Wikis, Tweets, and Blogs, Oh My!

Yesterday I participated in the session entitled "Wikis, Tweets, and Blogs, Oh My!" at the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.. The other people on the panel were:

• Michael Moynihan, Senior Editor, Reason Magazine (title corrected 6/21/2009)
  
• Keith Kupferschmid, Senior Vice President, Intellectual Property Policy, SIIA
• Laura Malone, Associate General Counsel, The Associated Press

The session was moderated by Christopher Kenneally, Director, Business Development, Copyright Clearance Center. The session was video recorded and I expect that excerpts will be available on the Beyond the Book podcast and perhaps the entire session will be available elsewhere.

The session focused on the copyright concerns that are occurring with social media. We talked about illegal use of copyrighted materials as well as "tolerated use". For example, it is illegal to copy an entire Associated Press (AP) news article and place it in your blog without explicit permission from the AP. It is legal to quote snippets from a news article with a link back to the original article, along with additional content from you (e.g., criticism or commentary).

"Tolerated use" is an interested gray area. The example I gave is that I will republish entire conference announcements in my Digitization 101 blog because I know that those announcements are meant to be widely disseminated even though they are technically copyrighted. The organization that created the announcement sees that as "tolerated use". Yes, I have infringed on the organization's copyright, but they tolerate it because of the benefit that they are receiving. Tolerated use is not law. In this specific case, I could argue that my use complies with the four factors of Fair Use under U.S. law:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes (A commercial benefit is received by the original organization and not by Hurst Associates, Ltd.)
   
2. The nature of the copyrighted work (An announcement meant from broad distribution)
   
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole (The entire announcement)
   
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work (The use does not effect the value of the copyrighted work, since the copyright work is an announcement and not something that is for sale.)

We also touched on the idea of attribution and I wish we could have explored this topic more. I stated that in some cases, if someone uses my words, I may be okay with it if I receive proper attribution. For example, if I say something on Twitter that is repeated by others (retweeted), then I would hope that I would received credit (attribution). This is a very, very hard concept to articulate, especially since what is tolerated is defined on a case-by-case basis. I think this is something I need spend more time thinking about so I can articulate my tolerance and concerns better.

All in all, this was a very interesting session and I'm glad that I was invited to be one of the panelists. Once any podcast and video from this session goes online, I'll post a note letting you know where you can find it.

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Technorati tags: SLA2009, Copyright

Designing the Ideal Speaker Engagement: Creating ROI for You and the Audience

Friday night, I blogged about the RPCN event that had occurred earlier in the day. I was one of the presenters and I did two sessions on the topic "Designing the Ideal Speaker Engagement: Creating ROI for You and the Audience". In stark contrast to what I normally do, I used no PowerPoint and my handout was a mind map-like diagram that outlines seven areas (or steps). In each area, there was an opportunity to impact return on investment (ROI). As I said, each speaker invests time in creating a presentation and the audience invests time in attending it, therefore, each should receive a return on that investment. The seven areas on the diagram were (along with their corresponding goals):

• Pre-engagement -- Be a desired speaker
  
• Promotion -- Let clients/possible clients know that you do this
  
• Research/Learn -- Guarantee to add value to your audience
  
• Design -- Create WOW
  
• Deliver -- Be the speaker they hired
  
• Follow-up -- Ensure a favorable impression
  
• Repurpose -- Capitalize on what you did
  

As you can begin to discern from above, "Designing the Ideal Speaker Engagement", this is a process. Finding opportunities to speak, delivering presentations, and then positioning yourself for the next engagement do not happen accidentally. Thought and action must occur at every step.

If there was one key thought, it was to place out on the Internet information that allows people to see that you are a speaker, that you are willing to speak, and that connects them to information on what you have done in the past and what you will be doing in the future. Then do everything in your power to ensure that your create ROI for your audience. Your return on investment will come from additional speaking engagements, repurposing your content, and consulting (etc.) that occurs because people have heard you.

I've already heard from one person who was appreciative of how much information I packed into 30 minutes. Even though I had a handout, she said that she took lots of notes. I think this 30 minute presentation could make a great 1 - 2 mini-workshop, where people can think through the seven areas more fully. Where can I create an opportunity to do that this year?!

Related links:

• Advice to conference/training/event organizers as well as presenters/speakers/trainers
• My top seven presentation tips
  

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Technorati tag: Marketing

Quick notes from " Marketing Yourself—The Power of Marketing through Publishing, Presenting & Teaching"

Today the Rochester Professional Consultants Network put on a half-day conference entitled "Marketing Yourself—The Power of Marketing through Publishing, Presenting & Teaching". The event was held at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and had about 60 enthusiastic participants, including people who drove from Ottawa, Canada and Van Etten, NY.

Joe Groden opened the conference with an overview of marketing. He advocated for us to to have written marketing plans and written goals. You are more likely to do them and measure them if they are written. He noted that networking needed to be done both online and face-to-face (f2f).

Neil Hair, a professor at RIT, talked about "Personal Branding in the Age of Social Media". His was definitely a call to action! No matter how much branding and networking you're doing online, Hair demonstrated that more could (and should) be done.

At one point, he asked:

• Why are people not blogging?
• Why don't people have YouTube channels?

He sees Twitter as being/becoming important for b2b (business to business) marketing.

Hair noted that even if a product (e.g., Twitter) was to disappear tomorrow, the people network would remain and would find another tool to use for communication. He thinks people should invest time in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter because those three have staying-power at least for now.

Hair provided several checklists for assessing your personal branding online. WOW! Too much to put here, but rather than thinking "I can't do that", we all must take the attitude of "how can I not do that?" B-e---o-u-t---t-h-e-r-e!

Two new-to-me web sites mentioned:

• Yammer
• 123people.com

Brad VanAuken then spoke on "Marketing Yourself: The Power of Marketing Through Publishing, Presenting, and Teaching". VanAuken used himself as the example for discussing the power of marketing...and...wow! Things that he mentioned included:

• Send out free copies of your book for review.
• Distribute or link to reviews of your book.
• Promote what your doing with your alma maters.
• Notice what is being said on the Internet and on book web sites about you (e.g., Amazon.com).
• Create an Amazon Listmania! list. Put items you respect on the list as well as some of your own work.
• Register with Profnet.
• Give speeches and workshops.
• Join speaker bureaus and the National Speakers Association.
• Connect with conference companies.
• Find media partners for your workshops.
• Develop a strong biography.
• Pursue high visibility pro bono work.
• Build a strong client list.
• Solicit testimonials.
• Partner with other organizations.
• Let your business partners promote your work.
• Use SlideShare.net.
• Use Utterli.com.
• Find creative ways to contribute services to good causes.

There were then three concurrent breakout sessions. Unfortunately, I gave a breakout, so I can tell you what happened in the other ones! I spoke on "Designing the Ideal Speaker Engagement: Creating ROI for You & the Audience". I'll blog about that next week.

The other breakout session presenters were Jim Payne, Ruth Thaler-Carter, and Greg Taylor.

The last session was a panel discussion where we all answered questions. Joe Groden had the best comment which was that everyone had heard and learned a lot. Now everyone needed to spend a few hours putting what we had heard into practice. (The reality is, however, that most of what anyone learns at an event is never put into use.)

Several us continued the conversation over lunch -- Ruth, Ruth, Norma, John, and myself. We were joined by David. Thanks to Euan for helping to arrange the lunch, even though he could attend (a last minute change of plans).

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Technorati tag: Marketing

Winning attitudes...and Twitter helped

A funny thing happens when you use Twitter; you get connected to people and good things happen.

A few months ago, Amber Smith, reporter at the Syracuse Post-Standard, contacted several people via Twitter about our winning attitudes. We had been nominated by someone else on Twitter. Those tweet interactions led to email and a telephone interview, and a story that is now online and which (I believe) will be in the Post-Standard on May 29.

I'm sure you're using lots of tools to interact with people and expand your network. Twitter is just one more tool and if you haven't explored it yet, put it on your to-do list to do. Good things do happen in Twitter!

Save the media: Bloggers need journalism to survive

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Gina Chen for a news story and then meeting her in person a few months ago, when we were both part of the same panel discussion about web 2.0. Gina asked if I would consider being a guest writer on her blog and I immediately said "yes". After much thinking (and drafting), the blog post was finished this week and published in her blog (Save the Media). In my post, I talk about the difference between bloggers and journalists and why we need journalists to survive (and not be downsized out of existence). I also provided three tips. I hope you'll give it a read and perhaps leave a comment with your thoughts on the topic.