Blog Day 2008: Five blogs worth knowing about

The directions for participating in Blog Day are pretty easy:

1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2008
3. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
4. Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st)
   

Here are five blogs that I think you might enjoy:

• Zen Habits -- There is something in this blog for everyone. Lots of tidbits and helpful hints to help you be more productive. This blog is written by Leo Babauta who lives on Guam.
• Skaneateles Real Estate News -- Okay, so you're not interested in real estate in Skaneateles, NY. But perhaps you'd be interested to see how a real estate agent is using a blog to communicate with her current and prospective clients?!
• Seth Godin's Blog -- Godin is an author and speaker, who has influenced how we think about marketing. He blogs about marketing, customer service and other topics. He is definitely worth reading (or skimming if you're short on time).
  
• Bt the Bayou -- This is both a personal and professional blog written by John Whiteside in Houston, TX. John truly believes in using social media, and has used the tools to become better connected professionally to people across the continent as well as those located in Houston.
• Cookin' in the 'Cuse -- Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows is the premier food blogger in Syracuse and whatever she writes is worth reading. And if you like to cook, her Multiple Cheeses Rigatoni Pasta recipe is easy and delicious!
  

That's it! Happy Blog Day!

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Technorati tag: BlogDay2008

FreeScreencast.com

Yesterday I blogged about a screencast done about LibraryThing. Sheli and Elizabeth used FreeScreencast.com to create that. What is a screencast? According to the web site, "Screencasting is a very simple concept: record your computer screen and sounds while talking about your actions." FreeScreencast.com has software you can use to do this for free and they will host your screencast, too. Likely, you already have everythign else you need on your computer.

If screencasting is unfamiliar to you, take a look at the one Sheli and Elizabeth did. If you're interested in doing one, you might try using FreeScreencast.com first. You might as well use a free service to learn on...and perhaps it will provide all of the features that you need.

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Technorati tag: Screencast

Blog post: 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

If you are using Twitter already, many of these will be obvious. Sinnce doing customer service via Twitter may not be intuitive, here are three examples:

• Someone from Bloglines (an RSS reader) is monitoring Twitter for comments about their beta product and service issues.
• Comcast has become famous for their use of Twitter. Frank has reached out to Comcast uses all across the country via Twitter to help them with service problems.
• Felicia's Atomic Lounge uses Twitter to announce events and specials.

How could you be using Twitter to reach out and support your customers? Perhaps all you need to do is to make yourself available to talk?

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Technorati tag: Twitter

Screencast about LibraryThing for Libraries

Sheli and Elizabeth in Scranton, PA did this screencast about LibraryThing for Libraries. What is LibraryThing?

LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.

And LibraryThing for Libraries allows libraries to provide more information by drawing upon the LibraryThing database. For a peek at what this means, watch the screencast. (BTW One of the buttons on the screen below will show the screencast in full-screen mode.)



Congrats to Sheli and Elizabeth on this effort!

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Technorati tag: LibraryThing

Jill's September schedule

As summer winds down, my schedule is heating up. I will be giving the following presentations in September:

• Sept. 9: Practical Digitizing Series: Planning & Management of Digitization Projects (workshop), South Central Regional Library Council, Ithaca, NY -- SCRLC is conducting another series of workshops on digitization. This series will occur in the fall in Ithaca and is geared specifically towards their members and the direction that SCRLC is taking. I am pleased that SCRLC again has asked me to kick-off a digitization series for them.
  


• Sept. 10: Using Digital Collections to Expand Your Audience (panel), 2008 American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) Annual Meeting, Rochester, NY -- Myself and three others will present during this session. Each of us will address this topic from a very different point of view.
  


• Sept. 12: Web 3D & Virtual Worlds (presentation), Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC) Forum on Federal Information Policies, Washington, D.C. -- I'll be talking about the work that government entities are doing in Second Life and what libraries need to be considering/doing. My co-presenter in this session will be talking specifically about the Swedish embassy in Second Life. Yes, governments are among those investing time and resources in virtual worlds.
  

For more information on any of the events on my calendar, please contact the sponsoring organization or me. If you would me to speak at your event, please give me a shout.

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Technorati tags: Digitization, Second Life, Social Networking Tools

23 Things: Feedback

This is week #5 for me with the SLA version of 23 Things. So far, the tools discussed have been tools that I understand and use frequently. Since I don't have to do every step in the lesson, I generally skim through to see if there is anything new that I need to know. Sometimes the lesson sparks me to go off and try something else.

23 Things is based on spending 15 minutes per day learning something new. The SLA version has weeks were you could spend much more time. One change I would like to see is to have a lesson each week that is truly one hour, then provide additional lessons for the week that are optional (and that require more time). If it were possible to really divide the lessons into 15 minute increments, I think that some participants would find that useful. For example, you might divide the week into these 15-minute intervals or lessons:

Day 1: Overview with text, podcast or video
Day 2: Explore how others are using
Day 3: Set up an account to use the tool yourself
Day 4: Learn how to use the account
Day 5: Practice or expand your usage

mmm...I like that format! I think I'm going to have to use it in an upcoming workshop!

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Technorati tag: SLA23Things

Article: Second Life Bluesman Gets First-Life Recording Contract

Quoting:

Nashville bluesman Von Johin learned the art of Mississippi Delta-style blues the old fashioned way: by playing small venues across the country. But despite the traditional nature of his music, Von Johin plays weekly shows in Second Life, as you can see in the video to the right. His determination has paid off handsomely, with a record deal believed to be the first ever given to a Second Life performer.

Read more...

And you still think that virtual worlds are just for fun?

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Technorati tag: Second Life

What are you doing on Oct. 15?

Last year, I participated in Blog Action Day on my Digitization 101 blog. This year, I'll blog here on Oct. 15 on the topic of poverty.

Blog Day (Aug. 31) and Blog Action Day (Oct. 15) gives bloggers worldwide a chance to step out of their normal routines and topics. While Blog Day is fun, Blog Action Day is series and fun. Blog Action Day is a chance for bloggers to make a difference. And each year, participation on these days grows.

If you are unfamiliar with these two days, check them out. You'll find Blog Day a nice challenge. On Blog Action Day, you will be part of a large conversation on poverty. Poverty touches all of us directly or indirectly. With the economy as it is now, it is a topic we need to focus on. I hope you'll join the conversation.

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Technorati tags: Blog Action Day, Blogging, Blog Day

Article: Parents Work the Web

The Post-Standard published an article yesterday on what are generically called "mommy blogs".

The Web has long been a source of expert advice for people, including parents. But increasingly, parents are turning to blogs and social-networking sites to meet other parents, feel part of a community or get advice from other parents who have faced the same problem, rather than the experts.

I was among those quoted in the article:

When you work in a business, you go down to the coffee pot during the day, and there’s always a conversation going on. With the online tools, it’s like going to the coffee pot.

What was interesting to me were the number of people in the article with a connection to the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University including myself, David Lankes, and Jen Liddy. I was also thrilled to see them introduce a new blog on the Syracuse.com web site authored by Peggy Liuzzi called Child Care Matters. I've known Peggy for several years and she is a very knowledgeable woman who is passionate about good child care.

Oh...so...is the fact that parents are using online tools to connect and learn from other parents shocking? Nope. I would find it more surprising if they weren't doing that.

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Technorati tag: Blogging

Gmail address aliases

I learned about this yesterday morning in a casual "post-church" conversation. Gmail allows email aliases. They explain:

Gmail doesn't offer traditional aliases, but you can receive messages sent to your.username+any.alias@gmail.com. For example, messages sent to jane.doe+notes@gmail.com are delivered to jane.doe@gmail.com.

You can set up filters to automatically direct these messages to Trash, apply a label or star, skip the inbox, or forward to another email account.

One more reason to like Gmail!

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Technorati tag: Email

Localize your learnings (Flickr)

In each lesson of the SLA 23 Things, participants are asked to localize their learnings. In other words, how will they use the tools discussed that week. When you begin using various tools, you might look at what you can share with that tool. For example, what photos can you place in Flickr? But you also should think about what you can use that is already in that tool.

Here is how I use Flickr professionally:

1. I search Flickr for Creative Commons license photos to use in presentations. Photos can convey concepts more easily sometimes and they also can spice up a presentation.
2. I post photos from events that I attend (e.g., SLA conference) and then use those photos in related blog posts, etc. Sometimes those photos are also used by colleagues in newsletters (with my permission).
3. I create custom name badges for events using Flickr photos and Flickr toys. I did this for the people who worked the Upstate NY library camp, making us easily identifiable. I've also created a cool badge for myself that I use at events (and instead of those "hi my name is" tags).
4. I use photos on my web site and blogs.
5. I look for photos that illustrate something...like photos of book scanners.
6. I look for photos that show me what a place looks like. For example, before heading on a business trip, I may look for photos of that site online. That gives me a better idea of where I'm going.
1. BTW I answered a question from a woman who was moving to this region by linking her to Flickr photos of the region. She had no clue where she was moving to and those photos helped (especially the photos of the snow!).
7. Thinking of libraries specifically -- We can see what other libraries look like and think about how we might change our own libraries. BTW there is a pool of library signage that show the good, bad and ugly of the signs we use! Very educational.

Some people use Flickr to create photo documentation of a process or create slideshows in Flickr that are their presentations. Those are good uses too, but not ones that I have used yet.

What have you done with Flickr and how have you localized your learnings?

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Technorati tag: SLA23Things

TechCrunch: The Rise and Fall of Twitter

This is a parody video that uses a scene from the movie "Der Untergang". As John Biggs of TechCrunch reminds us, this short parody is not about Hitler, but about Twitter. (Rated "L" for language)

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Technorati tag: Twitter

Blog post & video: 2008 Metaverse Tour Video: The Social Virtual World’s A Stage

Gary Hayes is "doing a commercial report and curriculum development on the evolving range of social virtual worlds and have recently ventured into fifty of them to review and sample the culture, creative, business and educational potential." While working on it, he video recorded his travels and created a seven minute video that gives a quick peek into many virtual worlds. His blog post highlights a few of his thoughts from this project. The one that really stood out to me as being critically important is:

A few new entrants realise that using a fully fledged, 3D game engine as the client for what is in the end a glamorous 3D facebook and requiring a high spec’d PC is not the best way. Second generation services like vSide have followed a good middle ground

Indeed, Second Life is now requiring a more robust PC setup to run its software. The trend should be to lighten the computing requirements so that more people can use these virtual worlds.




The audio on the video is just music, in case you don't want to disturb your neighbors at work. I do like the quotes Hayes has used in the video. They really make you think!

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Thanks to Kathryn Greenhill for blogging about this.

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Technorati tag: Virtual Worlds