#Follow Any Day
More and more people are getting on board the Twitter train. One thing that I hear from people who are either new to Twitter or aren’t sure about it – who do I follow? A trend that got started is the perfect solution to the answer and it’s known as FollowFriday. Every Friday you are encouraged to suggest to your Tweeps who you consider follow worthy. I love this idea and have contributed to it each and every Friday since I’ve learned about it. Only flaw I’ve seen is there was no real way to know why I should follow one person vs. another. When I’ve tweeted my #followfriday recommendations I’ve always tried to include what these people have in common. So in other words I categorized my Tweeps (gee, I do work in a library you know – sorry no Dewey decimal or LOC subject headings just basic tagging here).
My list of who I am following is growing. I have lots of different groups (library folks, Linux people, business, news, etc). So I decided to break down my groups and list them here on my blog then you can follow these fine folks any day of the week. Listed in order as they appear in my Twitter account.
| Libraries, Library people and trainers to follow:
yalescilib / YaleScienceLibraries HCLDayintheLife / HowardCo Lib Staff HiRecommended/HCL Highly Recommended geekegrrl / Sarah Auger / Brian Auger beccalovesbooks / Becca Johnson weelibrarian / Krista Godfrey vargasruth / Ruth Vargas dbouman / Danny Bouman jdelagardelle / Jody Delagardelle typealibrarian / Jennifer Hrusch glenhorton / Glen Horton chattylibrarian / Joan CanuckLibrarian / Jennifer C FrontierLibrary / Sarah Baldwin kgs / K.G. Schneider SBULibrary / Stony Brook Library Kaess / Katrin Kropf libraryfuture / Joe Murphy skiddjohnson / Suzanne Kidd Johnson LibraryGuy / Craig Anderson infowidget / Amy Harmon Jill_HW / Jill Hurst-Wahl cclibrarian / JMS library_chan / Melissa Houlroyd billcompugeek / Bill Sara_Mooney / Sara Mooney jaimebc / jaime corris hammond sclapp / Sharon Clapp jenother / Jen Spisak pollyalida / polly gspadoni / Gina Spadoni hbraum / Heather Braum calimae / Cindy Bowen ashlieconway / Ashlie Conway Slzimm1 / Stephanie Zimmerman LorreS / Lorre Smith griffey / Jason Griffey walkingpaper / aaron schmidt awd / Aaron W. Dobbs rtennant / Roy Tennant stevelawson / Steve Lawson ZenLibrarian / Annette Jones infosciphi / Chadwick Seagraves bckhough / Brenda Hough ellbeecee / Laura ashuping / Andrew Shuping caro6302 / Caroline Ramsden james3neal / James Neal webmaster_ref / Brent Ferguson libkitty / Freya Anderson brewinlibrarian / Matt Hamilton hblowers / Helene librarianmer / Meredith libraryman / Michael Porter akearns / Amy Kearns askusnow / Maryland AskUsNow! s_francoeur / Stephen Francoeur LibraryJournal / Library Journal talkingbooks / Talking Books joshuamneff / Joshua M. Neff MLx / Marianne Lenox librarianbyday / Bobbi Newman crankylibrarian / Kaia tattp / Valerie Beyers LibraryChica / Stacey Aldrich shifted / Jenny Levine RyanDeschamps / Ryan Deschamps victoriaptersen / Victoria Petersen library_chic / Courtney S. pfanderson / P. F. Anderson cjburns / Christa Burns gregschwartz / Greg Schwartz conniecrosby / Connie Crosby strnglibrarian / Julie Strange rachelrapp / Rachel Rappaport TheLiB / Sarah Houghton-Jan mbreeding / Marshall Breeding mstephens7 / Michael Stephens jessamyn / jessamyn west msauers / Michael Sauers baldgeekinmd / MC aka baldgeekinmd |
Web 2.0 or Social Media/Networking:
hootsuite / HootSuite FirstDigg / FirstDigg / Urgo adamostrow / Adam Ostrow Gripwire / Brett Polonsky mattsingley / matt singley bobrobboy / Bob Robertson-Boyd rww / Richard MacManus socialmedian / Jason Goldberg ashleylomas / Ashley Lomas TheNextWeb / The Next Web kanter / Beth Kanter adamhirsch / Adam Hirsch digitalnatives / Digital Natives jowyang / Jeremiah Owyang mashable / Pete Cashmore SocialMedia411 / Social Media Insider slqotd / SLQOTD TiffanyStrobel / Tiffany Strobel socialmediaclub / Social Media Club |
Open Source related :
ranginui / Chris Cormack- Koha joetho / Joe Tho- Koha wizzyrea / Liz Rea- Koha Miromurr / Thomas Brevik- Koha gmcharlt / Galen – Koha magnusenger – Koha corephp / ‘corePHP’ nirak / Karin Dalziel- Linux galaxiecruzin / Alex B- Linux nengard / Nicole Engard – Koha |
Companies or Web Sites: momentile / Momentile engadget / Engadget google / A Googler Twitter_Tips / Tips, Tools, Status facebook / Facebook nytimes / The New York Times TwistenFM / Twisten.FM firefox / Firefox BreakingNewz / Breaking News wordpress / WordPress BreakingNews / BNO News google_us_news / Google News US bbctech / BBC Technology cnnbrk / CNN Breaking News |
Twitter About Friendfeed So Facebook Can Flickr YouTube aka CIL2009 presentation
Now that I’ve had a chance to decompress, find my notes and get some email dealt with I thought I’d post about my presentation at CIL2009. I had the sincere pleasure of working with not only two talented professionals but two people I now consider good friends – Michael Sauers and Bobbi Newman. Our presentation dealt with training both staff and customers in regards to the wild, wonderful world of Web 2.0. More portion of the trilogy dealt with training the customer.
Here are a few links I promised I’d share with people – hope these help you to educate your customers about Web 2.0.
Presentations:
My portion of the presentation
Entire presentation (including Michael and Bobbi’s slides)
My presentation for the public (customers) on Web 2.0 overview
Handouts:
Manage Your Profile Socially
Social Network Profile Management
Michael Porter, Greg Schwartz, Sarah Hougton-Jan, and Amanda Clay Powers
Another attempt at live blogging.
Each presenter is going to talk for 5 mins.
Who are you online? Identity – what I say about me – what others say about me
Digital identity mapping – not just expression, reputation, crumbs of other stuff to form digital identity
Google search your name plugged in. You don’t own it – can’t control it but you can influence it
#1 tip own your user name – establish presence online – stick to a user name that works for you – checkusernames.com
#2 – join the conversation – the part is what you say about you need to participate don’t just sit on the sidelines
#3 other half of that is listen – what are others saying about you – search to see what people are saying about you
#4 be authentic – no persona – about connecting that online presence with the real one
Amanda is next – ask anyone who saw this about Michael Stevens and sowing his seed.
What are we doing here anyway? Social networking isn’t new or strange people have been telling their stories for some time. We know how to help people manage identity because we know how to manage data.
Educate people about what they are doing – help them be more secure in using their online identity.
People aren’t seeing the librarians as the experts on social networks – if only they knew! Sounds like we need to educate them a bit. 
Make your profile the way you want it to be – privacy settings.
Sarah Houghton-Jan
Library Social Networks Profiles – The Good, The bad, and The Ugly
Managing your identity as the library – official page.
uniform usernames – uniform generic email – profile information on site is current
quick replies to comments
personal tone – not stuffy, be yourself “not the library”, give it some personality
keep it open to all (doesn’t matter where someone lives – let them in)
Do not do
random strange usernames
individual emails
no profile info on site or out of date
slow or no replies to users
stuffy institutional tone
select friends (shutting down opportunities)
You can either over or under manage your library’s social network profiles. Don’t fall into either trap. Don’t let it fall on one person like the web master – across the institution.
Facebook, other social networking sites – can be professional no personal – can be used in all sorts of ways – use all the options
CheckUsernames.com
Open ID and ClaimID – important
Ping.fm or Hellotxt.com to update multiple networks
AtomKeep – update all social network profile info in one shot
Now Michael Porter
Webjuntion.org
Libraryman!
Webjunction a community site for librarians and library staff – not closed but not really people who aren’t library related coming in and adding profiles.
All the fields you can control who can see them. You have more options to control who sees what about your profile.
Do’s
Make funny pics using swag or stickers
tweet about the workshop you are doing
show your personality – librarians are fun, nice and have interests outside of books
have fun with the tools – show your personality
success stories – share them on the social networking tools
Don’t
bad photos – wrong finger sticking up – make sure goofy isn’t seen the wrong way
don’t take it so far – nearly naked photos would not be a good thing
Get some conversation going – Michael invites the audience to participate
Someone wanted to know if it’s possible to have 2 identity – personal and professional. Most of the panel agree that they blend, the lines blur and it’s just too hard to keep it up.
Be aware of what you are adding because you can be seen as a “spammer” on Facebook by sending out too many feeds/updates. Target information – rss feeds to a particular audience – people are getting overwhelmed by too much information.
Library success wiki – tips on how to manage professional profile – it still needs to be personal otherwise it won’t be effective.
Give people a one stop place – single place they may not be as familiar with the aggregators so still show the facebook, flickr links. Cross pollinate.
To Tweet or Not to Tweet That is the Question
Seems to be a lot of speculation about Twitter these days. The growing pains it has recently experienced has been frustrating to say the least. Several blog posts have pointed to an exodus to Friendfeed (LISs StevenK‘, LibLime’s Nicole Engard) due to frustrations felt at the recent ALA conference.
Many are jumping ships to other sites such as Plurk, Kwippy, Identi.ca, Pownce, etc. Friendfeed is also gaining some of the ex-Tweeters. I am signed up on all of them as mlibrarianus.
My main problem with leaving Twitter is my “friends” or followers. Some are on Plurk or one or two on Kwippy or several on Friendfeed but none of them are all in one place like Twitter. Sure I can send invites from these other sites to get my followers to jump ship but which one? I’ve yet to find one that I like better than Twitter at the moment. Plus what I like about Twitter is all the different apps that have spawn out of it. Spaz, Twirl, Twitterfox, Twitwheel, TweetLater and my all time favorite Twitterfeed. I know Friendfeed has several applications as well but I’m not hooked on Friendfeed like I am Twitter.
Friendfeed certainly does have some attractive features (being able to link to all your social networks and have display in one place). I guess it’s the age old problem – lead, follow or get out of the way.
Lead – if you lead and have plenty of followers fine, your friends are there along side you. However, if you lead to a place they don’t like you are left out in cyber space alone.
Follow – not always the best path to take but you are never alone.
Get out of the way - maybe the best approach to just sit back and let everyone fight it out?
Thinking that I’ll just let the dust settle a bit and then see what’s the next big thing. Until then I’ll Tweet away while Plurking my Kwips all on Friendfeed.
Rockin’ robin’ tweet tweetly-tweet
Heavens, Twitter (which I just discovered was written using Ruby on Rails how cool is that) is all the buzz these days. Not only has it made the news (BBC) but there are add-ons for Firefox, clients so you can Twitter without bringing up a browser, and tweet from your Facebook page. I had no idea when I signed onto Twitter a year ago (after hearing everyone at CIL go on about it) that it was such a phenomenon.
Some interesting ways Twitter can and is being used:
Businesses can use Twitter tools to help them.
Marketing related uses for Twitter
Way to report the news (forget email Breaking News updates)
Reminder to step back and reflect
Remember the milk (manage your tasks)
See where all the tweets come from (maps)
I even use it as a safety feature. When I’m out walking the dogs in remote areas, I make sure I Twitter what I’m doing and where from my Facebook app on my Blackberry. Who knew that Twitter was this and much, much more…
Breaking the stereotype
While surfing my “friends” profiles on Facebook I noticed a group I hadn’t come upon yet – Library Workers are the Best. One of the posts on this group’s page was titled “The Best Nutters are in…” This brought me back to my first day of work at the library – February 1, 1980.
My Mother had taken me kicking and screaming to apply for a job at the library. “I don’t want to work there all the nerds, geeks, losers (fill in whatever was the correct term used in the 80’s).” I was convinced that the old librarian stereotype still existed. But I went, I interviewed and amazingly enough accepted the job when they called to offer me it. Hey, it beat working in McDonald’s. Still when I walked into the Long Reach branch of Howard County Library I felt that I’d be dealing with the outcasts of society. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I walked into work to find the senior class clown working at the same branch. And 25 years later nothing has changed.
Don’t get me wrong, one of the best things about where I work IS the people. What I mean is the old stereotype that I had grown up with doesn’t exist and for that I am grateful. I can’t imagine working with a more nutty, funny, wacky, frustrating, endearing, kind bunch of people. Not one of them fits the stereotype of yesteryear. No buns, no half-glasses sitting down low on the nose, heck no one even shushes anyone anymore.
Now the trick is convincing others who don’t work in libraries to see past that stereotype. I still get “that” reaction from people I’ve never met when you tell them where you work. I’d love to take those people to Computers in Libraries or other library conventions just to show them how long gone those old stereotypes are.
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Who Moved My Facebook?
I must be the exception to the norm. I have yet to be phased by any of the changes that Facebook has made to their site. That’s not to say that I think all their changes have been needed or even warranted. It is the one site where I seem to just go with the flow.
There are enough people, however, each time change comes that get upset when someone moves their cheese. They create pages, groups, applications to announce their displeasure. Is this such a bad thing? At first I would have said yes but then I got to thinking. What better way to get feedback from your users?! Most web sites are lucky if someone takes the time to fill out a contact us form. Facebook fans take full advantage of Web 2.0. Maybe the rest of the web could take a page from Facebook and think of more ways to allow our users to express pleasure or displeasure.
I hardly see Facebook changing back (but you never know enough of an uproar might make a difference). It will be interesting to monitor this. I am one for change and don’t mind just going with the flow. All I ask is just don’t expect me to comment, start a group or create an application – unless it is “I Went With the Flow – Facebook Changes Don’t Phase Me” flair.
March 21, 2009 Posted by mlibrarianus | Social Networks, Web 2.x | applications, change, cheese, comments, Facebook, feedback, flair, group, social networking, Social Networks, web, web 2.0, web site | 1 Comment