Community College Librarians and Media Specialists of Washington State (CLAMS) send a message after my looong keynote address today in Spokane, Washington. What a great group! Thank you guys very much!
I’m very honored and happy to share with everyone news of…drum roll….. my new job! While still at WebJunction, I now have a spiffy new title and more focused duties. I’m not saying that as the new Community Product Manager I’ll be able to do ALL this stuff:
Specific Responsibilities
· Grow our Online Community for Library Staff
· Build library field readiness for collaborative content publishing, social networking, and blended learning for staff development
· Grow customer awareness, use, participation, ownership, and satisfaction with all our programs, features, and services
· Wow the library community with practical, user-centered, user-friendly, fun-to-try, socially-oriented, and interactive features and tools
· Develop & Deploy a Robust Social Networking Environment
· Identify and segment relevant library staff audiences; evaluate and document tools and features of interest to each audience
· Develop and implement an overall social networking strategy, including collaborative content management, that addresses customer needs
· Solicit individual and organization input and feedback on social networking features, tools, and best practices
· Scan and engage the broader library, social networking, and online community environments for relevant tools, features, best practices, and mash-up opportunities
· Make Customers Happy & Ensure their Success
· Advocate for customer-centered, interactive tools and features across WebJunction; represent customers to WebJunction staff and organization partners
· Lead and manage customer focus groups, advisory committees, user groups, and related feedback sessions
· Identify social networking outcomes; ensure high quality customer experiences and satisfaction; adjust, refresh and create new features as appropriate
· Engage customers in effectively using social networking tools, making site contributions, and sharing their technology resources
· Contribute to WebJunction’s Overall Success
· Build team capacity to identify and meet customer needs
· Share knowledge and expertise on social networking tools, features, formats, and management processes relevant to successful online communities
· Lead and manage the development of functional tools and services you and our customers will use to build community across WebJunction
· Deploy social networking expertise across WebJunction; lead the team in creating effective, sustainable online community based on web-based, collaborative, interactive, and participatory software
…but I am REALLY going to try. If you ask me, I’d say it’s a very good fit. I am energized and excited to get on with the work (friends know I’ve been working on a lot of this already, but the new job definition and scope help in a lot of ways). Reading the above description you can tell that there are exciting things in store for WebJunciton and I can’t think of another job I’d rather have right now. Watch WebJunction in the upcoming 12-18 months for some pretty exciting new developments!
PS-The new Netflix ad says the have circulated, ooops, I mean, DELIVERED, over 1 billion titles.
PPS- Chumby is almost for sale to the general public.
PPPS-Completely unrelated and off topic musical plug: Can I go back in time to see this show please?
I usually spend a good 30-60 minutes making an intro slide for each presentation I do. I figure that the intro slide will be up there on the screen for 15 minutes or so before the session starts and people seeing it can start to get a sense of the session and the presenter and how they fit in as an attendee. And frankly, it’s just fun to try and take something that is not intrinsically beautiful (PowerPoint) and make something pretty or interesting to look that is appropriately evocative. Sometimes it works better than others, and themes tend to run in stretches, but the effort is always made. Most times, I’ll post a screen shot of the slide to flickr and often use it here on the blog as well. Well imagine my happy surprise a couple of weeks back when I saw the web site the folks from Inland Northwest Council of Libraries (INCOL) that had done the work for me. Check this out!:
It’s a little silly and a little funny and says what we’ll cover and shows them who’s gonna be yapping at them for two hours. Fun! Thanks to who(m)ever whipped this little number up at INCOL. Nice work.
Oh, and btw, if you are in Coeur D’Alene this Friday, I still think you can get a ticket. If you’ll be there, pop in and say howdy!
A blog post, an event page and a press release. Thanks Palo Alto! Or more accurately: Excellent advocacy work, Palo Alto! Sure, it’s my ugly mug up there, but the fact of the matter is they are bringing someone from outside into their community to help. Carefully selected bits of specialized knowledge and experience can be used to help inform decisions, facilitate brainstorming and can lend a hand to libraries trying to be transparent to the community they serve. Working hard to decide how to best implement what users/patrons really want is more important now than ever before and bringing in appropriate amounts and types of outside thought can significantly assists libraries in making important decisions about the technological directions they take.
So this is exceptionally commendable of Palo Alto (and really has almost nothing to do with me individually). Having said that, perhaps I should have highlighted someone else’s public library tech presentation to make this point? While not entirely common, there are other examples, and each make me equally happy and hopeful for that community and their library.
As far as Palo Alto goes, I really do hope lots of folks show up. It’ll be a great chance to cover some important issues, issue a challenge or two and get some back-and-forth going on things that are driving libraries (and society at large).
As further example, here is the text from the press release for the event:
10/25/2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE #10/25/07
Subject :
Library Technology Expert Michael Porter to Speak at Palo Alto City Hall
Contact :
Mary Minto, Division Manager, Library (650) 329-2517
Palo Alto, CA – Library technologist, Michael Porter, trainer and author, will share his expertise November 8 from 7–9 p.m. on how public libraries use new digital tools to build communities. His presentation, “Your Library’s Future Has Changed: Technology, Content and Community,” will include a look at the web sites of innovative libraries that are using social networking tools and creative implementation to provide access to information and create connections in their communities.
Michael Porter is Community Associate for WebJunction, an organization funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to assist libraries and cultural organizations in meeting their objectives through the effective use of web-based technologies. His professional focus is on technology, community, and training. He co-authors the “Internet Spotlight” column in Public Libraries magazine and is writing a book about effective electronic communities.
The talk will be hosted by the Palo Alto City Library, which is gearing up to develop a library technology plan by early 2008. This free program is sponsored by the Friends of the Palo Alto Library.
· Date and Time: Thursday, November 8, 2007, 7–9 p.m.
· Place: Council Chambers, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave., Palo Alto
Visit the Library web site at www.cityofpaloalto.org/library for more information.”
Very nice! I look forward to seeing everyone in Palo Alto (and Sunnyvale and Santa Clara Co. too) later this week!
-Michael
PART I:
Woo Hoo!!! This weekend, the 365 Library Days Project (tag: 365libs) turned two months old! Amazingly (library folks are truly amazing), there are 297 participating libraries and already a library was written up in it’s local paper! All the person running their 365 Library Days Project did was call the paper and tell them they were working on it and they wrote it up! Wow! It works!
PART II
This an uplifting story for sure, but in ten months (or any time we like, really), the goal is to be able to start using the 365 Library Days Project as a more formal advocacy tool. Along those lines, an initiative has just begun to develop a Press Kit that we can give to media outlets and also a set of instructions/hints we can use to get the most value out of the historical document you are making as you participate in the 365 Library Days Project. Here is a link to the page where you can contribute to this phase of the project. Text of the original post is included too, so you can see what’s up:
Time To Write Our Press Kit and Instructions *this is a link*
“This weekend I started to write the press kit that libraries could just print out and give to their local newspapers, tv and radio stations to get attention to their 365 Library Days Projects. THen I thought, hey, there are almost 300 member libraries participating here, why don’t we make this a community project.
So, let’s do it! It seems that we will need to write:
1. A document we can give to media outlets.
2. A document we could give to library boards/governing bodies explaining the project and it’s value.
3. An brief, concise instruction sheet for librarians/staffer that explains how to use the two docs above most effectively.
So how should we write these? Perhaps we should start a wiki and do it there? Anyone have ideas or want to set that up for the group?
Also, if you need more proof of concept for the 365 Library Days Projects, as of this weekend we are just two months into the launch and there has already been one participating library that has received a write up in a local paper!
Please chime in here. You are the experts! :)”
PART III
Finally, for the past two months, every time the 365 Library Days Projects got a legitimate plug from a participating library or a blogger, I’ve saved it in my del.icio.us feed. It’s grown to be an impressive collection of 38 links from folks on at least four continents with posts in five languages (if my count is correct). AMAZING! Here is a screenshot and a link to those posts:
Thanks everybody! Please contact me if you have any questions or if I can help you move your project along! Keep snapping these valuable photos in your libraries, keep having fun with this, good luck and see you around the 365 Library Days Project page!
Do you have one or two Internet tools/sites that you *really* love?
I’m writing an article about Library folks that have found an Internet tool (or two) that has really captured your imagination and attention. I need to gather 5-10 stories. If you share you idea for the article I’ll cite you and give you and your library a happy little plug in a major Libraryland publication (unless you would rather be anonymous of course).
My paragraph long “Internet Spotlight Tool” write up looks like this:
“My “Internet Spotlight” would have to be flickr (obvious to lots of you, I know:). Flickr helps me communicate visually, which I enjoy greatly, allowing me to record and share highlights and beauty from everyday life. This same visual communication tool also helps me share Libraryland info. For instance, I use pictures I’ve uploaded to flickr to populate my blog with photos. Perhaps most importantly though, flickr lets me connect with other people in Libraryland. One huge way flickr does this is though groups. Flickr lets me participate in and even create interest themed groups. In these groups I can connect with like minded people to communicate, share, inspire and work toward mutual goals. The Libraries and Librarians Group and the 365 Library Days Project Group (an ongoing library advocacy project that you too can join in on) are the best examples of this for me.”
That took me about 10 minutes to write and will now be put in print. Why not take 10 minutes yourself and send me your story too? Purty please? Feel free to leave your story in the comments and/or email the story too at michael.libraryman *At Sign* gmail *Dot* com.
Thanks everybody! 
Or other electronic listening device of your preference:
Open Source - Passion: Libraries. It will mostly make you feel quite happy.
Go, go Amanda!!!
Here are some goodies for my Libraryland Brothers and Sisters out there joining in the 365 Library Days Project fun!
Use ‘em on your web page, your blog, your flickr stream…wherever you like. Go nuts!
Feel free to add you own banners here if you are inspired to make any!
Here are mine:
I’ll be posting an update on the project this weekend with some numbers and side stories, but suffice it to say the participation level is pretty high! Libraryland never ceases to amaze! 365libs go, go, go! Library workers go, go, go!!!
Will you join in? What do you think of the idea? The group is up and ready to go, so why not learn more? Here’s the idea:
Let’s get as many libraries as we can to sign up for and actively participate in a customized, library friendly version of the 365 project. That would mean that if you decide to participate, you would commit to downloading at least 365 pictures from in, around or about the library you work in, for and/or with. Uploading a picture every day for 365 days in this case wouldn’t be practical for most folks, but committing to 365 images in a year could be done fairly easily. It could also have HUGE value for your library.
Just imagine what a valuable historic document you could create for your library with this project! And while you’re at it, at the end of your year commitment, you could contact your local newspaper and tell them about the project, where they could do a story and print selected pictures that you took over the year. Such a substantive advocacy project! It would demonstrate in very real ways, ways that get lost to many people in your community, that you and your library are doing important work every day of the year!
If you decide to take part, please add the photos you upload for the project into this group.
If you take part, please also tag the pictures you take for this project with the tag: 365libs
Finally, if you have any questions, I am willing to help. Drop me (Michael Porter, libraryman on flickr) a line via flickr mail or email me and I’ll help you get things running if you have any trouble.
Take pictures in/about/for your library! Share them! Join this community! Use this project and it’s collection as a powerful advocacy tool!
See you around the 365 Library Days Project Page!
PS-I almost never ask for this sort of thing, but this is a real community based project. So… if you think this 365 Library Days Project is a good idea, please give it a plug on your blog or in your conversations with your fellow library folks out there so we can get more libraries involved. The potential here from an advocacy perspective really is substantial!
Here are some very spiffy (and free) premade library marketing tools. Why not print out a few of the posters and stick them in high traffic areas of the library? What about mailing one or two to the mayor/city manager or city council members? Hmmm…
And these guys have a library marketing smorgasboard. You can even join up and be one of “these guys” (or gals or whatever;).
And now, here is my lighthearted (pun intended) and casual attempt at marketing this happy little blog:
Made the hearts with this, then tweaked them in Photoshop.