I’m pretty psyched to be speaking at a number of cool places this year (if you’re really curious about my 2010 schedule, look at my presentations page – I try to keep that up-to-date with upcoming speaking gigs).

One conference I’m pretty psyched to be attending and speaking at is this year’s UGame – ULearn symposium. It will be held on April 1 in Delft, Netherlands.

OK – I admit. I’m geeked out about this one for a number of reasons here:

1. It’s in the Netherlands! What’s not to like about that?
2. I get to visit the DOK Library Concept Center, one of the coolest libraries ever
3. I get to visit with some of my Dutch friends and colleagues who I usually only see online and at a couple of conferences
4. Because this year’s UGame – ULearn symposium is all about the user experience.

Here’s more about the conference (from Jaap van de Geer):

“This year … UGame Ulearn … is all about the User Experience. Next to the use of gaming in educational programs and in libraries the theme of UGame Ulearn is always Innovation & Inspiration, with the focus on new services and products.

User Experience or UX has to do with the way customers or clients see your company, website and service. Is the experience satisfactory then they will come back, if not you may never see them again. The User Experience starts at home. Internet and the website play an important role, but also mouth to mouth and communication through communities such as Facebook and Twitter. How we can provide the best experience and which products can help us is the essence of UGame Ulearn 2010.

1st April the Auditorium of the TU Delft opens to welcome 700 librarians and educators. International speakers such as Michael Stephens, David Lee King and Gary Vaynerchuk will bring the visitors up to date under excellent supervision of our own world famous pod/vodcasting priest Father Roderick. This year we have decided to make the Exhibit Hall an important and interactive part of the conference with workshops and pitches and we make sure people have enough time in between speakers to visit the stands and listen to presentations on the latest innovations.”

So … if you’re able, come learn about the user experience with me! It should be a great symposium. If you can’t come in person, I promise to take good notes and post those … I might even post some photos and videos, too.

Here’s a video promo for the symposium:

Sorry – had a hiccup there. In March, I’m speaking at the COSUGI Conference! OK – I asked the same thing…. “what in the world does COSUGI stand for?” It stands for “Customers of Sirsidynix User Group Inc.”

Anyway, I’m giving a keynote and a couple of executive track sessions – on digital experience design and on reaching out to customers through virtual services (this one with MPOW’s Library Director Gina Millsap).

Here’s the blurb for the conference:

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Three action packed days. 100 informative sessions. 1,000 fellow SirsiDynix users.

Join us in warm, sunny Lake Buena Vista, Florida March 3rd, 4th and 5th for the 2010 version of the SirsiDynix COSUGI Executive Track Conference.  This comprehensive three day information and training extravaganza will have you pumped and ready for an outstanding year ahead.  You’ll get the latest news and product developments from SirsiDynix leaders, while industry movers and shakers share their knowledge and insight.

Find out:

* How SirsiDynix develops new product ideas
* How to get the most from your technology investments
* What makes a memorable digital experience for library patrons
* How to use market segmentation studies to get past the guesswork
* How to stay on strategy in tough economic times
* And much more!

You’ll also have the opportunity to socialize and network with your peers, and actually kick back and relax a bit, too.  And don’t miss the gala SirsiDynix shindig on Wednesday night.  Mark your calendar now, start packing your suitcase…and don’t forget the sunscreen.  We look forward to seeing you in Florida!

You don’t want to miss the chance to connect.  For the Full 2010 COSUGI Executive Track Schedule click here.

Register now for COSUGI 2010!

For more information about the entire conference, visit the conference home page.

March 3 – 5 | Walt Disney World Coronado Springs Resort

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Enjoy!

I am one part of a 3-person preconference session at Internet Librarian 2009 that’s focused completely on Twitter! Here’s my part of the session – enjoy!

Michael Porter and I like to make videos. Music videos. Music videos about libraries! Remember our last one?

Well … we have a new one coming out called Library 101! We plan to debut it at Internet Librarian 2009 (during our presentation about making videos on October 28), and we are pretty stoked about it, too! Why, you ask? Well…

• The music rocks harder than last time
• We have turned up the video production a few notches (Michael is turning into quite the video producer!)
• We have a website complete with essays from some amazing people
• We found a sponsor (thanks, Information Today!)

But most important – the message. Library 101 tells a story. A story about the evolution of libraries and librarians. Historically, we grew and evolved to a certain point. Some of us are continuing to evolve, others are not quite there yet but are working to get there.

The goal of our song, our video, the website and essays? To inspire you to grow, to evolve, and to change your communities!

Michael does a great job of explaining Library 101 on Maurice Coleman’s regular T is for Training podcast. Take a listen. And more importantly, take a listen and a look on October 28 – I will post the video as soon as it goes live, so stay tuned!

Photo by libraryman

This past Saturday, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library co-hosted (with WIBW Studios) our first Podcamp  – Podcamp Topeka. Don’t know what a podcamp is? It’s an unconference dedicated to web 2.0 tools and social media (read more about them here). It was a blast! You can some of my notes from the day here, watch my video about it above, and you can read Brandon Sheley’s notes here (he attended and lead a session or two), and even watch a quick video from channel 49 news.

So – how did I organize this thing?

OK – first things first. It’s a podcamp – there’s really not much conference planning to do. The details revolve around meeting rooms, food, and potential schwag – not the actual conference schedule. The important planning revolves around how many people you hope to attract – you have to have enough space to accomodate them. Also how long each session should be – and be able to accomodate that. Then, it runs itself (more on that in a minute).

Use your contacts for help. I poked around a bit on the interwebs, and found out Ryan Deschamps, cool librarian and blogger at The Other Librarian,  had organized some very successful podcamps. So I asked him for tips, and he emailed me some great advice on how to run a podcamp.

Sponsorships – the library provided meeting rooms and our other sponsor, WIBW, paid for food and t-shirts. How’d that happen? In this case, I know Jim Ogle, the general manager of WIBW, and also know he’s excited as I am about social media and 2.0 stuff. So I asked him if he wanted to help plan the podcamp, and he did … and he ended up being a sponsor, too. For future events, I’m told that some local organizations might potentially be interested in sponsoring the event.

Ask for Specifics. Know how much money you need up-front, then ask specifically for your needs! Much better to have a plan for what you need (and what they’ll get out of a sponsorship) than to vaguely ask for “a sponsorship” hoping someone will provide what you need.

Registration: it was a free event, but I asked everyone to register, since a head-count was involved for t-shirts and food. Eventbrite worked GREAT for this! Free and easy to use – we had over 100 registrations. I was able to email a reminder to all attendees 3-4 days before the event through Eventbrite’s admin side. They actually sent me a couple of pre-event emails making suggestions on how to run an event (ie., do you have nametags?), too.

What actually happened?

People goal: our goal was up to 150. We had over 100 people register, and approx 50-75 people actually attend. Not bad for a first time.

Interestingly, we had an odd but fun mix of people. We had a variety of skill levels from experienced user of 2.0 tools to extreme novices and an age spread from probably age 20 -85 (someone actually came up afterwards and told me how old she and her friend were). So we improvised a “Basics of Social media” session that turned into one of our larger sessions.

Food and t-shirts: I went ahead and ordered t-shirts and food for 150, not knowing how many would really show up. So we had … a LOT of food. And I have a box of Podcamp Topeka T-Shirts in my office…

Schedule: You can see it here – we ended up with quite a few great topics and sessions!

Planning details: PBWorks (used to be PBWiki) worked great. Here’s our Podcamp Topeka Wiki.

Advertising: This is interesting. We advertised in our library newsletter, in 2.0 tools (twitter, facebook), on our website, at a social media group’s Ning site, and were lucky enough to get a TV spot or two (since WIBW was a co-sponsor). We asked attendees to fill out a “how you heard about this” flyer – only 22 people filled it out. But look at their responses to where they heard about our podcamp:

TV – 4
friends – 2
twitter – 2
facebook – 2
our website – 2
didn’t say – 2
social media KC Ning group – 2
online – 2
invite – 2
Google – 1
tscpl email – 1 (guessing it was our enewsletter)

That’s a pretty large spread of responses!

And finally, Feedback. What did attendees think of the day? Honestly, most of the feedback I received was some form of this – “What a GREAT day! When’s the next one?”

So – we’ll have to start planning the next Podcamp Topeka, I guess!

Yesterday, I spent most of my day at Podcamp Topeka – the first event I have ever organized. Judging by the comments, tweets, etc … it was a success!

If you want to read reactions from people who attended, search for #podcamptopeka on Twitter (ok – or just click this link).

I’ll post something next week about planning this type of event and what we could have done better. But for now, here’s a run-down of the sessions I attended – sorta sparse notes, but it’ll give you an idea of the day:

Session 1: Balancing Personal/Business Use of Twitter

• you have ability to destroy yourself online
• One guy doesn’t cuss in Twitter because it turns some people off
• TV News guy – doesn’t say some stuff that he wants to
• talking back & forth – sharing yourself is important
• remembers he represents a company – always has that in the back of his mind
• News guy again – because of sharing themselves on Twitter, they get news tips from people
• Helps get stories written because he’s connected to twitter – because of the relationships they’ve developed
• TV News guy again – they are talking to other local TV stations! Very different than five years ago
• discussion about community/following people locally vs anyone for business

Session 2 – Comment Boxes and Community

• I shared about the library
• anonymous or profile?
• Local newspaper tends to have crazies – not much registration/monitoring there
• getting people to register – are there any non-bribery ways to get people to register? One idea – Business gave away free stuff to get sign-ups
• other ways to share? Comment box, polls, ratings, etc  – without just sharing in a text box
• viral marketing campaign (I think she was from a radio station) – had some hateful comments – ended up having to block someone’s IP address
• how to get more comments? Ask questions, ask what do you think
• separate actual story from comments
• part of your job should be commenting on other people’s sites
• personal responses are great – gave example of that
• personal is the new hand-written note
• marketing is conversation now
• deleting one comment vs turning off whole thread – which works best? We generally agreed that turning off the whole thread (like Flickr sometimes does) seems like punishing others for one person’s mistakes
• twitter is instant gratification

Session 3: Selling Yourself in 30 Frames per Second

• T-Rave presented from t-rave.com – He’s very passionate about videoblogging!
• trying to sell your brand – many times, that means selling yourself
• when you were a baby trying to get attention and affection, you were selling yourself – so you do this all the time
• big fan of gary vaynerckuk of winelibrary.tv
• Word of mouth – that’s how T-Rave sells his product/himself
• Using video is a great way to bring in viewers to your website/blog
• t-rave.com attracts people of all ages (from 13-65), all states, international… check your demographics
• People of all ages, all nationalities like video
• You can feel connected by being approachable – on twitter, on video
• be the same online, in video, in real life
• passion + drive … interest, consistency, responding back to comments

Session 4: Basics of Videoblogging

• T-Rave again
• Went over various software to use
• talked a little about cameras
• talking about uploading to a service – how long it takes
• Talked a bit about copyright and free music – likes jamendo.com for a free music service.
• Uses Viddler quite a bit. They featured T-Rave the second week after he started making videos.
• mentioning tubemogul.com – great place to upload video to more than one account automatically
• Has a variety of cameras from the Flip to a large semi-pro camera
• Very open to having people contact him with questions, suggestions for cameras, etc.
• He does 5 videos a week – different theme every day. He did this for 6 months.
• some discussion of posting video to Facebook vs another video service
• Live Streaming video: upstream.tv, livestream
• Good questions/discussion

Session #5: Monetizing a Podcast

• Rob Walch, Podcast 411 and Wizzard Media spoke about podcasting
• Come to Jesus – most of us will never really make money on this

Ways to make money with podcasts:

1st way to make money:

• CPM – typical rate is around $10-15 per thousand downloads
• More niche = higher CPM, but lower download numbers
• Video gets a little higher CPM rate than audio alone
• Not generally “quit your day job” money

2nd way to make money:

• CPA model – or direct response ads
• Netflicks – they pay $25 for everyone who signs up for an account that comes from the ad
• Right audience at the right time can =some good money

3rd way – sponsorship model

• Must disclose when you are being paid to review something – the FTC actually watches out for that stuff

4th way:

• Premiumcasts (premiumcast.com)- offer a little bit of content for free, pay for the larger, more complete show

5th way – make an iphone app for the show.

• Probably half your audience will have an iphone or ipod touch.
• 10% of those will buy your app

Cool – Rob is describing RSS like a magazine subscription – I use that example too!

iTunes podcasts – shows top podcasts that are popular in the last week or so.

How long to make a podcast?

• average commute time = 25 minutes
• average treadmill time = 20 minutes
• Best length for a podcast – go until you’re done
• leave people wanting more “is that all?” rather than “boy, when is this over?”

Release every day or week – US is trained for that. be in their routine
Best times – early to mid week

Not remembering if I’ve mentioned this or not … but we’re hosting a Podcamp at Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library! It will be held on September 19, 8:30 am – 3:30 pm at the library, and we’re planning for an extremely fun and informative day. We’re planning for 150 people (74 have signed up so far!).

What’s a podcamp? It’s a FREE unconference dedicated to emerging web media – social networks, podcasting & videoblogging, blogging, Twitter, Facebook, photography, and web design, for starters. Our goal? To learn about social media from social media experts, to network with fellow bloggers, podcasters & social media creators … and to have a blast!

Yep – you heard right. It’s free. Thanks to our sponsors (WIBW and the library so far), the space, food (continental breakfast and a sandwich lunch), and a t-shirt are all free. All you have to do is register, show up, and … talk/network/learn/have fun.

Here’s some more info about the podcamp:

• Official Podcamp Topeka info page
• Register at Eventbrite (free event!)
• Wiki for the Podcamp

I’ll make sure to update everyone after it’s over, too, to let everyone know how it went.

And – the YouTube video below is me, talking about Podcamp Topeka. WIBW took the video, has it up on their website, and is running it periodically on TV. Wow.

I gave a couple of presentations last week, at the South Central Library System in Madison, WI and at a library unconference in Stevens Point, WI. Both were a blast! The above presentation is the main presentation I did – this is the longer, 2-hour version (I gave a 1-hour version at the unconference).

I also gave a Designing the Digital Experience talk at the unconference.

Thanks, Wisconsin libraries, for the invitation to speak – you guys really started some fun conversations!

SXSW Interactive is a very cool conference … and I have a couple of chances to speak!

Here’s how it works – everyone with session ideas submits those a couple months in advance. Then the fine SXSW folks put up their SXSW Panel Picker. The Panel Picker is a cool idea – people planning to attend the conference actually get some say into what sessions will be held – how cool is that?

It’s pretty easy to vote on sessions. First, go register … then vote – there’s a thumbs up/thumbs down button! You can also leave a comment on each session (you have to register to do this stuff – but it’s free, so that’s cool).

This year, I’m listed twice:

Designing Your Customer’s Digital Experience
Visitors to an organization’s digital space don’t want to think about interacting with a website. They want to make a purchase, find an answer, or connect with someone – they want to have digital experiences. David introduces digital experience design for websites, and explains how website structure, community, and customers are parts of the total digital experience. This one’s obviously focused on my book. I’m hoping to do either a normal session or an author talk (they separate those from the main sessions). Either one would be cool.

Curating Cultural Content – Libraries Save Your Ass & Etchings
How are libraries responding to the firehose of cultural content when deciding how to curate digital media? What does it mean to be an online archive or library in an age of user-generated content? Librarians, quasi-librarians and techies will share tips ideas and the usual horror stories. Jessamyn West submitted this one – I’m listed as a panelist.

So – go vote (ok – only vote if you really WANT to hear these presentations)! And go to the conference. I guarantee you’ll learn something, and meet some interesting people, too.

I participated in a panel at ALA2009 with some cool people called The Ultimate Debate: Has Library 2.0 Fulfilled its Promise? It was fun! I was sent “starter questions” beforehand – and of course, since this was a live discussion, we hit them in different ways.

I thought you might find my “starter answers” interesting, so here they are:

What does Library 2.0 mean to you?

How am I supposed to answer that? It means … “a job!” I usually say it’s two things: 1. web 2.0, as it affects libraries; and 2. some of the underlying philosophies of web 2.0, but applied to non-techie things in a library. Ideas like patron-centered change and participation in the creation of content and community. Doing things a different, non-librarian way would be included here. Things like getting rid of Dewey.

What are we trying to solve with these technologies?

Connecting with community online. Old style websites connected patrons to info. 2.0 sites still do that, but also let you: interact with the content; interact with the creator of that content; and interact with staff and other patrons. It’s sorta like … visiting the library. For real. You can actually “do stuff” there. For me, that’s the goal – when you visit my library’s website, you should be visiting the library. I look at 2.0 tools as helping us get there.

Will these technologies help libraries or are they just hype?

None of the major, popular tools are hype in and of themselves, I don’t think. Yes, they can be HYPED, but they’re not hype. Facebook and twitter being mentioned on Oprah and Conan O’Brien? Hype. Me conducting real business using those tools? Not hype.

Which libraries are leading the way in implementing 2.0 technologies?

TSCPL! Darien Library. Lots of other libraries doing parts and pieces of this…

Are there particular types of libraries (academic, school, etc) that are more involved?

Not sure there’s a more/less involved thing. But it’s different angles to similar problems. Public libraries are doing a lot with blogs for public consumption, and doing a lot with IM reference and gaming. I know academic libraries are focused on making courseware more social … not sure I really know if there’s larger emphases in general with academic libraries or special libraries (would love for someone to chime in here!). There are a TON of tools, and everyone’s using them in a different way, to meet different goals.

Do these technologies make the most sense for a particular user base? Who is best served by them?

Particular user base? Not really – it’s more a specific skill-level base, which stretches across many user bases. Please no one tell me that you should use Facebook to attract college students … my MOM is is a big-time gamer on Facebook, for peet’s sake! There are national demographics you can look at – so more younger than older, but that’s changing.

“Who is best served by them” – figure out what target audiences YOU want to reach, then match the tool to the group. Young professionals? Twitter and Facebook. 35-year old moms? Facebook. Want more interaction on your website, more community interaction? Blogs and people who have computers!

Where is the profession in adopting 2.0 technologies?

We’re all across the board. There’s people like the ones giving this presentation … and there are librarians that would rather not ever touch a computer, let alone a cell phone. Poll – how many people don’t know how to send a text message on your phone (ok – this works better in a presentation than in my blog… I know ALL my readers can send text messages … right?)? How many KNOW of someone you work with that can’t do that? … and txt messaging is one of the older 2.0 technologies.

What are the barriers we face?

Staff not wanting to change and staff not leading the way. I know an urban public library where the web guy and the director want to do things, but they say “our staff won’t buy that.” Do you hear that? They’re letting the staff control what happens… even though they’re in a hip college town.

Wrong thinking about patrons. Librarians tell me – “oh, our patrons don’t do that.” But then, I find out that they’re only talking about “the regulars.” You know, those 100 or so people that you know by name, that use your services heavily every day. We have those. We also did a GIS studay, and found out our biggest potential growth segment in Shawnee county are the upper middle class types who live outside of the city. Many of them aren’t yet our patrons. We need to be asking THEM what they want … not the people coming in the door every day.

Why are some libraries not having success implementing 2.0 technologies?

Didn’t set strategy and goals.
didn’t assign more than 1-2 people to do it
didn’t focus on a target audience
Considered it “extra work”
Wasn’t part of their annual review
wasn’t a priority for individual/for the library

Or… poor content. Can’t write well = no one’s going to read your blog

Are Library 2.0 technologies worth it?

YES. Is having multiple daily conversations with your community worth it? Is answering real questions of your patrons worth it? Is allowing your patrons to add their own thoughts and creativity to something worth it? How about having a new, fairly inexpensive service point/branch? YES.

What aspects/technologies are most or least worth the time to implement?

Really depends on the organization and the customers you’re aiming at. This is key. Example – Is txt msg reference service to senior citizens worth it? Probably not.

What is more hype than substance?

Again, nothing’s hype in and of itself. Ashton Kutcher is hype. Twitter is not.

What is one 2.0 technology you would suggest to libraries?

Two things: What’s new blog. Facebook Page.

What’s next after 2.0?

Nirvana. Joke! Seriously…
- becoming ubiquitous. More people reading RSS feeds … when the print newspapers all disappear sooner than we all think. You’ll want to figure out RSS then, to save the reader’s time.
- Becoming easier. Video on the web – 4 years ago, it was pretty advanced stuff. Today, it’s a Flip camera and youtube. Simple.
- A lot more crazy change. I don’t think we’ve hit the peak yet in terms of technology changes. I think the rollercoaster’s just starting up the hill.