digital experience

People are Human, Brands (and Organizations) not so much

by David Lee King on February 21, 2012

I recently read this post, Why your nonprofit needs a personality and NOT a brand, on John Haydon’s blog. Here’s a snippet:

“Most of the people you connect with on Facebook and Twitter are your friends. They’re people. They have personality.

And I bet that you spend 95% of your time connecting with people – not companies. And even when you do connect with a company, your best experiences are defined by the people who work at that company (think Zappos).”

Reading that made me think – how does my library work on giving our organization “personality?” How are we, as a system, acting more like people rather than an organization?

Hard question, huh?

Here’s what we’re doing (off the top of my head). What can you add to this list?

  • Blog-based content focused on our collection and events. Our content creators’ personalities shine through in their writing.
  • we include pictures and full names for every blog post. Same with our public-facing staff directory. This allows our customers to connect with actual people. And it works – I get emails and phone calls from customers wanting to talk to the “techie dude” every week.
  • We send staff out in the community. We do this through our bookmobiles and other vehicle-based delivery, through offsite programs and events, and through our speakers’ bureau. Again, this gives a face to the library.
  • We have an Ask Now button pretty much everywhere on our website and catalog that connects to IM chat reference.
  • We use multimedia – pictures of events, videos, etc. Visual ways to introduce staff to customers, and to make our library more personal to customers.
  • We share what us librarians are reading, using Goodreads and LibraryThing widgets (think staff picks – see examples here and here).
  • And of course, we’re using social media – Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc.

So – that’s some of the things we’re doing to create a Face2Face connection with our customers.

What would you add? What’s your library doing? Please share!

photo of smiling people by Bigstock

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Turn Your Blog Readers into Die-Hard Fans

by David Lee King on February 16, 2012

Great post by Jonathan Cooper over on the Thesis Statement blog – 7 Critical Ways to Turn Readers Into Die-Hard Fans.

We’re library workers – we get that to succeed, we need to connect with our readers, and we know how to do that in the print world pretty well. How about connecting with your library blog readers?

Here’s Jonathan’s 7 ideas:

  1. Respond to every comment.
  2. Comment on your readers blogs
  3. Find influential readers
  4. Send your readers a quick “thank you” email
  5. Reader Hall of Fame (or a “reader of the month” mention. Cool thought!)
  6. Surprise your readers
  7. Give away free stuff (ok, we sorta kinda already do that, don’t we?)

Go read the rest of Jonathan’s blog post to get the details. While you’re reading it, think about this – these ideas work for your Twitter and Facebook accounts, too. Give them a try!

image by Bigstock

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High Plains Library District Staff Day Presentations

by David Lee King on February 11, 2012

Yesterday, I hung out with the staff of the High Plains Library District in Greeley, CO. They are a very dynamic, energetic bunch!

I gave two presentations while there – here are the embeddable versions of them:

and

Video in the library

View more presentations from David King.

Enjoy!

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Content Creation, Media Labs, and Hackerspaces

by David Lee King on December 15, 2011

Skokie Public Library's Digital Media Lab

I’ve been thinking about content creation and libraries lately. Right now, we collect content – hence our shelves of stuff. Yes, we do many other things too. But if you look at our buildings, they have been, by and large, designed for collections of stuff – for collecting content.

Some libraries are changing that focus (or at least adding on to it) by enabling customers to create their own content in a variety of ways … and it’s pretty interesting stuff!

I’ll lump what I’m seeing into three loose categories:

  • Digital Media Labs
  • Hackerspaces
  • Coworking spaces

Digital Media Labs: These spaces have content creation tools that allow customers to create and share video, music, photography, and design projects. Customers have access to computers with editing software, cameras, camcorders, microphones, and musical keyboards.

The best examples I’ve seen of this so far are Skokie Public Library’s Digital Media Lab and Chicago Public Library’s YouMedia project. Skokie’s lab has a greenscreen wall for video projects; Youmedia includes a small recording studio space.

Hackerspaces: ”A hackerspace … is a location where people with common interests, often in computers, technology, science, or digital or electronic art (but also in many other realms) can meet, socialise and/or collaborate … hackers can come together to share resources and knowledge to build and make things” (from Wikipedia).

Basically, hackerspaces tend to be public spaces with tools – 3D printers, drill presses, etc. And people make stuff there. Who’s doing this? Well, Allen County Public Library and Fayetteville Free Library are, for starters.

Coworking Spaces: Coworking is a pretty simple concept. Independent workers, freelancers, small business owners, etc. gather in a shared space to share ideas, team up on projects, and get some work done in a more social setting. It’s an alternative to meeting at home or a local coffee shop.

Libraries have unofficially done this for years (how many of you have heard of a patron who runs his/her business from the library? I’ll bet some of you have). But some libraries are going a step or two further by embedding librarians in these spaces, or even offering coworking spaces as part of their services. Meg Knodl, a librarian at Hennepin County Library, is doing this – here’s an article on what Meg is doing. Helsinki City Library has created some coworking spaces – read more about it here.

For more info, check out these articles:

Question – is your library doing something like this? If so, let me know in the comments!

Photo by Skokie Public Library

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Brian Solis and privacy

by David Lee King on November 4, 2011

picture of Brian SolisBrian Solis recently wrote about the changing face of privacy in his blog post Whoops, I didn’t mean for you to read this. It’s a really thorough article about privacy and Facebook, which I mentioned in my last post.

Read the whole thing, but here’s the crux of the article:

Indeed, privacy as we knew it is dead. It is now something that we have to learn and teach. Your privacy settings in Facebook are yours to manage. But, to do so takes initiative and an understanding that like your credit score, what you share online requires definition and reinforcement. Remember, what works against us also works for us. We’re essentially adding a layer of thoughtfulness in our social networking to better tell our story and also enjoy the stories of others.

As mentors, parents, teachers, and good social denizens, it’s up to us to help another while taking responsibility for what we do and say online. At the end of the day, we can’t blame Facebook or developers when those whom we care about change how they see us.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say “privacy is dead.” I would, however, say that we need to actually THINK about our privacy, our level of comfort in online sharing, etc. That is something we should have been doing already, but many of us are still wrapping our heads around it.

Like Brian’s post? He writes books, too. His latest is The End of Business As Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution.

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