I’m headed out to SXSWi tomorrow (woo hoo!), and wanted to let y’all know about something I’m participating in on Friday. I’m heading up a discussion about being human online on Friday at the #ideadrop House.
What’s the #ideadrop House? It’s a fun event hosted by Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) and ProQuest. The goal is to “serve as a seriously fun place to drop ideas and a seriously great opportunity to dialogue about topics affecting libraries during SXSW when the creative juices are flowing and where the big ideas are percolating.”
For most talks at the #ideadrop House during SXSW, there’s a small space for people to actually attend (I think). And, the talk will also be livestreamed at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ideadrop - so you can still watch and participate, even if you’re not in Austin!
My talk is scheduled for 4pm Friday March 8 – I’ll be talking about how organizations can make real connections to customers using online tools.
Please come by, tune in, and discuss! Should be a blast! You can also follow along via Twitter using #ideadrop or @ERandL.
So here’s what I’d LOVE for you to do – go vote for my book! It’s easy to do – go here, and click that blue Vote box next to the title of my book. Simple, huh?
While you’re at it, if you haven’t read my book yet … click the book link in this post, go to Amazon, and buy it! Ok, or check it out at your local library. Or get the library to buy it for you
Why can’t annual reports be cool? Or at least interesting enough to actually read, watch, etc?
That’s what my library tries to do with ours, anyway. For the last two years, our annual report has been video-only. This year, we improved upon that a bit, and did three things:
Here’s our 2011 annual report, for those interested.
Why do this?
We have to create some type of annual report each year. And honestly … people mostly DON’T look at these. Sure, you can mail them to everyone. Print them out and place them in strategic locations in the library. Send them to parter organizations in your community.
But read them? Maybe some people will give it a cursory glance … and them toss it into the trash, like a greeting card.
With our video? There’s enough eye candy there for people to watch, and maybe learn something more about their library, and what their tax dollars are actually going to.
My library’s Web Developer, Nathan Pauley, emailed this infographic to me, and it’s really cool! They studied smartphone use (or more accurately, it looks like they studied web and app use on smartphones, since they excluded email, sms messages, and voice calls from their infographic).
I’ve not clicked through to pay for the whole study, but this single page provides plenty of food for fodder:
68% of smartphone use happens at home.
Love the different labels for stuff people do on their smartphones, like self-expression.
Two weird things:
Self-expression – I guess this is where you’d put content creation? Posting to Tumblr or Instagram, for example? How do they tell the difference between a Facebook post that’s self-expression (writing a haiku, for example) vs a Facebook post that’s socializing?
Socializing – why didn’t they just include email, sms messages, and normal voice phone stuff here?
Either way, take a peek, access the study (if it’s not too much – I haven’t clicked through), and give it some thought.
I attended a vendor presentation last week, and one of the reps said something very interesting about getting a library to 100% self-check. Here’s what he said:
“100% self-check is really easy to get to. You just eliminate any other way. It’s not rocket science.”
For self check and libraries, I know of more than one library “working towards” 90% self check, or they have a goal of a certain percentage. Or they just continue to offer both, with no real goal to stop either of them.
Some questions for you, if you’re in this boat – how much do you want to reach that goal? Is it really a goal? If so, do you know WHY it’s a goal? Is it what your customers want, or does it work better for the organization (not necessarily a bad thing). Is something holding you back? And if so … why?
Obviously, this works with more than just self checkout!
Are you trying to make a change, but you still really have the old way AND the new way still fully functioning? Maybe it’s time to set a deadline for the old process to go away. Maybe you need to rethink the project, ask customers about it, or ask staff how to improve it.
Maybe you simply need to commit, and take that next step.
I’m headed out to SXSWi tomorrow (woo hoo!), and wanted to let y’all know about something I’m participating in on Friday. I’m heading up a discussion about being human online on Friday at the #ideadrop House.
I attended a vendor presentation last week, and one of the reps said something very interesting about getting a library to 100% self-check. Here’s what he said:
