DISQUS

"Now I have to figure out how to be the one to get buy-in. I have to figure out how to take ideas from conception to reality not just in my own little office sphere—but across an entire organization..."

There's your blog focus for the next 2 years :-)

But. Family and self are ALWAYS more important than blogging or speaking. Always. That's good to remember (I'm saying it out loud so I remember to remember it, too).

Nice, thoughtful post about change!

I do much the same thing, but I blend the outposts and the passports together a bit more than you do. So instead of having two categories, I have one lump of outposts, some of which we are active in, and some we aren't. My Library's MySpace page is a good example of that - it's been not so active, but I've "re-established base contact" with it last week, to see if I can start getting interaction going with our 600 or so friends there.

But the general jist is much the same. Thanks for the post - good stuff!

That was cool - nice example of turning a negative comment around to something positive! It doesn't always work that way - some people are just jerks, or don't then want to chat about the disagreement or criticism.

But still - nicely done!

Right on target for me - thanks! I can only imagine the amount of love/hate posts you see about yourself. I get both in my niche field, and I'm followed a lot less that you. Just last week I jumped into a conversation about me - asking them "so why are you saying that" and attempting to explain why I said something. Didn't work, shouldn't have even tried. Lesson learned for me!

I try to remember what I saw somewhere - they read your post and it drove them to action ... so you at least moved them to write. That's something, anyway... :-)

"why have a nice design" - honestly, I'm not surprised your visitor numbers weren't affected. You're well-known to techies, you already have a large reader base that never visit your site (but subscribe via rss), and anyone else that does visit your site probably knows who you are.

For a lesser-known person or someone starting out, they need to have as many things NOT get in the way of a click off the site as possible ... and a nice design is one of those "don't go away 'cause I'm ugly" easy fixes.

(Says David, who paid for Thesis :-)

It's 11% of ONLINE adults - not 11% of ALL adults - very different...

Chris, you asked "What’s it mean to you?" I suppose I'm "micro" or "niche" famous in the library world.

What's it mean? I largely try to ignore it (once in a while, it's sorta hard to ignore :-) ). Sure, I think it's pretty cool when people approach me and say they love my blog ... but I work REALLY HARD to have my main focus be on these three things: thinking out loud, sharing stuff I find interesting, and asking for other opinions.

These three things have grown my readership, my conference speaking, my writing, and has influenced my main job, too. The micro-fame thing? Just an outgrowth of what I do, I guess... ?

"The way content creators profit from their works is through the sale of rights" - That's how the record companies and licensing agencies make money. The actual content creators still profit primarily from playing, selling their CDs, and selling lots and lots of t-shirts.

Us librarians agree with you - we've always been about "improving the question" - which sounds awefully similar to having smarter conversations.

In the library world, we've been focusing on "the stories" - the interactions between library patrons and staff, the stories behind why people use the library, etc. That's one way that helps traditionally-minded staff figure out why we should use social media.

But it works both ways, and here's where big media marketing intersects with your cafe idea. Big media marketing needs to start using those real stories, with real people. Get rid of the celebrity/actor in the commercial. Focus on the story, and how your product results in a better story, therefore a better life, for customers.

Bingo.

I'd have to agree with Danny and some of the others... Bob has a specific job to do. If he's doing other people's jobs, he's not doing his own or following his job requirements. Unfortunately for Bob, that's grounds for being sacked.

I've been in Bob's situation before - and after I talked to management many times (and they didn't listen) ... I found another job. I didn't do what Bob did, and basically work hard at being fired.

Just sayin... Bob should dust off that resume.

don't tell us about airspeed, altitude, or what direction the wind is coming from - we could care less.

the magazines tend to focus on the chairs, the wine, and the goodies... for the 6 people who paid twice as much up in business/first class. How about focusing on the MAJORITY of customers in the plane?

Don't make me pay for more leg room if I'm tall. Just put in one fewer row. Sheesh - is this so hard?

The same in the waiting area - United rolls out the red carpet... only for a choice few of it's guests. What if they treated EVERYONE with a red carpet mentality?

just stuff off the top of my head...

well, I think technorati works partially off trackbacks and pings (could be wrong there). I know that blogs don't pick up on twitter mentions like normal trackbacks would. So it's a bigger techo issue - when my blog doesn't do that, I'm not able to keep a record of the whole conversation with my original post - just the snippets via other blogs.

Which, of course, is a bummer!

Mukund - right you are - in fact, it's 98% (that's what it was last year from Google, anyway). But if they did that simple little thing, their search results would improve dramatically.

On your last thought - not sure I agree with the topical traffic part. If you post frequently on the topic of the day, but post less than stellar info, I'm thinking the traffic you get will lead to comments and posts saying negative things about your original post. Although you might get good traffic that day, the next it would drop - because other bloggers would have decided your blog wasn't worth reading, and so moved on.

So I think your "thoughtful pieces" applies in both scenarios. Especially since Google's main search that everyone uses WILL find you.

I'll say this - you did a better search than Mukund did when you decided to include quotes (depending on the search engine - some don't use quotes for phrase searches).

Always good to know basic search skills before writing an article on search!

Thoughts from your post...

"So how do libraries stay competitive and useful in the modern environment?"

We are working on that very question! We even have a moniker for it - Library 2.0. In general, libraries have fallen behind in the whole web 2.0 thing - but some of us are working to catch libraries up to the present!

"An impressive assortment and one that has the potential to cost the Library thousands of dollars in bandwidth costs." The bandwidth payment model is more like a business - static monthly payment, usually at least partially funded by the state.

One more side thing before getting to your main point - "PPLS’s offering is impressive, with 60+ database subscriptions and with 30,000+ digital offerings but it’s still minuscule compared to the potential." Definitely miniscule... but also probably has a different focus than what you're talking about. My guess is PPLS's goal isn't to collect or make everything available - it's to make only the best, most useful, and potentially most requested stuff available. That's the old non-digital model, anyway - and right now, most libraries are translating that old model into the digital age. Then they have web access, which covers most other things.

Now to the meat: "Why not turn our library system into a networked P2P network operating custom software which not only allows the distribution of the content they already have, but also the submission and potential addition of hundreds of thousands of new files by authors, documentary producers, and musicians?"

Very cool idea. Remove the "digital" part for a sec, and some libraries already do that - my library, for example, actively collects books written by Topeka-area authors. Plus photographs, etc.

That local area thing is the catch - most public libraries aren't interested in collecting EVERYTHING. They might be interested, however, in collecting everything from their local communities. What if, for example, Seattle Public Library collected mp3 files from local bands... we could have had early demos of Nirvana downloadable for free - years before they were huge. That'd be cool!

P2P networks might not work for libraries in the near-future - state-funded networks frequently have policies against that type of thing, and libraries don't have the money to buy the bandwidth themselves.

But - the ideas behind P2P are library-friendly. Libraries have been working on the customer-to-customer communication thing, just in littler baby steps. For example, my library allows library customers to write book reviews and we post em online, and we're also blog-based, so customers can converse with each other via commenting.

My thoughts, anyway...

Giving too much away? Not at all. You're giving away a sample chapter to a whole book of great ideas. Your readers read the sample chapter - some of them, sure, go away thinking "this is exactly what I need!" But others subscribe (myself included) realizing you have more to say than that one post. And of course others still will hire you, seeing your expertise in action and wanting to customize that expertise for their organization.

Keep giving it away!

NNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE Spam Karma! And spammers love my blog. Dangit. Hoping that someone picks up Spam Karma's open source and runs with it.

I agree with Brian above. I think blog comments and friendfeed discussions are two different things. Blog comments live with the original conversation starter and grow. Friendfeed discussions (for the highly wired at least) are almost realtime discussions - very different from directed additions to discussion like a blog comment.

Also - blog comments might be dead for highly interactive "geeks" ... but we're a minority. Most web users haven't even DISCOVERED blog comments yet, and would look at you funny if you mentioned friendfeed.

So no declarations of death to blog comments from me yet!

Thanks, Connie for the cool idea - and thanks Chris for such a great thread! Lots of useful ideas to think about.

Goal for my library's website: more interaction. We're getting some, but not much. So far, our strategy is to get on traditional local media outlets (tv, newspaper) to do it, and we're going to be featured on the cover of the phonebook (I'm making sure out URL is there, too).

What am I missing? Our regulars know we're there... but the REST of our county are "potential customers" of the library... and of our website.

Ideas are appreciated!

I'd love to try out a.viary - it looks amazing!

Hey, thanks for the good vibes! Nice article, too - video can be a cheap, easy-to-do, yet powerful conversation starter in libraries.

Richard's on to something - I would tell the company that sixth question is the wrong question to ask - then quickly explain to them how conversations and stories sell products. This would be easy enough to back up with articles and possibly even research (ie., charts). And I'm not talking about digital at this point - just normal, non-web conversation and story - anything from viral marketing (non digital) to floor sales staff sharing that heartwarming story about how their product met someone else's needs (and closes the sale).

Then, you can easily step into the digital space, and show how social networking and 2.0 is not about technology - it's all about enabling MORE conversations and MORE stories. Stories about YOUR product.

Then end your pitch this way - tell them that conversations about their product are already happening (you can probably show it via blogs, twitter, forum conversations). They have the opportunity to LEAD those conversations via social networks, and by starting, participating in, and finishing those conversations.

That's what I'd do, anyway... works in libraries!

Groupings - I'd like that in Twitter, too!