Don’t be afraid to go beta:How to Web 2.0

Andrea Mercado, Reading Public Library

Rhode Island OLIS CE 12/6/2007

CC

Licensed by Ben S

tanfield :: http://flickr.com/p

hotos/acaben/562140

565/

Star Trek - “The Enemy Within” :: Season 1 - October 6, 1966 :: http://www.trishbennett.net/jtk/enemywithin.html

So wait, what’s he doing here?!

Priceline.com

World of Warcraft

Over the H

edge

Boston Legal

Miss C

ongeniality

Bingo Time! – 5 minutes

Yup, you’re getting up and moving around Introduce yourself if you don’t know someone IF Yes, have person initial square Each square must be a different person “I think so…” == Yes Yell “BINGO!” For serious, there are 2 *prizes*

So wait, what did we just do?

Social networking, just IRL (In Real Life) Tagging, kinda (Probably) met some people we didn’t know Some people won some nifty prizes! It was beta, for me at least

Learning Web 2.0 23 Library 2.0 Things

Created by Helene Blowers, Public Services Technology Director for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC). :http://snipurl.com/23librarythings Week 2: consider WordPress.com as a blog option

15 minutes a day FREE Bite-sized, digestible bits of Web 2.0 Customizable for your library Add your own/adapt other Discovery Exercises for

Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, etc.

More than just an account

"The biggest obstacle to learning something new is the belief that you already know it."

-- Zen philosophy

Make the time to do more than just push the buttons...

Star Trek - “The Enemy Within”

Shiny, candy-like buttons!

…to avoid using the wrong tool for the job…

Star Trek - “The Enemy Within”

But it’s

*AWESOME*! Snrk!

…resulting in frustration, wasted time, and wasted resources.

Star Trek - “The Enemy Within”

What now?

Fuzzy, weirdly

cute, and useless to us, Cap’n!

The logic astounds

!

You know what… now how?

Start with a goal, plan to get there Small, action-directed committee

(could just be you, but +1 minimum is nice) What do you have? What you want to have? What’s the best tool/site/service to use? Can you implement & sustain it?

Plans are your friendsThey conserve time, money and resources.

Tech staff are your friends, too

Star Trek - “The Enemy Within”

Overcoming obstacles

Star Trek - “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” :: Season 1 - October 20, 1966 :: http://www.trishbennett.net/jtk/whatare.html

#1 tip for ultimate beta comfort

HAVE A PLAN. PLANS ARE GOOD.

Plan: Sample Simple Timeline

Planning Form small “committee”Goal setting/planning meetingWho are your process staff? Include Tech!Timeline

Assess Patron & staff interviews/focus groups/surveyWhich tools fit our goal? Who’s using it? What is the culture?Are other libraries doing it? How? Is it working?Where will you use it? Internally or publicly?

Build Configure settingsPlay with a sandbox version, tweakDevelop process & policies

Plan: Sample Simple Timeline

Train Process & policiesHow to use the tool/site/service

Launch/Promote

Newsletter, newspaper article, handouts, word-of-mouth, bookmarks, classes, tutorialsEducate public on new feature, as necessary

Track/Reassess

Keep track of service changes/new featuresCheck in with stakeholders: is it working?Tweak as necessary

Privacy: things to think about

“The difficulty … in considering the Library 2.0 idea is that libraries and Web 2.0 services are based on serving two very different essential activities, and those activities have an opposite relationship to privacy.”

-- “The Central Problem of Library 2.0: Privacy” http://libraryjuicepress.com/blog/?p=68

Now while I love Tim Gunn…

http

://sn

ipur

l.com

/tim

gunn

…sometimes you just can’t make it work.

You might need to go back and try something different…

…but learning from mistakes is good. That’s why beta’s so cool.

Again?? You’re kidding

me, right?!

BETA!!!

3 Zen Mantras of Beta

Immerse & Educate thyself! Knowing the culture == Knowing the tools

Goals are the keyJust like providing any other library service

Plans are your friendsActionable but flexible, based on your goal

Credits & Assorted Sundries The Official William Shatner web site

http://www.williamshatner.com/ Neil Gorman: Comicology podcast

http://comicology.net/ David Scrimshaw: Human Bingo

http://snipurl.com/humanbingo So many William Shatner pics!

Thank you, Trish Bennett!http://snipurl.com/williamshatner

Shatner commercial for World of Warcrafthttp://snipurl.com/shatnerwow

Further Interactions

“unintended consequences - the good kind” by Beth Dunn, Small Dots http://snipurl.com/bethdunn

SNS Logic Model A - Should My Organization Use a Social Network Site? http://snipurl.com/logicmodels

Using Social Media to Grow Your BusinessFREE Webinar Friday, Dec 7, 2007, 1:00 P.M.Register: http://snipurl.com/socmedwebinar

Questions? Comments?

Andrea MercadoReference & Techie LibrarianReading Public Library, Massachusettshttp://www.readingpl.org

See also: http://www.LibraryTechtonics.info http://www.PLABlog.org http://www.slideshare.net/andreamercado