Tuesday 15 March 2011

Get me!!

I might have been slightly wrong about Doodle in a previous post.  I thought I would continue to use Outlook scheduling for my meetings but I've just sent out 2 invites to 2 different groups using Doodle and I've already received responses - brilliant!

Monday 14 March 2011

There's light at the end of the tunnel


by http://www.flickr.com/photos/larimdame/
23 Things has been very useful for me.  I haven't completed it in the way it was probably intended i.e. week by week but actually doing it all in one go helped me to make decisions quite quickly about what I will use and not use.
For personal use, Flickr is going to be at the top of the list as being most useful, it is probably the most enjoyable one too as I can easily get carried away looking at other people's photos.
For work though the most useful is going to be Google Docs. I need to play around with this a lot more but from what I have seen far it will make it much easier for me to work outside of my normal work space which gives me plently of flexibility.  I
The one I persisted with was Diigo.  I already bookmarked pages but probably not as orderly as I could have done.  I did get frustrated with creating lists and then finding they weren't there, only for them to magically appear a day later.  In today's worls I don't really expect to have to wait for electronic stuff to work.  I am quite impatient though!
I think it's evident that Web 2.0 has a use; it's everywhere.  Not engaging with it and making use of it to communicate and support our customers would be an error.  That doesn't mean to say we need to follow absolutely everything religiously but we should be aware of what's out there and weigh up whether it has a use and purpose for us.
Now to the awards:
Best Blog: This has to go to the 23 Things really, it's where I kept up to date with everything
Best Blog Name: The Metadata Magician - it seemed to conjure up images of wizardry!
Best Blog Post: Diigo for Victory - I loved the title, the picture and in particular the use of English ;-)
Peer Support Award:  I'm sure lots of this went on but Suzanne in our office was always on hand
Progress Award:  This has surely got to be me?  I think I managed to do 15 Things in 2 days at one stage and I've completed 4 days ahead of schedule.  If it's not me 'I've been robbed!'

But seriously, thanks to the 23 Things' team for all the effort and work that's gone into this.  It's been great hearing people talking about what they've uploaded on to Flickr, how Diigo is a ***** because they haven't received their confirmation email etc. etc.  It's been lots of fun-THANKS!!!

Share and Share alike

I've made it to the penultimate thing, slide share.  I have looked at this in the past and found some very interesing information on things like marketing and management information which have not only been informative from the view that I've picked up ideas on different campaigns etc. but also from the point of view that I've learned about displaying some of this information; particularly graphs etc.
I did a search for libraries and social media and at the top of the list was this http://www.slideshare.net/crr29061/social-media-is-changing-libraries-how-do-you-fit-in but the hits at the top of the list were mainly American but then I found this http://www.slideshare.net/bethanar/ukoln-soc-web-final which was created by the University of Manchester.  It appears to be a joint effort highlighting the need and purpose of all types of libraries from the voices of people that use them, I liked it!

Thursday 10 March 2011

Google Docs

Thank you 23 Things, this is the one element I really wanted to get to grips with.  I know I could have done that myself but it helps when you're doing it as part of some training (or to win an award, I notice the date for the ceremony has gone up today :-))
I've uploaded a document and shared it with colleagues but this is just the tip of the iceberg, being able to access documents from anywhere will make life so much easier.  Now I can have even extra contingency.  I quite often take a memory stick with a presentation, email the same presentation to several email addresses and upload it to a laptop...just in case!  Now I can send it to Google Docs and be extra, extra sure that I'll be able to access it when I get to wherever I'm going. (I'm not paranoid, honest!)

Wizzy Wikis

This is an interesting 'thing' for me as I would really like to tackle a whole section on the Library for Wikipedia rather than just a University entry but I never seem to have long enough to sit down and plan it properly, never mind actually do it. 
With this in mind I chose to edit a Wikipedia entry instead ad as Ant beat me to editing the Library entry I thought I'd go with the village where I live http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriden,_West_Midlands
I was pleased to see we had a comprehensive entry (probably thanks to our active Parish Council) but I just made a few tweaks here and there.

still on the cat theme

Ok, I'm probably boring all the non-cat lovers out there but Simon's Cat videos on You Tube are hilarious :-)

Creative Commons


Now I can find pictures of other people's cats :-) thanks to Creative Commons and Farmgalphotos for taking this lovely picture of kittens playing.