On Being Nice - Relating to passionate users (and profitability)
my research and notes in Notebook
http://www.google.com/notebook/#b=BDQtPIgoQ8Y6O4ooi
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
Thoughts on Being a professional
What separates the professional/craftsperson from the "good worker" is the ability to keep in mind the effect of the work/end product on the user. And the professional considers the effect on the user as a fundamental part of the work excellence.
Kathy Sierra (CPU Blog) talks about teams that follow "the Hollywood Model", where people come together with their respective skills and talents, and DO something." and then: "Employees shouldn't be sleeping in cubes to prove they're "passionate employees."
Kathy goes on with her 4-quesetion test to see if someone has a passion for their work:
* When was the last time you read a trade/professional journal or book related to your work? (can substitute "attended an industry conference or took a course") This month (Feb: NextGen Librarian's Guide to Survival.
* Name at least two of the key people in your field. Gary Price and Judy Field, and Ran Hock, and Gary Notess, and Mary Ellen Bates and E. Walker - DOD library...and...
* If you had to, would you spend your own money to buy tools or other materials that would improve the quality of your work? Yes, I often do
* If you did not do this for work, would you still do it (or something related to it) as a hobby? Yes, I really think I would... I'm hooked
Interesting, her test doesn't include the perspective of the user....
Final paragraph from Ms. Kathy:
"when I say I have a passion for a particular piece of software, it's not really the software I'm passionate about. It's always about my passion for what the software lets me DO. Companies should work the same way. By acting like a good UI and letting employees express the passion they have for their work, you'll end up with employees who'd never consider going elsewhere."
Kathy Sierra (CPU Blog) talks about teams that follow "the Hollywood Model", where people come together with their respective skills and talents, and DO something." and then: "Employees shouldn't be sleeping in cubes to prove they're "passionate employees."
Kathy goes on with her 4-quesetion test to see if someone has a passion for their work:
* When was the last time you read a trade/professional journal or book related to your work? (can substitute "attended an industry conference or took a course") This month (Feb: NextGen Librarian's Guide to Survival.
* Name at least two of the key people in your field. Gary Price and Judy Field, and Ran Hock, and Gary Notess, and Mary Ellen Bates and E. Walker - DOD library...and...
* If you had to, would you spend your own money to buy tools or other materials that would improve the quality of your work? Yes, I often do
* If you did not do this for work, would you still do it (or something related to it) as a hobby? Yes, I really think I would... I'm hooked
Interesting, her test doesn't include the perspective of the user....
Final paragraph from Ms. Kathy:
"when I say I have a passion for a particular piece of software, it's not really the software I'm passionate about. It's always about my passion for what the software lets me DO. Companies should work the same way. By acting like a good UI and letting employees express the passion they have for their work, you'll end up with employees who'd never consider going elsewhere."
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Our new blogs...
http://tuesjamclub.blogspot.com/ this is our new Jam Club Blog
http://tuesjamclub.blogspot.com/2007/02/itilibrarianjamclubbloggercom.html email to the Jam Club Blog
http://take10blog.blogspot.com/ this is our new librarian Web2.0 Blog... or is it Libraries 2.0?
iti.librarian.take10@blogger.com - if you send a message to this email, it will be published here, for us to see!!
http://tuesjamclub.blogspot.com/2007/02/itilibrarianjamclubbloggercom.html email to the Jam Club Blog
http://take10blog.blogspot.com/ this is our new librarian Web2.0 Blog... or is it Libraries 2.0?
iti.librarian.take10@blogger.com - if you send a message to this email, it will be published here, for us to see!!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Get Slightly Famous
How To Get Slightly Famous in Print
by Steven Van Yoder
Early in my career, I wrote an article for a small business magazine about self-publishing as a marketing tool for businesses. Because I specialize in helping businesses get into print, the article only took a few hours to write. A few months later it was published. Almost immediately, my phone began to ring and my email box filled up with inquires.
Visibility + Competence + Word of Mouth = REPUTATION
Getting Slightly Famous in print media means reaching a larger audience, rather than relying entirely on human contact. After all, there is only one physical you. No matter how much you network, get around, or attend meetings, YOU can only go so far.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Robots.txt, QuestionPoint, Time spent online, and Amapedia
Robots.txt files, according to Google
The Official Google Blog has a useful post about how to control search engine access to your website. If you ever wanted to know about robots.txt files, and how to make the most of them, this is a good read.
QuestionPoint Blog now open
The QuestionPoint Blog, the place all participating librarians are supposed to look for information, but didn't because the darn thing was password-protected and couldn't be fed into an RSS reader, is now finally open for all to read and password-free. Here's the blog and here's the feed. If your library uses QuestionPoint, especially if you're monitoring the service, it's a good idea to subscribe.
found via Stephen Francoeur at Digital Reference
Where do people spend their online time?
The Complete Blog posted a graph recently, showing where internet users spent their time in December of 2006. 11.9% of users' time was spent on MySpace, in the top slot. Next comes Yahoo! at 8.5%. MSN and eBay next, then comes Google, proving once and for all that while Google may be used as a tool--it's not where people stay and actually spend time. 39% of users' time is spent at the top 20 sites.
What do I take away from this? That the library should indeed have a presence where these users are spending time--on sites like MySpace and Craigslist and Wikipedia. Be where we can in a positive way.
P.S. I wonder how much the slow load times and poor navigation contributes to MySpace's percentages ;)
found via The Centered Librarian
Amapedia: Amazon's Wikipedia
When I first read in the news media that Amazon had released a Wikipedia-esque site called Amapedia, I laughed and didn't think it was real. I mean--Googlezon, Amazoogle, Wikizon--we've heard them all, and they're not real--not yet anyway. Anyway, it's real. Amapedia is self-described as "a community for sharing information about the products you like the most." In other words, it's a wiki about all the junk we buy. A monument to consumerism. A totem of capitalism. Hmm...I thought that's what the Amazon reviews were for. No need for a separate wiki. Oh well. Enjoy. *snarky smile inserted here*
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Note to self: from Librarian in Black...
Note to self: from Librarian in Black...
Using social book sites for readers advisory
The success of the home-book-organization site Library Thing has resulted in a lot of similar sites springing up here and there. I blogged about one, GuruLib, a while back. TechCrunch points out a few others:
TechCrunch recommends that we keep an eye on the last one, Shelfari, as in their opinion Shelfari is better-designed and has more desired features, like a little widget that lets you show off the books you have.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Managing Interruptions aka Multitasking: the phenomenae
from the original blog: How do people manage interruptions? A few years ago I became very interested in how people manage their interruptions. We’ve talked a lot about this in the CPU blog over the years. See: The Asymptotic Twitter Curve and Multitasking makes us stupid? and it’s still an area of active interest in the research community and here at Creating Passionate Users.
Very interesting? Beyond interesting. Instead think: so we're heading to this state of continuously partial attention due to the info-glut we're creating for ourselves; and diminishing our ability to make sense and perform at our highest quality because of it. And it's as addicting as any drug in that it affects receptors in our brain... needing outside stimulation and entertainment.
But our innate desire is to feel as connected as "humanly" possible, no matter what. Even at our individual demise. Will we evolve to function better as conjoined humans than as independent reflectors? hmmmm....
Very interesting? Beyond interesting. Instead think: so we're heading to this state of continuously partial attention due to the info-glut we're creating for ourselves; and diminishing our ability to make sense and perform at our highest quality because of it. And it's as addicting as any drug in that it affects receptors in our brain... needing outside stimulation and entertainment.
But our innate desire is to feel as connected as "humanly" possible, no matter what. Even at our individual demise. Will we evolve to function better as conjoined humans than as independent reflectors? hmmmm....
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Sensemaking... #3 - make a model; stake in the ground
More as promised... pop
Now there’s a representation of problem-solving behavior that’s been around since 1972 when Alan Newell and Herb Simon wrote about Human Problem Solving in their (now classic) tome. A problem-behavior graph (I’ll call them PBGs) is a boxes-and-arrows way to show what “knowledge states” people go through in the course of solving a problem.
So [Dan] came up with the parallel problem behavior graph – a nice variant way of diagramming what people were doing.
Then Dan found that his data didn't quite match the simple model. There were unexplained gaps in the model.... because the events couldn't predict the behaviour/actions well enough.
Now there’s a representation of problem-solving behavior that’s been around since 1972 when Alan Newell and Herb Simon wrote about Human Problem Solving in their (now classic) tome. A problem-behavior graph (I’ll call them PBGs) is a boxes-and-arrows way to show what “knowledge states” people go through in the course of solving a problem.
So [Dan] came up with the parallel problem behavior graph – a nice variant way of diagramming what people were doing.
Then Dan found that his data didn't quite match the simple model. There were unexplained gaps in the model.... because the events couldn't predict the behaviour/actions well enough. So, he re-examined the data and found the source of a gap: interruptions during the minutae set-up to handle a pre-existing interruption. SO, he re-wrote his model ...
Now, the model isn't the point, it's the creation of the model as part of the sensemaking process.
The more you know about the process of sensemaking, the better at sensemaking you'll be.
Sensemaking... #2
Here's his steps... they seem to be similar to mine, when I'm doing research -
1. Frame the question, what is it you're trying to figure out.
Dr. Hemassi said, if you can't say it in 25 words, you don't understand what you're trying to accomplish, and you need to continue thinking it over.
But frame the problem, the domain, and generate questions that focus on the answers sought. Almost "jeopardy"-like.
Know, it's not always the first cycle of framing that you discern, but you have to start somewhere. Sometimes, you learn enough that things shift; and you follow the answer to a place you hadn't originally thought it would be. That's when the law of Serendipity takes over. My phrase: the law of serendipity.
2. Collect a lot of information on the domain.
How do others think of the domain, what works, what doesn't work.
How others organize their view of the domain can also be helpful.
If there are discrepancies between opinions, there is space for something interesting to develop the gap.
3. Organize the information.
You need to build an organized view of the domain, of the information you have gathered. If someone else has created a structure already (think association, etc); that may help you quickest. Otherwise, you'll have to build your own model.
Spend a lot of time building your information into some kind of representation (folders, topics, spreadsheet model, etc). But building this representation is KEY. The act of making the representation is when the "ah-ha" happens. It's when you start seeing the connections.
4. Iterate.
It's pretty rare to get it perfectly right the first time; so prepare and manage your time to allow for this necessary iteration phase. Do you have to change domains? Do you have to weed out junk information? Iterate, and keep iterating until you can satisfy your need to make sense of the original domain.
5. DO.
As in do what ever it is you wanted when you figured out what the domain was.
Research of the kind I work on is always trying to figure out something so you can do the next thing.
Too abstract?
More to come...
1. Frame the question, what is it you're trying to figure out.
Dr. Hemassi said, if you can't say it in 25 words, you don't understand what you're trying to accomplish, and you need to continue thinking it over.
But frame the problem, the domain, and generate questions that focus on the answers sought. Almost "jeopardy"-like.
Know, it's not always the first cycle of framing that you discern, but you have to start somewhere. Sometimes, you learn enough that things shift; and you follow the answer to a place you hadn't originally thought it would be. That's when the law of Serendipity takes over. My phrase: the law of serendipity.
2. Collect a lot of information on the domain.
How do others think of the domain, what works, what doesn't work.
How others organize their view of the domain can also be helpful.
If there are discrepancies between opinions, there is space for something interesting to develop the gap.
3. Organize the information.
You need to build an organized view of the domain, of the information you have gathered. If someone else has created a structure already (think association, etc); that may help you quickest. Otherwise, you'll have to build your own model.
Spend a lot of time building your information into some kind of representation (folders, topics, spreadsheet model, etc). But building this representation is KEY. The act of making the representation is when the "ah-ha" happens. It's when you start seeing the connections.
4. Iterate.
It's pretty rare to get it perfectly right the first time; so prepare and manage your time to allow for this necessary iteration phase. Do you have to change domains? Do you have to weed out junk information? Iterate, and keep iterating until you can satisfy your need to make sense of the original domain.
5. DO.
As in do what ever it is you wanted when you figured out what the domain was.
Research of the kind I work on is always trying to figure out something so you can do the next thing.
Too abstract?
More to come...
Sensemaking... #1
« More things that make you smile... Main Sensemaking 2: What I do to make sense »
Sensemaking 1
Here’s an important question for all of us: How do you make sense of something that’s big and complicated? Say… something like why your users aren’t passionate about your product?
For the past several years I’ve been thinking a great deal about sensemaking—that is, the processes people go through when trying to “make sense” of a body of knowledge.
The author seems to believe sensemaking is a skill, like language, that can improve with practice and can be taught. He asks: what do I do to make sense of something complicated?
Sensemaking 1
Here’s an important question for all of us: How do you make sense of something that’s big and complicated? Say… something like why your users aren’t passionate about your product?
For the past several years I’ve been thinking a great deal about sensemaking—that is, the processes people go through when trying to “make sense” of a body of knowledge.
The author seems to believe sensemaking is a skill, like language, that can improve with practice and can be taught. He asks: what do I do to make sense of something complicated?
- I get a sense for context, scope and sphere of influence
- Then, I get a sense for relationships, cause and effect relationships, equivalences, and metaphors related or parallel to it. Basically, break it down; deconstruct it, organize it.
- Then, I find a way to make fun of it, and find it's humor
- Is there a way to break it down further?
- Is there a final "T"-truth about it?
I guess I cast a wide net around context setting questions, divergent questions, until an unknown point where the questions become convergent, until they converge on "answers"
OK, maybe I could be a little more succinct about it; like this:
2. I collect a bunch of information, then organize it, then I get the answer. This is also a fine answer. At least you’re aware of the “collection phase” and some basic collection organizational process. But that last step is the killer—how do you just “get the answer”?
Ahh.. there’s the magic! How DO you know what to do to get the answer?
In 1993 I wrote a paper with the somewhat forbidding title “The cost structure of sensemaking,” which basically points out that people take into account all kinds of factors when deciding what to do when making sense. They worry about how long it will take, how many errors will happen during the process and how much the whole process will cost. Interestingly, many of these “costs” are figured intuitively, and often incorrectly, leading people to do all kinds of strange things.
hmmm.... what does he do? He says this:
What do I do? Well, I’ll tell you.. I collect a ton of information, then organize it, then I map it to the task I’m trying to do. Then I repeat. The iteration is important because I almost never get the right information on the first pass, or I don’t know how to organize it, or I don’t know how to use it to get the task accomplished it once it’s all organized
Still, interesting... how do we make sense of our world?
Who made you smile? Additional thoughts, and smiles. :)
Keep a smile journal for 2 weeks. Who, what made you smile?
Tip: keep a 'smile journal' for a week or two, and try to write down every little thing that caused you to smile when you interacted with a product or service or person, and look for a pattern (or at least some ideas you can use). You can also track another person you interact with, and write down how often THEY smile, and what caused it. If the notebook is nearly blank at the end of two weeks, time to rent some Monty Python.]
So, who'd you make smile today? Who made you smile today?
Then apply these things to the things you make/create/etc for others. Even if you don't see 'em you can be responsible for making them smile. :)
Crinkly eyes = real smile. No crinkly eyes? Faker. (or too much botox)
Bonus: take this BBC quiz to test your ability to spot the difference between someone who's smile is genuine vs. a faker.
Perhaps the real question should not be, "Who'd you make smile today?" but rather, "How can you get yourself to smile more?" We all know it's true... real, genuine, authentic, natural smiles are infectious. Picture the people you know who can light up a room when they walk in with a big, REAL, smile.
Tip: keep a 'smile journal' for a week or two, and try to write down every little thing that caused you to smile when you interacted with a product or service or person, and look for a pattern (or at least some ideas you can use). You can also track another person you interact with, and write down how often THEY smile, and what caused it. If the notebook is nearly blank at the end of two weeks, time to rent some Monty Python.]
So, who'd you make smile today? Who made you smile today?
Then apply these things to the things you make/create/etc for others. Even if you don't see 'em you can be responsible for making them smile. :)
Crinkly eyes = real smile. No crinkly eyes? Faker. (or too much botox)
Bonus: take this BBC quiz to test your ability to spot the difference between someone who's smile is genuine vs. a faker.
Perhaps the real question should not be, "Who'd you make smile today?" but rather, "How can you get yourself to smile more?" We all know it's true... real, genuine, authentic, natural smiles are infectious. Picture the people you know who can light up a room when they walk in with a big, REAL, smile.
Friday, January 19, 2007
iSearch topic: Using Google to search Pay-for information
Using Google to search Pay-for information as reference for extended search -- add to iSearch materials.
Use Gartner browse, and other pay-for services' taxonomies to find keywords for WWW searches. It works pretty good for the sites that are open to searching; books24x7, IEEE, etc are not. It let's you use good terms from one provider and compare against another; and allows you to use the power tools from Google.
Not sure I would give up searching the sites independently, but when I'm faced with a needle in a haystack, and not sure where to start with my vendors, this is a good start.
Use Gartner browse, and other pay-for services' taxonomies to find keywords for WWW searches. It works pretty good for the sites that are open to searching; books24x7, IEEE, etc are not. It let's you use good terms from one provider and compare against another; and allows you to use the power tools from Google.
Not sure I would give up searching the sites independently, but when I'm faced with a needle in a haystack, and not sure where to start with my vendors, this is a good start.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Programming Tutorials and Fancy barcodes
Programming Tutorials
Looking for some techie tutorials? Add tutorial.icio.us to your list of places to check. There is a huge range of tutorials available--on design, Photoshop and other image editors, CSS, and tons more--some in languages other than English as well. Check it out!
found via Sites and Soundbytes
• Email to a friend •
Fancy Schmancy barcodes
http://www.barcoderevolution.com/gallery/
http://www.barcoderevolution.com/gallery/ Aaron Schmidt gives us some examples of pretty, spiced-up, fun-to-look at barcodes on his blog, walking paper, and asks the question: "Could you grow your users affection towards the library by turning something otherwise unnoticeable into something clever and unique?" There are dozens of fun barcodes from the Japanese company Barcode Revolution.
I'd love to see a library barcode their movies with barcodes appropriate for genre, just as a starter. I guarantee you'd get comments from users. And since we're one of the few industries that actually re-uses barcodes (not using them just for a one-time retail sale), I would think the company would be interested in our business.
from "LibrarianInBlack" http://www.feedblitz.com/f
http://www.feedblitz.com/f
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Our purpose comes from our Source, which is beyond analysis... thoughts to remember
You can have anything you want to happen - you are Causal
But you are not the power - when you believe you are the power, you can fall into false self-perception and white/black magic results.
However if you realize you are Causal, but the source of your power is greater than you, not of you, but within you; that the power to be Causal is given to you from the Source, this is sustainable, and right-minded thinking. The Source of which is spoken is God, the Father, the Trinity, and his ultimate Cause is Love, and only with that are you sustainably Causal.
It is in error to see yourself as Source. But we have Self-power only as an extension of the true Source - God the Father. We are here in His service, as an extension of Him, to do His Will, to chose to be His servant.
You will always be of service, but is your service of fear or love? That choice is yours; yay Free Will.
What ever the situation, it can change with a breath, a wink, a choice. Any resistance to that thought comes from our ego.
Some people would rather die than change their minds. Changing our minds is the most powerful thing we can do.
But you are not the power - when you believe you are the power, you can fall into false self-perception and white/black magic results.
However if you realize you are Causal, but the source of your power is greater than you, not of you, but within you; that the power to be Causal is given to you from the Source, this is sustainable, and right-minded thinking. The Source of which is spoken is God, the Father, the Trinity, and his ultimate Cause is Love, and only with that are you sustainably Causal.
It is in error to see yourself as Source. But we have Self-power only as an extension of the true Source - God the Father. We are here in His service, as an extension of Him, to do His Will, to chose to be His servant.
You will always be of service, but is your service of fear or love? That choice is yours; yay Free Will.
What ever the situation, it can change with a breath, a wink, a choice. Any resistance to that thought comes from our ego.
Some people would rather die than change their minds. Changing our minds is the most powerful thing we can do.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
rjourdan.blog@blogger.com - to publish straight from email
rjourdan.blog@blogger.com - to publish straight from email
Google Coop - Librarian Book List Tool
This looks like an interesting tool -
Friday, January 05, 2007
Librarian's Booklist Search
As promised, I have used the Google Coop website to create another customized search. It called Librarian's Booklist Search. The intent of this tool is to find online booklists from libraries.
Check out the full post and tool at http://ricklibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/01/librarians-booklist-search.html
Here's another one:
Free access to Britannica online articles
The Encyclopaedia Britannica Online,(http://www.britannica.com/) the one you pay for normally, is now offering free access to its online articles for web authors of all sorts and their readers--in a roundabout way. When a blogger or webmaster is reading an EB abstract, you can now click on a button named "share full article with your readers." You then get code that will link into the full article, which you can then post on your website, blog, wiki, or whatever. What does EB get out of this? People linking to their site, which helps them with site rank in search engines.
At any rate, this could be useful for libraries with news blogs--link to the EB article relevant to whatever you're writing about.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Librarian's Booklist Search
As promised, I have used the Google Coop website to create another customized search. It called Librarian's Booklist Search. The intent of this tool is to find online booklists from libraries.
Check out the full post and tool at http://ricklibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/01/librarians-booklist-search.html
Here's another one:
Free access to Britannica online articles
The Encyclopaedia Britannica Online,(http://www.britannica.com/) the one you pay for normally, is now offering free access to its online articles for web authors of all sorts and their readers--in a roundabout way. When a blogger or webmaster is reading an EB abstract, you can now click on a button named "share full article with your readers." You then get code that will link into the full article, which you can then post on your website, blog, wiki, or whatever. What does EB get out of this? People linking to their site, which helps them with site rank in search engines.
At any rate, this could be useful for libraries with news blogs--link to the EB article relevant to whatever you're writing about.
Tips to making your ideas "stickier"
From Heath and Heath (Made to Stick; 2007)
p.s. Excellent book, get your own copy.
The Communication Framework - to making your ideas stickier:
1. Pay attention
2. Understand and remember it
3. Agree/Believe
4. Care
5. Be able to act on it
To push the levers on these:
UNEXPECTED -- Pay attention
CONCRETE -- Understand and remember it
CREDIBLE -- Agree/Believe
EMOTIONAL -- Care
STORIES -- Be able to act on it
What happened to SIMPLE? It's job is handled in the Answer stage; that is: honing in on the core of your message and making it as compact as possible.
This is good stuff... try to use it when ever you have a message to deliver... if you've got something to say... say it as well as you can! .. and conversely, if it's not worth the effort - it's probably not worth saying. HAAAA!
p.s. Excellent book, get your own copy.
The Communication Framework - to making your ideas stickier:
1. Pay attention
2. Understand and remember it
3. Agree/Believe
4. Care
5. Be able to act on it
To push the levers on these:
UNEXPECTED -- Pay attention
CONCRETE -- Understand and remember it
CREDIBLE -- Agree/Believe
EMOTIONAL -- Care
STORIES -- Be able to act on it
What happened to SIMPLE? It's job is handled in the Answer stage; that is: honing in on the core of your message and making it as compact as possible.
This is good stuff... try to use it when ever you have a message to deliver... if you've got something to say... say it as well as you can! .. and conversely, if it's not worth the effort - it's probably not worth saying. HAAAA!
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Time to get noteworthy!
Sticky ideas, what makes an idea sticky? This is important for me this year. Now that I have a voice, what am I going to say... and how am I going to say it?
Web 2.0, finding valuable and relevant information
Web 2.0, finding valuable and relevant information
Monday, January 01, 2007
Eurekster Search Engine Link
Blondee's Blog
This links to my eurekster . It's a personal swicki/search engine for me, by me. Kinda kool.
http://swicki.eurekster.com/
This links to my eurekster . It's a personal swicki/search engine for me, by me. Kinda kool.
http://swicki.eurekster.com/
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