Wikiman Brion Vibber

I was watching a video presentation on Wiki's by Brion Vibber that Skye posted on his blog. This guy is seriously cool and his perception of where things might go was inspiring! So I googled him to see if he had a blog, which if he does I couldn't find. But what I did find was a site where he loads up his powerpoint presentations on Wiki's and the Web. I haven't had time to go through it but I really think there could be some gems here, he's doing a lot of thinking about Web3 and how through fuzzy logic we won't have to find the information.. it will find us!!

http://leuksman.com/pages/presentations

Brion Vibber keeps a pretty low profile but I will certainly be watching out for him

Everyone is talking Twitter.. but why?

Of all the Web 2 social mediums, Twitter continuously seems to baffle me. I keep fluctuating between trying to ignore it, see it as evil or accept it as just another way to chatter to the people of the world. When the report of the Mickeyy hack started last week I was... yes .. see I knew something wasn't right! There has been a lot of talk about the weakness of the platform, the crashing and how unstable it was, and this really just confirmed my doubts. If something can easily be replicated by a bored teenager and taken over, then what does that say about the privacy of the user?

The online community is , I think beginning to wake up a bit. I was reading an article by one of my favourite bloggers Brian Solis who is a Twitter advocate and talking a lot about how users can keep it real for them. As consumers of information, it is important that we keep the power! As deliverer's of information what controls do we need?

Our new "Library World".

Somehow, amongst the information jumble the people who run libraries have to use all their powers of discrimination to filter out the chaff from the wheat. The good news is that there are some real gems out there that will make the dissemination of knowledge quicker, easier and available when the user needs it. The hard part is .. which ones? I think that we need to maintain an open mind to all information sharing mediums, we need to experiment with everything that is out there and out of that some applications will stick and will be useful and others will just gather dust. Our Web2 adventure has given us a reason to go and get dirty with lots of different applications and share that experience with people who are going to be the new generation guardians of truth and knowledge.

Like it or not Libraries do have to deliver services in pace with the way people are expecting to get their information needs. It's pretty rare that someone is prepared to wait months for a copy of an article written in an obscure print periodical that will need to be copied and couriered to destination user. This means.. a lot of information will not be used simply because of its accessibility. We need the power of millions to get the information out there where people can find it and really.. that's where our strengths will lie. There is 100 years of human thinking that is filed away in some dusty archive that is not presently accessible.

Everyone is talking online. Whether it's an email or instant message system, or their "facebooking" (I do feel sorry for the OED people), communication is happening .. out there..! Super computers are here and now and that's how we are doing all this stuff.. for free? How free is it really? Consumer profiling is THE way that marketer's can target their audience and sell their products. We all think that we are not susceptible to these sales pitches but.. hey.. I really do need an Iphone.. I think? The reality is that business is using our information needs as a tool to market things to buy. They have become the new master of information because they saw in advance that people need information in a much better way that what old information services were delivering i.e. libraries.

As potentially the new generation of information managers we need to stop chasing and start leading. We can only do that by embracing the new and letting go of old habits and beliefs that slow down the way we deliver information.

Google Maps

Technology sometimes can be a scary thing. I was busily uploading markers for my recent trip to Rainbow Beach where I had escaped to for some well earned R & R. When I entered the address of where the family house is at Rainbow Beach.. bingo a marker was located AND a picture of the house. Now I knew that this was available but when its something that you see as private being broadcast to the world its kinda "big brother" isn't it? Do you think, somewhere in the future when the novelty wears off, there will be invasion of privacy issues? I guess we'll find out soon enough!

The Library Patron

I've just had the opportunity to participate in a very large survey of users and no-users of library services. The most revealing thing is that there is a huge difference to the way people are perceiving the library and its services. The customer who doesn't visit or use a library see's the library at a safe place with free services that is old fashioned and not able to deliver the information they want when they want it. The user of the library perceive the library as a wonderful place to participate in community activities and read books, get free DVDs and use free internet. The demographic is really vastly different in these user groups. I think in a lot of cases we have lost touch with the general community and isolated ourselves into more specialised communities.

The customers we have lost like being able to retrieve information from google, are very techno savvy and are right up to speed with the latest technology. It was amazing how many non-users pulled an Iphone out of their bags and told me they can read digital books when they want instantly, and access information immediately. What was really interesting was that people who are now self-sufficient with their information needs are not aware of the disparity of information available. In other words.. they don't know what information they are missing.

The whole journey of the Web 2 Adventure that we have just engaged in has really enlightened me as to how we might bridge the gap between the self-sufficient non-library user and how we can help the existing library patron to engage in the web community in a more productive way. I can already see easy applications of blogs into activities like Bookclub. How we could develop more user friendly catalogues and online services. Promote more interaction between Web 2 applications like social networking sites and information sharing forums with our web site interfaces. I am actually quite excited about projects are that using open source collaboration and uploading them into library OPACs. It's a new frontier and I can see that for the traditionalist it will be a quantum leap of faith to embrace the user of the future .. not in the future .. but now!

FlashWidgets

Some really excellent add ons from here:
http://www.flashwidgetz.com/

Flock Tutorial

I found this in the Media Streams of Flock.. its a drag and drop system

Holy FLOCK!

I promised myself that I would try out the new social web browser that Firefox have developed called Flock. I have downloaded it and installation allows you to transfer all you old Firefox setting into the Flock browser.

They have a fantastic video tutorial which runs you through all the different features and I am presently blogging on my blog through the Flock browser. I can't say I am totally comfortable with it yet but I really think I will get to like it.

I have already been able to drag and drop web abstracts into my Facebook acount.. very very easily.

This is the address for Flock

Blogged with the Flock Browser