Connecting Librarian

I had the wonderful, exhausting and exhilarating job of presenting a two day Libraries 2.0 Masterclass this week, with the delightful Kathryn Greenhill.  Glad to say, it was an all round success, with wonderful feedback and responses from our 19 attendees.

Kathryn has covered the days with our tweets, through a Cover It Live session at Librarians Matter. It is well worth checking out. So instead, I will go over what we covered in the two day workshop and outline what I got out of it, as a presenter and on the side participant.

Day 1 was Kathryn doing all the hard work. We began with a few introductions and then some get to know you exercises, which gave us and all participants information on their sector, their library size and the openness of their IT systems. It was useful information for us, but also for attendees as straight away they knew they were learning alongside people who came from pretty much the same sort of environment they were working in.

Here’s the fast forward bit. Kathryn did presentations on Web 2.0, Shift in power and Library 2.0 and after morning tea I presented on Web 2.0 tools. Which means to say we had a list of 36 types of tools which we had participants research and present back to the group. They had to explain what it was and why libraries should care, with me filling in the gaps.

Most of the way through lunch, I did a quick Twitter clinic, showing how to sigh up etc.

After lunch it was Kathryn again with eBooks, the library in the cloud and opening up the library. We finished with some futures dreaming exercises. Kathryn and I finished our day with a lovely relaxing dinner at Lygon Street.

Day 2 was me carrying most of the load, although I’m still convinced I had an easier time of it than Kathryn. We began with a recap and an indication of things that attendees would like covered (which I think we did).  We then gave them some time to think about three projects they would like to undertake when they got back to work.

I then presented on Library 2.0 and users and Learning 2.0 before Kathryn took us on a fun journey on Creating media. The end of lunch was filled with an informal Sharepoint sharing session for quite a few attendees and Kathryn and I did quick demos of both Word Press and Drupal as content management systems.

After lunch, I did overviews on Creating Social media policies and let them explore some online, then on Marketing and Library 2.0, Creating an online community of practice and by the time I got to Building a strong foundation, was pretty much exhausted.

Fortunately, after afternoon tea, we got participants to plan out an action plan for one project they were going to undertake once they got back to work (chosen from the three they had written down earlier), using the worksheet provided. They then had to practice an elevator pitch with the attendees at their table, giving them immediate practice at explaining their plans.

It was an exhausting, but ultimately very satisfying two days, mainly because:

• I worked with Kathryn to create and run this program. If you have to do something like this with anyone, Kathryn is your person.
• Passion takes you a long way. I was getting very tired by the 2nd half of the second day and had a sore throat as well, but my passion for the topic and helping others to see the value in these tools, carried me through and them along with me.
• Our attendees were a great group of people who were passionate in their own way. Passionate about their libraries and enthusiastic about the possibilities that could be opened up to them through using these tools. I really loved seeing them think of ways to get around restrictions imposed on them by their workplaces.
• The collaboration that happened between the attendees with similar interests or situations. Whenever we weren’t presenting to them or they were using their workbooks, they were sharing ideas, possibilities and more about their work environments. I think it was very encouraging for them to be able to spend that time with colleagues in similar circumstances and it was wonderful for us to see that collaboration happen.

As for what I got out of it:

• Felt lucky that I work with a fairly open IT environment, especially compared to pretty much all of our attendees
• Encouraged to create more media, particularly since discovering how easy it is to do so using Windows Movie Maker  (which I must get started on and soon – thanks Kathryn)
• A desire to find some more opportunities to collaborate with Kathryn and to investigate more options for professional development presentation content – either presenting or printed, with other colleagues – online or in my workplace (offers gratefully considered, lol)
• Inspiration to think outside of the box, which came as a result of our futures dreaming session and from hearing of our enthusiastic attendees plans for projects in their workplace.
• A need for rest. Fortunately, Easter started a day later.

I’m back at work this week and this whole event already seems like a long time ago.  But it has helped to fire me up further with possibilities and plans of my own, which makes me even happier to know that it was more of a two way process than I realised.

Check out more photos at Flickr.

I have been very busy since VALA2010, preparing presentations for a forthcoming seminar.

So here’s my shameless plug.

It is with great delight that I will be presenting “Libraries 2.0: using Web 2.0 and new media to revolutionise your library or information centre“, with my Libraries Interact co-blogger, colleague and friend, Kathryn Greenhill from Librarians Matter.

So, if you:

• have a good-sized training budget (which many of you I know don’t)
• are wanting to learn more about using Web 2.0 in your library
• would like to see one of the best and most engaging library presenters in Australia at work (that would be Kathryn, not me)
• can attend a two day seminar at the end of March
• and either live in Melbourne or could get the package deal to get here for two days,

then we would love to have you join us and other attendees, for what we are planning will be a learning, collaborating, questioning, informative and hopefully also a bit entertaining two days.

</end of shameless plug>

I’ve been pondering again. So I’m going to inflict it on you.

We have recently added Chili Fresh reviews to our catalogue.  I like it, its easy to use, easy to add reviews, we have the weight of Chili Fresh reviews from around the world to populate our catalogue and they have some really cool social networking features coming soon.

Tagging from the Darien Catalogue

But Chili Fresh doesn’t have user tagging (at least not yet).  Which of course got me thinking about tagging.

A common problem experienced in public libraries and I’m sure in other libraries too, is when you have a user come up and say something like:

“Can you help me, I’m looking for a book that I have had before. Its about gardening, its green and its about this big (demonstration using hands).”

They can’t remember anything about the author, but sometimes they can remember more about the content.  In the above type of example, it would be something about vegetables.

Barring miraculous circumstances, (like you have read that same book), or the luck of finding said book on shelf or trolley in roughly the place you would expect it to be, the likelihood of finding it with that information alone is nigh impossible.

So my reasoning was that if users could tag our catalogue records with that sort of information, it we be of great use to both them and us in finding that same title in future.

A few problems with my reasoning as I pondered further.

First would be getting the users to tag the details in the first place. Although we have a few people (more than we expected) putting reviews on our catalogue, it is nowhere near critical mass.

Second, do you know how many green books about gardening, let alone vegetables, we have?

And finally, the piece de resistance.  You finally find that book that the user was so desperate for and the only thing they got right was that it was about gardening. As for the rest of it, the subject was hydroponics, the book was orange and it was a very different shape and size.

Now only if we could tag each item by its actual details as well as its perceived details, we might have something.  But by then, the tags will take up more than a screen of detail and would probably send the catalogue search feature into meltdown.

When we do get tagging (and we will somehow, someday), we won’t stop our users from adding this sort of information, but I guess only experience will be able to tell us if it will be of any help.

What sort of ideas have you had about new technologies, which might not work so well in a library situation?  Maybe we can help you resolve your problems around it. Would also love to hear your thoughts on this one.

I began the afternoon session with a presentation on Web 2.0 and Marketing in Libraries.

Unfortunately for the organising commitment, they had a second last minute cancellation, but were fortunate enough to have a couple of people step up and show what they were doing at their library.  Danny was first.

Darebin Libraries Website – Danny

Their website redevelopment began about 18 months ago. Advice for anyone who has a website – take your website content, print it out as pages, put them on the floor and see if you can navigate between them easily.

Its all about content, content, content. It needs to be coherent, accessible, and minimal.

Everything on Darebin website has been developed in HTML or XML.  No plugins required.  You need to be sure that anyone can access your site, without needing the latest software versions etc.  See W3C guidelines.

Firefox has a HTML validator plug-in which will validate your code, against the W3C guidelines. If there are HTML or CSS errors in your website, then Google will drop you down in search results.

Need HTML fonts that anyone can read and contrasting background colours.

Social networking will only work for you if you have a great, well working website.  The social networking aims to bring users back to the library website, so you have to get that right first.

They use a content management system for their website,  Convoy CMS produced by Roadhouse, customised for Darebin.  Roadhouse also developed the new PLEASED website for public libraries on disability topics.

Vision Australia has a free toolbar to validate your website.

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Fiona was the second step-in speaker.

Yarra Plenty Libraries Website Redevelopment – Fiona.

Their redevelopment is going live in March 2010. They are going with the  Biblio Commons Discovery layer to bring the catalogue into the website.  Keep the branding and the menus consistent with the website, even when it moves into the catalogue on doing a search.

You can create collections, mark for later and create lists, which can be public or private.  You are able to share and bookmark using a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools.

You can send messages to other users through Bibliocommons, follow them etc.  Can also block them.

It all looks very interesting.  The Bibliocommons website takes you to customer websites to check out.

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Pam Saunders and Elwyn Murray -  Talking about my generation – giving perspective on what their generation is interested in.

Pam Saunders  is gen X  and she has 10 library cards – a library junkie.  No one library gives her what she needs.  She lives in the city and the country.  She carries these cards in a wallet which also contains reviews, notes, recommended books, etc that she wants to get from her library.  She looks to which library can get it and which will get it to her the quickest.

Her first point of contact will be the library website.  Her impressions of library services, their reputations, will come from this. The best websites will be presented the same way that a house for sale is.  Pruned down, uncluttered.  Some libraries have other features that she is not aware of, because they havent sent them to her or she hasnt seen them on the library website.

Facebook – you can overload people with information that is not always relevant, so be careful about how much you dish out.  Don’t make her have too many user names and passwords.  Can find out interesting statistics about your Facebook users from Facebook itself.

Doesn’t like a big sign saying that you can pay your overdue fines online – not as a first thing. Put the positive things online, the not so delightful things should be tucked away – not unfindable, but not in your face.

Gen Y – Elwyn – uses the power of the Net to drive personal interest. Used Facebook to promote an event and got an unexpectedly good response.

Elwyn agreed with Leith’s earlier assertions, when you engage with people, you also engage with their networks. People attend events because they have an interest, because they know someone who is in it or because they know someone who is going.

You need to be personal in your approach, even if its in a broadcast medium like Facebook. Viral marketing plays a big role in promotion.

Things he is addicted to include: FFFFound – image bookmarking and Future Shipwreck – he also links to post things to Tumblr (microblogging tool).

Tends to shy away from institutions on the internet – wants to hear individuals’ opinions, not the company line.

Does a lot of buying online, reads a lot of blogs, doesn’t listen to the radio anymore.

Is he a library member?
Yes.

Why did they publish a hard copy of their book, rather than just online?
Easy to digitally curate things, but there is a different status level to a printed copy.  If you can buy it, it is a way of showing appreciation and a way to own the content, which is different to the online. Had a grant to do it.

So that was the day.  It finished with the LibMark Marketing awards – one of which was one by my library, for our teen blog  Quicksand. Woohoo!

Thanks to the LibMark Committee for an insightful and interesting day.  I will chasing up more than a few things for my library.

Its my fourth anniversary of blogging, my blogiversary.  On the 29th July 2005, I posted my first entry to Connecting Librarian, at that time at blogger.com.  Four years later and wow, what a ride!

I’ve been thinking about blogging for a while now.  Even considered stopping altogether, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Although I’m not blogging as regularly, I still feel I have something to say and that this is one of the places I can say it.

Some of the reasons I have been blogging less, are that I am twittering more (most days and for most of the day usually) and I have been more writing away from the online, in the form of conference papers and articles, as well as continuing to do book reviews for ALJ.  I have 1 article and 2 conference papers on the go at present too.

I’m feeling less pressure to blog too, probably because of my increased presence on Twitter and Facebook – now I try to blog at least once a month, if not once a fortnight, but only when I have something to say, not just for the sake of it. Maybe I’m finally maturing as a blogger.

And just when I think about blogging less, I find the content to do 3 blog posts in 4 days.  Figures!

I’m far from being the only one thinking about how blogging is changing.  Iris Jastram (Pegasus Librarian) in her post The ebb and flow of my online communities talks about how, between chat rooms, Twitter and her blog, she is having trouble finding her centre.  I can relate to that.

Connecting Librarian was intended to be the centre of my online presence, but its now one of three main locations you will find me.  Its now becoming where I do my deeper thinking, whilst Twitter is where I have more of my interactions and conversations and Facebook is mostly just about connections.  Are others experiencing the same?

Meredith Farkas (Information Wants to be Free) in her post Whither blogging and the library blogosphere? laments what has happened to blogging in the face of micro-blogging.  I too miss the depth of content that comes with blogging and I have noticed a marked decrease in the frequency of blog posts arriving in my RSS reader.  On the other hand however, I love the immediacy and the contact that micro-blogging brings.

I twitter and then feed my twitters through to my Facebook status.  When I write a blog post, I twitter that.  So a blog post can be seen by people who read my blog, who follow me on Twitter or who have friended me on Facebook.  It becomes even more interesting when you start getting comments back on a blog post at each of these places as well.  So where is my centre?

I think that for now, my centre is Twitter – that’s where I spend most of my time in terms of an online presence, but I am not giving up my blog.  I still have many things to share and this is the ideal forum for that. Facebook is just another means of spreading the news from the first two and connecting with people that I can’t connect to otherwise.

So Happy Blogiversary to me and thanks to all my blog subscribers and readers. I am still amazed that you are following me and am grateful that you do.  Be reassured that there will still be blog posts, in the next year, although maybe not as often as I have in the past. I still want to blog though because I am still learning and discovering and find I still want to share all that I do, whilst “connecting new ideas and technologies with library service”.

Day 1 was great, but Day 2 was just as good.

Social media & Library Marketing

The strength of our libraries is our unique brand – which is the specific communities we each serve.  Mass marketing is no longer the key, it is now niche marketing. Even our top Australian TV shows only reach about 5% of the population.

The public visiting public libraries is a choice, not a requirement – really think about what that means.

Marketing is a requirement for libraries, but can be done in new and amazingly engaging ways through Web 2.0.  Examples included a Day in the life of Allen County – Allen County Public Library, Paint the town Read – PLCMC, Love New Jersey Libraries, Storypalooza – Gail Borden Public Library and many more.  We shouldn’t be worried about the sustainability of such programs, after all the technology is changing so fast. We should be more concerned about community needs – use short bursts to get our communities aware of their library.

Create an engagement calendar. Use regular events and holidays to create activities, using free online tools, such as image generators.

8 Steps to Marketing 2.0:

1. Educate – learn about social media
2. Experience – participate and join in the conversation
3. Envision – develop a 2.0 marketing plan
4. Engage – create social celebrations
5. Enable – help your library brand & content travel
6. Expand – play with multimedia
7. Explore – learn as you go & track success
8. Experiment, experiment, experiment

And to top it all off: “The best way to get your customers to market your brand is to allow them to promote (the library) by marketing themselves!”

2.0 Innovations: Passions to Practices

We need to be looking for reasons to change, not excuses for not changing.

Efficiency evolution – improving on what already exists – libraries are good at this. Evolutionary evolution – creating something new and distinctly better. Revolutionary evolution – radically changes business and culture.  Libraries are great at the first and have a long way to go before they are anywhere near implementing the others.

Four elements of innovation: creativity, strategy, implementation and profitability.  Innovation in libraries usually fails at the strategy – lack of buy-in being one of the unbreachable barriers reached there.

Innovative ideas come from focussing on quantity – not quality, collecting everything, getting out of the comfort zone and adding constraints to your thinking.

However, it can be not so much the ideas you need to focus on, but how to move those ideas through the organisation.

• Sell it – tie it to your mission and vision statements
• Create alliances – build relationships that will give you support
• Don’t ask for permission – either ask for forgiveness where the risk is all yours, or ask for support and share the risk
• Sell your vision personally – if you have to produce a report, follow it up personally – you can’t sell a vision on a piece of paper
• Find a champion – if not a supervisor, find a mentor – even if they are outside your line of authority

Implementation requires time, resources and scope. If there is a problem here, you need to revisit the strategy. The profitability comes with how the idea is enacted within your organisation.

Change is about leadership – shouldering it yourself. Change begins with me, leadership is taking the responsibility for moving things forward.

Well that’s it, apart from all the personal little notes I wrote myself about things to chase up for myself or for my library – and there are many of those!   All Helene’s slides are available from Slideshare and I recommend you check them out – they are well worth it.

Wow, how thrilled was I to be offered a place at this Masterclass being held in Melbourne, with Helene Blowers flying in from the US to share her amazing experiences and expertise. Add to that the added bonus of Kathryn Greenhill coming over from Perth to attend as well and it was a perfect way to spend 2 days of library based learning.

So now that the gushing is out of the way, its down to what I got out of it.  And although I am well up to my neck in all this stuff and have been for a few years, I still got plenty of it, with sincere thanks to Helene, Kathryn and the other wonderful participants in this Masterclass (a few of whom I am now in touch with on Facebook and Twitter – hi!)

Exploring the shift

The shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 has been about the shift from Find – seeking information, to Connect – community.

As this connection becomes more widespread and internet access becomes ubiquitous, libraries will no longer be needed for access – what will we be about then?

The first digital divide was about access, the 2nd digital divide is about:

• the ability to do smart searches
• the ability to validate soft information (eg. Wikipedia)
• the ability to find information via hot channels (eg. Digg, Twitter etc)
• the ability to understand the current culture of informal languages (ie. text messaging)
• the ability to get information to travel to you
• the ability to create and re-mix content
• the knowledge that learning is a continual process rather than an achievement

Interestingly I realised that I could not say with total confidence that I could do all these things, but I also know that the vast majority of my professional colleagues definitely couldn’t, so there’s a big challenge for the future.

Helene showed us the Library Meme map: which I will definitely be looking at more closely in the light of our library website redevelopment.

Library 2.0 Meme Map

Patron 2.0 was discussed as enabling our users to contribute content to the library website – a situation that requires radical trust.  We currently allow commenting on our blogs, after approval of course.  Could we relax that further and how else could we and should we be opening our content to our users.  Can we so easily let go of the reins, especially when we are only just now getting the hang of them?

Moving from 1.0 to 2.0

Personal movement is straightforward.  Moving your organisation is more difficult. How do you do it?

1. Learn to listen – show management what people are saying about the library and the technology eg. Google Alerts – find out what the conversation is and respond to it.Pay attention to user generated content and comments.
2. Learn to spy on yourself – get RSS feeds of content you present.
3. Join the conversation – respond to what’s out there.
4. Manage your online reputation – there is a move from organisational to personal brand, with organisations have a personal front. The shift has to be to building the reputation of the individuals, which then reflects on the organisation.
5. Create a home base – a place from which to build your online reputation. A website, blog, Facebook profile, etc. Build it on your own name, engage your passion, start commenting, link & trackback, join other communities, create connections with yourself (between your online presences), continually engage with others. Its not a one off process, so you need to have a strategy.

Does your library’s mission statement translate into the online environment? If not, what has to change?

On a different tangent, I had to agree with Helene that users see the library’s website, not so much as a distinct virtual branch, but as an extension of their local library.  We experience this in our everyday virtual contact with ours users.  Which places an interesting perspective on getting management support for the library website and how to present it to our users, when each of their perspectives can be very different.

And thus ended day one.  For those who are interested in more, Helene has made her presentations available on Slideshare.  In the meantime, I hope to get my notes on Day 2 up soon, so stay tuned.

Today was the first day of NLS4, which I have blogged about already, but only the last afternoon session and plenary. I missed a lot because I ended up spending most of the day with other public librarians and Erik and Jaap the Shanachietour guys.

I began the day at the State Library of Victoria with friends and colleagues from other public libraries, to talk to the Shanachie boys about what we are doing in Victorian public libraries. I had to leave early to go and present at NLS4 – my presentation is linked from the presentation page. After I had done that, I headed back to SLV for the Shanachie guys and ended up joining them for a tour of the State LIbrary of Victoria and lunch. Check out the photos on Flickr.

Then back to the conference for the days end and then for the Cocktail Party which was held at Experimedia at the State Library. Drinks, finger foods and fun games got us all talking with friends we hadnt met yet. Presentations were made – Kate Davis from Gold Coast Libraries received the Metcalfe Award and Rachel Crowe the ALIA Aurora Scholarship. More photos of this too on Flickr.

Another day of NLS4 tomorrow, which will include a presentation from Erik and Jaap. If you havent checked out the Shanachie tour, I highly recommend you do. And if you have never done a tour of the State Library of Victoria, I suggest you add it to your list of must dos- its an amazing building.

Big Stuff – Library Challenges – Stephen Abram – Sirsi-Dynix Institute

We need to tell good stories – tell each other about the good things that happen, not the bad, which is what we usually do.

Stephen said that our stuff is awesome, we are in good standing amongst the libraries of the world. We need to let go of the nostalgia. Change has been really slow relatively speaking, especially compared to the baby busters. Big changes coming, which will be fun if you like riding a roller coaster.

What are we going to do to get good results for our users – how can we negate the skewed results of search engine optimisation – where anyone can make sure their content, true or not, lists high in results.

Some people have 40 year careers. Ensure it is 40 years of incrementally better years, not just the same thing year after year. Choose to make the difference. You need to put your meat in the game = professionals commit.

Libraries matter – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grants is just one example. Stephen gave a long list of examples where librarians are making a real difference, doing things that get people connected to the net and to the information they need, saving money, saving lives, saving our culture and our history and so much more. We need to tell our government about the competitive edge that libraries give Australia. Who do you think built Yahoo – librarians were pulled in to make it work.

What is the competitive advantage we have in our environment? The difference between us the internet is us – sensitive, intelligent, helpful – we are not a list. Put ourselves out there, with photo and social networking profile. Show who we are as well as what we can do.

DREAM BIG – start small, but dream big.

We dont know every little moment of truth that happens in the library. We can be the human touch for people. We may never know the difference we make to each individual.

Democracies persist because of libraries. Its not coincidence that libraries are often the first casualty of war. Librarians protect freedom of information, giving access to all, regardless of what our opinion of it is – we are truly bipartisan.

We have to learn the things that are making a difference, improving service to our users. If you dont want to learn, then get out of the profession.

We are a global profession, a bottomless network. Every librarian has hundreds of moments of truth, where we fight for our freedom, save lives, cure disease, challenge poverty and ignorance. Not dreaming 08, but dreaming big. Say yes every chance you get, encourage others and dont get discouraged. Those who say it cant be done, get out of the way of those who are already doing the impossible.

We are about books, we dont have to advertise that, what we do need to advertise is that we have people who can help you with just about anything. Show who we are and what we can do.

Web 2.0 is about things you can do and people you know. When you go online do you see people you know. You need to be where your users are, otherwise you are on a march to irrelevance.

Stuff will change faster now – by 2020, all content ever created will fit on an iPod. Video games outsell most content combined, ringtones are huge! Pocket size devices will dominate, the devices coming out are about having ubiquitous access on your person.

New? Semantic web, the cloud, no choice search engines, GIS oriented search, virtually unlimited fulltext books, streaming media and spoken word search, personalisation 3.0, microblogging, registries and so much more.

Normal now is RSS, blogs, YouTube, social networks tagging, wikis, SEO and GIS. If libraries arent involved in that, then they are behind. Resist the library culture of poverty, victimisation, risk aversion and passive resistance. We have to pass the chasm of early adopters and into the space of early majority. We have a technology lifecycle, we have to get on the curve early and stay there.

If we dont get into social networking, then we are going to miss it when they progress to the next stage – this is just the tip of the iceberg.

So what should libraries be paying attention to? The user-centred universe, be more open to users paths. A few things to do right away – the time is now! Need to play, pilot, trial, experiment. Mobile is important, confirm your presence, be where your users are, how your presence appear – personal,, professional; get good at the cloud (where users are going), play at e-books, get serious at literacy (dont use that term for users) and check out XML, get serious about e-learning, care about our cultures, just expand, know that most physical objects are dead, get real about influence, the next generation content.

Humans are our competitive edge. Be open to lifelong learning, our careers have seasons, need to have reciprocal mentoring – peers, be important, we can invent the future and make a difference. Just have some fun! Dream big!

I am a borderline Gen Xer.  Depending on which study you look at, I am sometimes listed as a Baby Boomer.  Labels don’t matter all that much, but I have always felt more affinity to Gen Xers and it always made me feel a little bit younger to label myself as such too.

But recently I have been feeling like I’m not much of a Gen X-er either, especially in relation to what others of my generation seemed to be focussed on.  Quite often I feel more of a digital native like my kids, I am soooo comfortable with most technology.   I game like they do, although my regular gaming is more online board games (which is definitely in line with my demographic), although I do get with the kids and play X-Box or Nintendo DS on the odd occasion.

I guess I am a bit like the person who migrates to a new country and just goes overboard in embracing their new home.  They learn the national anthem, try to live like a person in that country does, picks up the lingo etc – they basically begin a love affair with their new home and I guess that is what I have been like with Web 2.0.  And that has helped me to feel more like a digital native than an immigrant.

So what’s the problem?  I think its that the shine is going off the relationship a bit.  Probably for a few different reasons.

Firstly, the development of Web 2.0 tools seems to have slowed down.  Twitter, which I love is probably the last big thing I jumped on board with.  I signed up to Friend Feed, but for an organised person such as myself, I just find it to chaotic to work through.  Everything else considered Web 2.0 has been around for a while, some like blogs have been around for over 10 years!  Where’s the next big thing to catch my interest again?

Secondly, even though I am well entrenched in Web 2.0, most of my workmates, friends and family aren’t and I get so frustrated with this.  They don’t see these tools and their potential the way that I do and I can’t find the way to help them to do so.  I spoke to a new staff member whose former workplace didn’t even have a website!  Everyone still seems a long way behind and I feel like I’ve been in those space for a long time too.  When is it all going to catch up?

Maybe I’m just tired, maybe I need a holiday (coming up in 4 weeks, yay!) or maybe its all just in my head.  Would love to hear what you guys have to say on the topic, are you experiencing the same types of things?