What a delight to meet a former BBC employee who has implemented social software (forums, blogs, wikis) in a large organization. Euan Semple is the former Head of Knowledge Management for the British Broadcasting Corporation and wirter of The Obvious Blog.

TFPL’s European Business Information Conference , organized by Nigel Oxbrow, is being held this week in Milan. An interesting conference model with morning speakers and table discussions and afternoon workshops, some with presentations followed by discussion and some facilitated discussion. Some of the workshop topics were predetermined and others were determined by attendees when they arrived, voted on, and facilitated. Wasn’t I lucky to be a facilitator!

It came to my attention, Walt Crawford’s blog post, that most people do not realize just how difficult it is to find venues and dates for large conferences. Information Today’s Computers in Libraries 2006 just concluded in Washington DC with a record attendance of 2,662. As you can see from ITI’s blog, which links to lots of conference bloggers, it was indeed a happening event! CIL has had similar dates for the conference in DC for at least six years; PLA (being held at the same time in Boston) is an event which happens every two years. Hotels are often difficult to work with as ITI knows. CIL07 has been pushed out of the Hilton in DC by a larger and demanding conference and will be held April 16-18,2007 at the Hyatt in Crystal City. As ITI looks for space in 2008, I am sure they will try to avoid PLA’s conference (even though it is not obvious from their web site just when and where they plan to hold the 2008 event) as well as all the other conferences held in the spring!

In addition, anyone can apply to speak at an Information Today event by going to the web site and clicking on the appropriate conference web site. We are always looking for speakers, so please, do volunteer. In addition to our network of speakers and attendees, we rely on practitioners to tell us what’s leading edge, about the best practices and tools in use and in beta, and to communicate with us about new and exciting applications. Many future talks and presentations are planned when we talk to attendees at conferences — so join us, talk to us. And so Walt, what would you like to talk about at Internet Librarian 2006, October 23-25, Monterey CA.?

Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project, keynoted the third day of CIL 2006. He discussed life online today and how the Internet enhances our daily work and play, and how the millenials, those born between 1982 and 2000, are unique. They are “digital natives in a world of digital immigrants”. They are immersed in the world of media and the internet ecology. They use mobile technology and operate like the old song, “If they’re not with the device they love, they love the device they’re with”. He also talked about the “network of things” where the “environment is smarter” and we have even more mobility. Exciting!

The 21st CIL opened today at the DC Hilton with a record crowd of 2300+ in attendance. In adddition, there are a record number of bloggers blogging this event. You can find them linked to Information Today’s blog.
cil2006

Today, Steve Denning, author of The Leaders Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art & Discipline of Business Narrative, spoke to the Education Institute.

He talked about how springboard stories can share complex ideas and spark action. He also discussed other types of stories for: communicating who you are or who your oganization is (communicating your brand), getting people to work together and develop high performance teams, transmitting values, sharing knowledge and telling future stories. He gave tips for creating and telling these types of stories.

Well, thanks to Meredith Farkas who created the Unoffical CIL 2006 wiki, I have gone nuts with wikis. Not only have I contributed to the fast growing CIL wiki, but I have created two more — one is an experiment to see if the wiki software can assist me and the conference organizing group to plan the program for this fall’s Internet Librarian, Oct 23-25, Monterey, CA and the second is a new way to publish the program for the Information Futures Institute meeting in Toronto next month and provide a mechanism for their members to have a conversation. Fabulous. Thanks Meredith.

Speaking of mashups, the theme of the Internet Librarian 2006 conference, Oct 23-25, Monterey CA, here’a a great application — What’s Up? Brought to my attention by Mark Federman’s post. Neat moving speech bubble which gives headlines from around the world from time zone to time zone. Cool.