Twitterverse by Jess3 & Brian Solis

Love this picture.  Certainly puts in perspective the influence of technology — trends and analysis, marketing/advertising, search, relationship management, contextual network analysis, communication management, mobile applications, event managaement, and more.  Great visualization. Thanks.

Art Sobczak's Pic. Thx.

Well, sort of.  First, let me say the dueling pianos and great songs were truly amazing.  The ACC in Toronto rocked.  Elton John and Billy Joel are two popular, talented and entertaining guys.  My ears are still ringing & I’m still humming their tunes.  OK lessons.

I just tried out Topsy, “a search engine powered by tweets”.  And I put in “Billy Joel Concert” since I’d just seen one last night and thought I’d fine some of my tweets and what others had to say.  Interesting, I found a blog post from an earlier concert entitled, Sales Lessons from the Elton John/Billy Joel Concert.  I loved the way this guy, Art Sobczak, used what he saw at the concert to make points about how to do sales.  The post does point somewhat to the differences in audiences (Canadian versus US), and that Billy Joel used many of the same jokes in Toronto as he did in Omaha.  Topsy also picked up a picture of Kevin Spacey with Billy Joel.  Not much came up with I added Toronto to the search.  Wonder where my tweets are.  Topsy tells you to put in your twitter name, interesting that it only picks up three listings for me. Hmmmm, what are the lessons here about searching conversations?

And because I like info and wanted more, I checked out John & Joel websites. I looked at Elton’s website — pretty interesting with videos, ecommerce, philanthropy, community, and more.  Not bad.  And Billy’s website which also has podcasts and a mobile section where you can send him text messages.  Even better.  More marketing lessons here.  And looking at Joel’s earlier pics I can certainly see why he referred to himself last night as Bill’s father!  Anyway, enough lessons and trying to fit concerts into my regular stream of posts.  But if you have the chance, take in the John/Joel concert.  Fabulous.

Oct 26-8, Monterey CA

The program for Internet Librarian 2009, the 13th annual IL conference, is getting ready to go to print and be uploaded to the conference site.  There is a terrific faculty of speakers which you will see soon but I thought I’d give you a sneak preview of the wonderful keynote sessions and networking events we have planned.  Conference theme:  Net Initiatives for Tough Times: Digital Publishing, Preservation & Practices.

Saturday Oct 24 — Library Camp Monterey @ Monterey PL, 9.30-12.30 — a new free interactive discussion about people, technology, and libraries.  There are a range of workshops in the afternoon too.

Sunday Oct 25 — full and half day workshops including the popular Searchers Academy & Web Managers Academy.  At the end of the day network, play, and have fun at the Gaming & Gadgets Petting Zoo.

Monday Oct 26 — The day begins with an insightful keynote interview with Vint Cerf, Internet pioneer and VP & Chief Internet Evangelist, Google focused on Digital Publishing, Preservation & Practices.  Four tracks of sessions during the day are following by the opening reception in the exhibit hall, always goodies there.

Tuesday Oct 27 — Paul Holdengraber, Director, Public Programs, New York Public Library & former Founder & Director, Institute for Art and Cultures at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is interviewed about Libraries of the Future: Places of Desire.  He believes that public conversations are a fundamental way to make libraries irresistible, ensuring their everlasting importance.  He talks about creating moments of magic, provides tips for oxygenating and transforming libraries for the future and does it in a delightful way.  Following a full day of sessions in four tracks, we have fun evening planned.  Rockin’ Battle Decks is a new format for IL, also called “PowerPoint Karaoke” where our speakers make a coherent presentation based on hand-selected , seeminly unrelated slides that they see for the first time live on stage.  After a fantastic live musical interlude, the judges announce the winner.

Wednesday Oct 28 — Growing & Grown-Up Digital:  Net-Gen Speaks features a panel of kids, teens, and young adults interviewed about how they consume media, use technology to learn, and live, work & play in an information-rich fast-changing world.   After a free lunch in the exhibit hall, and four tracks of sessions, the day ends with another keynote — Mobile Gadgets & Apps with some of the foremost leaders who showcase exciting new and futuristic technologie, practices and applications in the mobile world.

Mark your calendars, blog & twitter with our tag — #IL2009, and join us in Monterey in October.

Missing Link Fossil

Today’s Google pic of the Missing Link Fossil reminded me of the old and the new, probably because I’ve been working with ITI’s techie wizard JD Thomas on a new Internet Libraian wiki.  Whiles fossils are definitely old, I think of wikis as a new tec.  However, today I realized that we are working on our 4th wiki for the Internet Librarian conference — amazing!  Time sure flies.  Thanks to Meredith Farkas for getting started along the wiki path with pbwiki (now pbworks).  And thanks for JD for his new creation on tiki wiki — will let you know the link shortly and hope you’ll contribute!

ITBusiness.ca’s May 6th issue has a good couple of articles on teleworking or working virtual. The WorldatWork Survey shows that 42% of US firms and 40% of Cdn firms are now offering telework as a way to attract & retain employees. That’s up from 25% in Canada a year ago and 32% in the US.  Good stuff.  Now…..are organizations actually supporting employees in telework? Meaning….do they have the right equipment, objectives, protocals, management processes? Well….not really.  An IDC Study shows that while organizations are equipping employees with lots of mobile devices, they have no mobile strategy — and that means they aren’t mobilizing key business applications. Securit, a Canadian records management firm, is doing some cutting edge work with RIM in bringing SAP CRM to the Blackberry — a key application for sales people.  The real difference that organizations have to understand is that just because there’s wireless access doesn’t mean there’s mobile, ubiqitous (did I spell that correctly?), intuitive access to the application on mobile devices.

There’s another article on successful teleworking in which employees are excelling and engaged.  The Canadian Telework Association has identified the 6 stages people experience:

One: I’m really excited about being able to work from home.
Two: Freedom! I have fewer distractions, more flexibility, a greater sense of accomplishment.
Three: Unfortunately a lot people – myself included – became telework junkies or teleworkaholics, and lost some of our work-life balance.
Four: Possible burn out and frustration.
Five: Lonely and isolated from co-workers and company.
Six: Final adjustment, after you’ve re-evaluated your reasons – individually and organizationally – for becoming a teleworker.
The process of moving from phase one to six may take around two years.

Too often organizations don’t take these phases, or the need for training or different working styles, into account when establishing virtual work.  Nor do organization factor in the competencies employees require to telework effectively. Burnout and isolation can all too easily occur, and, as this article points out, it is important that those teleworking are comfortable communicating at all levels of the organization and request feedback from all those with whome they interact.  I’ve just always looked at this as confidence — those who enjoy teleworking are confident and able to clearly identify expectations and deliverables with their customers, colleagues and management.  If you’re following virtual organizations, check these articles out.