Our 23 Web 2.0 Things Challenge

You may (or may not) have heard of Infopeople's new training series, Moving Libraries Forward to Web 2.0. To quote from our website: "There is a lot of buzz in the library press about Web 2.0 and its impact on libraries. The California State Library believes that Web 2.0, and the social software that it has given birth to, has tremendous transformational potential, perhaps second only to the introduction of the Internet itself. In recognition of the importance of Web 2.0, the State Library has made a special grant award to Infopeople for a series of FREE training events titled Moving Libraries Forward to Web 2.0."

In preparation for this series, we've all been doing a lot of research into Web 2.0, and along the way couldn't help but hear and read about the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County's 23 Learning 2.0 Things. It struck us that this would be a great thing to do here in California, so we are happy to announce our own 23 Web 2.0 Things challenge for the California library community!

Our 23 Web 2.0 Things Challenge FAQ:

1. Who is this program for?
Anyone in the California library community who’s taken an Infopeople Web 2.0 class.
2. What courses count?
Details, details! Okay, here goes: The May 9 webcast with Helene Blowers (viewing the webcast live or archived counts); any session of the on-ground workshop, Web 2.0: A Hands-On Introduction for Library Staff; any session of the on-ground workshop, Web 2.0: Searching Innovations; the online course, Web 2.0: Developing a Successful eBranch; the online course, Web 2.0: Connecting with the Community Using Social Software; any session of the on-ground workshop, Web 2.0: Teaching the Public About Social Software; any session of the on-ground workshop, Web 2.0: Using Social Software with Teens; any session of the on-ground workshop, Web 2.0: Applications for Children's Services; LLWIP online or on-ground training.
3.How long do I have to complete the 23 things?
From May 9, 2007 to October 19, 2007.
4. How does this online learning program work?
You work at your own pace through the 23 things by clicking on the links for each thing. For each “thing” you do, post to your blog and comment about your experiences. Start each blog entry with the number of the “thing” you did so we can keep track of how you're doing! And remember: it's NOT a speed test! It's all about what you learn and how you apply that knowledge!
5. What if I've already done some of these things?
That's great -- you're on your way, just post a comment on your blog about the ones you’ve done!
6. How will you know what I've done?
Like we said, you'll post information and links on your blog. When you’ve completed the 23 things, email us at infopeeps@gmail.com with the link to your blog and a mailing address. We will check your blog and assuming you’ve reported on all of the 23 things, you'll be sent a flash drive and your name will be entered in the grand prize drawing for a laptop computer. Once the end date of the tech challenge is reached our judges (the Web 2.0 instructors) will review all of the sites, and determine the first, second, and third place winners.
7. Why should I do it?
Because it’s a fun way to learn something new that will expand your personal and professional horizons. Participation is voluntary. You’ll end up with a blog, a Flickr account, a de.licio.us account, and a YouTube account at a minimum. We haven’t found anyone yet who doesn’t love Flickr! If you complete all 23 things, you will receive recognition (and a flash drive), you will be eligible for a drawing for a new laptop computer, AND you couild also win other prizes. How great is that?
8. You mentioned first, second, and third place prizes. What are they exactly (give me some incentive!)?
Wow, it's all about the prizes with you, isn't it? First prize is a Canon SD750 digital camera. Second prize is an iPod Nano. Third prize is a certificate for a free Infopeople workshop of your choice.
9. Can our library do it as a team?
Yes, yes, yes! In fact, we really encourage you to do it as a team. It will be more fun that way to share all you learn, and you can spur each other on to learn and do more new things!

I just discovered this new tool today. It's a peer to peer file sharing tool called Pando. If you have ever had to send, or wanted to share with folks, really big media files (pics, movies, etc) and couldn't do it via email, then Pando is worth a look. It compresses your file (or folder) into a tiny .pando file that you can then email or share via IM. You and your recipient need the free Pando app to compress or open the files. Cool!

Whay do you get when you combine a Powerpoint presentation with audio narration? Well, yes, you do get an Infopeople workshop. but what if it's ONLINE? Ah, then you have mashup calledslidecasting!

You'll need to create and upload an MP3 file to accompany the PowerPoint slides (they don't host the MP3 files), and you can then use their online tools to sync the slides yourself, or let them sync it automatically to your slides. Here's an example.

Can you measure the ROI (return on investment) value of the time your employees spend exploring social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook? Is it worth the staff time to develop content on all of these various sites? If you've ever pondered these questions, you might want to try out the Social Network ROI Calculator. It's fairly complex and you need to know a fair amount of information about your organization's operating costs, staffing, and outreach and/or advocacy campaigns.

Over the long weekend I received a couple of invites to a new social networking site. Guess what? It's a fake, and if you join it can spam your contacts! The site is called Quechup. Don't accept the invites! Read more here. And if I inadvertently spammed anybody, my apologies! I don't think I did, but better safe than sorry, apology-wise.

The moral of the story: always check out the social network site's URL to make sure it's legit BEFORE you click on an email invite (that's basic smart email policy, but with Web 2.0 stuff, I for one have gotten lazy).

Greetings! Hopefully you are all deep into your exploration of Web 2.0 tools. Some of the tools (like Twitter) can make you ponder hard on what their practical uses might be, but part of the fun of exploring is asking and answering questions like that.

We had a question raised recently by a 23 Things participant that we thought we should share with all of you. The question related to the privacy of blogs: as in, are they private? Is there a way to make them private, so they are not indexed by the major search engines?

The short answer is no, there is no sure way to make a or keep a blog private. Using a tool like Blogger, you CAN change the settings so that Blogger doesn't publish your blog to other Blogger users. But that does not block the search engines from indexing your blog's contents. See this page for more details on making Blogger as private as possible: http://dwarfurl.com/da1b6

Blogs are by nature social networking tools. They are meant to be shared. That being said, a certain measure of discretion is always wise, be it in a blog, an email message, or a listserv posting. We in no way mean to alarm anyone with this email, we just want to make you all aware that your blog is out there on the Internet, and people can read it, so write for it keeping that fact in mind.

If you are interested in hearing more about this topic and are coming to CLA 2007, be sure to attend the Master Speaker session with Shel Israel. Shel is the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. More information about the book is at http://dwarfurl.com/14407.

Well, the official challenge has concluded, but I want to assure anybody just starting or interested in starting the 23 Things that this site is here to stay. So feel free to keep plugging away (or to start plugging away).

Feel free, also, to hijack our idea (of course, it wasn't really our idea - we borrowed it from PLCMC!), and adapt it for use in your library.

And as we find them, we'll add new things to this blog for you to try out.

When I'm driving and remember something I need to do, I often call myself and leave me a message that I can pick up later. It's a quick and dirty way to build a mini verbal to-do list for myself. Jott takes that idea one step further. Set up an acount for free, validate uour phone number, then you call a toll-free number and leave a message for yourself or any of your contacts who have Jott accounts and are in your contact list (which you build online). Your messages are converted into email and text messages that can be picked up online at the Jotts website.

Pretty cool! Now think about how this could be used in your library! Hint: you can create Jott groups.

Want to keep track of what everybody is up to on ALL of their Web 2.0 sites, from FaceBook, to MySpace, to Twitter, to LinkedIn? Try Spokeo! It's free, and signup is easy (you'll need a webmail account with Yahoo, AOL, or Gmail). Once you join, it imports your contacts from your online address book, and then goes out and checks on their social networking activity. Potential library uses? I'm not sure, what do you think?