Week 1 & 2 - The Adventure Begins

2.0

Are we ready for it? Is it ready for us? Well, ready or not, here we come!

I am so happy that we are dipping our toes into the vast offerings of current web technology that is available (most of it freely!) to the world. The opportunity for meaningful change & actually connecting with our audience (whether they be member, patron, customer or what-have-you) is tremendous!

Who wouldn't want to know when the new Nora Roberts/James Patterson/Mo Willems book or blockbuster movie arrived at their local library, automatically, effortlessly & practically instantly? RSS feeds, anyone?

Or how about the night owl being able to get book suggestions, maybe even watch a podcast booktalk, at 2 a.m.?

Have you ever heard about a new movie & it didn't sound that appealing, but once you saw the preview you HAD to watch it? Pictures can sometimes speak louder than words, if you have programs that you'd like to highlight or that have a disappointing attendance, try taking some photos to show how fun & enlightening they can be. Share them on flickr & watch your numbers grow.

Ok, by now you know I'm a big fan of the 2, the "point" & the "oh." I don't think everything is for everyone, but by keeping an open mind & being creative there's a lot of fun to be had...I mean work to be done, of course...

So, onto blogs. They are fun, they help you communicate with the outside world in a friendly, accessible manner, they allow businesses to cut costs by having a cheap & fast notification option & they can be deadly boring if not written well (is this one of those??).

I hope we can find a good use for them ourselves (the County & personally), but as with "every book it's reader" every business type of blog needs to have an audience in mind. And needs to not forget about them! It's easy to go off on tangents, become irrelevant or cross over into unprofessional behavior. Getting feedback is essential to staying fresh & relevant, so comments & suggestions should be encouraged & given consideration. Change or die!

As for the CHPLearning blog section, well I can't speak to that much, since I wrote some of it (the fun stuff, of course! What do you mean there's no fun stuff?). I did my best & I hope it was easy to follow. I'm really looking forward to see what my fellow committee members did with their sections & reading everybody's blogs.

****Why do I keep hearing Monty Python in my head a la the Spam sketch, saying "Blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog bloggity blog, wonderful blog!" ****