"You Two! We're at the end of the universe, eh. Right at the edge of knowledge itself. And you're busy... blogging!"
— The Doctor, Utopia
I'm from the hometown of Kodak so don't get me started on my opinion of the company (it's not good) but this video, allegedly only for internal use, but released to the public due to popular demand, is the best "marketing" I've seen out of the Kodak in literally decades.
posted by Michael @ 10:34 AM
1 Comments
Seth Godin takes on Reed Elsevier's recent "marketing". It's worth blogging as I wonder if an LIS blogs out there have experienced this?
"Over the last few weeks, I've received several meails [sic], all the same, all from real people at Reed. They baldly (and boldly) ask me to swap links with them as part of a scheme to move up the Google rankings. Anyone who reads this blog knows that I don't do that, nor does any reputable blog I know of."
Labels: blogosphere, marketing
posted by Michael @ 2:01 PM
1 Comments
What if the marketing department got to comment on your country's flag and what would the result be if their comments were taken seriously? This short flash movie shows you just that. Has this happened to your Web site?
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 8:49 AM
0 Comments
Heather Clark, BCR
posted by Michael @ 12:46 PM
0 Comments
Jo Haight Sarline, Denver Public Library Carson Block, Fort Collins Public Library John Sulshaw, University of Colorado-Boulder Jimmy Thomas & Susan Staples, Weld Library District Jeff Donlan, Salida Regional Library Sharon Morris, Colorado State Library
Labels: colorado, del.icio.us, DVD, firefox, marketing, second life, youtube
posted by Michael @ 5:00 PM
1 Comments
Shari Thurow, Webmaster & Marketing Director, Grantastic Designs, Inc. Web Presence for Internet Librarians
posted by Michael @ 12:06 PM
0 Comments
Aaron Schmidt
posted by Michael @ 5:07 PM
0 Comments
Just got the following e-mail from my editor at Information Today. (Names obscured to protect the guilty.)
Actually, the book is shipping to the indexer tomorrow, which means it should be heading to the printer in about 3 weeks. That means were looking at publication during the last week of October/first week of November.
Also, just to let you know, we received some great blurbs from SA, BD, and SJ-S that we'll be using on the cover and in marketing materials.
posted by Michael @ 1:22 PM
2 Comments
Yesterday morning I got to share a table with an employee of the Microsoft marketing department. Eventually, I had to ask the obvious question: "Do you think Vista will be delayed yet again." Their response: "Probably."
posted by Michael @ 7:41 AM
0 Comments
Now here's a great piece of library marketing! While driving through downtown Omaha, NE this is what I saw on the back of the bus ahead of me. A close-up version is also available.
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 12:33 PM
0 Comments
Post frequency is something I've been thinking about for a while now and it looks like the Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog has taken the topic on. The central point, as long as your posts are good, and you have an RSS feed, posting to your blog often isn't as important as it used to be. Opinions?
posted by Michael @ 8:33 AM
1 Comments
The official information about the conference is now available on the InfoToday site. Here's what I'm doing:
Sunday, October 22nd
Workshop 19 — Integrating RSS into Your Web Site
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Michael Sauers, Internet Trainer, BCR
RSS feeds are an excellent way to receive information from the Internet today. What many people don’t know is that you can receive that information and easily repurpose and republish it on your Web site with little technical know-how. Imagine automatically posting up-to-date local or industry headlines on your library’s home page. This is what you can do in just a few simple steps. Our expert Internet trainer shows you how to do just this. This workshop also covers additional RSS tools and services, including one that will create feeds from content without its own feed and another that will turn your text-based content into a podcast automatically.Monday, October 23rd
Session C105 — The Second Life Library 2.0: Going to Where the Users Are
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Lori Bell, Director of Innoation, Alliance Library System
Tom Peters, CEO, TAP Information Services
Michael Sauers, Internet Trainer, BCR
In April 2006, the Alliance Library System put out a call for librarians interested in participating in a project to set up a library presence in the virtualreality world of Second Life. By the end of the month, more than two dozen librarians from around the world were meeting at a brand-new virtual library to staff the reference desk and discuss collection development, online programming, and library services. Since then, the response has only grown, and Second Life citizens are taking advantage of all the library has to offer. Our speakers provide an overview of Second Life, the creation of the library, and the services that are now being offered in this completely virtual environment.Tuesday, Octboer 24th
Session D203 — Flickr & Libraries
1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Michael Porter, OCLC Western
Fiona Hooten, National Library of Australia
Lluisa Nunez, Universitat de Barcelona
Michael Sauers, BCR
Flickr is a treasure-trove for library professionals interested in community, connections, innovative software applications, and marketing. With a strong library-centric focus, this session starts with a brief look at libraries and librarians with Flickr accounts and then explores the largest and most active library/librarian photo group on the Internet, the Flickr “Libraries and Librarians” group with more than 550 members on six continents and 2,600 images. Entertaining recorded stories share observations and comments from speakers on other continents, including how participation turned into a partnership that created a mashup between Google maps and images in the Libraries and Librarians Flickr Group. A dynamic demonstration of third-party Flickr applications using Open API/Ajax, as well as tips and tricks, round out the program. This is the ultimate library professional’s Flickr guide.
Labels: bcr, marketing, rss, second life
posted by Michael @ 8:14 AM
0 Comments
On behalf of the BCR Board of Trustees, I am very pleased to announce Brenda Bailey-Hainer as the new Executive Director of BCR effective July 17, 2006. The Board of Trustees had to choose among several highly qualified candidates for the position. Brenda will bring to her new position an impressive track record of accomplishments working with library networks, nonprofit organizations, state government and library consortia. Brenda has an excellent understanding of the current operating environment for library networks and an appreciation of emerging information technologies. She has successfully secured grant funding for several statewide projects and has marketing, public relations and sales experience. As a current member of the Board of Trustees, Brenda has a good understanding of BCR, its mission and strategic goals.
The Board of Trustees looks forward to working with Brenda Bailey-Hainer and the staff of BCR in building upon BCR's success as a library network.
Steve Rollins
President, BCR Board of Trustees
posted by Michael @ 10:26 AM
0 Comments
I started another series of online RSS workshops today and the first homework assignment is to find five feeds that the student is interested in. Here are the results. (All of the students are in Wyoming so the information might be a bit Wyoming-centric.) I'll post more as the come in.
posted by Michael @ 8:00 AM
0 Comments
Consider this the first official post for the Internet Librarian conference in Monterey, CA this October. The e-mails have gone out and it looks like I'll be presenting on flickr on day two. I've got to admit that the others I'll be sharing my time with are a bit intimidating.
D203 Flickr & Libraries
Michael Porter, OCLC Western, Fiona Hooten National Library of Australia, Lluisa Nunez Universitat de Barcelona
Michael Sauers, BCR
Flickr is a treasure trove for library professionals interested in community, connections, innovative software applications and marketing. With a strong library centric focus, this session starts with a brief look at libraries and librarians with Flickr accounts and then explores the largest and most active library/librarian photo group on the internet, the Flickr "Libraries and Librarians" group with over 550 members on six continents and 2600 images. Entertaining recorded stories share observations and comments from speakers on other continents including how participation turned into a partnership that created a mash-up between Google maps and images in the Libraries and Librarians Flickr Group. A dynamic demonstration of third party Flickr applications using Open API/Ajax, as well as tips and tricks, round out the program. This is the ultimate library professionals Flickr guide.
My initial plan is to assume that the others will be all serious when it comes to how libraries use flickr so I'm going to show a lot of the fun stuff you can do. (Trading cards anyone?) Though, before finalizing this plan I'll be sure to contact the others to confirm my assumption.
See you in Monterey!
posted by Michael @ 8:25 AM
1 Comments
I've started another series on online Blogging workshops sponsored by the Wyoming State Library. The first assignment is to find three blogs of interest and report back. Here's what's been found this time around.
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 10:13 AM
3 Comments
Labels: apple, drm, ipod, itunes, marketing, sony, tabletpc, treo, video
posted by Michael @ 10:13 AM
2 Comments
Last week I posted regarding an e-mail I received that I suspected was a creative new way to word spam. Well, it seems, as I thought I might be, that I was wrong. I've since been in further contact with the author of that e-mail (who wishes to remain anonymous) and must say that the original e-mail was not spam but an honest contact. I have since apologized for my skepticism and do so publicly again here.
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 10:00 AM
0 Comments
I received this e-mail via the contact form on my blog yesterday:
I enjoy attending your workshops, am a regular visitor (read: fan) of your website, its always fresh, often humorous & always informative! Keep it up! Next time you visit KC, check out the "[name removed] Bar" for great food, music, service & atmosphere.
[URL removed]
Now really, does the person who left this but of feedback expect me to believe that they're really someone who's met me, even virtually? I'll admit maybe I'm wrong (please correct me if I am) but I find that very unlikely. I will give them point for creativity though.
Please read this important follow-up post.
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 8:53 AM
2 Comments
George Jaramillo & David Domenico, Colorado State University
I spoke to the presenters in advance of their session and they admitted that beyond showing the Googlezon short film as a discussion starter, they had no specific presentation planned. Hey, winging is what I do half the time so I'm never going to hold that against anyone...
posted by Michael @ 3:45 PM
0 Comments
http://librarymarketing.blogspot.com/ http://www.people.vcu.edu/~jsstover/internetlibrarian/marketingtheweblog.php http://www.people.vcu.edu/~jsstover/internetlibrarian/ilbib.html
posted by Michael @ 3:12 PM
0 Comments
Sarah Houghton, Marin County Free Library Joe Latini & Ken Weil, South Huntington Public Library Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian Aaron Schmidt, Thomas Form Memorial Library I'm just going to run all of the predictions and recommendations together instead of separating them out by presenter and keep them brief. If you can't tell what the suggestion/prediction is talking about, you've got some reading to do.
posted by Michael @ 5:50 PM
0 Comments
Ken Weil & Joe Latini, South Huntington Beach Public Library
posted by Michael @ 12:49 PM
0 Comments
Here's one from the Axe Library: Reward the attendees of BI sessions bygiving them one free full-text printout.
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 10:25 PM
0 Comments
Steven Abram (a librarian who travels more than I do and all around swell guy) has some thoughts on comparing hotel WiFi and library WiFi:
"Despite these nightmares, I think there's much to learn for libraries from the hotel model. For example, when I use the hotel wireless they somehow highjack my preferred homepage settings and display local news, weather, and ads for other hotels in their chain. Hmmmm. How many libraries do this? Can we force a library homepage as recompense for providing wireless access in our spaces? Can we promote our services, localize information like weather and sports? Can we be so bold as to promote events in oter branches? Can we be so in their face as to blog library marketing?"
I've been talking about this one out loud to librarys for a while now. I guess I've never bothered to blog the issue. Hey, if you're offering free WiFi, why not send the patrons the library homepage when they connect? (Read his whole post, he's got some other thought-proviking insights as usual.)
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 9:42 AM
0 Comments
Louise is looking for "user experience" stories when it comes to offering WiFi in your library. More details and contact information can be found below.
[Web4lib] Wanted: your wireless experiences
By Louise Alcorn
To Web4lib@webjunction.orgGreetings Web4Lib community,
I come bearing a request. I am currently editing/co-authoring a book on wireless in libraries--one of Neal-Schuman's "How to do it manuals". Very 'quick and dirty' on the basics, planning, maintenance, etc. I was asked to edit and flesh out a manuscript started by someone else, and I have a few things I want to add.
One component I'd like to add to this book is *user experience*. I have always felt that reading about colleagues' experience, both pro and con, is instructive for professionals tackling new project areas, as we can draw on each others' strengths, experience and mistakes. We used this approach to useful effect, with enormous help from the Web4Lib community, in another book on library software and I thought it would be even more appropriate here.
**My request: I want to hear from libraries who are currently implementing, or who already have implemented, wireless access for staff and/or patrons. I want your 'stories'--good, bad and ugly. Issues and/or triumphs with IT staff, vendors, library staff, library boards, faculty committees, etc. I'm looking for all aspects of the process-finding hardware, implementation, policy (!), training staff, marketing the service to your patron base, troubleshooting and maintenance issues.
I'd love to hear from a wide variety of libraries--academic, public, special--and both pro and con experiences with any of the aspects above. I've already separately contacted staff at a few libraries I know have wireless, but I wanted to throw this out to the always helpful Web4Lib community, and give you an opportunity to rant or rave about your wireless experience. As always, your names/positions/libraries' names will be used only as you prefer.
Please respond to me OFF-list, so as not to overwhelm in-boxes.
Many thanks in advance,
Louise Alcorn=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Louise E. Alcorn -- Reference Technology Librarian
West Des Moines Public Library
4000 Mills Civic Pkwy
West Des Moines IA 50265
(515) 222-3573 louise.alcorn@wdm-ia.com
http://www.wdm.lib.ia.us
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 9:15 AM
0 Comments
Here's a neat idea: allow your patrons to check out a person from the library.
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 1:27 PM
0 Comments
Neal-Schuman is busy drafting a contract for me to do a second edition of my book Using the Internet as a Reference Tool. I'm excited about this one. They do have a question though and I'm looking for some help from all of you. Here's the deal:
Before we prepare the contract, our marketing gurus asked me some questions I couldn't answer. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this: Would we sell more if we change the title? Is the concept of "using the Internet as a reference tool" dated? Is there a "sexier" title for this edition? I'm not sure. Since you teach this, what workshop title would attract the highest registration, especially those people who do use the Web daily for reference work, but perhaps want to upgrade their skills (which is where we see the marjority of the market for this 2nd edition)?
I'm open to suggestions. As for the associated workshop, "Using the Internet as a Reference Tool" is the title (which I'm sure the folks at NS were not aware of. If you have any suggestions for a "sexier" title please submit them ASAP. I've promised to get back to NS on Monday.
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 8:31 AM
0 Comments
"[eBooks are] like sex in high school. Everyone stands around waiting for everyone else to do it so it's okay to do it because everyone is doing it. If somebody had just done it, we could have all been getting laid."
— Micah Burch, Marketing Director, Vertical, Inc. in the article "Feature Creep: 500 Books in Your Gadget Bag"
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 5:54 PM
0 Comments
If you're not going to do something about it, you have not right to complain…
"With gasoline prices at record levels, everyone loves to complain about them. But at what point will American drivers do something – like trade in their SUV for a more fuel efficient car? Or carpool to work? Or move closer to their job?
But even after the recent run-up in pump prices, none of the motorists surveyed in March said they would consider trading in their cars for a higher-mileage model, and less than 5 percent said they would change their driving habits, according to CNW Marketing Research, which conducted the study."
Labels: marketing
posted by Michael @ 6:20 PM
0 Comments
I remember the early days of the push technologies on the Internet. It was only a few years ago but looking back I viewed them as one of those great ideas that failed due to poor marketing and implementation.
The biggest one I can think of was Microsoft's Active Desktop concept. You would put "objects" on your desktop and they would automatically receive updated information whenever the sources pushed information out to the subscribers. I'm not sure why this didn't ultimately work, but I always through that the concept of items automatically being sent to me was a great idea. Why it didn't catch on in the long run I'm still not quite sure.
Today we have RSS and aggregators. This XML language and its associated client software allow you to "subscribe" to a feed and then receive the updates whenever they occur. Almost every presentation that mentioned RSS at this year's Computer's in Libraries conference (and there were many of them that did,) described this as a 'push' technology. I beg to differ on this description. It may seem like push but is it really?
In a true push environment, beyond the actual setting up of the subscription, there is noting more to be done on the part of the client, whether you consider the client to be software or a human. But this is not how RSS aggregators work. With these programs you need to set up the subscription and tell the aggregator how often to recheck the subscription. Every time the aggregator rechecks and finds a change, it transfers the information from the server to the client. It 'pulls' the information.
Granted, RSS may seem like a push technology since there is minimal human involvement in retrieving this information, but it is being retrieved, i.e. pull, not being received, i.e. pushed.
Now, some of you may argue that I'm splitting hairs. I'll admit that I say that when I click on a Web link I "go" to a page when I know deep down that I'm not "going" anywhere. (I'm actually sending a request for a page which is then sent back to me.) But, I'm sure, in at least one of my classes, to point this out to my students, to make sure that they at least understand the concept even if they're going to go back to the way of talking about it like everyone else does.
Here's my question. When teaching people about RSS and aggregators, should we be describing it as a push technology when it really isn't?
(Yes Jenny, I'm expecting a comment from you on this.)
posted by Michael @ 9:03 AM
0 Comments
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