Goodbye Mr. Carlin

George Carlin passed away yesterday. This makes me sad. Carlin was a comedic and linguistic genius as well as a defender--or perhaps practitioner is a better word -- of free speech. Probably best known for his bit on the seven dirty words, Carlin shocked, but did not need to shock, to be funny.

His mind was brilliantly attuned to the absurdities of life, and his gift for language and physical humor allowed him to reflect those absurdities back to us in a way that both challenged and tickled our sensibilities.


George Carlin touched me. Literally. In college I was with a group that brought him to Rutgers for a performance . Before the show began I was charged with guarding his dressing room. The door opened and I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Hey Buddy".
"Yes Mr. Carlin", I replied.
"Where's the rest room?"
"Right down the hall to the left, Mr. Carlin."
"Thank buddy."

As "brush with greatness" stories go, perhaps this doesn't make the top 10, but I was touched by his gentle manner and the way he called me buddy. I remember a lot of his material that night, but one of my favorite bits was his take on license plates:

• New Hampshire's license plates say 'Live Free ... or DIE!!' I don't think I want to live in a state that actually mentions death right on their license plates. At the other end of the spectrum is Idaho's license plates - they say 'Famous Potatoes.' I don't know, I think that somewhere between 'Famous Potatoes' and 'Live Free or Die' the truth lies. And I think it's closer to 'Famous Potatoes.'

Goodbye Mr Carlin, and thanks for all the laughs.

Michael Stephens Interview with John Blyberg

If you haven't read it already, get thee over to ALA TechSource and read Michael Stephens' interview with John Blyberg. Lots of good stuff--I'm sure I'll be returning and re-reading this piece for inspiration in the future. A points that jumped out at me (quotes are from John unless otherwise noted):

• I’ve come to realize of late that if a change in library services, technology-based or otherwise, isn’t well grounded in our core values and mission, it just looks funny. (Michael)
  
  
• [I]nformation use has become an expression of self--that’s not something libraries ever accounted for. When I talk about this, I refer to it as the “information experience” because, for the growing number of us who participate in the hive, we build our own network of information and interaction that accompanies us through our lives. We literally construct highly-personalized information frameworks and place a huge amount of personal reliance upon them. Ten years ago, this wasn’t the case.
  
  
• It’s true that we are the voice of authoritative knowledge, but we can package that in ways that are not so paternalistic and present ourselves as partners in discovery. None of this requires technology, but technology has become the nexus of collaboration.
  

John also discusses how the Darien Library is big on Danny Meyer's book Setting the Table, which defines and makes a powerful argument for the value of hospitality. In one of those weird bloggy synchronicities, I randomly went from reading the TechSource post to Char Booth's Infomational post, "Manners v. Hospitality", in which she also references Meyer's book (which I have also blogged about in the past.) One of favorite passages is:

"In every business, there are employees who are the first point of contact with the customers (attendants at airport gates, receptionists at doctors' offices, bank tellers, executive assistants). Those people can come across either as agents or as gatekeepers. An agent makes things happen for others. A gatekeeper sets up barriers to keep people out. We're looking for agents, and our staff members are responsible for monitoring their own performance: In that transaction, did I present myself as an agent or a gatekeeper? In the world of hospitality, there's rarely anything in between."

So when you're done soaking in the TechSource post, take a look Meyer's book. I'll soon have a follow-up post on hospitality and customer service based my experience with customer service training at the Trump Taj Mahal this past week.

Technorati Tags: Customer Experience, Customer Service, hospitality, Library 2.0

What Would You Ask Bill Gates? (and Why Doesn't YOUR Library Website Look Like This?)

I just received an interesting email indicating that I could have the opportunity to ask a question to Bill Gates.

Well, there is a small catch (of course). I (and everyone else on the planet) can submit questions and the "best one" will be chosen and asked of Mr. Gates....

I have no idea what criteria will be used to determine "the best" question.... but I thought it might be an interesting chance to recommend a question.

Another interesting aspect of this that I didn't realize until I followed the link, is seeing what others are suggesting.... Some are serious, some are funny.

I thought it might be interesting if it happens that A LOT of LIBRARIANS suggest questions. (Who knows, maybe one will even be the "chosen" one.) I think it would be interesting if there were so many suggestions by librarians, on this otherwise non-library-related site, that the general public (or readership of this site) noticed. I wonder what they would think. I wonder what, if anything, would happen.

We out here in library-land have had our own "dealings with" Mr. Gates and we may have some specific questions we want to ask him.....

This is all taking place over on FastCompany.com - a magazine and site I really like. In fact, I have been thinking about doing a post about their site ever since I joined it because I think it is an interesting approach and one that libraries should consider.

It is a very "social" site, but it is a specific social site and not just a general social site for the sake of being a social site, such as facebook and/or MySpace*. What I mean by this is that you can sign-in and personalize your whole experience and use of this site. There are specific categories and interests (for this site they include "leadership", "management", "technology", etc. all related to business... but things that I am interested in nonetheless). When I log in this is what I see:


So I have my own area with any messages or other information I might want - and I have controls on the right to edit my profile, post, invite others, send a message, etc....

Some libraries ARE doing things like this on their website, or on another virtual presence, and I am certainly not the first or only to call for this. However, not enough are doing things like this. As I was signing up for my account on fastcompany.com I couldn't help but think about library websites as I went through all of my options and interests.... What topics am I interested in? Which newsletters and updates would I want to receive. What do I want my "homepage" to look like when I come here and sign-in... these would all be great features on a library website.

Look at this particular part of my page on fastcompany.com:

I know it might be small here, but in that red box I've drawn I have all these MY things, and they literally say they are MY things: MY contacts, MY bookmarks, MY feeds, MY settings, MY network, MY recommendations, etc.... this really makes this MY page to me, for me, when I come to this site.

It also makes it much more specific, interesting and useful to me. I have already narrowed-down what aspects of this page/company I am interested in... and it is all ready for me right on the front page FOR ME when I sign-in here.

Additionally, right above that are the general topic areas for fastcompany.com - Innovation, Technology, Leadership, etc.... all interesting and attractive (to me) to click on and go right to what might be of interest. I can also easily find people, groups, and blogs, of interest to me. This provides me a chance to create an even more specific, smaller, community within this community for me. I joined the Leadership group and the Technology group here, and even started my own, called Librarians just because I am like that! ;-) I like to put libraries and librarians in wherever 'technology' is. So far, no one has noticed it, but I wonder what might happen if they did. ("Librarians!? Technology and business?! Huh!?")

I also just happened to see my.barackobama.com . If you check out this site you can again see that this is the Barack Obama site for YOU. Here is what it can look like:



It can have everything for ME - My People, MY Network, My Blog, etc... I keep finding that sites like these provide people an opportunity to have a blog right within them - on this topic of interest to them. They don't need to go to any specific blogging site (like blogger or wordpress or whatever - not that there's anything wrong with them). These sites are providing them with blogging spots, on sites of their own interest, where others come who have the same interest, thus providing a built-in readership for their individual blog. I think a lot of people wonder who would read their blog and why. People hear about "blogs" all the time, but maybe they aren't ready to actually GO to a blogging site, sign-up and start blogging. But maybe on a site they like and use, with an easy way to blog right there, they might just do it. This is something libraries could provide...

Maybe these are not earth-shattering things, but it seems to me that I am seeing more and more websites like these. Library websites are already, for the most part, behind the times, and as more of these sites go to more and more personalized interfaces, we don't want to be another generation behind.

So, anyway, submit your potential question for Mr. Gates (by posting it in a comment on the post) and also take a little tour around FastCompany.com ... and my.barakobama.com, if you're so inclined.

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* Don't get me wrong, I (of course) think you can create for yourself and have a very personalized and meaningful experience on facebook..... but again, that happens when you create a "community" within a "community," which is what I feel happens within fastcompany.com