A little over a month ago, I said I was going to learn French. Well, I took longer than I expected to prepare, started later than I expected, postponed it more than I should have, and changed my strategy too often.

But that's ok. I have certainly learned more French than I ever have before. I am still slowly working on it but, what with traveling and preparing for interviews and their presentations, plus other work I have to get done, I have reduced my efforts to learn La Belle Langue quite a bit. And the workload will only get worse. What I need is some touch of formal pressure to keep up with it. Maybe a language partner, or a regular tv show or vodcast to understand, something like that. My other issue is my efforts to retain what I have tried to learn each day... with my other responsibilities and projects, I need some easy way to insert repetition of key lessons into the following 24 hours, whether it's a vocab list to carry around or a phrase to go over in my head. Something to drill something into my head until it sticks.

Learning a new language is hard. Or maybe it's just me? Anyone else have issues with this kind of thing? Any tips on making it easier?

Labels: aboutCommunication, aboutEducation, aboutHumanNature, aboutProductivity, aboutWork

 

I like Twitter. It's another easy way to get to know what's happening in other people's heads, what they're reading, what they think is interesting. And I get to share those things with the world too: special events, what I think is important, what I want to share with people. And it certainly doesn't hurt to be in the middle of all those swirling ideas and communications. I may even get a new idea myself one day! lol

But one twitter related phenomenon disturbs me: over-following. I guess all tools get taken into the realm of spam, misuse, commercialization, et cetera, but when supposedly "real" people using Twitter are following literally thousands of feeds... I mean, what do they think the "following" function is for? Well, maybe I've got it wrong. I think it's to read the tweets of those whose opinion you respect or are interested in in some way, those feeds that are going to inform you of something like an institution's upcoming events. You're populating a list of things to theoretically read. You may skip a few but the idea is to read a good portion of them. But when someone's following 2747 Twitter feeds, what good is that? Unless these are all very rare Tweeters, that's a lot of material even to ignore regularly.

The first thing that I think when I see that is that they are playing some sort of game. "I really need a lot of followers so I'm going to follow others so they feel like they should follow me!" I'm following 25 right now and I even consider weeding out a few now and then.

Again, maybe I'm all turned around on this. Maybe there's some Twitter tool (Twool? Gawd, I've gone over to the dark side. lol) that helps weed through the piles of Tweets that must build up. Anyone know anything about this? Hmmm...

Labels: aboutCommunication, aboutEthics, aboutHumanNature, aboutInformation, aboutOnlineTools, aboutProductivity, aboutReading, aboutReason, aboutSociety, aboutTechnology, aboutWeb2.0

 

Any librarian having spent more than a month or so at a reference desk in a public library (or any library really) has had to deal with questions with too little information to really answer. Seattlepi.com published a short piece with an excellent real example of such a transaction. Here's a taste:

Librarian: ...Would you have any idea the name of the author?
Caller: No. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. The lady's name is... oh, I can't read her writing. It's impossible. Um... My wife said the cover of the book is a really neat picture.

The hope is always for either an eventual (sometimes accidental) break-through, such as the one in the example article from seattlepi, or to show that you can help them but that they may have to take some time to come up with another detail or two before the item can be found.

[ From Hello, Reference Desk? at seattlepi.com ]

Labels: aboutBooks, aboutCommunication, aboutInformation, aboutProfessionalService, aboutReferenceService

 

Although it seems to be going in that direction whether we want it to or not, it certainly can't hurt to get a little push in the direction of thinking about our big problems on a global scale and to work together to solve them. That's basically the point of a recent talk UK prime minister Gordon Brown made at the always-fascinating TED conference. He starts out talking about the power of the Internet, connecting us all with communication, enabling us to develop a global ethic, then listing some of the major problems we have had to deal with and those we still are, and the tools needed to solve them.

Do you think that global institutions will save the day? Do you think we can manage to work together in the way that it looks like we must? Add you comments, please.

[ From "Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good" at TED ]

Labels: aboutCommunication, aboutGlobalization, aboutHumanNature, aboutSociety

 

A major U.S. government agency utilizing Web 2.0 methods and tools. It warms the heart.

The CDC is hoping that the next Surgeon-General's 2009 report on tobacco will "go viral" through using such tools as "Facebook, Twitter and MySpace" and RSS and devices like "iPhones, BlackBerrys and other personal digital assistants", and are going to try to make it possible for the public to share the information easily. It's certainly a good sign, but I have to say, not really a surprising one. We've all seen the effects of such simple technological tweeks enabling smoother communication, sharing and mixing, and how quickly a good portion of the public has taken to absorbing it into their lives and enriching the global society. It seems quite obvious by now that to not utilize this phenomenon would be to bury yourself and whatever information you are trying to get out to the world.

Now if only Canada would follow suit. lol

Anyone hear of any other group doing something similar? Do you think that efforts like this will succeed?

[From "Surgeon General's next tobacco report to get Web 2.0 push" by Doug Beizer at FederalComputerWeek found via Google News]

Labels: aboutCommunication, aboutHealth, aboutInformation, aboutOnlineTools, aboutSociety, aboutWeb2.0

 

So as some of you may have noticed, I've been using Twitter for a while now. Everytime I mention it in conversation to a person not twit-lightened (lol), they shake their head violently and laugh about reading about whenever people go to the bathroom (and it's not because I used the word "twit-lightened"... I swear, this is the first time!).

I really like it actually. I find I'm thinking up a kinds of new types of tweets to put up. I've started listing the children's books I'm reading to my son every night (as well as the books and stories I'm reading), linking to them and (since I'm at finding the link at Amazon anyway) writing a little Amazon review about them (example). I'm always complaining about the dearth of book reviews out there to inform librarians in their collection development efforts so I figured I could do my small part to help out.

I've enjoyed Twittering so much, and see it as so potentially useful as an information dissemination tool, as well as a networking and archiving tool (I actually back-up my tweets myself, not being confident in Twitter's own willingness to store my inane statements throughout the years), that I've put in on my daily to-do list. Crazy, I know. Anyone else been using Twitter lately? Or something similar?

Labels: aboutCommunication, aboutInformation, aboutOnlineTools, aboutReading, aboutWeb2.0

 

...and confused.

We have all felt frustrated with a large (or small) company before, after an experience with a sales person, a service person, a help desk or even website. Why does this happen? Why do large groups of people (a business) cooperating (somewhat) on a common goal (to provide a service or product for a fee) but then fail so miserably so consistently in achieving that goal? Are they all incompetent? Well, some people plainly are, whether aware of it or not, but I'm not sure that's the reason in most cases. Are they evil? Perhaps we'd like to think so... that we're running into the BOFH every single time, but alas there is only so many and they can't have taken over civilization yet.

I think, for the most part, it's a matter of a lack of respect for one's own work, our preoccupation on money, and, often, simple miscommunication.

Too many people in too many jobs are there because they simply need a job. They may or may not have been well-trained for their position but, however they go there, they're there now and they're not moving. It's almost as if, in today's Western society (at least in the USA and Canada), no one can actually LIKE their job. I enjoy being a librarian but I feel almost guilty telling anyone other than a librarian that. If you don't like your job, or at least keep saying you don't, you will certainly limit your motivation for doing it well. You can only say TGIF so many times before you start calling in sick on Monday.

Along with our lack of preoccupation with our work is our preoccupation with the reason why we're there: Money. We are constantly needing things and therefore needing money. Again, I'm made to feel awkward (which I don't mind, because I'm just weird like that) when I say my family doesn't have cable TV (and therefore any TV at all). We "need" all these standard "trappings" of society. They may be different around the world but we all have them and the West has them in spades. I think it's getting better but it's not reached "good" yet. This preoccupation with money keeps ours eyes on the prize instead of where we're running and the people we trip over on the way.

In the end though, miscommunication is to blame for much of these problems we have with businesses. Face it, we are none of us experts at communication. Even between two people who speak the same language, come from the same culture and have the same expectations can get tripped up on the words we use to collaborate and transfer data. As a librarian, I know full well how difficult people find it to simply explain what they need help with. Many people are too busy trying to convince me that they don't need help to get their question out in a understandable way. We have a hard time seeing things from another persons perspective, especially when those "things" are the words flying out of our mouths.

So the moral of the story is:

1. Find a job you like, or like the one you have (as much as you can);
2. Chill out about money... you don't need as much as you think; and
3. Think about your communication a little more - you may be surprised at the difference between what you're saying and what you think you're saying.

Of course, sometimes, it is their fault. Give 'em hell! lol

[ Inspired by an article from Mon Jul 30 2007 entitled "Dell Tries To Repair $10 Battery, Hoses $150 Video Card" from "The Consumerist" ]

Labels: aboutCommunication, aboutMoney, aboutWork

 

March 26th. I guess I had nothing to do. And I certainly wanted that certain monkey off my back that's been hounding (Monkey? Hounding? From my back? Hmmm.) me ever since it became such a sensation.

Yes. I started a twitter account and feed back then. And now it's into May and I have been updating it once in a while. And that's ok. I didn't start it to be the constantly-updating-of-everything-I-do-and-everything-I-think kind of twitter. I chose something focused, practical, and simple. I tweet only about the books I'm starting or finishing, or articles, or movies, or other media in my life. That's it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I have not had much time to read or watch anything with all my work, volunteering and job-searching. Those are 3 full-time jobs that I'm doing alongside my flawless parenting and husbanding (no, not husbandry... we've got two kids and we're done as far as I'm concerned).

And it's kinda fun too. Limited to, what is it, 140 characters? Yeah, I can fill THAT up pretty quick. And since I've kept a strict rein on what I'm going to tweet about, it should be easy to keep up. The only problem is that now I have not only joined a community ("So-and-so just created at Twitter account! So-and-so is following your feed!") but it comes with a whole new set of info-streams that I'm tempted to redirect, process and absorb (Very borg-like.) but that I've managed to put off for now.

So go try it if you haven't already. And if you have, tell me about what you've learned so far. Or give me the link to your feed. You know I'll buckle and then you'll be famous. At least at my house.

Labels: 2checkout, aboutCommunication, aboutOnlineTools