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[GUEST POST] Listening & the pattern

Author: Laura
October 14, 2008

Dan Rockwell is a User Experience Researcher at Lextant.

[BACK STORY: I met Dan at BarCamp Ohio and started following him on Twitter. Then I started listening to his soundbytes on Utterli. One of his messages really resonated with me, and I asked him to guest post here on the topic of "getting" social media. Thanks, Dan!]

Anyone who’s watched a few hundred movies (like we’ve all done) knows that feeling of “oh yeah, I know what’s happening…” It’s that twinge of you “guessed it;” you know what’s going to happen next. You’ve seen the pattern, you’ve added it up. You feel a bit smug a first. Sometimes you look to see if anyone else figured it out. It’s a natural thing really and, lets face it, we love that feeling of “oh yes, we get it”.

For anyone following the buzz around social media these days, that feeling is like a constant hum your head, a subtle but noticeable nudge that you, yes, you,.. you get it. Sad part is, it’s often hard to share that joy of seeing the pattern in social media with folks on the outside of it. Folks that don’t get it. You’re right back in that movie theater, trying to convince a friend that in that one scene where the bad guy does X, you knew that was going to happen. Of course if they didn’t get that subtle nudge, that trace of the pattern that you got, well, here comes the debate. At this point, you can’t really win; after all it’s just a movie. However, with social media, you just can’t afford to lose. It’s far too important.

At first, I thought I was a bit crazy. I started seeing all kinds of interconnected events unfolding, small at first, larger over time. Patterns unfolding in my head. Naturally, I’m more drawn to folks that get the same nudge I get over social media. My “ah ha’s” resonate better with them. They get it too; there’s less resistance to the big idea and more of an open embracing arm gesture to bring it on. We iterate on ideas faster, all thinking in the same vein of sharing, learning, expressing, embracing, interconnecting and more.

But then there’s all those folks I know on the sidelines, looking at me as if I’m nuts. It’s understandable at times. It looks like a massive waste of time, all this twittering, blogging, social networking, social bookmarking, media creation, vlogging, super poking?!–for what, what’s the big “ah ah?” Folks on the outside of social media see time loss, that’s the biggest blank in their heads. They need to understand the real value of why are you doing it, because right now, all they see is time… disappearing.

The first mistake you can make when attempting to get a friend or co-worker to see the pattern is to threaten them with weight of it. I call this the “warning;” it never works and it’s a sure fire way to demotivate someone. Giving someone the “this will happen, you can’t escape it!!” mentality never works, you’ve seriously dropped the ball. In general if you back anyone up against a wall they will resist you to no end and logic goes out the window. So you can’t force someone to see what you see–you have to go back to that movie setting. What would the hero do? Well, a smart hero would do his/her research and find connections between your friend and the “ah ha” pattern.

You’ve got to make a bridge over into their world. Find a point where their life could be just a tad bit more interesting if they knew about the pattern. Then jump on that bit and show them how it could really benefit them.

You need to tap into what I call “universal truths,” whereby the pattern of social media helps all. We hear one of these truths all the time right now in social media marketing. Listening is a universal truth. You really can’t go wrong with listening. Today, everyone, and I mean everyone, is connected to the web is some way. Our lives, kids’ lives, businesses, products, markets, you name it, it’s all connected there on the web. You can go for a broad inquiry and collect a ton of data, or you can scale down to see the finer bits in between.

Once you get a taste for listening to the web, the hive mind of the planet connected by a billion bits of fiber, you can start asking it questions. Using tools like Google Insight Trends, Search Twitter or blog search tools, you can veer away from the beaten path of marketing speak buried in websites and plow into the mind of your customer.

So, big deal? Well the big deal is that people are in the system. Tap into the hive, think with it, and you’ll find it. Google is just the start really, the first place you go. If you want more real time knowledge, you go to Twitter or a blog search engine and start getting closer to the source.

Now you’re probably thinking, “oh man, this is work, I’ve already got a job.” Well, wrong again. Social media is smarter than that. The hive mind continually iterates itself and RSS is about the coolest thing fueling that hive mind. TweetBeep uses RSS to bring your twitter to you. Stop visiting 5 to 10 blogs a day and visit one with Google Reader and RSS. Subscribe to what you’re interested in, and it all comes to you.

Listening is very powerful. You start to eavesdrop on a 1000 conversations online. Who are all these people talking about…? Oh that person is reading the same book I’m reading, hey they do what I do, go to the same places I go, wait a sec that guy is from Brazil and he’s into what I’m into. Physical barriers are gone, this isn’t plain jane website exploration…you’re in the hive now–learn, absorb, see the pattern, iterate.

Once you start listening you’re ready for the next step–participation. Then you can roll into validation and tracking, one of my favorite aspects of the web. It’s all recordable, traceable, you can see your net effect online. Did an idea resonate, did a concept stick, change, iterate, improve, try again, all within half the time you’d think.

You have to listen, somehow. Odds are you’re doing it now, but you just haven’t leveraged the web and the hive chatter isn’t part of your iteration process. You may still add it up over time, but a little more data couldn’t hurt. Of course even the researcher in me debates that concept a tad. If you’re all about a vision, you must follow that vision, if you want more ideas, go get more ideas, and that means ya gotta listen.

Start listening, and start seeing the pattern. You’ll benefit and it won’t cost you any more time than you spend wondering what people are thinking with traditional methods.

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Facebook and public libraries

Author: Laura
June 18, 2008

facebook logo“Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.” (Official definition.)

I think most people have some idea of what Facebook is; I, myself, have often described it as the classier cousin of MySpace. Love it or hate it, Facebook is incredibly popular, and not just with the college set (anyone can join now, if you haven’t heard).  TIME magazine pointed out last year that Facebook is more popular than porn.   A quote from the TIME article:

“When you can reach all of your friends through Facebook or MySpace, there’s little reason to spend time in your old-school inbox.”

Chances are, you already knew that email is for old people.   Instant messaging (IM) is but one of the replacements with the more recent generations of netizens. Now, we have to contend with all kinds of social networking (AKA “Web 2.0″) sites, and Facebook is one of the kingpins.  So, should libraries be paying attention?

Yes and no

Will it hurt to create a Facebook profile for your library?  Very unlikely.  But libraries need to understand that they will be, to some extent, unwanted.  Ryan Deschamps of The Other Librarian says:

“So let me start with the Facebook library search application. It is fine, but my opinion is that few people besides librarians are going to add the applications to their profiles. The technology is Web 2.0, but the strategy is still Library 1.0. Why? Because the model is still, “I am librarian. I can help. Come to me (ie. my Facebook page) and I will serve.” The applications, though offering marginally better service for little cost, are not taking advantage of what Facebook offers its clients.” (Source)

And Casey Bisson writes:

“I’m going to avoid the question of whether libraries should be trying to offer services inside Facebook, and instead ask the question of how well our existing services work for those using Facebook. If students are collaborating, they’re likely sharing URLs, but our OPACs and databases often aren’t bookmarkable, making it difficult to exchange links to those resources (and instructions like these don’t help either). And if somebody blogs about one of our items, our catalogs don’t support comments or trackbacks, making it a one-sided conversation. Facebook and other online services are important to our patrons, and we would do well to think about how information is exchanged using those technologies. We would do well to build services that interoperate with the internet that people are using.” (Source)

So, not many libraries are providing anything in Facebook that users want.  Our resources are inaccessible to the Facebook multitudes.  Apparently libraries don’t “get” how to really fit into Facebook culture.  So why bother?

I can answer that in one word:  findability. Sometimes, half of life is just showing up to the party.  Maybe you don’t get to dance much, but at least people can see you made the effort to get dressed and show up.  A few years ago (and it still holds true now), many small businesses were madly scrambling to get a basic web site up on the web.  Most didn’t have shopping carts or even professional layouts.  But these businesses quickly realized that, if they didn’t have any web site, they were essentially invisible to modern customers.  I believe Facebook represents a similar scenario.    Libraries might not have cool widgets or apps, but we need to show up and put in a little face time (pardon the pun) with the net communities.

So, what does this mean to me, Laura?

  1. Your library should probably have a Facebook profile.
  2. Put a little time into it.  Check out reading-related applications like Visual Bookshelf that show what you’re reading.  Contribute reviews.  Maybe challenge your patrons to a little Scramble match to up their vocabulary skills.
  3. OPLIN has a Facebook profile (and yes, we dig Visual Bookshelf).  You can find it here. And we’re even giving away OPLIN pieces of flair. (If you don’t get the reference, you’ve got to watch Office Space.  Really, you’ll love it.)  Want to be our friend?
  4. Facebook is known for it’s mindboggling assortment of apps.  It’s like being a kid in a candy store.  You can add games, widgets for charities, you name it…somebody has likely already built it.  Yes, free.
  5. There has been some controversy over privacy in Facebook profiles (although they have made strides). This really shouldn’t affect a public library very much, if at all, since everything we do is open to the Sunshine Laws anyway.  But be aware that the controversy exists.
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