Thing 16 You Tube

I chose Matt Dancing because a coworker sent it to me and I thought it shows how a clever person can get a dream job by imaginatively using YouTube

The 15th: Rollyo

Tho I tried out some of the search rolls featured on the site, none came close to giving superior results to Google. I guess my world is still small enough and the queries I deal with simple enough that I don't feel the need for such power searching. Perhaps if I were a reporter on Frontline and needed to use multiple search engines to cover salient topics, or if I were an expert in some field...let's say Geology...it might be worth the effort to commit to making searchrolls that were limited to that field.

I tried to access a library resource searchroll, but it was "private". I accessed one on a topic that I have a lot of experience searching, and I wasn't impressed with the results, certainly not enough to create my own searchroll or link to that one. Sorry, but this "thing" is just not high enough on my list of priorities to spend any more time on, because the return is just not worth the investment. It's not inherently useless; it just isn't something that I need in my worklife at present.

The 14th Thing: Productivity Tools

The online productivity tools are useful life/project organizers, particularly for those who need to collaborate in working groups across professional lines, or for volunteer organizations. They can function as a kind of intranet which all members can access thru the net without being limited to inhouse office applications for sharing files, and ideas and tracking progress on a particular project. This is good. Tools like Backpack do have portability...also a functional feature if you have a meeting where data needs to be shared beforehand, but people may not always have access to their real office.

The personalized pages/calenders available thru Google, Yahoo and other providers are useful in providing a single access/departure point for whatever one feels is useful to keep current; however it is important to remember that all these "preferences" are being tracked, analyzed, filed and marketed ...the more you show, the more they know and it is wise to keep that in mind with anything offered "free" by ISP's or others.

"In the middle of the journey of our life

I found myself astray in a dark wood

where the straight road had been lost sight of."

-Dante Alighieri

The 13th: LibraryThing

Another frustrating learning experience. After dutifully following instructions to "paste this code to your blog" we get ......nothing!!! No explanations of why this won't work, no alternative methods to use and no amount of help from experienced colleagues could correct the problem.

So much for Jade's Virtual library. Here, instead, is the bricks and mortar library where at least you can get there from here.

"The creative process is a mystical path...we do not enter it after we get everything else out of the way....there is lots of dead material when we don't honor the live thing."

-from Jade's library...A Walk Between Heaven & Earth. A Personal Journal on Writing and the Creative Process by Burghild Nina Holzer

Thing 12: Wikis

Wikis are a useful tool for building on a specialized knowledge base or set of experiences through collaborative enterprise. The end product is dynamic, current and relevant, as committed users bring a level of expertise and oversight to insure that entries are correct and information is valid.

Focus and organization are important, or the community will not be motivated to participate in and maintain the site. Good uses are project evolvement, research and resource sharing and internal organizational collaboration.

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts...."

23 things: the Eleventh: Social Media

Frankly, these seem focused on the trivial and the useless. Is it really critical to the unfolding of the universe that Japanese Giant Hornets have been spotted or that John Bolton followed by Ann Coulter are cracking comments on which US cities they would nuke!! Not all things on the internet are inherently worthy of time and attention. And access to the internet does not make one a journalist or commentator worth reading.

"Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn't insist on their right to remain ignorant..."

-Bill Maher

23 things..the 10th: tags and social bookmarking

The best feature of delicious is that you can move to any computer and your bookmarks are accessible. Nice if you would like to access those on your home computer from other locations. If you are working on a research project and simply want to direct others to useful sites you have found, so they skip searching for them, that's efficient. I am sure with some thought, library staff could use them for assignment queries that come up but are ephemeral in nature, so that staff efforts are transparent to all.

Tags are useful but are like personal filing systems in that not everyone files items in the same way. Tags can become as unmanageble and useless as all those physical file folders you made and don't remember what you put in them as in "did I file that in "banks" or "finance"?? In order for tags to be useful, you have to have a clear idea of what they will be used for. For example, photos that are tagged "staff" could number in the thousands, however photos that are tagged "staff" and "children's programs" might make an easier search of it.

What shall we tag this one?? How about "Bear Lodge" which was the Native American name before it became known as "Devil's Tower" and the aliens landed there.