Assignment #10

I am already familiar with YouTube to some extent. A couple of years ago my children introduced me to Saladfingers, a cartoon series created by David Firth. It is weird, yet at the same time compelling. Here is the link to episode #1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3iOROuTuMA

I get a lot of email jokes and such, but I can't really think of any applications for podcasts in my work. To me they have the same drawbacks as wikis, and that is that they are very subjective.

Assignment #9

OK - let's give this a try. I do a lot of report-writing and typically use email to send things back and forth. I can see how something like Zoho Writer would enable me to share draft documents with others for commenting on or editing. Playing around with this a bit, it feels very 'friendly'. I even managed to publish this to my blog! I'll have to give this tool some serious thought.

Assignment #8

Reading about wikis, some applications in my own work come to mind. Staff at my organization participate in a number of working groups. To date, communication between members has been either in person at meetings, by email or by telephone. I can see that a wiki could be an effective way to collaborate on a project. To make them an even more attractive choice, wikis are free, changes are in real time, and no special software or training is needed. The downside - some of the folks we work together with do not have ready access to the internet.

Assignment #7

I read the following articles: "The essence of library 2.0"; "Power for the people"; "What does web 2.0 mean for your non-profit?"; and "To more powerful ways to cooperate".

This week's assignment got me thinking more about how the not-for-profit I work for uses IT. We have for years maintained a website and email list. More recently we added a couple of other things - our members can now join specific interest-related listservs, and we occasionally post e-survey links (related to research we are working on) on our website.

The idea of adding an RSS feed seems a simple thing that we probably should look into. Other ideas like blogs or community forums are attractive (I am even aware of at least one other SPC that is on Facebook!) and could probably help us serve our membership, but I am also very aware of staff time constraints.

I think Meredith Farkas offered some sage advice. Technology for its own sake isn't necessarily a good thing - assessments should first be used to find out the needs/wants of patrons. I think for us this would be a reasonable first step.

Assignment #6

Today I created a del.icio.us account. I could see using del.icio.us in a number of ways both for personal interest (bookmarking movies I want to see or books I want to read) and for work (to help with my research). I was simply overwhelmed by the Technorati website - there is just so much information on it! While it is of interest to me personally, I see less application for my organization because of the unverified nature of the information contained in blogs.

Assignment #5

This week I've learned a bit about facebook. I think it could be a wonderful tool for a not-for-profit organization like mine. Some attractive features that come to mind - it is free, an open group could reach tons of people, we could invite folks to join our cause(s), it would be another way to engage with and involve supporters. A note of caution though - an open group is very public and there is the chance that not all readers would be friends.

Assignment #4

I must admit that it has taken me some time to get through this assignment, and I'm sure I'll have to spend a lot more time to develop any proficiency with this. Although I did subscribe to some newsfeeds, for the most part they were chosen just to get "hands-on" practice. I would have to do a much more thorough search to find feeds that would be useful to me in my work (for instance, a lot of American sites came up in my search and I am primarily interested in Canadian content).

I do see a great deal of relevance to my organization though. RSS feeds could be an easy way to follow social issues - to update and group information about articles, press releases and other resources for various topic areas like poverty, housing, etc. Really cool!