Thing 20 - Thinkin' Free

Crikey. ThinkFree Office is really a posher (and therefore slower) remake of Google Docs. I like the look of this environment, with its fluffy white clouds in the background. Its compatability with existing Word files is neat, too. Now all I need is for it to work at the pace to which I have become accustomed.. i.e. without having to wait for 10 minutes. I'm still not all that keen to entrust confidential information to a cloud-friendly site, either. But this is (probably) the office of the future. Enjoy this rainbow of irises, discovered a few days ago. Yes, they are all irises.

Thing 17 - It's a wiki, wiki world

Wikis can be, in my opinion, an effective collaboration tool. I say 'can be' because they seem to work best when they are used for a one purpose and when all collaborators agree to use the wiki (and only the wiki) for that purpose. A few years ago I joined a wiki that was set up for a small group of scattered librarians, whose common purpose was to create a coherent set of teaching sessions for a residential 'Teaching Evidence Based Medicine' week later on in the year. It was a successful substitute for email, because:

• The wiki had one purpose, which was defined and agreed before we started


• We agreed to use this as the only communication tool for this purpose - any parallel emailings on the topic were banned


• It was unintimidating to use - functional rather than flash


• It was simple to amend and update session plans and presentations, which cut down the temptation to procrastinate (I speak for myself)


• It was easy to see and re-order session plans and presentations, with instant access


• The alternative (email) would have resulted in overstuffed mailboxes, version mismatch, and general confusion.

Aargh

It might be interesting (for me, if nobody else) to tag these posts with words that describe my reaction to each Thing. 'Yes' will feature as a tag, as well as 'Aargh'. But what is the received spelling for 'Aargh' and do we care? Although it's Old Hat now, The Aargh Page nabbed the top Google spot for several variants. Why? It provided the most frequently-used spellings of the word in a nifty clickable grid. Crikey.

Thing 14 - Linked?

My big brother asked me to LinkIn months ago, so that I could admire his profile. And I did. Why did I LinkIn so readily, but have a Thing about Facebook? Is it because of that reassuring sentence on the LinkedIn About Us page: "All relationships on LinkedIn are mutually confirmed, and no one appears in the LinkedIn Network without knowledge and explicit consent"? What is a 'qualified professional' anyway? And how are they more trustworthy than Ordinary Folk? So many questions.
Here are some less demanding early spring crocuses.

Thing 13 - The F.. word

Nnnng. I just can't bring myself to join and use Facebook. Yes it would be a tool for communicating with friends and family. But I fear Facebook, because of perceived (actual?) disadvantages: making myself available to those I'm not that keen to meet or 'meet' again, having my pokes rejected by others who feel the same way about me, having pitifully few 'friends', etc. Perhaps I'll get over it in time.

So I'm not qualified to offer anything other than a biased and ignorant opinion about libraries on Facebook. So here it is. If I try to imagine reliving my student days during the Internet Age, I think I'd feel irritated or even patronised by a library asserting its presence on my social network. The library isn't my friend or even my 'friend'. But maybe that's just me.

Despite my luddite reservations I don't see the harm in setting up and maintaining a Facebook Group or Fan Page to raise the profile of library services to those who are already on the network and who Get It, so I'd delegate this task to someone who is and who does. But only if they can convince me that they have the resources (i.e. enough time) to keep it fresh. A stale Group would be worse than no Group for the library's image.

Thing 11 - Too many pods

I'm not sure how I feel about podcasts. They could be useful for work, as means of conveying news and updates to people who are already familiar with this territory. And I can see their mileage for teaching, and for catching a missed radio show. But I have been (and still am) overwhelmed by the choice. I went to the BBC Podcasts page, as instructed, and felt bamboozled. Then I went to Podcast.com and felt the same. But I'm not one to give up, oh no. I browsed for a couple podcasts via iTunes Store and slipped them into the 'Podcasts' bit of my iTunes library, in the hope that I might remember to have a go with them on the way home one day. They will have to be truly breathtaking to prise me away from what is already on the radio, though.

Thing 4 - O brave new world! That has such bloggers in't!

Yes, very pretentious. And achingly unoriginal. But this is where I get to gush about blogging, isn't it? It does feel like entering a new world. It's fascinating to watch these 23 Things Oxford blogs evolving, and to observe how different we are. And the range of gadgets is eye-popping. After toying between 'cute dolphin of the day' and 'gourmet meal picture of the day' I plumped for the fish because you can change their size/colour/number at the click of a mouse. So we won't get so bored of those. They are quite mesmerising too. Zen fish.

Thing 1 - getting better

Not the best start. I forgot to give the first post a "Thing 3" Tag Thing. Oops. But this page looks pretty. I like the green.

23 Things

Why am I participating in this 23 Things thing? Firstly, I need to overcome my natural suspicion of New Participatory Things and learn to embrace this Web 2.0 Culture Thing. Otherwise, as a Resources Manager, I may as well hang my head in shame. Secondly, I need to participate in something Web 2.0ish before I can begin to know how any of this can be used at work or in other areas. I know a few things about Web 2.0, but (as anyone bothering to read this can probably tell) I haven't dived in yet. In at the deep end. Bear with me, as I'll be several Things behind most of the time but I'll get there.