Daily Thoughts 12/19/2010 (First Break All The Rules, Unmarketing)

“Dig” / Sadie Wendell Mitchell. 1909. LC-DIG-ppmsca-15753, Found on:
http://imagespublicdomain.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/reading/


Daily Thoughts 12/19/2010

I read a little bit more of First Break All The Rules. I also put Unmarketing : stop marketing. Start engaging by Scott Stratten on hold.  It is about viral marketing and other word of mouth techniques.

While I was at the laundromat, I rewrote my review of Behemoth by Scott Westerfield.  I had written it last week, but was not satisfied, so I rewrote it this week.  This is one of the first times, I have not just put something out immediately for people to read.


I am still thinking about ebooks.  I am also thinking about the Meetups which I went to.  I remember some advice I received from Ron Suarez from Loud Feed while I was at the Content Strategy Holiday Party on Thursday December 9, 2010 at Eight Mile Creek about starting something new.  He told me that I should not try and do something on the bleeding edge, find something you can do and start while you still have a job.  Make sure you are not the first one doing it.  Find a niche which people really need.  It has to be a need.


The other piece of advice which I received was from Peter Chislett one of the founders of the New York Coworking Community at Tech Drinks XXMas.  It was to dig deep and find something that you really like doing.  Find something you can identify with that you know, focus on something where you can show your knowledge and use that to generate what people want.


I have found the meetups to be very interesting. They are a very good way to network and talk to people.  A number of the meetups have been about learning something.  The Future of Digital Books at New Work City was fantastic.

It is also an excellent way to meet people in your profession.  I met a number of people in the New York Librarians Meetup.  They gave me the impetus for methods to speak up for libraries.  I learned a lot from them.  They helped me understand groups like http://www.ilovelibraries.org and http://www.savelibraries.org
They also helped me start building connections through Linked In and Facebook which are steadily growing into a network.  It helped me understand social networking much better where people were there that you met face to face, not just through an online connection.  It also helped me understand Twitter as a communication tool, more than just a marketing tool.

Daily Thoughts 12/7/2010 (First Break All The Rules)

Mother Hubbard's Dog Reading


Daily Thoughts 12/7/2010

Today was a fairly steady day.  I did some weeding and some spot checking in the shelves.  I am looking at an S.O.S. poster for our libraries budget.

I also read some more of  First Break All The Rules on the train home from work.

Daily Thoughts 12/6/2010 (First Break All The Rules, Learning Express, Ebooks, Apps)

Photograph of a stentor (announcer) transmitting a program at the Budapest Telefon Hirmondó, which appeared in the "The Telephone Newspaper" by Thomas S. Denison, in the April, 1901 World's Work magazine. This image is in the public domain in the United States, because it was first published in the United States prior to January 1 1923.

Daily Thoughts 12/6/2010

This morning on the train to work, I read some of First Break All The Rules What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.  I like the authors definition of talent on P.71

Every role, performed at excellence, requires talent, because every role requires certain recurring patterns of thought, feelings, or behavior: This means great nurses have talent.  So do great truck drivers and great teachers, great housekeepers, and great flight attendants.

We had training today for Learning Express which is a test practice database.  A lot of people use this to prepare for civil service tests like the post office and the police officer test.  We went over the Job and Career Accelerator section which helps people create resumes and assess their interests for jobs.  I also spent some time going over Word 2007 looking at the formatting functions.

The trainer told me that they were planning four layoffs where she was working.  This seems to be hitting everyone.  She told me about an article about how the states in the United States are going bankrupt.  This will make it even toughter for federal employees. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/us/politics/05states.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=state%20bankruptcies&st=cse

I checked the displays today and read several issues of Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.  I wish we had money to order books this month, but money is tight.

I also did some shelf reading in the fiction section, a little bit of weeding in the oversize books, and placed a few movies and cds on hold for the book mobile.

I have been thinking a little bit about the structure of ebook sites.  There are two classification schemes that I have used for practical purposes, Book Industry Standards and Classification (BISAC) which is used by most bookstores and the Dewey Decimal Classification system.  The Dewey Decimal Classification system is antiquated. 

A lot of the internet bookstores have their own classification structure.  I like the way Strand Books classifies their books.  It is comprehensive and effective.  http://www.strandbooks.com/app/www/p/browse/
   I also like how Powell's books creates its classification http://www.powells.com/section/
For an interesting way to look at books, try Zoomii http://www.zoomii.com   I think it would be an excellent way to layout an ebook store.


Web Bits

It looks like Google Books just launched with a social books community based around an Android Reader.  This is a fast emerging trend which many people will not be ready for.


http://androidcommunity.com/google-ebookstore-launches-with-new-ebook-reader-for-android-20101206/
 
An article titled An App Studio On Fulton Street
 
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20101206/45407-an-app-studio-on-fulton-street.html


This is surprisingly important, most libraries are simply not ready to handle apps at all.  I am not even sure that many librarians even realize they exist.

On a more positive note, there is the Bluefire Reader App for Ipad which allows Ipad users to read Epub documents.  This would Ipad users to easily use library ebooks.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bluefire-reader/id394275498?mt=8

This is an interesting service.  The Mongoliad is a serial novel with chapters produced each month.  It is historical fantasy.

http://www.mongoliad.com/

Daily Thoughts 12/5/2010 (Social Ebooks, book apps, First Break All The Rules)

Robert de Namur reading a book and receiving a messenger of the king of France, with Jean Froissart writing, at the beginning of the Chroniques of Froissart. British Library, Royal 14 D II f. 8, 15th Century

Daily Thoughts  12/5/2010

Earlier, I had learned about the Copia http://www.thecopia.com/  which allows note taking and sharing of books. Now, I found out about another company, Book Glutton, which allows sharing and note taking between books http://www.bookglutton.com/  There is also a new application called Social Books for the Ipad which is similar A social network book app http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/social-books-hopes-to-make-e-reading-communal/  via Twitter




While going through another site called Get Glue, I found that there was a books section which allowed people to share likes, reviews, and check ins for book covers. http://www.getglue.com/popular/books



I am very interested in finding out about similar companies who mix ebooks or ebook content with social networking features. Things like note taking, shared making of stories, etc. are also interesting.



The Copia went live in November, The Social Books App also went live in November, so this is a relatively new idea. I am looking for articles, companies, and anything else which points towards this.

This afternoon I read some of First, Break All The Rules What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.  It has helped me make some decisions about what I plan to do in the near future.

I applied to the Coordinator of Acquisitions position for New York Public Library today.  I thought why not do it.  I am probably going to look for ten places where I know I would like to work and apply there.