Synchronized book cart pushing and Starbucks

Discovery exercise #16: So what’s in a wiki?
For this exercise, we were asked to check out some library wikis and blog about our findings. I chose Library Success: A best practices wiki and headed straight for the section labeled "Selling Your Library" (specifically, the topic marketing).

One thing I've learned over the past few years is that library "marketing" web sites tend to be over-saturated with suggestions for goofy stunts posing as serious solutions for a library's complex marketing challenges. Well, library marketing wikis are evidently no different. Case in point, the suggestion for "synchronized book cart pushing." Attention-getting, perhaps. But so is choking on a chicken bone. (And I really don't recommend either.)

On the bright side, I wasn't completely disappointed by this wiki. I did uncover a really helpful article about the tough choices that need to be made when developing a brand identity, "Strong Brands Always Have More Brand Credits Than Debits: A Starbucks Lesson." (Link courtesy Jill Stover's blog Library Marketing: Thinking Outside the Book).

"To determine the positive impact (credit) or negative impact (debit) of a potential marketing activity, Starbucks marketers ask the following questions:

• Does the marketing activity respect the intelligence of Starbucks customers?
• Can Starbucks expertly deliver on all the promises made to customers in the proposed activity?
• Will Starbucks employees be excited and motivated by the activity?
• Will customers view the marketing activity as being clever, original, genuine, and authentic?

If the marketing department answered 'yes' to three of these four questions, then the activity is considered a brand credit.
On the other hand, if Starbucks marketers answered 'no' to more than one question, then the activity would be considered a brand debit. The Starbucks marketing department would then need to discuss the business importance of doing that brand debit activity."

A checklist is beautiful in its simplicity. Intuitively, I think many of us know that not every proposed marketing activity is "a good idea," but sometimes it's hard to pinpoint just exactly why some marketing ideas should be rejected (or at least temporarily tabled).

The article goes on to explain the consequences of pursuing too many marketing ideas that are "brand debits."

Ultimately, given enough debits, a company will find itself facing 'brand insolvency,' which happens when a business continually promises more than it actually delivers, bankrupting the brand. Once this happens, it is extremely difficult to earn back brand credit... or customers."

I have to ask myself, where is our library currently? Is our brand credit still high? (Many outside indicators, thankfully, point to "yes.") What services -- promises -- can we market to our customers that we know we can expertly deliver? (And frankly, deliver better than our competition.) Additionally, how can we market these services in a way that will respect the intelligence of our customers, while being clever, original, genuine, and authentic? And, of course, the marketing activity has to excite and motivate our own employees so they can sell it on the front lines.

I'd add one more item to the checklist -- does the marketing activity reinforce the brand we're trying to develop? Part of the whole reason I'm averse to goofy gimmicks like synchronized book cart pushing is because I feel like they don't reinforce the brand that most libraries are trying to develop -- that of a relevant and customer-focused institution.

One of the best, recent examples from our own library system has been PLCMC's library card campaign for kids in grades K-5. Reviewing it after-the-fact, it passes all of Starbuck's marketing checklist items. I will admit that there was a lot of work behind-the-scenes ensuring that we could meet checklist item #2. But despite the hard work, I'm glad our library chose this marketing tactic instead of something like synchronized book cart pushing.
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Icebergs and precious gems

Learning exercise #15: On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...
Where could Web 2.0 take libraries? Rick Anderson's perspective is that Web 2.0 could help steer libraries away from the "icebergs," or "the potential disasters that lie in our current path." One of the icebergs he points to is "Reliance on user education."

"We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning. Obviously, we’ll help and educate patrons when we can, and when they want us to, and the more we can integrate our services with local curricula, the better. But if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons."

Yes, yes, yes. That's an excellent perspective. Now how do we really get there?

I'm beginning to see more and more of my peers embracing Library 2.0. At least the technology part of things. They're excited about wikis and blogs, and they think, "All these new Library 2.0 tools are great! We can do so much if we just had a wiki!"

But there's so much more. These tools won't help if the underlying thought process ignores the end user (intentionally or not). Not only do libraries need to be willing to embrace new technology, but they also need to attract, employ, reward and retain people with some special thinking skills. I'm talking about people who think abstractly, are creative problem solvers, and who can skillfully manage projects. People who are naturally intuitive, who can easily put themselves into the shoes of an "outsider" and imagine just what a patron thinks and feels when using a library for the first time (or the 100th time) so that they can not only identify and eliminate barriers, but also take things one step further and make the experience enjoyable, or perhaps (*gasp*) downright fun. And here's a shocker -- not everyone with these skills pursues an MLS in college.

Now here's where I feel obliged to leave a small note to library managers everywhere (and a reminder to myself): When you do discover an employee among your ranks who possesses these skills and uses them well, please tell them they're doing a good job. And do everything you can to reward them and keep them. (And no, I'm not talking about "rewarding" them with the piles of work their underperforming peers aren't doing. Not unless you want them to start job hunting today.) Those creative problem solvers are precious gems. You won't fully realize what you had until they're long gone.
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Attack of the Anglepoise!

Learning exercise #14: Getting not-so-technical with Technorati
It's obvious now that I haven't done much "playing" on Technorati, because I was completely oblivious about some of what Technorati ranks as the most popular blogs out there. I had been using Technorati all along to scan for blogs on specific topics or keywords, but I hadn't ever taken time to leisurely browse the top 100 list. So, I suppose it's high time that I paruse BoingBoing.net (#1 on Technorati's list) to see what all the hubbub is about. An amusing blurb on BoingBoing mentions the recent release of a giant comedy Anglepoise lamp. The photo alone, at left, is priceless. Could this be the 2006 Christmas gift of choice for the relative who has everything?

In addition, as part of the discovery exercise, I've created a Technorati Tag for this post, although I haven't yet "claimed" this blog on Technorati. At least I know the tagging is easy to do.

Technorati Tag: PLCMCL2

Gardening is so Del.icio.us

Discovery exercise #13: Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us is a pretty cool tool. Of course, I'm excited about any tool that can help me find new information about my hobbies. Naturally, I used Del.icio.us to find popular sites on, you guessed it, "square foot gardening," and my search was rewarded with a link to a simple -- but very neat-o! -- tool for plotting out a garden. Using Del.icio.us proved much more fruitful in yielding sites with "real gardener appeal" than, say, doing a Google or Yahoo seach. And the comments were helpful in determining what to expect of the site before even clicking on a link. Nice.

Rollyo and "relativity"

Discovery Exercise #12: Roll your own search engine
I'm sure, if set up properly, that Rollyo could prove very useful for some people. For me... well, not so much (today, at least). I did create a custom search, and put in a few keywords: "Square foot gardening" and "gardens," but I suppose I made the mistake of including the behemoth Amazon.com as one of my searchable sites. Wow -- page after page of results from Amazon. Not so helpful...

However, as with many explorations into new territory, a happy accident occurred. During my search for information on "square foot gardening," I came across an online gallery of images featuring Lego constructions of works of the late artist M.C. Escher. As both a fan of Escher and Legos, I was delighted. It's worth parusing. ("Relativity" is shown above. Original by Escher on the right. Lego version by Lipson on the left.)

Speaking of Legos, if you enjoy gaming, you might want to check out Lego Star Wars. It's pretty addicting.

Lego Escher

Like my bookshelf at home (without the dust)

Discovery Exercise #11: A thing about LibraryThing
What a fun tool for sharing your favorite reads with friends! LibraryThing is very easy to use and beautiful in its visual simplicity. I particularly like viewing my selections in "cover view" so that it looks similar to my bookshelf at home (without all the dust). I did have some difficulty at first selecting a version of Pete Hamill's book Forever: A Novel so that it would display a cover image (FYI, Forever is a fantastic, historical fiction epic of New York's Manhattan Island. Big, huge book. Great read.) but I soon figured out that it was because I needed to choose a different link. Easy enough.

Get tatted

Discovery exercise #10: Play around with Image Generators
Found a fantastic image generator to semi-permanently show my deep committment to Learning 2.0. You too can get "all tatted up" at the Crusty Demons Tattoo Parlour. (Tell them Salad sent you.)

A view from above

Discovery exercise #9: Finding Feeds
Technorati and other feed search tools are indispensible when trying to keep up with specific news topics. I have a few searches set up to track news about our library. Of course, ever since Learning 2.0, most of what gets snared by my search keywords are Learning 2.0 blogs by our own staff. But it's still great for catching a few outside-opinion nuggets and not-ready-for-primetime newsbits. For example, while scanning my Technorati feeds with the keyword "ImaginOn," I learned that Google Maps has updated its satellite imagery of Uptown Charlotte so that ImaginOn now appears. (I'm sure the latter was not the reason for Google Map's update, but how sweet of them anyway.)

Playing ketchup

Well, I'm back from my short hiatus, and realize that I am now ten "things" behind on the 23 Things exercises. Time to play catch-up (or "ketchup" as a young friend of mine once wrote), so let's see how quickly I can bring myself up to speed.

Discovery exercise #8: Make life "really simple" with RSS & a newsreader
I set up my Bloglines account. So far, I still prefer Netvibes, but that's probably because I'm a very visual person and like the flexible page layout styles of Netvibes. Or it could be because I'm much more familiar with Netvibes. I definitely appreciate and enjoy the benefits of newsreaders for keeping incoming information corralled, so to speak.