New Media Ecology presentation by Lee Rainie

Lee Rainie provided a fascinating annotation of the data. [Insert link to his presentation here when it gets posted.] He talked about the Pew's Internet Technology Quiz.
Take it and see in which group you fit.

Personal commentary: When I first took this quiz I was labeled an Omnivore (high level of participation with technology) and after taking it again today I'm now a Connector (use technology to interact online and manage digital content-- I guess this means upload digital photos?). What's funny is that in the time between taking the test initially and now I started this blog and joined several social networking sites. I've also read a couple of books that have gotten me to use technology more effectively (Bit Literacy) and make tough choices about eliminating time-wasting activities (The Dip). I'm more engaged with technology BUT I'm also more focused on time management and don't necessarily see all of the technology before us as productivity-increasing tools.

Okay, back to the point of the post. Lee Rainie charged libraries with the following action items:

• become the news node for information and a social network node
• act as an aggregator of information
• provide pathways to information
• embrace multi-modal channels of information
• listen to our youngest employees

I love these suggestions as I think they address key elements that libraries do best already. We just need to include the use of technology as a way to reach our customers and prospects who left the library when they became too old for story time.

If you haven't checked out the Pew Internet and American Life's reports and presentations on technology, please do so. The Pew has been collecting data like crazy and most of it is highly relevant to libraries. It's what is driving our future so we need to know how to respond and plan.

Managing Your Library for Great Customer Service with Jefferey Russell

Jefferey Russell, Co-Director of Russell Consulting Inc, in Madison, WI, gave a great presentation about customer service. He discussed the traditional tips: hire the right people, train them continuously, communicate your vision, lead by example.

He also talked about the typical management pyramid where employees are at the bottom (the largest group), supervisors and managers are in the middle layers, and directors are at the top. Employees serve supervisors and managers, and they serve the directors. This organizational structure does two things wrong: it doesn't include the users we serve and it's in the wrong direction. Customer centered libraries have an inverted pyramid structure where patrons are the largest group and they are at the top. Directors are at the bottom. They guide the managers who assist the supervisors who support the employees who serve the customers. (I believe Jeff gave credit to the Carlson Management Group for this model but I couldn't locate any images online so if you have any please let me know and I'll add them to this post).

Another excellent point Mr. Russell made was that supervisors can't manage their employee's behavior but they can set expectations for behavior. So I took this to mean that when libraries are implementing competencies for staff or are expecting them to change the status quo to meet users' needs, the way to approach this is by setting realistic expectations coupled with lots of communication, training and strong leadership.