My personally selected top 10 from the links I shared on Twitter from 5/21/2010 thru 5/27/2010. Ok I’ll confess right off the bat, I cheated, there are 12 links this week.  I just couldn’t cut them down. A couple of these deserve their own blog post so shame on me for not giving them the attention they deserve.

1. How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking - great article from Peter Bregman with some clear reasons why you should stop multi-tasking

A study showed that people distracted by incoming email and phone calls saw a 10-point fall in their IQs.

What’s the impact of a 10-point drop? The same as losing a night of sleep. More than twice the effect of smoking marijuana.

Doing several things at once is a trick we play on ourselves, thinking we’re getting more done. In reality, our productivity goes down by as much as 40%. We don’t actually multitask. We switch-task, rapidly shifting from one thing to another, interrupting ourselves unproductively, and losing time in the process.

Even better are the six things he learned the week he stopped trying to multi-task. I really need to do this

• First, it was delightful.
• Second, I made significant progress on challenging projects
• Third, my stress dropped dramatically.
• Fourth, I lost all patience for things I felt were not a good use of my time.
• Fifth, I had tremendous patience for things I felt were useful and enjoyable.
• Sixth, there was no downside.

2. RT @dmlcentral The Dalai Lama taps Internet and social media to engage in rare direct conversation w/ Chinese citizens – yep the Dalai Lama used Twitter.

3. Explaining racial differences in attitudes towards government use of social media – a brief article from the Pew Internet & American Life Project looking at racial differences in the use of social media.

4. 7 of My Favorite Timeless Tips from the Last 2500 Years

1. “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” – Andrew Carnegie
2. “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” – Carl Jung
3. “When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” – Wayne Dyer
5. “I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.” “It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” – Gandhi
6. “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Confucius
7. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

5. RT @kongtemplation: great interview tips for librarians from @lynnemthomas – Tips for Librarian on the job market: 4 tips from the interview stage – a must read for anyone looking for a job

Secret #1: If you have landed an interview, the search committee already believes that you are capable of doing the job as they have described it and as you have indicated on your CV and Cover letter.
Secret #2: Interviews really answer the question “am I willing to work with this particular person every day for the next 10 years?” for good and for ill, on both sides.
Secret #3: The search committee is terrified that you won’t like them, either.
Secret #4: We’re all hoping for The One. The Perfect Gig. The You-Can-Pry-My-Awesome-Job-Out-of-My-Cold-Dead-Hands connection. But mostly? Especially early in our careers, we’re looking for a job that will work pretty well for us, and the search committee is looking for someone to fill their job without making them regret their decision a year or two down the line.

6. “Quitting Facebook is pointless; challenging them to do better is not“ (Another blog post on the topic by moi) via @zephoria

People will not leave Facebook en masse, even if a new site were to emerge. Realistically, if that were enough, they could go to MySpace or Orkut or Friendster or Tribe. But they won’t. And not just because those sites are no longer “cool.” They won’t because they’ve invested in Facebook and they’re still hoping that Facebook will get its act together. Changing services is costly, just like moving apartments or changing jobs or breaking up in general. The deeper the relationship, the harder it is to simply walk away. And the relationship that Facebook has built with many of its users is very very very deep. When transition costs are high, people work hard to change the situation so that they don’t have to transition. This is why people are complaining, this is why they are speaking up. And it’s really important that those in power listen to what it is that people are upset about. The worst thing that those in power can do is ignore what’s going on, waiting for it to go away.

7. RT @VenessaMiemis: smart piece on the meaning of privacy in an information age by @doriantaylor – a must read!

8. good convo about tweeting during presentations Twitter, tweeting and ethics via @woodsiegirl – a great discussion about using Twitter during presentations and meeting on the
Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CLIP) a UK-based professional organization for librarians.

9. 6 Reasons Why People Don’t Change, and What to Do About That – another great post from one of my favorite blogs. Here are the six reasons for how to overcome them read the full post

1. You don’t want to change.
2. You don’t feel courageous enough.
3. Your environment is holding you back.
4. You feel like giving up after one or three failures.
5. You don’t feel enough pain yet.
6. You don’t know how to practically make the change.

10 Why Controlling Bosses Have Unproductive Employees

…if your employees consider you a controlling person, even an unconscious thought of you can have a negative effect on their performance. If, for example, they were to happen to subliminally see, out of the corner of their eyes, your name flash for 60 milliseconds, you could expect them to start working less hard. Even if they didn’t intend to slack off.

11. yes! RT @uMCLE: Clay Shirky & Daniel Pink – a terrific conversation about TV, social networking & motivation – I’m a big fan of both of these gentleman and this is a great conversation

12. RT @zephoria: Pew Research confirms that youth care about their reputation. Report: Reputation Management and Social Media My comments:Pew Research confirms that youth care about their reputationSimilar Posts:

• Top Ten Links Week 23
• Top Ten Link Week 49: Dropbox, Tips for the Holidays, Privacy, Trolling, Tech, Speaking, PostPost and more!
• 10 Golden Rules of Social Media

CC image used courtesy of holeymoon on flickr

My personally selected top 10 from the links I shared on Twitter from 1/29/2010 thru 2/4/2010

1. about dismantling the echo-chamber… more on the echo chamber
2. Content Creators & Consumers (& the iPad) – an interesting post on who the audience of the iPad is. I know its not me, but I’ve had conversations with enough people who are just waiting to get one that I know there is an audience no matter what the techies feel its lacking.
3. Facebook Is Working On A Foursquare-Killer
4. Why Smart People Don’t Learn from Failures – its ok to fail, just be sure you learn something from it.
5. President’s budget freezes library funding, omits school libraries from education increase if you haven’t heard or read about this you need to and read Buffy Hamilton’s response An Indecent Proposal
6. Don’t feed the trolls, unless you’re feeding them tranquilizers – great article on how to handle blog comments, including how to handle trolls
7. 10 Steps to Promote Learning in Your Conference Presentation
8. Information and services should be equal
9. But, I Like My Loser Friends! great post from Mary Schmidt at Lip-Sticking in response to The Most Important Success Tip:Stop Lying Down with Dogs, Already from Copyblogger
10. ALA Learning -5 Tips for Trainers to Prevent TechFail

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• Top Ten Links Week 4
• Top Ten Links Week 6

Call for Presentations : Transliteracy Conference : Tuesday 9 February, 2010, 9:30 – 17:30

Phoenix Square Digital Media Centre Leicester, UK

In association with the Institute of Creative Technologies & the NLab Small Business Network,  De Montfort University

http://nlabnetworks.typepad.com/transliteracy/conference2010.html

Deadline for Abstracts:  1 December, 2009

Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.  Since 2005, when Professor Sue Thomas introduced this concept in the UK, transliteracy has been taken up and explored by a broad range of academics and practitioners, from information scientists to literary theorists, artists and writers.

The first Transliteracy Conference will take place at Leicester’s new Phoenix Square Digital Media Centre, on 9 Feb 2010. This one-day event offers an opportunity for academics, artists, business people and practitioners to share discoveries, ideas, and creative works that amplify and augment transliteracy research.

This Call for Presentations invites 250 word abstracts.  Presentations should be 10-15 minutes in duration, and can be used to show work or deliver a short paper.  The Conference Panel will group presentations together thematically in sessions scheduled to include time to explore the issues and ideas raised through discussion.  Phoenix Square is well equipped with the latest technology, so presenters will be able to show work on screen and via the internet.

Themes to be explored include:

• transliteracy and libraries
• transliteracy and the arts
• transliteracy in education
• transliteracy in communications
• transliteracy in the workplace
• transliteracy and transdisciplinarity
• transliteracy in action – examples of transliterate works, like digital fiction, networked arts projects, or library resources

Abstracts should be submitted in the body of an email totransliteracy@googlemail.com Please include a 100-word bio and contact email address.

Deadline for abstracts is 1 December, 2009; notification of acceptance by 18 December, 2009.

Further information can be obtained from Louisa Allen attransliteracy@googlemail.com

We expect to charge a modest delegate fee to cover costs.

Selected materials from the conference will be published online athttp://www.transliteracy.com

For more about The Transliteracy Research Group (TRG) seehttp://www.transliteracy.com

To discuss Transliteracy visit http://transliteracy.ning.com/

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One of my presentations from Internet Librarian 2009 with Jennifer Koerber, Sean Robinson, Rebecca Ranallo

I’ll be posting an update to this when I hear from Liz.

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One of my presentations from the 2009 COMO conference in Columbus GA

• Google docs
• Zoho
• Buzzword
• Preezo
• PreZentit
• PBworks
• Wetpaint
• Wikispaces
• 30 Boxes
• Google Calendar
• Yahoo
• MyHomePoint
• Remember the Milk
• Ta-Da list
• Todoist
• The Online CEO
• Hiveminder
• Joe’s Goals
• Doodle
• Delicious
• Digg
• Netvibes
• iGoogle
• Slideshare
• Google Reader
• Google Wave

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Speakers at TED are given these Ten Commandments before speaking.  I love them! They are pretty good guidelines even for those of us who aren’t speaking at Ted any time soon.

1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick
2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee

Image by Rives, transcribed by Tim Longhurst. Via Garr Reynolds.

I saw this over on Marianne’s blogSimilar Posts:

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I got into a conversation with Joshua Neff of  Library Society of the World fame (among many other things), about this topic and he said – you should blog about it.  Who am I to ignore a direct order

Here is the jist.  There are a lot of ways to present in libraryland. You can submit to a conference, which may or may not waive the registration fee and depending on the circumstances offer other compensations including but not limited to travel, hotel & meal expenses.  This ranges widely from conference to conference and person to person.  Ok I accept that situation.  I know there are opinions on which conferences do what, but I’m not addressing that now.

Then there are the other presentations/workshops where you’re asked/invited to come talk/teach/train about something.  Some of these are free to attendees (never mind membership dues) and some are fee based.

Here is my issue – if attendees are charged a fee the presenter should expect to be compensated.  I’m not saying don’t present without compensation.  I agree with Josh, I’m all for sharing information for free.  But you should ask up front if attendees be charged a fee.   If you’re going to be putting hard work into a presentation, not be compensated, and the organization is charging for attendance, you should ask for a good explanation of why not and where the money is going and what it will be used for.  Think about it like this -it’s like working a fundraiser.  You are donating time, you have the right to ask questions such as – what is the cause?  where does the money end up?Similar Posts:

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When someone first mentioned this post about presenting – Too Much Presentation Pressure during last weeks T is for Training, my first reaction was that writer is wrong, that there isn’t enough presentation pressure.  But now I’m not so sure.  On the one hand as someone who as sat through more than her fair share of flat out bad presentations – presenter reading the PowerPoint slides, which have too much information on them,  to the audience, mediocre presentations, some good and very few great presentations, I would really love for presentation skills to improve over all.  On the other hand, am I there to be entertained or to get information?  Sure, I think it’s more likely I”ll absorb the information if I’m engaged by the presenter.  But if my true aim is to access the information and knowledge of the presenter I’m doing that even in a mediocre presentation ( I can’t say bad because I’m sure there are some examples of presentations so bad you do miss the point).  I’ve seen some brilliant people that I highly respect speak and not give a great presentation, it happens.

So do I think there should be more pressure for good presentation skills?  In a perfect world where we all had all the time we need to do all the things we want to – yes.  But in the world we have where, we’re all doing too much and struggle to keep up – my answer is no.  If I have to choose, I’ll choose that brilliant, innovative, and forward thinking people keep doing the brilliant, innovate, forward thinking things they are presenting about,  rather than spend their time polishing their presentation skills.

Of course if you would like to improve your presenting skills :

• Presentation Zen
• Talking Good : Giving Effective Presentations
• How to Give a Good Presentation
• The Public Speaking Blog
• Public Speaking Do’s and Don’ts from Lifehaker
• Consider join your local Toastmasters

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I know I’ve shared this story with many of you in person, so forgive me if you’ve already heard it.

It seems like ages ago that I got invited to attend the International Conference on Libraries, Information and Society, but it was only in June that I got a Facebook message asking me if I would consider attending. Yes that’s right a Facebook message, about 90% of the communication, planning and details for this visit, were done though Facebook. It seems like I’ve been planning and preparing for it for ages. I know some of you wondered where I’ve been over the last month or so. But the time has finally come. I’ll leave next week! I’ll be presenting at the conference and giving a post conference workshop, but there will be time for sightseeing too!

Summer Storm over Kuala Lumpur, originally uploaded by Stuck in Customs.Similar Posts:

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I’m at the Missouri Library Association Conference this week and today was the first of my two presentations.  Originally Robin & I were going to co-present (we each write half the lessons) but because she’s so crazy busy and I felt bad for bailing on her for the MaintianIT Webinar, I offered to do this one on my own.

Library Learning 2.1

Library Learning 2.0

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