This year I’m not going to tell you about the fancypants programs I attended and the fabulously organized content I sucked up. Why? Because I didn’t and there wasn’t. [a quick shout out to the Set Sail for Fail folks from NJ for throwing down an unsession during Midwinter, that part was fabulous]

My big realization about ALA this year was that I’ve graduated. I was a fledgling ALA member and I did fabulous things like Student to Staff, during which I interned for RUSA; I was an Emerging Leader and worked on a project for ACRL; I showed up to a lot of discussion groups and asked a lot of vague and half-assed questions.

I became more established while serving as an ACRL MAC committee member; I started speaking for ACRL at events like ACRL 101 and took over as convener of the ACRL New Members Discussion Group, where we have launched a new discussion group presentation style (No-Tech Talks, CV opportunities for all).

After these experiences I’ve become a semi-veteran ALA member and conference attendee and spent much time wreaking general havoc and running amok, amongst many other activities. This is where I’m at now and I realize I have two primary options.

1. Shrug. I got what I was gonna get, time to stop paying in to the machine. I mean, the machine has run out of things to give me, right? I’ve been semi-elevated, some folks took note, I got a tenure-track job. Woot. I even gave a little back, so I won’t feel too guilty. End transmission…
2. Contribute more. Bring my own content and share it, formally and informally. Continue to work on making ACRL relevant and useful for members. Help ACRL board to no longer need a bellybutton window. Start showing up at Council. Make more noise.

Although it really, oh man I mean really pains me to do it, I’m going to strive for option 2. I’ve joined the task force of many names (young turks, young librarians, young professionals…yadda yadda) and am going to try to help ALA figure out what the eff we want from them. If I just bail out now, I’m only doing what countless librarians and ALA members before me have done (and I don’t blame them at all) — ”…drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after?” Yes, I know that’s about poison and death. Right now, if I am honest, that’s what being an ALA member feels like… like these a-holes who came before could have at least left me a memo telling me to find my own damn poison.

So although I probably sound a little bitter, and am in fact a little bitter about all the money I have to come up with to help ALA not brontosaurus their way through the future, I’m a little posicore as well.

p.s. I like this tweet:
@pbromberg @kimll #youngturks think beyond What Can ALA Do For YOUYOUYOU. I just gave $ 2 RedCross. What do they do 4 MEMEME? Yet I support them.

This conference was epic for me on a lot of levels. I was directly involved in two programs: ACRL 101 (my first speaking gig at ALA Annual) and ACRL New Members Discussion Group (of which I am now the convener). 101 was awesome and I had a lot of fun, more fun than I expected to. Preparing my remarks on how to get the most out of conference really caused me to do some reflecting about my first Annual (2007) and what that experience was like for me.

My first Annual was different because I was a student-to-staff participant, interning to RUSA. So when I got really overwhelmed (frequently) I had someplace to go—the staff office. Anyway, thinking about that had an impact on my conference this year, I think. I always feel hyper aware of the social dynamics of conference, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how those cool kids came to be those cool kids (not a specific set of people, I think your cool kids may be different than mine, but whoever they are, you know them when you see them). How did they break in to their clique? How did the clique become a clique? Do those people even know that we see them that way?

So it’s interesting that as I was cruising through Chicago thinking these things I happened upon a conversation with someone who is probably in a lot of people’s cool kids clique, Michael Porter (libraryman, @libraryman). This was at the OCLC blogger’s salon, where I saw some really awesome people (and some really drunk people. Open bar, what what?). I’d never met the illustrious Porter before, but he seemed a nice enough guy who was willing to riff on these topics with me and some other folks.

He was talking about his awareness that people might perceive certain “long-time” library bloggers as belonging to some elitist club, but that he didn’t want it to be that way. Michael told me that he doesn’t want to be in a clique, they didn’t set out to be a clique and they aren’t really sure how to convey that to other people. He even talked about how he has intentionally backed off of posting the big fun issues on his blog so that newbie bloggers can get their recognition for posting on big fun issues. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t note that his chest puffs out just the slightest bit when he talks about taking this intentional blogging backseat and then lowers his voice to tell us that he’s been at this for 6 years and it’s only natural that he’s got an established foothold in this community. He’s totally right too, puffing and all. (I mean no offense, it was kinda endearing, really).

Ultimately, he said exactly what I’m saying, the only way to meet those people is to go somewhere they are and talk to them. They might have rad friends to introduce you to. So on and so forth. This was also timely, since this year is the first year I really pushed myself to go where the interesting folks are and strike up random conversations (like that radtacular conversation with Walt about all things Buffy).

I spent all day Friday at the Unconference (you can catch the tweets there also) and shared time with people I might have been in awe of in the past. I sat at a discussion table with Meredith Farkas and talked innovation, without a single fangirl moment. When I was reflecting on this later I realized that I’m not a fangirl anymore. In library school I may have been because I wasn’t a practitioner, really. Everything I read seemed so fancy and alluring. Everything someone did felt unattainable and slightly sparkly.

Now these are just people to me. People who, during their work day, do more or less what I do during my work day. Sometimes we innovate in different ways, but really, it’s mostly the same. What makes made us different is all in the attitude. It’s nice to spend time with these folks at conference because they have the confidence to put their ideas out there and they’re willing to share. There’s relatively little proprietary mojo attached to the ideas they generate.

But you can generate ideas, too. You have a voice, use it. Make friends, share ideas. It’s like the poster says, you learned it all in kindergarten (sorry LIS programs, no poster for you)—you just need to put it into practice.

I swear I learned more at conference than how to socialize with innovators, but it really didn’t make an interesting blog post.

We had 5 interactions, of which 3 were actual attempts to chat with us. One was someone testing and the last was a porn spam. Given that it’s the first day of summer term I am actually surprised there were 3 actual attempts to chat with us. We weren’t able to connect with everyone and that’s fine—sometimes yer gonna miss us. I’m just so excited that we’re actually doing this, pushing forward.

I am sorry for one of my librarians, who reported following the link and inadvertently viewing a few pics. I guess we’ll have to do some work on suggested practices with regard to receiving links via chat. I was highly amused at her response to the offending robot: “That’s not an appropriate question for our chat service.” She is made of win, that one!

It’s a pretty awesome feeling to log in to admin and see records that aren’t just you chatting with yourself in 3 different browsers.

I think it’s amazing that just a few weeks ago I was as skeptical of Twitter as many folks out there and now I think I’m a solid convert. Without Twitter I’d have spent much of ALA alone and hungry. I know there has to be some application for community college libraries– I just haven’t figured out what it is yet. I’ve heard my boss might have caught some serious brainfire at ALA as well, so I am looking forward to connecting with her and seeing what our collective imaginations can come up with.

As with every national conference I attend I am always struck by the numbers of librarians out there stagnating away in libraries with administrators who are afraid to do something different than they’ve always done. I feel like I need to keep pinching myself because I certainly don’t suffer under any stale conditions. How awesome to have a boss who wants you to dream big and figure out ways to apply those dreams in practical, user-centered ways. I swear I’m not sucking up, just reflecting.

If, like me, you are blessed with an environment in which you can dream big, I recommend a column in the current RUSQ, written by Michale Stephens. Taming technolust: Ten steps for planning in a 2.0 world offers concrete steps to take on your way to embracing the twopointopian mishegas while ensuring that you don’t go overboard with “flashy, sexy technology” that does nothing to further your end goals.

Had dinner with Kevin and Sara Ryan last night. That was a blast. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and my lack of dinner company when Kevmo came through with the plan to meet at the Hilton. Sara and I have crossed paths a few times at conferences but never actually hung out. Holy mess, I hope to put in more face time with this powerhouse sometime. Our blends of ridiculous hilarity mesh very well…and there were $9 potato chips!

After dinner and assorted hijinks we parted ways about 10:30 last night…and I promptly got really lost and end up walking all over hell and gone. After uttering the words, “I don’t get lost at conferences too often,” I suppose it’s what I get. In either case I have some gnarly blisters to show for it.

There really haven’t been any groundshaking (for me) sessions just yet. Today I’m off to check out a program on the future of face to face reference and then some research into reference services. After that, it’s an ACRL membership advisory committee meeting and presentation (by me, eek).

Design is in the Details, presented by Bryan Veloso and Dan Rubin focused on how the tiny details are what distinguish a good design from a great design. You can check out the entire presentation at their site, Design is in the Details.The presentation focused on the essentials of good design feel: layout, type, and pixels.
Layout. Let your layout breathe. It’s what the slide said and it’s what you should do. Bryan and Dan remind us that at some point you need to step back from your design, break out of code view, and look at the screen. Feel what’s going on with the entire design because that’s what the eye is going to do. The human eye does not go about distinguishing individual pixel rendering choices so that it can pop up a brain alert to the effect that the 1px line in that button is what makes it most realistic. The eye just takes it all in and communicates a feeling.

Type. Use visual design patterns in typography. Using multiples of 3 or rules of ten will help to accomplish this. Check out CNN for an example of excellent visual patterning. You don’t notice it because it’s done well, but there is patterning all over this site. I know because Bryan and Dan pointed it out to me. The spacing between the header and the content works on multiples of 3 (18, I believe). Font sizing is 12. Spacing between content is 12. The wider gap between content and header is intentional and indicates to the eye that there’s a bigger distinction happening here for a reason.

I don’t even have to tell you everything that CNN has done well. Just go to Fox news for some suck-out-loud stab-you-in-the-eye design. There is just about no reproducible design behavior on this site. See that padding around the Fox news logo? Why is it there? There’s no standard spacing anywhere on this page. Notice how CNN had lots of channels but they didn’t accost you? Why does Fox news have channels within channels within pages of channels? This is design at its worst. Check out Bryan and Dan’s presentation slides to see their take on making Fox news better (ha! I know…ha!).

Some specific techniques that will benefit you in the type department

• use range kerning or CSS letter spacing to control the spacing between characters. Visually you just don’t need all of that air around the letters on a screen. This will help with the next technique.
• Avoid widows.
• Using ALLCAPS? Give characters in all capital letters more room to breathe. Your brain recognizes letters by their shapes, too much crowding makes that really difficult for the eye.
• Strive to mimic real life tactile experiences. Don’t use =”black”. Try taking on a text color that’s nearly imperceptibly different from true black. Try using HEX 111 or 333 or some percentage of black.

Pixels. Pixels are where the idea of feel becomes extra important. A pixel is tiny, the smallest unit in a digital image, in fact. Bryan and Dan suggest that you engage in some pixel hacking if you’re really looking to move from good design to great design. Pixel hacking, in my best explanation, is about using the stock options in your progs and then adding things like a 1px stroke or tweaking opacity to make these tiny changes that add up to big textural feel. For example, in Photoshop, the standard settings for dropshadows are ridiculous and will render a dropshadow that has absolutely no realism. Instead tweak the setting to 90%+ opacity and the feel becomes much more effective.

The guys are truly much more effective at discussing these concepts than I, I suggest checking them out sometime if you get a chance. But really, don’t expect too much poise and polish, these guys are big on the um and uh parts of the speaking experience.

The driving concept behind his presentation on social media is that we use this stuff to fuel our narcissism. We create what he refers to as “Planet insert name here” sites: read my blog, follow my tweets, see my feed, me me me. It seems that DL has discovered that people, particularly web users, thrive on narcissism. Isn’t that ultimately what you do online? Check yourself out, check out people who think like you, people who don’t think like you but you want to highlight because they make you look better, etc.

Also noteworthy is that the Twitter generation has decided that email is only for the old fogies out there. After all, keyboards still require more than just your thumbs, what 12-year-old is down with that?

I came away from the session with a screenful of “notes”, most of which are interesting statements DL threw out there for some reason or other. Applied to just about any twopointopian context they make sense. Here are a few I was able to decipher on reviewing my notes:

Talk about what you know. You can’t just change who you are or what you have experience with.

Use social media to be the person who brings the beer to the party, not the person who throws the party to talk about themselves.

There is no ROI on Facebook.

It used to be that you were famous for 15 minutes, now you’re famous for 15 people.

Jim Turner, founder of Bloggers for Hire and creator of the Genuine Blog (a “Daddy blog”) spoke about the challenges and triumphs of blogging professionally. He suggests that there are significant differences between those seeking to blog part-time and those looking for full-time professional blog-writing gigs.

Most part-time bloggers are hobbyists (so many yarn blogs!), stay at home moms and dads (blogging for diaper money, as Turner says), and students. Full-time bloggers, by contrast, tend to be professional communication, marketing, advertising, and PR specialists.

Companies hiring professional bloggers are generally going to have different criteria based upon the company’s knowledge and experience with blogs and bloggers. Small companies are most apt to look for one individual to blog on behalf of all departments. These companies will include startups and will have an interest in finding fast and flexible individuals who are willing to work on a small budget contract. Large companies are apt to have a communication/marketing/PR department that would oversee any blog-related communication and PR efforts. These guys are slow and inflexible and are likely to take their large budget to an agency for outsourced blogging. Media companies and Blogging networks have their own distinct foci, with Media companies relying on seasoned journalists to do their blogging efforts and Blogging networks offering meager per-post or revenue share payment options.

Whatever the environment you choose to do your professional blogging, expect that you will develop content which may include writing, videocasting, podcasting, and live/lifecasting on behalf of the contracted employer. Many companies will expect you to become their evangelist–so if you’re especially uncomfortable with the professional practices of an organization, you may want to reconsider the idea of blogging on their behalf.

In addition to developing content you will also be expected to converse with the company and their readership. This can take the form of e-mail, commenting, and other networked communication. Of course all of this conversation and communication requires quite a bit of monitoring. Who is reading these blog posts? What kind of buzz are they generating, is there any data mining that can be done? Finally, you have to report all of those data you collected while doing all of that monitoring. You’re going to need a fairly good grasp of analytics to do a good job with this last bit.

Blogging for a living is definitely do-able. Realize that it’s a new profession and as such the salaries may not be there yet–but on the other hand, this leaves you a lot of room to negotiate. If you can sell yourself and blogging as the solution to whatever 2.0 quandary an organization is having you may just be in a position to set your own salary. There is some expense involved in blogging for a living, the budgets vary widely at this point, and as a new profession there are very few professional guidelines and certainly no blogger union to keep everything on the level.

From my standpoint as a librarian, Webvisions was everything I wanted Online Northwest to be…but without all the pink sweaters and discussion of cats. Also missing is a critical discussion of aboutness, classification, and human language. That is, Webvisions is an awesome place to geek out about design, but as a practicing librarian I have to take all of that design and interface geekery and apply it to the library context.

In general it was a supremely refreshing experience to immerse myself into design, interface, and interaction but I did find myself wishing for less theory and more practical application. I know, those of you who know me are finding it difficult to reconcile that statement with the theory monkey you’ve come to love and tolerate. I think my friends would tell you that I am pretty intolerable after several days of immersive geekery—I become hypercritical of the discrete elements in the world and how they fail to seamlessly flow together.

Rather than attempt to apply a structure to the posts, I’ll just do them chronologically. I’ll leave it to you to decide how the session information interrelates.

Day 1 at Webvisions

• Blogging for a living: Taking your skills to the next level (Jim Turner)
• Hacking the enterprise with social media (DL Byron)
• Design is in the details (Dan Rubin & Bryan Veloso)
• Total recall: Complementing information architecture (Sean Cowne & James Keller)

Day 2 at Webvisions

• Data portability, privacy and identity: Welcome to the Open Web (Scott Kveton)
• The language of interaction (Bill Rouchey)
• The Web is dead (Roger Black)
• Website optimization in seven easy steps (Kim Blessing)

Basically this is a more official sounding way to keep doing what I already do: bombard my colleagues with “helpful” emails about tech things happening in the library world. I’m the one you can count on to say, “Hi. Can we have LibraryThing tags in the catalog?” and other such insanity. It’s something of a liaison role to the web and Millennium teams, which is fine because I spent quite a bit of time communing with those folks anyway.

My hope is that being in this intermediary role will allow the reference team to think really big about what they want out of our web presence. I hope for the various tech teams to be able to do really well what they already do really well: design, implement, deal with our inane nagging, and other such things. The bonus here is that each department should be able to go on speaking in nuanced and jargony language without having to translate for the benefit of the other. I already speak geek and librarian (well, on good days anyway, on less shiny days I just mumble incoherently).

Mostly, as I told my colleagues, I’m just making it up as I go along.