Distribution of News by the Reader

I finished reading a fascinating article by the NY Times which discussed how readers (specifically of the NY Times) continue to distribute the contents of news articles to friends, family, and colleagues.  According to this particular article, Researchers from U of Pennsylvania studied the habits of readers as they emailed NY Times articles to other people.  The purpose of the research was to help create a sociological theories of why people choose to share information. And the methods used in the study included examining a list of 7,500 of the most frequently emailed NY Times articles.  Researchers analyzed the results in 15 minute segments,

checking it every 15 minutes for more than six months, analyzing the content of thousands of articles and controlling for factors like the placement in the paper or on the Web home page.

The results indicate that readers tend to distribute info that has a positive nature (opposed to a negative nature or theme), and were longer articles (more content) with intellectually challenging topics.  More interesting, at least to me, was the fact that science articles tended to have stronger circulation.  In fact, the researchers found that,

20 percent of articles that appeared on the Times home page made the list, but the rate rose to 30 percent for science articles, including ones with headlines like “The Promise and Power of RNA.”

I’m one of the guilty parties that the researchers were studying and slanted science stories.  As a Science Librarian, I like to keep tabs on current info, both popular (newspapers & popular magazines) and scholarly literature (trade & scholar journals).  If I see something that relates to the research of a faculty or student member at my institution, I forward it along to the individual or to the department.  I frequently discuss the differences between popular and scholar literature, and try to use current examples in my library instruction sessions.  I also use RSS feeds to provide current content to the online library subject guides; sometimes these topics provide inspiration for a cutting edge research topic.

Philosophically, this article also offers an unusual glimpse into the inner workings of a news corporation: how the researched worked (teaming up with external researchers), the type of data it looked at (specifically emailed articles, something that could be easily measured and reveal what type of readers view the content of the newspaper, and to perhaps refocus or reinforce certain areas of publication), the possible impact of how titles of articles play into readership/further distribution (positive/negative titled articles), length of articles, geographic readership and times of the day articles are viewed, how placement of an article within the newspaper factors into readership, types/themes (e.g. popular themes or scientific themes), etc.

The question is always what will this corporation do with the data?  How will they use it to change their current business model, and to draw in more readership and make more money?

I also think that popular literature (non-peer-reviewed), such as the NY Times is playing an important role in scholarly communication.  Keep in mind that this type of literature uses less technical language and easier to understand by the average reader. Also worth noting is our society’s tenancy to shorten content, to boil things down to the basic highlights because we are so busy; we’re screening a huge amount of material on a daily basis and filtering information that is relevant to us as individuals.

My theory is that when we come across information that is relevant and applicable, we slow down and take the time to investigate further–at least we skim the information more closely.  We also filter information that might be relevant to people we know, and this is where this particular study comes into play.  We forward along the info and allow the receiving reader the option of filtering the same information or reading for further details. Unfortunately, I don’t have anecdotal evidence for this theory other than my observation of other people and myself; I help a lot of faculty and students and feel that I have a good vibe on the situation.  However, if you are looking for a research topic, this might be one to consider.

 

What topics should I cover next in this blog?

You're asking, "Does he really want my feedback?"  Yes!!!  If you are reading
this, I would like you to select one of the topics below. Even if you have
never read this blog before, I'll encouraging you to participate.  This also
serves as a little experiment of mine--can't tell you what it is yet!


		

 

Lightning Talks: Online NW Presentation Notes

Note: These are notes from speakers’ presentations at the 2010 Online NW conference.  The session was a selection of eight speakers that talked for five minutes each on different topics.  I thought this was pretty nice because it forced speakers to simplify their message and cover only the highlights of their projects, and attendees heard eight speakers in the same span of time that one speaker usually takes.

One drawback was that their presentations were on PowerPoint and were preset to change every 30 seconds whether the presenter was ready or not, and once it reached the end slide (it was blank), the speaker had to stop whether they wanted to or not.  There was a question and answer period after four presenters talked; it was nice to have a recovery period from the fast flow of information, to gather one’s thoughts and clarify points that were covered cursory.  Like one of my colleagues pointed out, the Lightning Talks were like a condensed poster presentation session that everyone in which everyone gets to talk.  Overall, I would definitely suggest this method in the future for this conference and some other conferences.

Lightning Talks

• Robin Ashford (George Fox)-A Consumer Health Librarian’s NLM funded project in Second Life: Karuna Project.  HIV/AIDS education, outreach and support from the NLM funding.  Develop compil quality resoruces in a library, create displays, collaborate with people (work 2 hours payed each week).  U Hawaii take a tour of the building and resources.  Global info lit week in Second life Nov.  World AIDS Day from the national library of Medicine.  Create display for AIDS.gov stuff for AIDS day.

• Candise Branum (Oregon Col. Of Oriental Med.)-Host Videos on vimeo and Create Widgets for Your Website: Veoh, Vimoeo, Daily Motion, TeacherTube.  You don’t use your server space.  Allows HD video for high quality but had buffering.  Free and with pro-account you have more control and options.  Look like video, blog, etc.  House according to topic.  Put all non-public video behind password protection (ldap?). Embed videos within certain web pages.

• Megan Dazey (U. Montana)-Using Wikipedia as a Special Collections Discovery Tool: Pathfinders posted on Wikipedia!  Add link to finding aid or create a new wiki page. It increased visibility (9000+ visits from Google)  Watch how people access these resources & change wikipedia.  Not using library page–still using Google.  You can mashup maps.

• Karen Munro (U.O.)-Whither the Book? Electronic Publishing, Print-on-demand, and Where the Heck We’re Going with Them: We are in a paradim shift (Ford motor asked people what do you want=”Faster horses”). Jobs=”People don’t read books”  People still read (9 million pirated books), intellectual property goes. People read more books than ever during recession (double from the prior year)!  Macmillian company not sell books through Amazon because of a dispute–Amazon backed down.  Indiebound for Iphone: independent booksellers sell ebooks.  Why do we need libraries and bookstores?  Bookstores and libraries provide content and totally take out publishers and Amazon out of the picture.  U Michigan is printing on demand books from Google Books and public domain & U Utah.  Have books you could print within 5 minutes, bound and available to pickup by a library.

• Nargas Oskui (U.O.)– Unique Approaches to Creating Thematic Images to Enhance a Professional Development Site: Storytelling with picture imagry (metaphors, figurative).  Chemist nagivating search for resources with binocular, hands come together join in success, dynamic graphics=arch plan, learning events=clock ticking; duck with lightbulb=skills, boxes coming together to join needs, plant in hands=growth & character building (people make a connection with these images), Word cloud=most frequently used pages, pictures describe your users. Cannon Photostich & Photoshop software & Flickr images + UO images.

• Heidi Senior (U. Portland)-Instant Messaging Transcripts Research—Pilot Project and Request for Collaborators. Meebo stats: Mon-Tue accounted for nearly half of the use stats.  Heidi Senior covered some of the key statistics that have been collected through the Meebo Instant messages references service since when University of Portland first began in 2008.  She noted that most questions were informational based (quick directional or technology related questions).

• Anjanette Young (U.W.)-Lessons Learned While Implementing a Content Management System for an Existing Intranet: The Speedy Version: uses Plone LDAP users for content management.  Slow response.  Hire a Plone consultant.

• Kim Griggs (O.S.U.)-An introduction to the Library à la Carte Publishing Tool: Course assignment pages, modules, just like LibGuides.com but free.  Share info with users within a system.  Comments and feedback, includes quizes, Youtube videos, dashboard, Flickr.  http://alacarte.library.oregonstate.edu

 

Teaching the Teachers: Online NW Presentation Notes

Teaching the Teachers
Dawn Lowe-Wincentsen, Oregon Institute of Technology, Presentation notes

Presenter used Elluminate to present and record the program presentation.  Different media available: Dim Dim, Elluminate, Wimba, Opal, Activate. These sessions given by librarians are provided once per month (new topics); everyone gets one month, the third thursday of every month (everyone gets one month) and the topics are listed online.  In session signs are posted online (Creative Commons/Copyright, ILL, Using Summit and ILL, evaluating info on the web, Black Board, digital photography).  www.oit/digitallibraries.oit.edu

Questions after the presentation:

Have you considered using this to reach students? Yes. Down the road.

Demo how to use Elluminate for live web pages.  You can screen sharing, screen cast, video share.  It records what you view which is posted online.

What about privacy?  It is hosted online on Elluminate–we can’t edit out participant comments.  Everyone knows that the session is recorded.

Did you want the platform or the topics?  Started out listening to podcast, but wanted an interactive experience (started out with the topic).

Canned vs. interactive recordings, which is better.  Personal preference–interactive is better.

The technology is all for economy of scale: 5 people vs 50 people

Has WebX been used for this?  Maybe.

 

Embrace your inner Rachael Ray: What TV chefs can teach librarians about presentation style

Embrace your inner Rachael Ray: What TV chefs can teach librarians about presentation style

By Anna Johnson, Mt Hood Community College, presentation notes (video clips)

Topics covered in the presentation: Public speaking is emotional (how do you feel?).  Who is the public speaker of the library?  How to improve your public speaking skills?  There are two main tools covered in this presentation: 1. The personality of the TV chef 2. The structure of a TV cooking show (30 minute meals = 30 minute presentation time.)

Recipe for tasty library presentations.  Good public presenters are good at being:

1. Eager and able to teach with what they know
2. Skilled at step-by step demos
3. Energetic and enthusiastic presenters

There are four personality traits (ingredients) that help make a person successful and fun to watch as public speakers:

1. Energy and enthusiasm (can substitute equal amount of passion for the subject matter.  About topic — talks about nothing–people think its cute)
2. Expert knowledge acquired through years of getting paid to do what you love to do.
3. Willingness to share relevant stories about your own experiences with the subject  (it helps people relate, stories help fill time, some personal flavor adds to presentation)
4. Ability to explain what you’re doing (and why), while you’re doing it

How to assemble your presentation:

• Explain what you’ll be demonstrating and why your audience should try it themselves
• During demo explain why do things the way you do (and what to avoid)
• Prepare examples ahead of time, and be prepared to skip a few steps
• Every 10 minutes or so, recap what we’ve learned so far and what’s coming up.
• Share a personal story relating your interests in and/or experiences with this topic
• Encourage your audience to try it on their own, and tell them how to learn more
• Experts knowledge from getting paid to do what you love. (they know you know more than they do and they expect it.  Expertise is assumed.).
• Ability to explain what you’re doing while you’re doing it (sometimes come naturally.  how walk & talk at the same time)
• Explain what you do and encourage your audience to try these skill (you soak in info while they talk instead of cook along side of tv show).
• During demo explain why you do things they way you do (what things might go wrong).
• Prepare examples ahead of time (sometimes on the fly searches work, but if you aren’t familiar it might go astray.  Open to stopping in the middle to give more detail–see screen to see context).
• And be prepared to skip a few steps to maximize your time (think about prior to what needs to be discussed or prepared ahead of time — canned search to maximize time.).  How do you learn to teach and present at conferences?

Follow up question and comments from audience:

• What about building credibility with faculty to come to presentations (give pizza to faculty to demo new database)?
• You need to have some entertainment involved to engage them.
• Why should students listen to us?  I use metaphors (ride like a toddler vs ride like Lance Armstrong = learn how to do really good searching)
• Should our professional training include public speakers? (Yes!) Where does this training come from? Professional development, training, etc. Some schools are including and requiring public speaking classes.

 

Online NW Keynote Speaker: Brandon Schauer

Brandon Schauer, the Keynote speaker for Online NW 2010 (see his blog), talked about four key “hacks” that enable one to look at things from the user’s perspective.  These are my notes from his talk.  According tho Brandon, user experiences have four main values on the internet: utility, usability, profitability, strategy

As a society, we have begun to move away from how to do/make things better, and to now focus on how to decide what gets worked on (to focus on strategy).  You can’t make everything perfect; everyone has a different opinion and you can’t meet everyone’s expectations.

1. Get empathy into your organization. Define the experience that users will have.  Have lots of ideas, and make sure that those ideas are in the right places. Many would be innovators have spent a lot of time and energy and resources developing a killer application or product, but it was not quite in the right place or time.  They did not focus on what needed to be innovated or what was truly needed and wanted.  And return to the user’s context.  Often!

For example, Brandon used an old Scientific American article for how to use one of the first photos (the photo machine — aka cameras — came with miles of directions, were poorly labeled, and ultimately frustrated users; they were poor directions).  Along came someone who simplified the directions which helped sell the first Kodak camera.  The new motto was, “You press the button, we do the rest,”  He turned a long scientific process into three simple steps to help new photographers become less technical and more focused on the fun of the experience.

2. Expected value: Risk Real world launch or failure.

Realworld development costs vs. realworld failure.  In other words, stupid things that are produced that shouldn’t be.  There are four ways to develop realworld development costs (focus on): 1. Get empathy into organization.  Start with data, logic, interface, and experience (experience is the end product). How do you start with data?

• Spend time with target user.  Learn about their behaviors and motivations, connect insights to your organizational objectives.  (recruit friend Craigs List do screen sharing. “Tell me the last time you were doing that thing I want you to do.  Recent experience, step by step to pick up how people behave for critical insights.)
• Learn about behaviors and motivations (unmet needs, critical insights, user requirements)
• Empathize (exercise with objectives)

3. Define the user experience. What makes a good experience? Is it fun, the brand name, the mission of the organization.  For example, Brand: styleguides (How do you look and feel, how do you talk as an organization?); Experience principles (e.g. tivo: it is reliable, puts me in control, simple, more boxes on a screen, enjoyable because you live with it); is it memorable, inspirational, differentiating (fit need that isn’t met & different from competitors.  What makes your product different)?

***The peak-end rule: (People tend to remember experiences that are the highest and lowest experiences and how it ended).  Try to not have negative end (e.g. customer that leave on a bad note), but keep in mind that it isn’t practical to be perfect all the time — you’ll end up spreading yourself too thin. It pays to have one really, really good experience mixed in with mediocre experiences and to have a really strong end.  The high points and good end note tend to wash over the mediocre experiences, and the high points/end are what they remember.

4. Have lots of ideas in the right places. The myths of innovation is a book with more info, if you want to look it up.  People have a habit of having just one idea (one point in space) and running with it.  But there are lots of points to consider, and we NEED to think past the first idea!  If people took the time to think of 10 ideas, they would find that on average the 3-5 ideas tend to be the best.  This is partially because we don’t think things through very much or bother to look outside of the box we first envision.  Brandon gave us a “Facebook for the Intranet” exercise (6 ideas in five minutes).  We focused on how to find experience.  He demonstrated how the three-fourth ideas tend to be the most interesting and most promising ideas on average within a thought cycle.  Ultimately, we look at first at what we know and avoid what we don’t know.  If you can turn this cycle on its head and go after middle (don’t be a doughnut), you’ll do much better.  In short, go right to the problem you don’t know how to solve, such as selling a car online which had never been done before and is done all the time now.

5. Return to the user’s context.  Often! How do you know if your product is going to succeed?  Do a dry run first with low-cost and little to lose. You should do this when you lose the fresh perspective of a user–if you can get a fresh perspective from a user, test it.  Everett Rogers was given as an example for the Diffusion of Innovations Theory: relative advantages, compatibility, complexity, useability. Bring everything together.

As a review:

1. Get empathy into your organization.
2. Define the experience users will have.
3. Have lots of ideas. In the right places.
4. Return to the user’s context.  Often!

 

Three Fun Organization Tools

A grant was awarded this past year at my institution to support faculty in becoming more organized.  Faculty have been encouraged to voluntarily attend weekly meetings and review a book called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.

As a complement to these discussions, some organizational tools have been introduced and demonstrated.  Zotero.com and Todoist.com were two such tools.  A third resource that I recently stumbled upon is called List.it.com.

You may have heard of Zotero if you’re in the business of writing scientific papers.  It is basically a free citation tool that collects, manages, and cites your research sources.  The information it collects is stored online in your web browser. Because it is a Firefox extension, it is not platform neutral.  In other words, you can’t use it with Internet Explorer, Safari, or Google Chrome.  It also tends is geared towards the sciences, and is a little less robust than products like RefWorks and EndNote in terms of the different citation styles available for output (e.g. creating your citation list/bibliography in the main citation formats).  However, it is a slick product, fairly easy to use and portable (unless you start saving PDFs to your local computer and connecting them to Zotero, which is another very useful feature by the way!)

Todoist (I suspect that the domain name “Todolist” was already taken) is basically a free online to-do-list that can interact with Gmail and mobile devices.  You basically create a list of things you need to do or get (e.g. meetings, goals, grocery list, etc.).  It has a simple interface that is intuitive to use, supports a smart calendar, and can be hierarchies of lists (e.g. sub-projects).  A neat feature to this product is the ability to link your Gmail to specific tasks. Overall, this is a very slick product.

If you read my blog regularly, you’re aware that I’m an advocate for privacy.  To place too much info about oneself online & ultimately in the public domain is in a sense asking for trouble.  This would be my main complain about Todoist.  However, to be fair this complaint extends to any personal information management (PIM) tool or social network. Just use common sense about posting personal information!!!.

List.it is similar to Todoist, and moves the post-it note concept online.  This MIT product is also a Firefox extension, which means it only works with this particular browser (sorry, not Safari, Chrome, or IE).  It basically helps capture fleeting thoughts that may not necessarily go into a list or calendar, and it allows you to organize your notes similar to post-it notes.

 

Solar Power Dyed-Fibers

Mimicking how leaves use chlorophyll to begin photosynthesis, new solar panels on sports bags can be used to recharge music players and cellphones. (Image source from the NY Times)

I had to post a link to this NY Times article.  For several decades, businesses have been exploring ways to duplicate plants’ ability to harness the power of the sun for power. It appears that this Spring we will begins to see products with solar panels that can recharge small portable devices. In an increasingly digital age where it seems like most things are electronic, it will be nice to have support for powering these devices.

One question I have is how environmentally sound is this dye.  I’m sure that this topic will be addressed as products begins to appear that use this technology (actually it sounds like a great senior thesis!). How cost-effective is this product? How effective will it be in recharging small devices?  Is it produced in ecologically conservative ways–and to what extent?  What about when the product breaks down and needs to be replaced? Can this technology be reused, recycled, or easily broken down in landfills/burned by incinerators?

Some of the panels will be placed on covers designed as an accessory for Sony e-book readers, said Tobi Doeringer, the director of global sales at Mascotte Industrial Associates, a Hong Kong company that makes bags to carry cameras, phones, sports equipment, electronic games and other products…

Within the solar cell, the dye is painted in a thin layer on a porous titanium dioxide scaffold to collect light and, in a series of steps, create power. An Australian company, Dyesol… provides the dye, titanium pastes and the electrolytes for the thin-film technology, he said. Titanium dioxide is a common, inexpensive ingredient that is used, for example, to whiten toothpaste.  Read more…

 

Advertising Logo

Here is a nifty little icon that we will start to see a lot of in the near future.  This new blue icon with a white encircled “i” in the middle will be present by advertisements.  According to a NY Times article, it will link to “how the advertiser uses their Web surfing history and demographic profile to send them certain ads.”  Read more…

 

Phonetics, the English Language, and Texting

Some people have begun to ask if texting will have an impact on the (U.S.) English language.  It is possible should this technology continue to be used and accepted by society.  However, I don’t think it will have too much of an impact for several reasons.

Yes, the English language is a little odd when it comes to spelling.  I admit that I occasionally pause to consider why certain words are spelled they way they are, such as dough, fight, or pseudonym.  But that’s partly what makes the English language so interesting.

With the advent of texting, people have shortened words and substitute numbers for linguistic sounds to save on space and ultimately costs of communication.  What would happen if phone companies no longer charged by the length of text messages, but by a flat per-message rate?  Or even better, if they no longer charged for texting at all (they’d never do this because texting is too much of a money maker)!

My hunch is that people would spell out words more often, but would continue to shorten words and phrases. I think this would hold true to the younger generation of users who are using this new language and technology.  As they enter college and the work force, would their current preferred mode of communication (I’m generalizing) continue?  Would texting replace certain types of communication?  I think it has and will continue to do so–as long as the technology continues to be used.

The NY Times had an article on this topic recently, and I learned that there have been many attempts in the past to “correct” the English language by high profile names.  According to the article,

Benjamin Franklin suggested changing the alphabet, and Andrew Carnegie provided money for people to study the problem. President Theodore Roosevelt issued an edict in 1906 that gave the Government Printing Office a list of 300 words with new spellings: problem cases like artisan, kissed and woe were to be changed to artizan, kist and wo. Roosevelt was largely ignored by the G.P.O., and the matter was soon dropped. Although this issue has been extensively studied and argued over by these and other eminent thinkers, there has been an almost complete lack of success in effecting any substantial progress.

I vaguely remember hearing about these attempts, but this was some time ago, probably in a college class.  The process of how words become institutionalized within a language is actually very fascinating. At any rate, I’m curious what other people think on this topic, and would welcome your thoughts and opinions.