Social networking tools
Tonight I'm talking to the local Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
chapter about blogs and social networking tools. I hope that I'll be preaching
to the choir (as the saying goes), but I won't know that until I meet the
group. (Here's the presentation.)
What have I learned as I prepared for this talk?
As background research for this and some of the workshops I'm giving this spring, I have been reading about the Millennials and thinking about how they use technology. We are surrounded by Millennials, but I suspect that we don't think hard about what their technology-using habits mean to us. We also "forget" that how they do things is "it." As the generations grow older and leave this earth, how the Millennials do things -- and the generations that come after them -- will drive how information is searched for and used.
Although we hope that they will adopt some of our tools, techniques and behaviors, the reality is that the tools, techniques and behaviors of the Millennial will prevail in the long run. Just as ours prevailed over those of our parents and grandparents. This, of course, creates incredible challenges and opportunities for us, as well as some frustrations. The "old dogs" must learn new tricks in order to try to keep pace with the Millennials.
I hope that we and our libraries are up to the challenge of creating tools and resources that are geared for this generation. I see that some libraries are adapting and changing. Hopefully more will so they will remain relevant.
What have I learned as I prepared for this talk?
As background research for this and some of the workshops I'm giving this spring, I have been reading about the Millennials and thinking about how they use technology. We are surrounded by Millennials, but I suspect that we don't think hard about what their technology-using habits mean to us. We also "forget" that how they do things is "it." As the generations grow older and leave this earth, how the Millennials do things -- and the generations that come after them -- will drive how information is searched for and used.
Although we hope that they will adopt some of our tools, techniques and behaviors, the reality is that the tools, techniques and behaviors of the Millennial will prevail in the long run. Just as ours prevailed over those of our parents and grandparents. This, of course, creates incredible challenges and opportunities for us, as well as some frustrations. The "old dogs" must learn new tricks in order to try to keep pace with the Millennials.
I hope that we and our libraries are up to the challenge of creating tools and resources that are geared for this generation. I see that some libraries are adapting and changing. Hopefully more will so they will remain relevant.
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