For some reason this year’s Internet Librarian conference was a different experience for me compared to other years. Maybe it was because I did more attending than presenting this time around, maybe not. I can’t really put my finger on it but different it was. Because of that I figured I’d just post some thoughts I have from the experience. So, in no particular order…
Doing a live show from conference was a hoot. Being joined by several of my friends and colleagues to share our thoughts while still there was both fun and a learning experience. I still have to ignore the fact that in order to do it we all got up at “o dark and ugly” in order to admit that I’d do it again in a heartbeat. If you missed it both audio and video recordings are available.
The “FAIL track” on Tuesday was both unexpected and a wonderful change from the usual fare. I give so much credit to every one of the speakers who participated since it can’t be easy to get up in front of a room full of people and say “this is how I/we screwed up.” Specifically I want to thank Matt Hamilton of the Anythink Libraries for doing this. Oddly enough, the reason he didn’t win the biggest fail contest is that his bit of the talk wasn’t actually all that full of fail. But, maybe more importantly, he corrected many of my misconceptions of what Anythink is and gave me a brand new perspective from which to appreciate what they’re doing back in Colorado. He also stressed the importance of not being perfect; to go for 80% and then continue to work on the other 20%.
Because my Sunday preconference was cancelled I was able to go back to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and spend another amazing three hours with the fishes, penguins, and otters. Check out the penguin feeding video I took if you haven’t’ already.
I won the Foursquare game but it was out of pure luck. I was trying to win for the first two days but had actually given up on it. All I did was check in on Wednesday morning after getting up at I’d somehow snagged the mayorship. All in all the game was fun but I’m not sure Foursquare works as a game over just a 3-4 day period considering a mayorship can’t change more than once a day. This is something that I think needs to be worked on.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who participated and if I missed saying hi, I’ll try to do better next time around.
