Moving on...

As many of you will know I've been thinking for some months about moving this blog to another provider.  I've now decided to do just that and have moved my entire blog to tumblr.

beauty_school_dropout and I have had a lot of fun here on blogger, but I've decided to go for a new look.  If you've enjoyed reading me here, then please switch over now for more of the same, but different.

Make sure to update your reader to the new RSS feed!

Thing Four- Exploring Blogs

Exploring other blogs or b(l)og wallowing as Marsh calls it, is one of the best aspects of throwing yourself into the action.  Reading other people's blogs can provide you with a good stock of ideas and inspiration when you're just starting out, and the sense of community will keep you motivated as your blog matures.  Everyone has those periods when you don't know what to write and times when they feel disconnected to what's going on.  This is a good time to reach out and see what other people are doing.

I'm going to make this a fairly short post but in it I want to share a few of my favouite places for insipration, news and relaxation:

Sarah Houghton-Jan, the Librarian in Black, who has the enviable job title of Digital Futures Manager at the San José Public Library.
Bobbi L. Newman who is a Librarian by Day
And finally, the amazing Awful Library Books blog; anyone who told you that collection management can't be fun is evidently not a regular visitor!

I've been really impressed with the blog output from Cam 23 participants, so many of them have a great mix  of humour and information.  A special mention must go to the witty Library Wanderer who, despite being a Bolton fan, has me hanging on her every word.

  by  umbrofootball 

Thing Three- Designing a Blog: KISS

Not that kind of kiss.  And watch out for the comma- a subtle change of sense. 

KISS- Keep it simple, stupid!  

  by  Jeff Kubina 

KISS is the design principle that says less is more, that sophistication is simplicity, and that something isn't perfect until you've stripped out all the unnecessaries.  Something completely unlike the Rube Goldberg machine above!

There's two aspects to good kiss: aesthetic and practical.  I've been talking a lot this week about simple but stunning webdesign, we've looked at myfav.es, moving on from the basic blogger templates and taken an early peak at Google Reader's possible future.  Adherence to aesthetic principles is what makes Apple products attractive to millions, and commands a premium price for their gadgets. 

KISS- Keep it simple stupid.

Aesthetics aside, with the bonnet up and our hands greasy, it is all about how it works, and you may have noticed that we've dropped the comma.  Wikipedia has a full discussion on whether there ought to be a comma or not, but KISS with a comma signals that if the application or hardware fails then it should 'fail simple'.  This kind of KISS warns against over-engineering a product or piece of software.  The complexity to be avoided would be that which makes something difficult for a new user to understand, something that is counter intuitive, or something that requires a special tool or a Ph.D. in programming to fix.  The chap who coined the phrase was an aircraft engineer- and expensive aircraft are not something you ever want to fail in a complex way- something that's simple stupid is something which ideally can be fixed with basic tools by a general engineer, possibly in the field under enemy fire.  Less extreme examples of this kind of KISS include well-designed furniture which can be assembled using an Allen key, clockwork torches and radios, or this fun mouse experiment- how much instruction is there; how much do you need?

KISS in blogs

According to good KISS principles blogs should fairly easy to use, just like a physical journal.  You pick one that you like, that's the right size and in your favourite colour.  You grab a comfy pen.  Maybe you'll want to plaster the cover with stickers.  You write in it daily and within a week it feels like an extension of your mind.  Why isn't it like that with a blog?  Why do they have to be clunky, idiosyncratic and difficult to use?  I mean, the premise behind it is quite simple: text, pictures, maybe the odd video clip- does it really have to be this hard?

 by  MarcelGermain

I recently created a new blog for my book group books@pub on tumblr.  Now tumblr is where the cool kids hang out, they have a lot of really good themes which look slick on screen, but I did find it very difficult to use.  From the dashboard I didn't find changing the design particularly intuitive, it didn't offer a live snapshot of what your blog would like like with each design, only what a very well executed and trendy blog with chunks of quotations and blurred photographs would look like.  Blogger doesn't always fare much better.  Without the Blogger in Draft Templates blogs can all begin to look the same, sure they're simple, but they can look like the ugly sisters compared to the standard Wordpress and tumblr designs.  books@pub is a group blog which was not as easy to set up on tumblr as I anticipated, Wordpress I think is even worse for this.  When you have multiple contributors it's important that it the registration process is simple for you and even simpler again for the others involved, who may not have the same levels of expertise.

KISS for you

You too can apply these principles to your blog.  Whether it fails simple or complex is fairly out of your hands, but you can make the reading experience better for your readers.  It is worth spending some time to think about design.  If the font is too small or serifed, if the contrast between colours isn't working then people won't enjoy reading it, and you'll enjoy writing it less too: it's worth taking pride in the display as well as the content.  Have a look at other people's blogs for new ideas: is it worth adding a search function to your blog, a tag cloud?  Do you have too many images and applications cluttering up your right and left hand navigation? 

Try and find out who your readers are, what they search for and where they found out about you- this will help you tailor aspects of your blog to them.  I use Feedjit and web analysis from eLogic, that knowlegdge gives me an insight into how my readers keep up to date with me, the kinds of keywords they search with, even their screen resolutions and browser choice- have a look at your site on a different machine, a different browser to make sure you're still gorgeous and easy to use. 

  by  liftarn 

KISS for libraries

Millennials, born digitals and other buzz-worded social groups are used to machines, software and interfaces that have been designed to be both instinctive to use and that you can repair with a wizard or a diagnostic tool.  These people are our readers and customers; the consumers of our data.  I cut my teeth on the Commodore Vic20: this makes me a patient person with low to reasonable expectations; I can wait 30 minutes for something to load from a tape, use a card catalogue and Boolean operators in my search strings.  Good for me: have an 80s childhood sticker!

Our undergraduate users expect instant information, interfaces that are second nature to them and the seamless integration of all available reources.  So they should too, this level of service is something we should all aspire to.  Take a look at these slides from the excellent I've got Google, why do I need you?  They should get you thinking about the disparity of what we expect from our users, what they demand from us and how good design can bridge that gap.

Why blog? From a Next Gen Blogger

A simple question and one I'm surprised not to have tackled yet.  Actually I know why I haven't dealt with this one.  The question is hard and most answers to it are emotionally charged and naff or hopelessly over-optimistic.  The only reason I'm lifting this poisoned chalice is because Andy Priestner's Twitter feed planted the idea in my head and because 23 Things Cambridge is due to start, and I should start writing about a wider range of library issues, rather than just twitter, browsers and beer.

So why do people write blogs?  Let's look at a few of the classic contenders:

The Journal Writer

At worst can be characterised by self-indulgent navel gazing, but at best can be insightful and deeply interesting, if mildly voyeuristic!  The Journal Writer has done this before, has probably kept a diary since childhood.  They have an amazing ability to sketch out thoughts with genuine ease, characterised by their confessional style they put themselves at the centre of the content.  

The Wannabe Journalist

Has a strong sense of brand and image, and is a strong flavour to match.  Love them or hate them, their excellent sense of point and idea provokes debate, and occasionally skirts close to polemic.  Perhaps has a tendency to write self-help guides, articles and reviews, and hopes the blog (usually part of a wider web presence) will lead to future successes.  

And the most unfortunate kind...

The Office Expert

Also known as the poor bugger.  So you can install simple software, fix minor computing problems,  and you don't use CD-ROMs as coasters; this talent, according to your boss, makes you the ideal candidate to write the company/departmental/darts team blog.  Never mind that you don't understand the content you have to write, the market you should aim for and that no one else will contribute in the writing of this dead albatross that is rapidly going mouldy around your neck.

To make matters worse, this kind of lousy experience is likely to put you off trying anything interactive online again.  Hell, you're only here because you can print the right way up on headed notepaper first time.  Take heart in the flowchart!

Don't get me wrong, sometimes a blog is exactly what your organisation needs, but often it is just something that a senior manager heard about at a conference and has decided on one for no better reason than trend, usually an old trend by that point.  Web presence  isn't for everyone, and even if it is for you the type of presence you need isn't necessarily a blog.  Adam Maltpress, my web consultant of choice, has some wise words on his approach to creating a web presence:

"I just listen to what you want, tell you what might be good or bad ideas, then make it work.

That might mean creating you a web strategy which fits with your other communications - you know, "synergistically". It might mean guiding you through the basics of search engines, social networking, blogging and e-commerce. It might mean building you a site. It might mean managing your existing suppliers. Or it might mean telling you that a website's not what you need. Don't worry - I don't charge for that."

The Next Gen Blogger.  Have I've just made that up?  Probably.

The office expert leads me on to a new type of blogger and one the one I hope to be.  When new types of social media become mainstream all sorts of people get on the bandwagon, now that this new innovation has been proven to have a relatively wide appeal and will not negatively impact on your organisation it becomes imperative that you must get one.  Immediately.  Even if you don't know how it works, whether it suits your business or not.  These rushed blogs often become stale when they should be dynamic, are badly structured and don't speak to their audience.  This doesn't just apply to corporate blogs, but to anyone who considers themselves a brand or wants to target a specific audience.

Reacting to this, the next generation blogger uses their blog in a subtly different way.  It's still a web presence, it still represents them, their ideas and thoughts, but rather than just being a place to showcase them it becomes a place to form them.  It sounds pathetic to admit it but I do think of myself as a bit of a brand.  I try to keep my web presences unified: twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. so people can find me and so that a good idea on one site is associated with the others.  I'm not fanatical about attracting followers, but I want my ideas to be heard.  I work in a fairly isolated role, so reaching out to people is very important to me.    Twitter is my main means of communication, but there are things I can't say in 140 characters, and that's where beauty_school_dropout comes in handy.  That's a pretty obvious use, a little less so is that keeping a blog helps me think.

I suppose it depends how your brain works, but I find fleshing out ideas in words helps me make to sense of them and draw my own conclusions.  It's also the case that I tend to forget about things, especially films and books, if I don't go through the intellectual activity of reviewing them.  I'll be sketching a quick pen portrait of a novel I've read and suddenly connections to other works become obvious.  It's not just about the technique of reviewing: this started out as a short post and look where we are!  I've had so many ideas since I started writing, many more than I would have if I'd just linked to the two resources at the bottom of this- both of them are written by men with beards, but that's all they have in common.

So why blog?  To get your message out, or at least off your chest.  To clear up confusion in your own mind and make concepts easier to understand for others.  To form a record of your thougths and experiences, from the software you've toyed with to the beers you've quaffed.  Most importantly for me, as a valuable reflection tool.

Extra Credit:

Why I Blog - Magazine - The Atlantic - Highly Recommended
Top Reasons Why I Blog | Online Social Networking