Social Intelligence

When I started this course I was a social media neophyte I used Facebook and have an account with WAYN which I check, but do not use to its’ full capability. Now I know that there is a tool for almost anything I want to do in the virtual realm and outside it. If a task would work better with collaboration, particularly, if the collaborators are computer savvy or at least comfortable with computers then social media may be the way to go. This software breaks down the barriers of time and space as well as helping those who are less confident with face to face collaboration to feel comfortable participating in planning processes.

I have participated in conference calls that could have benefited from the ability to send files, create real time diagrams and to do lists. A conference call with instant messaging and file transfer allows work that has been carried out between meetings to be shared and commented on in the course of the conversation. Decisions can be made more quickly as a result of file transfer and virtual clip board/wiki collaboration.

My list of social media tools is growing, but two of my favourite tools at the moment are my blog and wiki. I hope to get other people to participate in my wiki project soon. I love hearing back from people about something I have posted and knowing that what I shared has resonated with them. I love reading about other people’s perspectives on the world or finding the solution to a problem I have been struggling with in someone else’s post. Being in library is about being part of a larger conversation and sharing ideas, worries, concerns and innovations with others. Social media seems to be about the same thing.

As for the tool that I found least useful, I have not mastered Yahoo Pipes yet, however, I must admit to being somewhat distracted with other new online adventures lately. It is on my list of future challenges because I can see its’ usefulness for libraries in the coming years as well as being a useful tool for my own personal virtual exploration and explanation process. I have not tried other mash-up tools, but it looks like my next course may give me that opportunity while dealing with Google Earth and the world of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Academic Libraries.

Mobile technology while interesting seems to require  people to have the right technology such as an iPhone so I have feeling that until more of the world converts to this type of technology the applications for libraries will be limited. I have yet to attain a mobile phone with all the right apps so I found some of the uses for mobile technology a little hard to relate to and some were down right spooky. Maybe part of my problem with this technology is that at this point I get charged heavily for much extra text messaging and the same for web surfing so the idea of using my phone for the majority of the suggested functions did not seem practical. I did use my phone for taking photographs of plants and tags so that we could look them up and figure out whether they would work in my Mother’s landscaping project. I hadn’t used the camera on my phone before today. Now I just have to locate the photos I took! I guess the more functions I learn to use on my present cell model the more likely I will be to upgrade both phone and phone plan; and I think this could be the case for many people when it comes to technology is that they have to see the usefulness of a particular technology and in some cases have the money to try out either preexisting functions or to upgrade their technology before they will support new services,  media policies or projects.

LIS9763 and social media has opened up the world of distance education for me as being something that I can enjoy and participate in with pleasure each week. I love meeting with my classmates and you, Amanda, in the chat room though sometimes our chat felt like it ended before the discussion was over. I was only taking one class this semester so our weekly chats were my only contact with my fellow library students other than comments I left for them on their blogs or they left me, except for our awesome group work team for Cooking the Books on Facebook. I would like to see a few more planned options for alternative routes to this discussion so that if Meebo is acting up we do not lose this opportunity for our weekly visit!

The experience of exploring social media provided by LIS9763 has been wonderful and has opened a variety of new doors for exploration and expansion in both my personal and professional lives. I have spent too many years putting limits on what I felt I could accomplish and what was possible and now I realize that they are just that my constructed limits that I do not need to hold on to anymore. Working with social media has taught me a whole new level of patience as well as when to ask for help and when to just try something until I get it to work because I can and it would be cool to have said feature available on my wiki such as Meebo chat widget that did not work the first few times I tried to set it up. Realizing that if I looked for a solution I could get the mash-up I needed to watch for wk. 11 by downloading a new application and transforming it into a pc friendly format. This course has been a whole series of learning experiences which have given me the confidence and experience to keep learning and pushing the limits of what is possible. I look forward to checking out my classmates final projects and keeping in touch! May we collaborate on all sorts of interesting projects in the future.