So a combination of having high standards for myself along with perhaps not as much time to prepare as I used to have (weird thing to say when I think of library school versus now in terms of workload!) and maybe a bit of intimidation being on a line-up with some pretty accomplished, well-known speakers means Jason disappoints himself – even if everybody seemed to enjoy it (I guess it would probably be rude to come up to a speaker and say “wow – that sucked!”)
What else?
– met a bucket load of great librarians who are really cool and fun and WAY into technology (obviously!)
– special mention to Bruce Harpham who earns the nod for saying he reads my blog (and hasn't totally abandoned it with all my politicking lately!) I sometimes forget that my blog is still serving it's original purpose even though it's a long way behind me now – as a guide to various things new library school students, mostly at Western but elsewhere as well, might like to know.
– Bruce is one of a number of students and recent grads who were there and are looking for their first “real” jobs post-contracts, post-internships, post-graduation, etc. That led me to wonder if The Partnership job board dropped the ball, not only by not having RSS feeds for new jobs but also by not having a corresponding registry where new grads and job seekers could post their resumes and what they're looking for so that recruiters might find them as well as them looking. (I'm reading _What Would Google Do_ by Jeff Jarvis, pimped it at the end of my presentation and really enjoying it – that respository is exactly the type of thing he's talking about)
– actually, I don't know if CLA's had Mr. Jarvis keynote but if not, he'd be an excellent speaker for next year! (hint, hint)
– I still don't get Twitter (though I figured out how to get to all the tweets posted with the tag #etigcamp all by myself. Of course, I had to click on a link to a similar list for fans of the Jonas Brothers to see the format to use!)
– man, that is a WEIRD situation to be talking and know a crap-load of people are blogging/tweeting/responding to everything you say in real time. (Now I now what my library school profs felt like. Except people weren't even engaged via tweeting – they were surfing around or doing other homework or playing games or whatever.)
– at the same time it was very cool to equalize things out a bit – instead of having “speakers” and “audience”, we all joined together to create an interactive conversation.
– I was surprised that many in this tech-focused group seemed to have never heard of a “money bomb” before (or Home Lotteries – is that only a western Canada thing? Or maybe better to say they'd only seemed to hear of them in the context of hospital fundraising. In Sask, we have home lotteries for the hospitals, Ronald McDonald House, one for the Riders, maybe a couple others and of course, RPL itself for the last four years.
I need more time to digest some of the things I heard today and look forward to reading/looking through all the tweets/blog posts/live blogging/Flickr photos when I get a chance but those are some quick initial thoughts.
If anybody from the session is reading this, it was sincerely great to meet you. As I said to someone afterwards, I don't think the online social world will ever replace the magic of face-to-face meetings. Feel free to add me on Facebook, Twitter (maybe I'll start using it more!) and add this blog to your feed reader if you want (I promise, I'm off politics in a week and back to libraryland!)
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