Cutting to the Chase – What is the Brand of this Blog?

Branding.   Every social media yahoo will use the term, replacing it for just about every word from “style” to “reputation” to “logo” to “colour scheme” or whatever else.   It is vague, but every business type needs to pretend they understand the term.

I learned a little about branding while partnering with folks from Revolve.ca.     Part of the process was them building a the podcamp logo for us.  But it was also thinking what message we (the collective partners involved in Podcamp Halifax planning) wanted to put out to the public, and how that message would carry to the people who would eventually hear it — the current podcamp plus the many podcamps that would happen in the future.    To me, that logo speaks to the marriage of ideas, art (text, sound, images and video), technology, enthusiasm (the colours are very flame-like) in a way (and this is very important) that no one else speaks to it.   It does this also without me imagining that it would be the wood panelling of the 2010s.   We were doing something that was done before, but in our own way with our own messages.   That’s what the long tail is all about.   Many voices coordinated through technology.

Anyway, after this experience, I’ve been thinking about this blog in the context of branding – not because I am a slave to the whole “branding” idea, but because I think this matters to me and this blog right now.

My last post about Podcamp Halifax annoyed me because it spoke to the brand of this blog — that of a librarian, still stuck in the mindset of a service provider, trying to help an audience of service providers find out how they can be successful doing the “community development” thing.   That post outright sucked when I read it just now – but I’m not about to make apologies for it.

The post sucked because the audience of this blog is primarily an international network of librarians trying to work their way of the ladders of librarianship.   Recently I’ve engaged a broader group of people, and now I worry that the two cultures will clash.  These days, my interest lies in the broader group of people.    This is not a slight to librarians at all.   I just do not want to write for you and I do not want to write what I think about podcamp from a librarian perspective.

What I am trying to say is that I have to find a brand that lets me continue to be the librarian I am and share what I know with my professional community, while at the same time continuing to participate in the broader world of IT, blogging, local networks and so on.   In this sense, I need to think about the brand for this blog and re-think where I’m going to go with this space.

Anyone have any ideas on this?   How can I continue to highlight my local interests while at the same time engage the wider librarian community?    What messages would you put out if you were in my situation?

Podcamps in Libraries

I have always guessed that unconferences and public libraries are a natural fit.   Now, after Podcamp Halifax, I am absolutely convinced.   If you are a director of a public library, I suggest you drop everything, do a twitter search for “podcamp”, catch the feed in your aggregator and pay attention to who, when and where a podcamp might be happening in your area.   You want to be a part of the experience.   Actually, depending on your community’s needs, you may have a moral and ethical obligation to be part of the experience.

When all was said and done, we had over 250 people who said they wanted to come, over 160 who actually did come and we had a top Twitter tag for part of the day and the tally is still running.  Feedback so far has been extremely positive, and people are telling us they want to do it again.   I was in the community news prior to the event, we had some great sponsors who helped us out financially or with their promotion machine, and Andrew Baron of Rocketboom gave one of the most inspiring, interesting and audience-aware talks I’ve seen in a while.   (Take-away:   Be 1) First 2) Best or 3) Most Unique .   If you are two of those, success is likely in the bag.)

The library worked out very well as a podcamp space.   Adding in the Alderney Landing Theatre as a venue was also an excellent idea.   Podcamp started at 9, we held the keynote at 1:30 so we could avoid the Sunday crowd rush at 2pm.   Then back to the library for some cake and coffee and on to the theatre again for a talk by Eden Spodek and Connie Crosby to cap off the day.

But why podcamps  in libraries?   Here are my top-ten reasons:

10.  Unconferences are community-driven events.

9.   People are curious about technology and don’t know where they can learn more.  Our community needed this podcamp!   Libraries should be responding to community need.

8.   Bloggers want to talk about what they love and often don’t have the crowd around them to do so.   cf. the picture of “I am Not Alone!”

7.  Podcamps are events where people share ideas.

6.  They are much, much, much easier than organizing even a particularly small conference.

5.  160 people in attendance for a full day event – a good lot of them said they could not remember the last time they were in a library.

4.  It shows libraries can be innovative in how they use their space.

3.  Libraries and librarians get to learn too.  In fact, staff might learn more about community development from a podcamp than they would from a library conference.

2.  Partnerships – we partnered with organizations that know stuff we do not.   That made for a successful podcamp, but it also made what I do more effective as well.

1.  Fun fun fun fun fun.   Our community walked away smiling from this event.

Of course, an unconference can be done on any subject — it doesn’t have to be social media.   Also, there are many many many more reasons why a library could participate in a unconference in general.   What kind of unconference do you think your community needs?

Also, here are a list of content as I continue to find cool things.

• Search in twitter for #podcamphfx
• Jeff White’s presentation on Does Design Matter Anymore +  Part Two + Part Three
• Photos of Podcamp Halifax on Flickr
• Joel Kelly’s Unfriend Someone Today