There’s a new and improved site from me at justnathan.info. By new I mean I just got it a couple of weeks ago; by improved I mean I have it hosted in such a way that I can REALLY screw it up (as opposed to the small messes one can make using wordpress.com).
I’ll be posting there from now on so change your feeds if you follow me on rss: http://justnathan.nfshost.com/?feed=rss2
An invitation to listen
This post is brought to you by a comment from this post by the great comic book writer Kieron Gillen.
Issue 4 of the second series of Phonogram is half inspired by the idea – about how Robyn’s album was out in 2005, popular with haircuts in 2006 and then got its Number 1 singles well into 2007. Occasionally your processing of pop-music is completely out of sync with the rest of the world.
I try to stay on top of what’s happening in technology, the Internet, productivity, futurism, and lots of other fields. I scan through almost 200 blogs in my Google Reader; then there’s Facebook, Twitter, MeFi. etc. There’s a lot to take in. When it comes time for me to choose what to talk about in a class setting (whether to the public or to staff) one of the questions I have to ask myself about the topic is: is this ahead of the curve or out of the loop?
Something that’s ahead of the curve can excite people, showing them possibilities of what’s to come or of new ways to use tools they’re already familiar with. Something that’s out of the loop may be too far beyond my audience’s experience for them to get into the idea. I have to keep this internal dialogue going and make sure that the stuff I suggest isn’t too far out to be useful to my audience.
Case in point: we tried out using QR codes at a function and they fell flat. People thought it was interesting but didn’t necessarily see a lot of use for it. Not enough people with smartphones or other devices able to handle them yet. (In the future though, they’ll be useful! Put them up in your library!) On the other hand, I considered doing a class all about Twitter as I find the “ambient intimacy” of it fascinating. My filter said no: blogging in general will be sufficient. I’ve since been requested to do a class on Twitter in January. People are more ready for it than I thought.
We’re not always ready to hear what a band has recorded, or to see a film by a revolutionary director, or to jump in on the latest alpha web app. I’m not going to know what everyone wants or needs to know about; none of us do. Keep my question in mind; when we spend a lot of time looking ahead we may forget where we are right now.
I hate secrets. I prefer to be open and honest with people whenever I can (crazy, I know!) I especially like to talk about things when I’m excited about them and right now I can’t talk about any of them! All I have to talk about is how much I want to talk about other stuff!
Let’s just say this: I currently have 4 projects in the works that I can’t talk about yet. There’s Work Thing 1, Work Thing 2, My Thing 1 and My Thing 2. Work Thing 1 is by far the most exciting and hopefully eventually one day I’ll be able to talk to you all about it.
The one major thing I can discuss is that I’m working on my 6 minute 40 second presentation at Computers in Libraries. My process for presentations starts with me getting all the silly and inappropriate ideas out of my head first so I can work on the good stuff. Eliminated so far:
I’m hoping I’ll get the rest of the junk out of the way soon; it’s due January 15!
