Use for RSS in council productions

I saw a clever use of RSS recently at work.  Council produces all sorts of pamplets, brochures, media releases, fact sheets etc.  Many of these are one off items that will either stay in their current format for years, but there are some that need updating on a regular basis.  An example of this would the the libraries "What's On" pamplet that comes out once a month.

These sort of serialised pamplets have starting coming out with RSS links so staff or interested customers can add them to a reader and keep up to date with the information they contain.  I love this idea and wondered if it could be extended to out productions like the council's agendas and minutes? 

Just a thought.

Managing Management

More and more my work is being dominate by events.  Unlike a regular activity on a weekly or fortnightly basis, management and customers are demanding bigger spectacles where large number of can participate.  I can see a  place for application like the ones below to help co-ordinate these events in the future.

Doodle was really just a scheduling application much like in Outlook.  Outlook is used extensively at work so though Doodle is a cute program I can't see us moving to it in the future.  Here is my scheduled meeting,   Christmas Day.

Google Calendar suffers the same problem as Doodle where many of the things it can do are already done within the Outlook program.  I actually see more potential for myself co-ordinating meetings outside of work.  I will keep both Doodle and Google Calendar in mind next time I have to try and get a group of people together.

Eventbrite was a more unique program that allowed you to create tickets and even take payments for events.  Though I didn't play with the payment option, I did create an event, for which the website is here.  It was easy to use and as you can see, modify for a more corporate look.  Again, I don't know if we could use it at work with security issues always the main priority, but it is good to know it's there.

Oh boy! RSS again!

From last year I had this post, and this post and finally this post on RSS.  I just didn't get them for a long time, they didn't seem to speak my language and early on we didn't seem to want to be at the same places. But I've lived companionably with GoogleReader for 21 months now and we're still going strong.  I don't see a separation looming anytime soon.


So not love at first sight unlike many of the applications, but I now read it everyday and add and take out links as I need.  If I haven't seen anything I'm interested in reading on a blog for a while I unsubscribe and clear the clutter.  If I wish to search for a specific topic through all my feeds, GoogleReader has a search option at the top of the screen.  Though not as convenient as a rinse like Feed Rinse I don't usually look for any one thing and like the scan the news and library blogs for things of interest.

I can't say I organise my feeds, I don't have that many: a news feed, a few funny blogs, friends blogs, blogs relating library learning and a few other work related ones.  There would be less than 20 feeds and they don't all post everyday.  For the blogs that do post more than once a day, I scan the headings for something that interests me and mark the rest as read hiding them from my screen.

I set up a Feed Rinse for ABC new: Just In blog asking for any posts on cats and dogs. And did get a post on Pandas being genetically similar to dogs, I also receive a post on a helicopter crash that I couldn't see my search terms in.  Not a great success, I could have done that with a scan of the headlines.

FiltermyRSS had no more success in finding articles with dogs in them, and didn't have the convenience of being delivered to my reader. 

Tabloid was cute.  Creating a pdf of the current posts from whatever blog you stick in.  Not sure how I can share it besides just sending it as an attachment to an email.  Mind you it does make a very presentable version of the post which could be handing for making a printout for someone.  Cute, but really useful?
Google alerts, did that and talked about it here.  I've had to remove them already as the one on my suburb was just too depressing.

 I can see a need for such filters to find quality information on subjects and don't want to be wading through posts.  In saying that many posts are already on a particular subject and these filters are not very refined searches.  I'd be pretty disapppointed with any searchengine I was using that came back with the results I've seen here.  In the end, I'm glad people are thinking about these sorts of things and making them available, but me and my RSS are doing just fine thank, just the way we are.

Let me Present to you...

I remember the SlideShare week of last years course with happiness as it was one of the few audio-visual components of the course that would run on the work computers.  I have since used different slideshows from SlideShare for all sort of uses including Sunday School.

I notice SlideShare have the option of uploading documents as well, a very handy tool when you find yourself travelling from computer to computer. As part of my life and work I already use Googledoc for this as I have it as a widget on  iGoogle that pops up as my homepage. Googledocs will also hold Powerpoint presentations as well as Excel spreadsheets but SlideShare is great when you just don't know where to start.  Often it's better not to reinvent the wheel.

I was looking forward to the Cultureshock set of stories, however the computers have let me down and won't play them.

I didn't have any Presentations I could share with the world so I quickly whipped up one that will hopefully get you singing to yourself for the rest of the day.  You will find it eventually, here.

Ning a ding-ding

Recently I was asked to participate in a workshop for the redesign on the Council Intranet, specifically the access to information about different departments and individuals.  If I had seen a Ning previously I would have just suggested forming one for the Council. 

I like that each person has their own page for a photo and contact information... maybe a link for photos or other important sites.  I like that they can be affiliated with groups or departments within the network so others can search for you either by your name or  department.  In council I know we wanted an interactive business structure that can show the relationship between departments Clicking on them would bring up the department page and links to staff in that department.  I could see Nings being very suitable for thall these applications.

Outside of work I suggested to a co-worker that setting up a Ning network for her large family.  Everyone, even the youngest can have a page and add blogs, comments, events, send birthday greetings...etc.  An awesome application.

Still waiting for the Administrator for Library 2.0 to approve my application, but I'll add a link here as soon as it is.

Evaluating evaluations.

It thrills me to see my personal blog's statistics.  I average around 40 hits a day mostly for one or two posts that people have found through searches on search engines such as google.  How do I know all this?  Wordpress tells me so.  Every month is laid out in a line graph showing number of hit with highest hitting posts for the month being listed in summary below.  You can even look at the statistics for each day, seeing how people found your site, what they used and searched under to discover you. 

Now if I, an individual, can get excited about statistics, I can only imagine how wonderful an institution would think such a service.

Google Alerts is a very handy tool that I can see being very handy for study in the coming year.  The main feature is that you gather the information you want in one place where you already go to review articles, be it either your email, or RSS feed.  Unfortunately you can't do an advanced search and make the search ignore anything that is coming from inside the organisation.  I got alot of miss-hits from my searches that I would have with a more refined search terms option.

I must say, the excercise of creating a Google Alert for  the place where I live was demoralising.  Honestly I don't live in such a violent suburb.  I wish I had created a Google Alert for work now.

Feed Burner was confusing but I can see the advantage for the organisation.  Having one location that provides all the statistical information about several blogs in one location.  I was interested to see the Publicize  tab that give tips and help to make your blog more accessible.  I personally like the ability from this one site to change all my blogs access all subscription services.  I can not speak ofr Feed Burner's statistics as  they weren't available.

Zoomerang was good fun, though I do find writing a good survey is harder than it sounds, the software with it's template surveys did help considerably.  Here is my survey for a Christmas Party.  This could have been very handy recently while organising our own Christmas Party plans.

So on the whole.  I can't say I learnt anything new about my topic through Google Alerts but  I can see that it is a great tool for getting a broad look at a topic from day to day.  Feed Burner has it's uses in managing multiple blogs and helping promote them online.  Zoomerang was great fun but doesn't replace a well trained staff member in survey writing.  In the hands of such a staff member, programs like Survey Monkey and Zoomerang are wonderful.  If staff aren't trained in survey writing, they can annoy and alienate customer with ill-conceived surveys that provide little in the way of useful information.

As usual no matter how good the application, it comes down to the skill and knowledge of staff to make the most of them.