July 05, 2008
RSS Readers - I Want it All and I Want it Now!
There's no shortage of news content on the web. But finding just the news you want isn’t always easy. As a practical matter, it's close to impossible to create a search that finds only the pearls and not the junk. That's why many libraries are offering news monitoring and filtering services for those times when human intervention is required.
RSS readers/aggregators are great tools for collecting content from disparate sources together into a central workspace where you can review a large volume of news relatively quickly. Free content from the web and search feeds from premium services such as LexisNexis, Llesiant and Factiva can co-exist side by side in your reader.
You can choose to view your feeds in Outlook (Newsgator Inbox), on the web (Google Reader, Bloglines, Newsgator Online) or in a separate application (FeedDemon, RSS Bandit). Some readers offer ways to customize your reading experience by letting you choose the colors, skins and layouts that you prefer.
That’s all well and good, but if you’re monitoring topics for others, how do you take the news from your reader, and deliver your finely filtered results the people who need it?
Certainly, many desktop RSS readers, such as FeedDemon, have “clippings” folders into which you can drag, drop and store the stories you find. Newsgator Online, FeedDemon’s online cousin will allow you to create an custom RSS feed for the contents of such folders. It's also easy to create your very own RSS feed with Bloglines and Google Reader. But these are public feeds, and besides, how many of your attorneys regularly read RSS feeds? I'm thinking not very many.
The feature that I find lacking in the readers I've looked at is the ability to export selected articles to an attractive and customizable report format that can be cut and pasted into an email.
The closest I’ve found so far is a reader called Awasu. As you review your feeds, you can move any feed items you want to save to a “workpad." You can set up as many workpads as you want, and create reports from these workpads. That's a start. But the report formats (templates) provided are fairly basic. While you can customize them, it's not quite as straightforward a process as I'd like.
My most recent experiment involved Newsgator Inbox and Onenote 2007, installed on my home computer. With the "Send to OneNote" feature, I can review RSS items in Outlook (Newsgator), right click on an item, click "Send to OneNote", and the entry is nicely copied to the OneNote Sidenotes tab:
I like the format. But each entry is saved on a separate page. You can easily email individual items, but consolidating them into one list would be cumbersome.
RSS Bandit has a Send to OneNote plugin that works in a similar way. I don't like the format quite as much as the "Send to OneNote" feature above, though.
Do you monitor/filter news for people in your organization using RSS? What tools work for you?
June 08, 2008
Wikis for Procedure Manuals
Nobody really LIKES writing procedures manuals. You know you should, you know it would be helpful if you did, and when it comes time to train a new employee, you're always sorry that you didn't do a better job of it. But what if everyone could collaborate on a procedures manual, writing down specifics as they do them, or even as they learn them. It sounds like a job for a wiki!
If you're having a hard time getting you and/or your staff started on such a process, take this tip from Anne Welsh's article "Internal Wikis for Procedures and Training", in Online Nov./Dec. 2007. "one colleague...asked me to set up wiki pages for each of the topics I would like to know about, with prompt questions. Having read these, they worked through the procedures "live," stopping every 10 minutes or so to document what they'd done. Then we used their notes as the basis for a walk-through of each task. I added any additional notes I thought I'd need.." What a brilliant way to encourage staff members to detail procedures in a wiki!
Procedures can change on a daily basis. A wiki is ideal for creating a "living" procedures manual that can be easily edited by whomever you choose. Just think, start a procedures wiki and next time you get a new employee, you'll be ready!
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 05:21 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkMay 18, 2008
Facilitating Self Serve - Could the Best Training/Customer Service be None at All?
Sometimes when I give a presentation, something comes out of my mouth that even I don't expect. At TRIPLL it was, "Sometimes the best training is no training at all." You may think that this comment is nonsensical, but hear me out. What I meant was that we'd all be better off if we could figure out ways to help people do what they need to do without the necessity of training. Can we deliver content to our users via the Intranet that will give them the help they need, when they need it? Can we create tools using blogs, wikis, etc. that allow users to share information and help each other? And ultimately, can research tools be so intuitive that training isn't necessary? Yes, I know, we're not there yet, but we're certainly closer than at any time in the past, and considering how difficult it is to get users to attend training, we need to think about other ways to reach our customers.
Shortly afterwards, I spotted a book review in the L.A. Times for a book called, The Best Service is No Service: How to Liberate Your Customers from Customer Service, Keep Them Happy, and Control Costs
Then, while catching up on my reading I found Darlene Fichter's article, "Put the 'Service" in Self-Service." (Online Jan/Feb. 2008). She points out that we "often equate and value "high-touch" service with face-to-face relationships. That's not bad, of course. As librarians we typically take pride in the personalized service we provide. But along the same lines as the above book, Darlene states: "We have not fully embraced designing excellent self-service experiences. Many colleagues don't perceive our library websites as 'real service.' Is your default response to self-service difficulties, "Have them call or come in?" Valid responses perhaps, but a better first response is looking at what caused the problem in the first place. What online tools, information or functionality could address it?"
Whether it's training or customer support, in the coming years we'll need to look at providing service of all kinds, in the ways that our customers want it, both in-person and virtually.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 02:39 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkApril 28, 2008
The Webette
While researching my TRIPLL presentation, I found a great article in the May 2007 issue of Peer to Peer, the journal of ILTA entitled "The Webette: A Simple, Effective Training Delivery Approach."
The author, Randall Farrar, talks about the use web conferencing tools to offer quick, live, web based training sessions, on very specific topics.
While he suggests that webettes should be hour-long, I'd suggest that in most cases you'd want to keep them even shorter, perhaps 15 minutes or less.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 05:39 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkFree Desktop Sharing
If you don't want to pay for a desktop sharing tool, don't despair. Tom Mighell over at Inter-Alia found a free one that allows you to share your desktop with up to 15 participants called Microsoft SharedView. It requires a software download for both the host and participants, and you'll need a Windows Live ID. Apparently, it includes desktop sharing and chat, but no audio.
SharedView isn't the only free tool out there. Yakkle offers instant messaging, voice and desktop sharing. You start by initiating an instant messaging session. Once you've connected, you can opt to share your desktop.
I haven't tried either of these out yet...if anyone else has, let us know what you think.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 05:19 PM | Comments (1) | Permanent LinkApril 14, 2008
Getting Attorneys into the Classroom - Why Would You Want Them There?
I'm just back from TRIPLL where we spent some quality time talking about ways to deliver point of need training to attorneys and staff using such tools as webinars, remote desktop sharing, videos, etc., in addition to finding ways to make ourselves more visible and available by walking the floors and doing personal follow-up to training. It's obvious that formal, longer training sessions simply don't draw our intended audience, regardless of the quality and abundance of the food provided. Considering the fact that attorneys aren't coming into the library as often as they once did, we have to figure out how to take training to them.
So I'm very interested in this ILTA webinar called "Getting Attorneys into the Classroom - Why Would You Want Them There?" and I thought I'd let you know about it as well. There's a lot to be learned on this topic from the technology folks, since they experience the same problems we do, but on an even larger scale!
You'll have to pay a bit more to register if your firm isn't an ILTA member, but it's probably worth it. Maybe I'll "see" you there.
P.S. Attending and speaking at TRIPLL was a great experience. I learned a lot, enjoyed exchanging ideas with the group, and ate way more than I should have. If you're involved with training, and ever get the opportunity to go, take it! Thanks very much to the group at Lexis Nexis for continuing to offer such quality programs.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 04:37 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkApril 06, 2008
Web Conference Basics
Do you want to get started with web conferencing, but just aren't sure how? What products are out there? What features do you need? I recently stumbled across a c|net tutorial that walks you through getting your conference up and running, picking the best software and leading a successful web conference.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 12:07 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkPoll of the Week - Blogs and Wikis
Are you using blogs and/or wikis in your library? Answer this week's poll!
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkMarch 23, 2008
How much CO2 is Saved Through Web Conferencing
Typically web conferencing services tout the money that can be saved by using web conferencing to replace business travel. But iLink is also highlighting the environmental savings by is offering a unique tool as part of their software - a green meter! Their green meter is an automatic calculator inside the iLinc Web conferencing software that tracks CO2, in addition to cost and travel reductions accrued by meeting online rather than traveling. The green meter appears whenever you have hold a meeting using iLink. The calculations are based on the location of all of the participants.
Hey, it's actually easy to be green! (Sorry, Kermit!)
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 07:36 PM | Comments (2) | Permanent LinkPoll of the Week - Web Conferencing in the Library
I know vendors are using web conferencing extensively. But I'm curious as to how much it's being used in law firm libraries for training purposes; so that's the subject of this week's poll.
You can review the poll results at any time by clicking on the view results link.
Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 07:20 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent Link
