As is so often the case, Meredith Farkas has a very thoughtful and thought-provoking piece on “The Changing Professional Conversation” on her “Information Wants to be Free” blog. I wanted to blog about it both to bring more attention to it and also to comment on it. So go on over there and read it. I’ll wait.
OK, now that you’re back, here are some of my thoughts on the issue. First, I also feel the fragmentation of the professional conversation. I currently try to participate at some level on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. I’m still trying to figure out for myself what is best to do where. I don’t like the idea of cross-posting to them all, since others like me that are on all three will tire of the redundancy. But something posted to Google+ won’t be seen by those who aren’t on Google+ and so on. I admit to still trying to slouch toward an understanding about how best to interact with these platforms.
Meanwhile, as Meredith also raised, there is the issue of “where did I see that?” that seems to plague all but the most assiduous of bookmarkers, favoriters (surely that has become a verb by now?), and squirrelers (OK, I butchered the King’s English, so sue me). Sure, searching various sites might be a solution to this, but that assumes you can craft an effective search. Meredith’s description of wasting 20 minutes on such an endeavor is an all-too-frequently encountered scenario.
Of course, I’m only commenting on the issues that Meredith raises — I have no solution. So, dear readers, if you do have any solutions I am all ears. But be succinct, I need to go check my Twitter/Facebook/Google+ accounts.
About Roy Tennant
Hey Roy,
I think the short term solution is to simultaneously push content to multiple closed sites via apps and APIs but I found the following post very relevant in terms of the future, both good and bad: “Federation! (Goodbye, Google Plus)” @ http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2011/08/25/federation-goodbye-google-plus/
As for search: we’ve embraced the fleeting and the ephemeral in the present (post it quickly with minimal context and effort) only to regret that in the future (inability to search). The problem isn’t the delivery mechanisms, it’s – as usual – just us.
Great blog BTW.
I just assume I’m not going to get it all…and that’s OK (even if I have to frequently, consciously remind myself that it’s OK).
When professional conversation was happening only in published literature and in hallway conversations, did we assume we’d get it all? No, we knew we wouldn’t be able to keep up with all the journals and it would never even strike us that we should be able to overhear the hallway conversations in other states. Now that some of those informal conversations have moved online it creates the illusion that we *should* keep up with them all, but it’s not any more reasonable than it ever was.
I deliberately keep Facebook as a personal space. I know I’m missing out on some exciting library stuff there. But it’s OK. I know a lot of the people in other contexts, and stuff that is really genuinely important is going to get discussed across multiple platforms, and I’ll see it. Do I really need to keep up with every bit of ephemera everywhere?
Personally I’ve never had a problem with cross-posting, but then again I’m not on All The Sites so I seldom see things more than once or twice ;). And I find it easy enough to skim over the second time.
I don’t have any solutions. Even if I had a solution it would change tomorrow when the next platform came out. I think we let go of comprehensiveness and perfectionism (however hard that may be for librarians!) and muddle through together.
Well, I mean, except when you’re having professional conversations on Facebook and Google+ and I’m not. I guess in that case we muddle through separately :).