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While testing out LyricRat, I tried to stump it with random lyrics from my eclectic music collection. I did stump it a few times, but not everything is perfect! It’s fun and worth a try if you ever need to do a lyrics search.

But just now — I just stumbled upon Heather Devine’s (Flexyourinfo) ala2009 page – a more comprehensive, all-in-one-place collage of tweets and conference photos. For the visual folk, please check this out! Want to see what was going on at the Unconference? Select that option. Want to know what happened on Tuesday? You can even see the tweets and photos by day! You even have the option to pick which tweets you’d like to see by hashtag.

Read more: Heather posted more about this at her blog.

I’ve noticed a few other folks who have created twitter accounts specifically for the conference, which is a great idea. One example is the Boulder Public Library’s staff professional development twitter account, @bplconference.

And for fun (but mostly inappropriate comments), catch some of @alasecrets tweets. Someone has created a twitter account specifically for the ALA conference. I’ve seen a few folks tweet the password – anyone can log in and anonymously share their thoughts of what’s going on at the moment… Some are quite funny, snarky and a wee bit crude. (In fact, I believe there is a correlation between time and crudeness… as more time passed, the more – shall we say – explicit @alasecret’s tweets became). It’s amazing what people will say when anonymous, though I must admit librarians are quite a creative bunch! (Psst – this is the tamest tweet I could find for @alasecrets).

Update, 6/11 afternoon: @alasecrets has been put to rest/disabled (someone changed the password and protected the updates)…not sure who shut ‘er down, but there is already a new anonymous account: @ALAsecrets2009. For information on how to post, check the directions.

I played around with it and found it really easy to use. I created a short video — please take it easy on me, I was just testing it out. My personal reaction to what ScreenJelly has to offer is positive. The only downsides to ScreenJelly is the three-minute limit and the fact that there is no option to embed it into webpages.

Of the 95 theses, several spoke to my experience as a professional, graduate student and participant in the web:

1. Markets are conversations.

In my 10+ years of working in higher education, I have seen a shift in the way advisers provide teaching and learning opportunities. Gone are the days of static advising – providing cut and paste rules and explanations and prescriptions to students. Today it’s totally about back-and-forth conversation with students: advising offices are on social networking sites such as twitter and Facebook and they’re providing services beyond the traditional advising appointment. This evolution in tools used for advising can affect a student’s connection with the university positively; these tools are alternative forms that provide teaching and learning opportunities and are enhanced through trust, conversation, sharing.

6. The internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

Twitter, for example, has allowed me to converse freely with other young professionals, experts in various fields and other interesting people. As a graduate student, I could honestly say that I have learned almost as much from colleagues on twitter, for example, as I have learned from several thousand dollars worth of classes in my graduate program. Other folks in the higher education and library professions have been so open with sharing their knowledge – it’s been like a virtual classroom of sorts!

7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.

Information is power. Old-school hierarchies used to depend on information starting at the top – where the gatekeeper decides what information to share and how to share it. Of course, many of these hierarchies still exist today, but likely won’t survive and thrive much longer. These days people are able to get information easier via mobile phones, social networking sites, blogging, microblogging and even via simple email — information travels quickly and can be discovered and created faster than ever. I’ve seen leaders who try to squash information from spreading because they might deem it “off message” (in their eyes “damaging”). Trying to stop/contain information is damaging in itself and credibility is lost.

21. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.

In thinking about a similar situation to that mentioned above — admitting a mistake (and allowing that information to surface – i.e., fess up to it rather than hiding it), can actually build credibility because it shows that even the head hauncho and/or the organization is human. I respect someone who isn’t afraid to be imperfect much more than a leader or a company that tries to present an “image.” In my job working with students, I get more respect and gain trust when I admit I made a mistake and then work to fix it. Students are humans too, and they appreciate keepin’ it real.

72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact we are creating it.

This makes me think of how students have embraced Facebook. Originally thought of as a the greatest creation ever by students and a complete time-waster by many educators, it has evolved to provide educational, professional and personal benefits beyond first realized. I know of offices that banned the site from computer labs as it was seen as a detractor from academic achievement. That was a battle not to be won by the old folks. Six years later, the students have persisted and faculty, administrative staff, libraries and academic advising offices have embraced the site, even joining it themselves.

Reading Cluetrain ten years after it was originally published was a wise choice – I found myself nodding my head as I read through each chapter. One thing the authors did not want the manifesto to become, however, was a rah-rah self-help sort of book. Thus, I won’t build it up too much, but I have to admit it’s a good read and one I would recommend to anyone who works with human beings. :-)

Further reading:

cluetrainplus10
Bloggers from around the world are on this wiki commenting on the 95 theses from Cluetrain. Several librarians have written reflections on this site – check out @mstephens (#49); @hblowers (#58); @laurenpressley (#13); @griffey (#17); @conniecrosby (#46).

But not all job listings can be found on websites or via classified ads… Many jobs are found via networking as well as via emerging social media tools… This includes twitter, of course…

So yes… There is a search engine that scours twitter tweets for job announcements: TwitterJobSearch. I gave it a lil’ go by searching for “librarian” and it produced over 106 results. I perused the results and they were all very relevant – no random non-library job announcements popped up.

The folks from TwitterJobSearch describe their product as a search engine that uses semantic tools to look at what has been tweeted – context. TwitterJobSearch allows you to sort results by date or relevance. You can create RSS feeds, and refine your results by salary, country, job title (i.e., librarian, assistant, teacher), when it was tweeted, skills, and job type (i.e., full time, permanent, etc.).

Overall, it’s a pretty simple job search engine with a lil’ bit o’ punch. I definitely like what it has to offer and see it as an innovative way to cover ground in the job search.

My website is of a fictional Doggy Day Care business. (I recently started taking my Newfoundland, Casper, to doggy day care twice a week and was inspired by it).

Here’s the site: Best Pals Doggy Day Care

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: my website was created for non-commercial reasons; any similarities between my fictional doggy day care site and some other DDC businesses is strictly coincidence. All photographs in my website are from flickr’s creative commons.