Example of using blogs to share a more "human side" of ourselves to colleagues

This was an early post of mine, about my dog. In blogging something as personal and mundane as the name of my dog, I was trying to show how blogging could be used as a tool for social networking and expanding the readers' learning capacity (by introducing them to books in the library collection). Effectively, what I did was to link keywords in my blog post to catalogue entries in the library OPAC.

I also discovered that people who googled for "schnauzer" also visited my blog. From the comments (like this one), my colleagues and I were able to share and discuss something that we normally wouldn't have an opportunity to talk about in a work-setting:

Max, the Mini Schnauzer: Blogs as tools for Social Networking and Expanding Learning Capacity
While thinking of a name for our dog, my wife and I surprisingly came up with the same name, but for different reasons. I was thinking of Maximus, the Gladiator [NLBLink 7821448/ NLBLink 10127342] played by Russell Crowe. My wife too, came up with the name, Max. But she was really thinking about main character in the cartoon series "The Transformers" [NLBLink 11795414], Optimus Prime, except that she mistakenly thought the heroic robot was called "Maximus Prime".

Click on this Technorati Tag (Schnauzer) to read similar posts "tagged" by other bloggers (think of "tags" as Subject Headings to link related posts).

Example of using blogs to express opinions that otherwise might not be heard

[I'm using personal examples as I blog about them. If you discover similar ones, feel free to leave them as comments]

In this example, I came across two articles where I felt was grossly inaccurate. While the originating site allowed feedback to be submitted, I wasn't sure if they would publish my comments so my blog allowed me to post my views and share with others. You can also see from the post how others post their reactions in my blog, thus giving a more balanced picture to the original post.

I also deliberately chose to use the same article title for my blog post, so that when someone googles it, my blog post might be picked up with the originating articles:

Brave New Singapore?
Learnt from Loy's blog (From a Singapore Angle, 7 Jan 06) about a two-part series commenting on "the lack of liberty in Singapore" ...

Personally, I think expressing one's opinions & reactions in one's own blog is a more mature position to take, as opposed to flaming someone in their articles or posts. :)

Example of information sharing & exchange: Bad experience with fridge

Here's a personal example of how consumers can use blogs to voice their frustration/ opinions over certain products or services:

Ariston Fridges
So I'm frustrated from the entire chain of events. Could Ariston have prevented it? I don't know. Maybe a better hinge design. Maybe some Ariston employee will do a Google or Technorati and find my blog piece. Maybe they will do something about the design.

But they sure won't hear it from me direct via their formal feedback channel (if any). Why should I when I'm not going to try my luck with another Ariston fridge again, no matter how good it looks.

This was a real example that happened to me and my wife -- our fridge went kaput and we had a series of negative experiences as a result. I decided to blog about it because the frustration was very real.

How would blogging about it help?
Well the fridge didn't recover by itself. I doubt if Ariston will replace my fridge for free just because I blogged about it. But it sure helped me ease some sense of frustration, and I'm certainly sharing information to people who care to read it. Sure it's full of bias and presents only my side of the story. But that's what "word of mouth" is about, isn't it?

If Ariston had employees who know how to seek out blogs that mention it's products and services, then they might be able to do something about it. They might even want to contact me to try and convert me back to a customer.

And consider this -- if you, the consumer, was considering buying a fridge, would you consider buying the same model that I had? What thoughts went through you as you read the post?

Example of information sharing & exchange: Pair of monkeys

Here's one personal example of using blogs and online tools like Flickr.com for information exchange and sharing among individuals:

Pair of monkeys spotted at Yishun Park
My wife and I visited Yishun Park today and we spotted a pair of wild monkeys in a tree. I happened to have my digital camera along and snapped a few pictures...

[click on image to see more]

How's this useful?

• For one, I don't have to email the pictures to my friend that I had in mind. He subscribes to my blog (though I dropped him an email just in case).
• He might pass the word around to other people in nature groups, and they could add comments to my blog post (it might turn out to be 'public education' of sorts)
• If we wanted to, we could use tools like
Technorati Tags and adopt a common tag when blogging about the same topic.

Books on blogging

Here's a link to a list of blogging-related books available from the NLB. If anyone wishes to recommend additional books or resources, feel free to post a comment here.

Sept 1 session (afternoon): Main discussion points

We modified our approach a little bit for the afternoon session, based on a quick review of this morning's session before we went for lunch.

For the afternoon session, we did pretty much the same except that we conducted the demo a little slower (for the hands-on blogging part).

Some participants tended to get a little mixed up over the "User Name" (when they register for blogger), the "Blog Name" for the blogspot site, as well as the "Blog Address". Not surprising, since many of them had no experience in creating their own homepages.

But Rajen and I felt that for a group that had no experience in creating personal homepages, they did very well. Everyone today (morning & afternoon's session) was able to create a blog of their own, create posts, change the template, add comments, post comments in other people's blog, delete comments and also deleting a blog.

This is a snapshot of the discussion points raised for the afternoon session:


We took these down before the start of the session. We asked what came to the participant's minds when they hear about "blogs". We had responses like "it's a website", "it's similar to email", "it's a web diary", "it's put up by people with lots of info to share", "it's a teenager thing", "it's controversial".

At the end of the session, we asked them to review those same points noted earlier. One thing all agreed that it wasn't just a "teenage thing" and blogs aren't necessarily controversial.

Someone asked "do people or authorities monitor blogs". I took that question and said I don't really know. Basically, to blog is to publish. So do it responsibly.

As with the morning session, the participants were also interested in legal issues regarding blogs. The point Rajen & I tried to make was that existing laws applies -- you'd get into trouble if you make inaccurate or inappropriate statements.

We had a point noted down -- "Any use of blogs about work?" (whatever "work" might be). We discussed about corporate blogging. Mentioned about IBM blogging guidelines, and shared the example of Microsoft's Channel 9.

And just like the morning session, we showed them Bloglines as an example of a RSS newsreader.

Judging from the participants' responses & written feedback, the course seemed to have met the stated course objectives.

Sept 1 session (morning): Main discussion points

Ok, we had our first session this morning at 10am to 12.30pm.

Rajen (L) & Ivan (R)

We asked participants what were their perceptions of blogs at the start of the session. Some mentioned "Personal Diary", "Personal homepages/ websites", "Daily Journals", "Online Hyde Park", "Brag Site". [Perhaps participants can comment here to see if their perceptions have changed after the session. Rajen & I reviewed our morning session and felt we could have shared more examples of educational & academic blogs].

Participants learnt how to create blogs, name their blogs, how to post comments, change the template of the blog, and how to delete their blog (we used Blogger.com).

Someone asked what's the difference between blogs and Discussion Forums/ Chat Rooms/ Community Groups. Unfortunately we didn't have time to address that question.

Most seemed keen to find out more about legal issues & copyright w.r.t. blogging. The session also covered how to search for blogs using tools like Technorati.com

From the feedback forms, we think the session went quite well. Of course like all things, there are always lot of room for improvement.

To participants who manage to find their way to this demo site, please feel free to share your feedback and comments.

Checklist for 1 Sept course

We've confirmed the course package (for purposes of copyright, we can't show them here). The training is confirmed on 1st Sept 2005.

Last we heard, both sessions are fully registered. 45 people signed up, so let's see if all turn up that day.

Checklist:

• Do a reece of the training venue
• Rehearsal
• Powerpoint slides (what would we do without Powerpoint?)
• Printouts of the courseware
• Participants' namelist

We're about set, Rajen.

What the demo will cover

We have about an hour for the hands-on portion for the course. We'll be showing them how to create a blog using Blogger -- to show them something else while we are using Blogger here just doesn't seem quite right, does it? :)

Step 1: Creating an account
Step 2: Choosing a name
Step 3: Choosing a template

That's it. Then we'll go around the classroom to help the participants.

How's that?

I think most might be stuck with choosing a name for the blog.

Course objectives - Blogging course: MICA Innovation Fiesta 2005

[For reasons of copyright, we're unable to show the full content of the course]

Ok, we want to define the course objectives here.

1. Define, understand the types and uses of blogs
2. Know basic terminologies associated with blogs
3. Create your own blog
4. Make an informed choice on blogs and blogging

Anything else to add here?

Finally, a name!

Hello World.

Our names are Rajendra Munoo and Ivan Chew. We started this blog as a demonstration tool for the Blogging Course that we have been asked to conduct for the MICA Innovation Fiesta 2005:

"Blogging: New Tool of the E-Generation".
Date: 1 Sept 2005
Time: 10am - 12.30pm (Session #1)/ 2.30pm - 5pm (Session #2)
Venue: NLB Academy (Toa Payoh Community Library)

Rajen has a blog at ExpatLibrarian. I'm sometimes known in the Blogosphere as the RamblingLibrarian.

We're conducting this particular course for the first time. We'll see how it goes
We've got very good feedback from our first run (both sessions). Certainly the participants understood more about blogs, what is it (and isn't). We'll be updating this blog from time to time, depending on future sessions.