This article http://www.diversity-executive.com/article.php?in=796 talks about the challenges of giving gifts over the holidays.  It discusses the problem with giving gift cards (puts a value on the person), chocolates (dieters!) and Amazon gift certificates (not everyone uses the web).

One thing the article did not mention is that not everyone celebrates Christmas so giving them a gift at Christmas does not make them feel valued.  We have run into this issue at our crochet guild meetings.  Two people who do not celebrate Christmas have chosen to be “busy” instead of attending our December meeting. 

This brings up the other holiday questions.  Christmas trees? Menorahs? How does your library handle these issues?

This is like the online version of what Darlene, Jess and I developed for the WLA and OLA conferences…without our brilliant theatrics, of course!

It is really well done, engaging, and has great, very practical content.

Ironically I originally signed up for this more because I was interested in a demo of the webinar platform – GoToMeeting – than for the content. As you may have experienced, often online meeting software companies will advertize a great topic like this but when you get there it’s more about the product and it’s bells and whistles than the content. This was just the opposite – it wasn’t actually a great demo of the product (they had disabled many of the interactive features; when I asked they said it was because there were more than 700 attendees!).

View the webinar archive. They may ask you to register, I have no idea. It’s worth it!

http://bit.ly/RNqqz This article talks about 8 leadership mistakes and 4 actions to take to resolve them.  Do many of you subscribe to Talent Management online magazine?  I frequently find useful articles.  If nothing else, they frequently spark an idea for my weekly Quick Tips!

pspan style=”font-family:Verdana; font-size:12pt”I am testing Blog posting from Word for the Office 2007 class tomorrow.
/span/ppspan style=”font-family:Verdana; font-size:12pt”It was very easy to set up. It was a little disconcerting that it said that others may be able to see my userid and password!!! However, since it is in Word, I get spell and grammar check. I have also included a picture just to see what would happen. Because the web will only let you do left, right or center those seem to be the only choices I have as I create this document as well./span/p

I mentioned to several of you that I was reading the crowdsourcing book…I finally finished it (my fault for taking so long – don’t blame the book!). I found it very interesting and I’m sure there are applications for libraries but I don’t have time to pursue this at the moment.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a shorter ‘take’ on the subject, I just came across this article in a newsletter on innovation I subscribe to.

Enjoy!
elizabeth (eiaukea at piercecountylibrary dot org

Online videos can be a great way to enhance staff trainings and meetings. Check out these creative and fun Library related videos:

Weigle Information Commons

Patrons Gone Wild (KCLS)

Bunnies (KCLS)

1234 (KCLS)

Libraries Are Gonna Make It After All

The Wizard of Oz-a Tale of Library Circulation

Reading on a Dream (Library Musical)

What are your favorite library videos?

Please join us on Monday, January 26 at 1:30 PM for a discussion of the book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath. The meeting will be hosted on Wimba, a virtual classroom.