Yankee in Canada.com

Cross-posted with Future Ready 365.

SLA isn’t yet Future Ready, so I am doing something about it. This site is the first live website to use SLA’s new web hosting service and newly designed theme for WordPress!

For many years, our unit websites have been disparate in content, design, and functionality. Some sites are coded “old school” with plain HTML, some use ColdFusion, some ASP or PHP, and some are externally hosted. They can’t effectively exchange data with Headquarters (or each other) and, to be honest, many have seen better days. At first glance, you would hardly know they were units of the same organization!

Operation Vitality*

SLA will revitalize its website community as “Operation Vitality” swings into high gear this year.

“Operation Vitality” has five objectives:

1. Provide a stable and modern website hosting service to all chapters, divisions, and caucuses;
2. Ensure the service is affordable and cost effective for the Association;
3. Design a brand-compliant template for all units to use;
4. Promote a common content management system we can all use, understand and build upon; and
5. Rebuild the community for SLA’s webmasters.

I ran for the Board of Directors on a Leadership, Volunteers and Technology platform and “Operation Vitality” sits at the intersection of these three themes. This will be my main focus during my last year on the Board.

New Hosting Service

The SLA staff has made tremendous strides towards establishing a new web hosting service for the units and 2011 will be the year we convert to a common content management system and promote a common look and feel.

• SLA has partnered with award-winning web host provider HostGator;
• WordPress will be promoted as the content management system of choice; and
• A professional WordPress theme has been designed specifically for SLA units and will be included as part of a new web hosting service.

There will be a cost for the new service, $40 per year, which includes a fully functioning WordPress install with the SLA Theme, 24/7 technical support provided by HostGator, email accounts, MySQL databases, FTP Accounts, an easy to use and flexible Control Panel, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. For the real web gurus out there, advanced features will also include CGI, Ruby on Rails, Perl, Python, Curl, CPAN, GD Library, Image Magick, SSH Access and Cron Job Scheduling.

The Plan

In late 2010 a set of units who self-identified as early adopters started using the new service. Based on the feedback from this pilot, the service and the WordPress theme will be adjusted and rolled out to the whole Association in early 2011. The goal is to have all SLA units who are currently hosted by SLA converted to the new service by December 2011. Units who have pursued their own hosting are encouraged to rejoin.

The Team

A large project like “Operation Vitality” requires the energy of a dedicated and talented group of people. Volunteer “Super Admins” and staff members will be available to answer WordPress-related questions and provide guidance to units as they join the new service:

• Amy Buckland
• Michelle Dollinger
• Nicole Engard
• Britta Jessen Charbonneau
• Daniel Lee
• Kendra Levine
• Heather Ritchie
• Margaret Smith
• Linda Broussard (SLA’s Chief Administrative Officer)
• Jeff Leach (SLA’s Director, Marketing)
• Quan O. Logan (SLA’s Chief Technology Officer)

Are You Ready?

Today is the official launch of this project at Leadership Summit in Washington, DC. I will present details of the new service (along with a live demo of some of its features) to SLA’s leadership and will also invite units to join the second round of early adopters.

I am very excited to see what web-based innovations the association will realize when we are all finally rowing in the same direction. If your unit is ready to make the switch, or if you have any questions or comments, contact me.

Daniel P. Lee

Director, 2009-2011

Email: danielplee at sympatico.ca

Office: (416) 644-7000

Twitter: @yankeeincanada

Appendix – Early Adopters (First Round)

• Florida & Caribbean
• Illinois
• New York
• Oregon
• Philadelphia
• Silicon Valley
• Toronto
• Washington, DC
• Western Canada
• Academic
• Business and Finance
• Competitive Intelligence
• Leadership and Management Division
• Legal
• Science-Technology
• Transportation

* I chose “Operation Vitality” as the nickname/codename for this project because I wanted to inject a “a healthy capacity for vigorous activity” into our webmaster community and because I was doing things slightly under the radar to build support from the ground up.

Once again, a re-tweeter has been developed for this year’s SLA conference based on the Twitter API and John Eckman’s code.  The hashtag is #sla2010.

What will the re-tweeter do?  When a follower of @sla2010 posts a tweet with the hashtag #sla2010 in their tweet (probably best at the end of the tweet) that tweet will be posted to the @sla2010 account and circulated to all of @sla2010′s followers.  The username of the person who sent the original tweet will appear at the start of the message followed by a “:”.

At conference, there will be a 2 minute delay before tweets are re-tweeted.  This year twitter has been whitelisted the @sla2010 account which means there will be limits on how many tweets can be posted to the account.  Yay!

Re-tweeting is helpful for:

• segregating your #sla2010 tweet stream from your other streams
• sending broadcast messages (2 minute delay at conference) to all @sla2010 followers
• finding out what others at conference are doing, seeing, hearing, eating, drinking, etc. (Author’s note: this will be especially important in New Orleans!)
• asking questions and getting answers
• experiencing the conference virtually – check out the virtual conference component as well
• creating an archive of tweets for future or live analysis

This is an opt-in service.  Only your tweets with the hashtag (#sla2010) will be re-tweeted and you must be following sla2010 for it to work.  Also, tweets from protected accounts won’t be re-tweeted.

Using a number of tools out there, you can also follow the #sla2010 hashtag:

• via RSS
• search.twitter.com
• TweetDeck
• TweetChat
• Many others

The re-tweeter is brought to you by the SLA Innovation Laboratory!

The SLA Toronto Student Group hosted a terrific “Marketing Your Skills” event this evening.

There were a few resources I mentioned that I wanted to make available here.

• Positioning Information Professionals for the Future (SLA Alignment Project)
• Competencies for Information Professionals of the 21st Century: Revised edition, June 2003 (SLA)
• What Color Is Your Parachute? 2009: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers by Richard Nelson Bolles
• Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz
• First Have Something to Say: Writing for the Library Profession, By Walt Crawford
• Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

The proposal to change our name has encouraged debate and deliberation in all corners of this association.  It has also forced us to focus our attention on the results of the Alignment Project, an effort to adapt to a changing world in which we are not alone.  This proposal has been 100 years in the making and now is the time for us to make a decision.  Vote YES to Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals.

This is my first year as a Director on the Board of Directors and I voted in favor of the motion to put the proposed name to a vote because:

• as a member you have the right to cast your vote to make this momentous decision;
• “change the name” has been a constant refrain for many years;
• the proposed name is based on solid research, conducted in good faith; and
• the proposed name reflects a direction many members have told me they want to go in.

Personally, I believe in this association’s diversity and see it as a strength.  I also believe it’s what sets us apart from other associations.  That is why I have spent my own money to be a member for eight years.  Diversity of opinion begets perspective and I need multiple perspectives reflected in the association I choose to belong to so I can grow and prosper as a professional in this increasingly complex world we operate in.

The name Special Libraries Association narrows that potential for perspective and Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals broadens it.

Vote YES to Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals – vote yes, vote early and vote often!

Here is my preliminary schedule for SLA2009 in Washington, DC.  I will also be at plenty of Open Houses and sessions.

The best way to contact me while I am in DC would be a direct message on Twitter – yankeeincanada.

Fri Jun 12, 2009

• 9am SLA Board of Directors Executive Session
• 1pm SLA Board of Directors Open Session

Sat Jun 13, 2009

• 9am SLA Board of Directors Open Session

Sun Jun 14, 2009

• 7:30am SLA Leadership Development Institute
• 1pm Idea Showcase: SLA Chapters, Divisions, and Caucuses in Action
• 1:30pm SLA First-Timers and Fellows Connect
• 3pm Meet the President Elect Candidates
• 4pm Meet the Treasurer Candidates
• 5:15pm SLA Opening General Session and Awards Presentation
• 7:30pm International Spy Museum Tour /SLA Centennial Reception

Mon Jun 15, 2009

• 1:30pm Managing Knowledge-Based Initiatives: Knowledge Management Division Business Meeting /SLA Unconference Session No. 2 – TWEET UP!
• 3:30pm Advertising & Marketing Division Roundtable / The New Face of the Special Librarian: Embedded Librarians
• 5:30pm Canadian Reception
• 6pm International Reception / SLA Alumni & Student Connect
• 9pm Legal Division Open House

Tue Jun 16, 2009

• 7am Annual Diversity Leadership Development Breakfast
• 9:30am Finance Committee
• 11:30am Information Technology Division Business Meeting and Awards Ceremony
• 1:30pm Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Issues Caucus Business Meeting
• 5pm SLA Chapter Cabinet Meeting /SLA Division Cabinet Meeting
• 6:30pm SLA Joint Cabinet Meeting
• 7:30pm SLA Salutes! Awards and Leadership Reception [Ticket 830]

Wed Jun 17, 2009

• 8:30am Mashups: Future of Changing Content
• 12 pm Homeward Bound!

SLA 2009 is almost here!  Since May 2, 2009 the #sla2009 re-tweeter has been busily sending around tweets as people prepare for conference.  Undoubtedly, the volume of tweets will increase as we get closer to conference and will balloon from June 14-17, 2009.

With a bit of help, I have designed a dashboard for the re-tweeter as a "one-stop shop" if you're interested in getting a bird's eye view of the re-tweeter's data stream.

The dashboard consists of two pages: home and analytics.

Home

The home page has two elements:

1. A continuously updated feed of the latest Tweets in the re-tweeter data
   stream.  As new tweets are sent, a link will appear with the number of
   new tweets, so you can refresh the page and view them.
2. A Live Cloud of words that are most popular in the re-tweeter's data stream at that moment.  The more popular the word, the larger the font.  Each word in the cloud is linked to a Twitter search for that word in the stream – very handy if you want to see why people are tweeting about that particular word.  Stop words have been stripped from the cloud to keep it as clean as possible.

Analytics

The analytics page has seven charts showing:

1. Daily tweet activity since May 2, 2009 when the re-tweeter was launched
2. Who is tweeting the most (Top Tweeps)
3. Who is receiving the most @replies
4. Who is sending the most @replies
5. What other hashtags are popular
6. What types of tweets are being sent
7. What links being sent around are most popular

There is also a handy set of links across the top of all pages to:

• @SLA2009 on Twitter
• The SLA2009 Homepage
• The SLA2009 Personal Planner
• The Virtual INFO-EXPO
• The SLA2009 Blog
• The SLA2009 Hospitality Wiki
• The SLA Innovation Laboratory

The dashboard is based on live data from the re-tweeter's database, so check back often to see how the data stream is changing over time.  I hope you find it useful, interesting and thought provoking – most importantly, I hope you find it inspiring!

Once again, a re-tweeter for has been developed for this year's SLA conference based on the Twitter API and John Eckman's code.  Many thanks to John and our own Karen Huffman for improving on last year's code!

Starting on Saturday May 2, 2009, the sla2009
Twitter account will become a re-tweeter.  What's a re-tweeter you
ask?  It's simple.  When a follower of sla2009 posts a tweet with the hashtag
#sla2009 in their tweet (probably best at the end of the tweet) that
tweet will be posted to the sla2009 account.  The username of the
person who sent the original tweet will appear at the start of the
message followed by a ":".

At conference, there will be a 3 minute delay before tweets are re-tweeted.  Leading up to conference the delay will begin at 30 minutes and decrease as we get closer.  If you are following sla2009, you will see all of the tweets that are being re-tweeted.

Re-tweeting is helpful for:

• separating out your sla2009 related tweets from your other tweets
• sending broadcast messages (3 minute delay at conference) to all sla2009 followers
• seeing what sla2009 followers are tweeting about without
  necessarily having to go to the sla2009 page
• creating an archive of tweets on the sla2009 page for future or live analysis

This is an opt-in service.  Only your tweets with the hashtag (#sla2009) will be re-tweeted and you must be following sla2009 for it to work.  Tweets from protected accounts won't be re-tweeted.

Using a number of tools out there, you can also follow the #sla2009 hashtag:

• Twitter (RSS)
• search.twitter.com
• TweetDeck
• Many others

The re-tweeter is brought to you by the SLA Innovation Laboratory!

I have seen a lot of discussion on various blogs about establishing hashtags on Twitter for the various groups in SLA. I don’t know if this list exists yet, so I am going to start one. What hashtags are out there? Add a comment with known hashtags and I will compile the list.

• #sla2008 (Annual conference in Seattle – no longer used)
• #sla2009 (Annual conference in Washington)
• #slaleads (Leadership Summit)
• #dsoc (Social Science Division)
• #slait (Information Technology Division)
• #slakm (Knowledge Management Division)
• #slator (Toronto Chapter)
• #dsol (Solo Division)

SLA eVoting for the 2009 Board of Directors Election will begin on 10 September 2008 at 12:01 a.m. EDT.

All members* eligible to vote and in good standing as of 25 August 2008
may participate in the election. Polls will close on 1 October at 5:00
p.m. EDT.

Members with a current e-mail address in the SLA database will
receive an e-notification when the polls open. Members without an
e-mail address on file may still login to vote using their SLA Web
UserId and Password, or they can e-mail evote@sla.org to request a paper ballot. Requests for a paper ballot must be received by 10 September.

Questions? E-mail evote@sla.org or call +1.703.647.4950

The candidates for the 2009 SLA Board of Directors are:

• President-Elect: Janice C. Anderson and Anne Caputo
• Chapter Cabinet Chair-Elect: Cynthia Barrancotto and Ruth Wolfish
• Division Cabinet Chair-Elect: Holly Chong-Williams and Ann Sweeney
• Director (vote for two candidates): Jessica Baumgart, Michael Kim, Daniel Lee, Nettie Seaberry

Visit the 2009 Board Candidates page to see candidates’ bios and
speeches delivered at the SLA 2008 Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO in
Seattle, WA USA.

*Excludes organizational, honorary and virtual members of SLA.