Thanks for your comments and your numerous contributions to the field of librarianship. Truly, I am an advocate of libraries using social media in creative and dynamic ways. I’ve engineered some projects at my two most recent places of employment, and I’ve helped facilitate discussion of these topics among hundreds of librarians in my state. I certainly have no interest in dismissing *all* social media trends as mere evangelism. I suppose I don’t think having a more in depth discussion about some of these issues would be all that boring.

Perhaps I am a bit of an academic at heart, (although I work in public libraries,) but I’d like to see an opportunity for more rigorous debate and discussion at conferences from time to time. I confess that the 45-60 minutes allotted for many CIL presentations may not be the best venue.

- Steve

Thanks for the post.

From some previsous comments, I always get concerned when people dismiss trend identification in speeches in short YouTube videos by demanding that speakers give footnotes and cite sources in oral speeches and PowerPoint presentations. That’s a guaranteed way to make the speech boring. It is often a way to dismiss or defer taking action by starting to experiment with new ways of doing things – not being ridiculous and replacing the whole old way wholus bolus – but trying some pilots and reading the speaker’s books, articles, references, and blog posts which point to what they read and view to arrive at their positions. Just questioning the sources is often a web habit where people don’t even say ‘I went a looked for the data on this and disagree’. It’s a way to avoid doing their own due diligence or to dismiss the trend because that’s easier than addressing the issue. I don’t believe it’s a good idea to wait for absolute proofs for trends. You need to play and see what happens yourself and keep an open mind.

Anyway, these sort of trend speeches are done to spark debate and more research, not to serve as recommendations for sheep to follow. As with everything, YMMV.

It’s a shame that trend identification can be dismissed as mere evangelism. (I am always happen that I have every misspelling of my name in my alerts – those old librarian skills sure come in handy still!)

Stephen
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This is Michael Porter here, and I wanted to respond to your comment above. I wish you could have seen the session in person as I’d love to talk with you about all of this, especially the “”evangelical” posturing” you mention. I get excited, but I use facts to back up my presented opinions and did that with this session and I did that here as best I could. One thing I tried to make clear, which is hard to get without being at the live session, was that that video tells stories, which are positive, but they do not show the data and the methods for gathering the metrics. One of the points I tried to make was that anecdotal evidence is key for libraries telling their social media stories. If we want to get statistics for a SERIOUS ROI proving campaign, it is a GIANT task most libraries would never really undertake. Showing the video was to make points about the value of the media, or course, but showing it also served two purposed in the session: 1. To show ways someone else had PRESENTED data demonstrating value of social media and 2. to show that anecdotal evidence would work best in a presentation like this, since, in order to get numbers like this you would most likely need to do a massive ROI project. You know, I really think I may have even mentioned that I didn’t have any supporting data for any of the numbers shown in the video. Regardless though, it does a good job of storytelling and as long as our numbers were solid it would be a good example. I didn’t know Stephen showed the video at another session, but if he did, it would make me feel even more like it was a good resource.

If you want to talk/email me directly about it I’d be happy to, though I imagine if we talked it over we’d end up on the same page in pretty short order.

Thanks for this post, Sarah.

-Michael Porter libraryman.com

If Michael showed the same “Socialnomics” video that Stephen Abrams showed at last year’s CIL or another recent conference I attended, then I want to point out that many commenters to the Socialnomics video questioned the authority and the accuracy of some of the videos claims. Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of social networking sites and services, including for libraries. But I find some of the “evangelic” posturing of some library conference presenters about social media to be disappointing and distracting. I think if we were to take the take to force presenters such as Stephen Abrams to review his sources and respond to more rigorous debate, we’d all be the better for it. What do you think? Feel free to send me an email if you’d prefer.