I had a genuinely fantastic time meeting new friends and discussing social media, libraries, branding, and mobile devices today at Gloucester County Library’s staff day retreat. Melissa Brisbin was kind enough to cover the breakouts on mobile devices, Brian at GCL took on the Facebook breakouts, and I did the breakouts on Pinterest. In between the breakouts, I had the privilege of discussing library branding and social media best practices with the kind, attentive, and patient staffers using the presentation linked below. We did it through Library Link NJ’s onsite presentation program, and I do not think it could have gone better. Special thanks so much to Ralph at GCL for his moderation, Anne at GCL for reaching out, and everyone else at GCL for their attention and care. Here’s the presentation for today’s talk, which discusses Social Media best practice, questions about organizational brand, mobile devices and adoption, the power of emotion in branding, the difference between visual branding and brand proper, and a lot more.
Libraries, the original co-working space by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
“Codecademy for Adults: Learn How to Write Code for Free
English: Python logo Deutsch: Python Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia
LOCATION: Technology Center Session 1: Wednesday, October 9, 7-8:30 Session 2: Wednesday, October 16, 7-8:30 Session 3: Wednesday, October 23, 7-8:30
Have you ever wanted to know how to write code, build websites, and develop applications, but did not know where to start? Codecademy is a free, hands-on, cloud based learning community focused squarely on helping people to learn languages like HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, and Python. Come learn how this fantastic free resource can help you to master coding. Skill Level: Intermediate” ~ Codecademy for Adults: Learn How to Write Code for Free (Session 1 of 3) | Princeton Public Library –
Hi all. This is just a note to let you know that our recent move from ‘filehost a’ to ‘filehost b’ is complete, and that our broken links, images, and other issues should now be resolved! If you see anything out of place, please don;t hesitate to drop me a line at lemasney@gmail.com.
I am marking a very special anniversary here. On April 19th, 2012, I stopped drinking alcohol, and since then, I’ve learned how to live again. On Friday, April 19th, 2013, I noted one year of sobriety, and a lot has happened. Here are some of the highlights of what happened during that time:
I regained focus on my nutritional lifestyle, began walking everyday, tracked my calories, and lost 100 pounds.
I discovered many instances of who was important to keep near me for support, and who I had to remove myself from. If you are reading this, chances are you are in the support column.
I left Princeton University, and started to focus on LeMasney Consulting as my main income.
I finalized my divorce, increased the time that I saw my boys each week, and greatly simplified my life, means, and ways.
It’s no coincidence, at least not for me. Alcohol affected my drive, focus, and will. It allowed me to not care about the things and ideas that hurt, which allowed me to also not care about the damage I was doing to myself in obesity, alcoholism, and self-deprecation. Perhaps most importantly, alcohol affected my self-worth, pride, and self-respect to the point that I did not care how either I regarded myself, or how others regarded me. All of that has changed, and I thank you for helping me to find a different way.
Carnegie library interior, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 2004 by Rick Dikeman (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Tonight, I’m getting the chance to talk to librarians about a topic that I think is incredibly important to discuss, but do not get the opportunity nearly enough: organizational branding.
You might be tempted to think that I’m just talking about visual branding, like the library’s logo, but I’m not. In fact, visual branding can only be truly successful in my opinion after you have done the more difficult work of discovering what you are, what you are trying to represent, and stakeholder perception. The aim of organizational branding efforts is to make these three ideas merge:
We are presenting a brand of some kind now (active or passive, intended or unintended) that we hope creates a positive, accurate perception by our stakeholders.
We have stakeholders that perceive our brand in some way, and we must discover what that perception is, even if it is not positive or correct.
We can do actions, enforce policies, and check stakeholder perceptions to align our brand with our intended perceptions, the very intent of branding.
We are doing these things to underline and reinforce what we are, and our patrons and other stakeholders understand and agree.
Brand assessment
The first part is to find out how you wish to be perceived. In other words, your brand is your function, your vision, your mission, your actions, your culture, and your perception. Do you know what these things are for your organization? What is your function? If you are a public library, is your function simply to get books and other media into the hands of patrons? Or is it to extend the education, abilities, and preparedness of humans getting ready to face the world? There is a chasm between these two ideas. What is the vision of your organization? How does your organization see the world? For example, the world might be dystopian, a cold and barren place in which everyone is watched and tracked, or the world might be an experiential delight, in which every interaction in the world is an opportunity for growth, learning, and extension. Perhaps most interestingly, what is the culture of your organization? What are the sensory cues that your space, language, and actions represent? What kind of art do you have on the walls? What color is on the walls? What scents greet you when you walk in? What kind of programming are you offering? What resources are available to patrons? How do staff react to interruptions? What frustrates your patrons? What do those things say about who you are, versus who you are trying to be? You can find out what you want your brand to be, and what it is now, and close that gap.
Stakeholder research
After you have discovered what it is that you are trying to be, it’s important to discover how you are being perceived. If your mission, vision, and culture are either not being perceived or interpreted in the ways that you expect, then the rest of your efforts will be that much more difficult. Through observation, interview, survey and other research methods, you can get a clear idea of how your efforts are being interpreted by staff, administrators, children patrons, adult patrons, and so on. You can find out how you are being perceived, and how you would prefer to be perceived, and close that gap.
Rebranding effort
Finally, you have to assess the gap between your efforts, your branding goals, and the perception of your brand. Once you have a clear idea of how you want to be perceived, and how you are being perceived, you can make changes in visuals, culture, policy, and action that underline, reinforce, and support that brand until your research shows that your intended brand is matching your perceived brand.
If you are interested in getting help for your organization to assess, interpret, and construct the brand that you want for your library or other organization, I would love to sit down with you to have that discussion. I’m lemasney@gmail.com.
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So in this post, I want to talk a bit about the stresses of modern life, and a possible antidote.
I just lost my job of two years at Princeton University. It was a glorious opportunity, but it was not for me. There were certain skills that particular job required that I did not have. The skills that I do have and thrill in using, including playing with technology, media, consulting, training, graphic design, presenting, and other creative skills were not the ones that caused an issue. There were a lot of necessary skills related to short-term memory, intense and tight focus, methodical and diligent site testing, and political sensibility that I do not, and may not ever own. In the end, it comes down to a misunderstanding on my part about what the job was going to be, and despite that misunderstanding, a need for that job to be done and done well in the way that they wished. Writing styles, working styles, and other stylistic differences also contributed. I wish them very well and continued success, and they did the same to me.
So, what to do now?
One of the things that had happened more often than I would have liked is having to turn down consulting work. An endless schedule of a nine-to-five job often eclipses the flexibility needed to succeed in consulting work. One of the outcomes of this change is that I am very free to pursue consulting work now. If you are interested in following my effort there, please visit https://www.facebook.com/lemasneycreative
Another thing that has become quite clear is that I do not need, nor want all the stuff that I have acquired. In my separation and later divorce, moving from a single home to a studio apartment, two cars to one, alcoholism to sobriety, obesity to fitness, and lots of money to very little, I have learned many things, but chief among them is that more is not better. In fact, to the contrary, losing all of those things has been a struggle in change, but a relief in the gloriously simple result.
I have also gone deeper into my embrace of nutrition via simplification and minimalism. One of my favorite things now is to grab 2 or 3 fresh whole vegetables from the fridge, like potato, tomato, and broccoli, and gathering it together into a delicious, simply prepared, subtle beauty of a meal. I have recently closed off my television service. I have stopped voluntarily going out to eat at restaurants. I have increasingly moved towards a whole-foods and local-seasonal nutritional lifestyle, going so far as to throw out my Splenda tonight, and realize with certain joy that I’ve drunk only a variety of loose leaf teas over the last week or so.
This is leading somewhere. I’m developing a new budget that eradicates my credit debt, maintains my living space, supports my family, maintains my auto insurance, and allows me to eat. Eventually, I’d like to get rid of my car and rely more strongly on walking, biking, and public transit. As a final goal, I’d like to own a very small plot of land (40’x40′?), with a tiny structure (20’x20′) to eat, sleep, meditate, play, think, and work. The world will be my yard.
The Unanswered Question (and the only one arts administrators need to ask.)
The Quandry of E-book Lending
