by It’s been a crazy fall term – instruction and research consultations are at an all time high, which while great, means there is little time for anything else, include this little blog.
I did manage to fit in Internet Librarian 2010 though. I do enjoy going to this conference – great location, great people, great ideas. I have all sorts of ideas I’d like to try now (many involving QR codes, which kind of surprises me). I did manage to do 2 presentations – one on the videos we created last summer and some preliminary survey results (more to come) and I was lucky enough to be part of the first Failcamp panel.
Failcamp started with 3 panelists talking about their failures and what they learned. I talked about the lack of pickup in our reference pilot in Second Life. I tried to talk about how sometimes projects happen out of opportunities and that these can snowball, for good or bad. I also wanted to stress that just because a project doesn’t work at my institution (which has no distance education or other institutional presence in SL), it doesn’t mean that it will be a failure at all institutions. It’s essential that we know who we’re trying to reach and whether what we are doing is desired by them.
Despite all of the great ideas I took away, I’d have to say, the discussion of our failures was the most enlightening and I took some good advice/ideas home with me. Let’s face it, we all fail. Why don’t we talk about it? Why are we constantly recreating the wheel? Yes, it’s great to hear how well things worked, but what didn’t? What should I avoid if I try a similar project – or maybe I should avoid the project all together? I’m hoping that Failcamp and the other sessions in the Fail stream, will start a revolution. Admit your failures! Learn from them! To help this revolution along, share your fail stories at failbrary.org.
