LibraryTechtonics

Boston Media Makers meets the first Sunday of every month at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain, MA. It’s “live Twitter“-style, where everyone around the table gets 3 minutes to talk about what they’re working on, ask questions, do little show-and-tell demos, that sort of thing. Steve Garfield, local vidcaster extraordinaire (check out his tutorials and resources on how to video blog), has been working on a method of live broadcasting the meeting, and this meeting was broadcast on a new streaming net TV site called Mogulus.  We were even able to take questions from the Mogulus chat room for the stream, which was nifty. Hurray for trying new stuff using practical applications.

This is the first time I’ve been to a BMM meeting, and I’m one of two women in the room. Not surprising, but worth noting (especially if you’re a techie gal/librarian or a gal interested in tech looking for something like this).  I was also one of the few people in the room with a PC.

Attendees range from movie maker types, new media marketers, programmers, designers, people from companies and organizations looking to use the media to help somehow, and more.  It’s great to be in a room with so many different types of people listening to their ideas, discoveries, demos, debates, and more.  Face-to-face communication is awesome.

Some of the nifty things that were talked about at the meeting, going around the room:

• Giant Squid Audio Lab mics: the Tram 50 is an awesome quality but budget option (although I can’t find it online… I’m worried that I heard it wrong). The cute fuzzy mic covers for filtering wind are excellent stocking stuffers (making them DIY is really easy, though, too).
• Got an iPhone, iPod, Zune, some other portable? Get iYule. The money goes to a charity, which is awesome.  The nice gent who mentioned it said that his iPhone even felt a little warmer in his hands when viewing it. ;D
• A really interesting discussion on the rise of sites like Utterz and Seesmic, pros/cons, feature comparisons.
• Social Media Breakfast 4 has been scheduled, and they have their own site now. I’m already registered, if you’re in the Boston area and wanna meet tech & media folks, you should come.
• A fellow all the way from London with a company called Windfalldigital, working on some really super interesting multimedia exhibit stuff on science, including a “choose a character” interactive exhibit on genetics (much akin to the Holocaust Museum and the Spy Museum). He showed a really interesting video… I hope it shows up well in the session recording.
• Someone just starting out with video and audio, looking to broadcast interview for his blog about how life online leads to life offline.
• The new WordPress for Dummies book is apparently really good, and includes an excellent section on WordPress MU.
• All sorts of love for Voxci. I’ve been rolling around ideas for using it, and Jack Hodgson is going to help me help him by encouraging me to use it.
• Gravityland looks like an intriguing experimental take on interactive fictionalized web media entertainment.
• Comparing Networked organizations (less hierarchy, more task-oriented roles) vs. traditional top-down organizations (managers, middle managers, underlings), and the recommendation to read The Starfish and the Spider.

Boston Media Makers is an example of how social media online isn’t always a digital vacuum, and that social media can and usually will lead to IRL (in real life) interactions, especially with people who really get it.

Do you attend meetings like this in your area?  Why or why not?  If you do, what types of social media types attend?  If more meetings like this were streamed live, would you watch/listen?

The Pour House, 907 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts
http://bostonblogevents.com/blogtoberfest

I’ll be hanging with bloggers from all over the Metro Boston area tonight at this free event. Why do I go to things like this, you might ask? I mean, I’m not networking to find a new job outside of librarianship, and I’m not a marketing person, so what gives?

Any blogger, especially a librarian blogger, benefits from meeting more of their family, blogger, who aren’t necessarily their genus, librarian (I consider species here to be the flavor of librarian: public, academic, corporate, archivist… you get the gist). Whenever you get out into the world in a non-genus setting, you are doing outreach, telling the larger family what librarians are up to, smashing stereotypes, getting ideas, inspiring unpatrons to become patrons, and much more. You represent your genus when you get out there.

You can also shop for ideas, and learn about new tech by hanging with people in the know. What’s new and upcoming? What’s going to tank? What do you use that for? You get a sense of real Web 2.0/social software culture, as well as just being social. And, because so many of the people who attend these things are helpful as well as social, it’s a good way to shop for people to help you, often times for free. Friends like helping friends, see?

If you are a librarian who blogs, how often do you get out to these things? I’d be interested to know, so drop me a comment about your experiences. If you’re not sure how to find the blogger family in your area, try sites like Meetup.com, or Ning.com, and search for “blogger” in your vicinity. You can even try searching for groups on Facebook or MySpace. It’s like any other reference question, you just need to be your creative selves in finding the answer.

If you’re in the Boston area, and you want to get involved, let me know. Sometimes it helps n00bs to have a buddy at these things, and I can definitely introduce you around. And, if you happen to be attending Blogtoberfest tonight, drop me a comment and let me know!