The Evolution of the Tech Geek Queen

I seem to have acquired the moniker “Tech Geek Queen” (or something) at work of late. It’s quite amusing to be called upon for more information on blogs, wikis, RSS, iPods, podcasting, tablet pcs (ok this one isn’t so strange, seeing as I am the only tablet user at MPOW at the moment)… you name it. I was even called upon to show someone a bulletin board the other day, and I was most amused at myself because the only bulletin board I could think of, off the top of my head, was an EverQuest discussion board. (I don’t think my colleague knew what she was looking at.)

So there I was with this colleague, and we’re looking at how a bulletin board is laid out, while I’m secretly amused at the discussion of what graphics card to buy so that you can have a good gaming experience. I stopped myself reading the arguments pro and con the various card models, and pointed out how you post, how threads form, searching, yadda yadda yadda. (I do have some discipline.)

I was talking to the same colleague about blogs too – she’s been asked to investigate options for a staff communication tool. Blogs and wikis were suggested (not by me) and she had no idea how either work. I was listening to myself talk to her about blogs and suddenly realised “Hmm I sound like a blog evangelist…!” There I was extolling all the uses and great features of blogs, when I can still remember how, at the beginning of the year, when The Boss said “So what’s this blog thing, and can we use it? And what about RSS?” I dissed it as yet another fad.

I have my colleague SGS to thank for keeping me interested because she was the one who actually gave RSS some thought and realised we could use it. I’m lucky I stopped dissing enough to listen to what she had to say and I realised there was a lot more to all this “tech stuff” than I thought. She doesn’t read this blog so I should really thank her in person for ignoring my (at the time) uninformed dissing¹. (Well, even if she did read this I would still thank her in person!)

So back in the depths of winter I started this blog, just to get myself familiar with the technology and let myself play with things so that I would have some actual experience to call upon. Then I went and started that experiment and realised it would be nice to have something to do at 5am. Before long the whole blogging thing became a writing exercise and good practice (even if those articles I am trying to produce for The Boss are still in gestation at this point).

Maybe it’s a bit soon to tell, but right now I do think starting a blog has been one of the most fun and productive things I’ve done this year. I’ve had lots of fun writing. Writing has always been something I’ve always wanted to do but had too many hang ups about, and somehow, blogging has taken me right past all that. It’s been productive too, in so many ways. Apart from all the writing, professionally it’s been wonderful to learn so much new “stuff”, and I’ve really enjoyed lurking on the fringes of all the blog communities. There are lots of amazing people out there. [warm fuzzy feeling²]

I think I was also in danger of getting burnt out this year because there were so many frustrations at work and how was I going to sustain the emotional high of getting married (in March this year)?! Using RSS has introduced me to the whole world of librarians’ blogs and reignited my passion and commitment to my profession.

¹Did I mention I love the word ‘dis’?
²Did I also mention that I feel really good and happy this morning?

Categories: blogging, librarianship, experiments