Usha Chand, migrant and pacific peoples adviser attended New Zealand Diversity Forum on Sunday 22 -23 August 2010 held at Christchurch. The Forum covered issues around community living, education, youth and minority.
Some highlights were :
Getting to know staff from the community organisations and agencies working with migrants and refugees in South Island eg. Refugee Services Aotearoa, Settling In, Settlement Support, Human Rights Commission, Office of Ethnic Affairs, Christchurch Resettlement Services, Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce, Hagley Community College, Peeto Learning Centre, Shakti Ethnic Women’s Centre, Canterbury Refugee Council and NZ Police
- Hassan Ibrahim, Refugee Education Coordinator, Ministry of Education’s session on how NZ Curriculum framework supports refugee education. Some of the challenges for Muslim students and their families in NZ schools are: age of the students, different teaching system, number of students in a class, length of stay in NZ, teacher-student expectations, concept of respect, social integration with peers and peer pressure, exposure to historical drama. Accurate community mapping by schools and resulting strategies to help distinct student needs leads to successful outcomes for students and the school.
- Mia Northrop’s session on her Vindaloo against violence campaign. Mia, a social media expert from Melbourne, used Face book to mobilize 17,000 people across the world to show support for the Indian community to go dining at 400 local Indian restaurants on a given night. Media coverage of a spate of attacks against Indian students in Australia prompted her to do something that was effective yet did not require too much money, time or lots of people
-Graeme Innes, Australia’s Disability Discrimination and Race Discrimination Commissioner is a lawyer, mediator, and human rights campaigner for 30 years and was the first Chair of Vision Australia, Australia’s national blindness agency. He delivered his message of ‘united we stand, divided we fall’ (i.e. do not campaign against one another) through 3 stories: the year the blind got to vote via secret ballot in Australia, meeting and working with Sharon, a sex change gay and Keith, blind, competitive House captain in a school
-Hana O’Reagan, Member of the Maori Language Commission and Kairahi at CPIT, talked of how important it is to feel comfortable with who we are and identifying where we belong. As examples, she talked of how when she was growing up, different people’s perception of who she was differed from her perception of herself as a Maori. At primary school, she got called a ‘nigger’ whereas at a Maori Girls boarding school she was a ‘honki’
-youth group issues presentations called “little things matter.” The issues highlighted were education, diversity and importance of communication between communities.
http://www.slideshare.net/nzhumanrights
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
New Zealand Family History Fair, Hamilton, 16-18 July, 2010
Shona Lewis and Marie Hickey, attended the first NZ Family History Fair in Hamilton, representing the Auckland Research Centre, Auckland City Libraries as exhibitors. It was organised by the New Zealand Society of Genealogists, who the Auckland Research Centre has a close relationship with.
Article from Shona Lewis -
It started off on the Friday, with registrations, and the setting up of exhibition stands, followed up by the NZSG AGM meeting. In the evening, the Governor General, Anand Satyanand, and Mayor of Hamilton Bob Simcock, attended the opening ceremony and dinner with a full Maori welcome.
The Fair started on Saturday morning with seminars being run throughout the day over both days of the weekend. Marie and I alternated between looking after the stand and attending seminars.
We had probably the best position right at the entrance to the exhibition hall and right next door to the main NZSG stand; which meant we attracted a lot of exhibitors.
Our stand was decorated with posters and flyers of our Family History events, and leaflets promoting our Family History collections, as well as a few promoting Specials and the Library as a whole. We had a Powerpoint presentation running on loop on the datashow, which showed off our digital library and what sort of information could be found within, and again, slides of our posters about our FH events.
The datashow proved very successful at pulling people into the stand, and allowed us the opportunity of being able to do live demonstrations on the other laptop of how to search on our digital library. On Saturday morning alone, I managed to find a total of SIX ancestors for researchers - immensely satisfying!
The seminars were of good quality - they covered all different topics and were relevant for the beginner right through to the more experienced researcher. As I often present to the public these days, it was of interest to me to watch the different presenting styles. Of value, too, was getting insight and inspiration of what might prove useful for future family history lunchtime sessions.
For me, personally, the most useful tip I learned was to use a different colour folder, box etc, for each branch of my family tree, and to start a new folder for each member of the family once they got married. That way you can tell at a glance which branch they belong to. Useful, as my personal research has got so large, its become quite hard to manage.
The Fair closed at 5pm on Sunday - and was extremely successful. Well in excess of 1000 people visited the Fair over the two days, and its hoped that it will be held again in two to three years time.
Article from Marie Hickie -
I recently attended the inaugural New Zealand Society of Genealogists Family History Fair which was held at Te Rapa.
The week-end included a series of talks lasting about ½ hour each and there were stalls showcasing a variety of exhibitors – Auckland Research Centre included.
I managed to attend three talks over the course of the week-end, these were about Archives New Zealand, Resources in Australia and Unusual New Zealand resources. The talk on Archives New Zealand and Australian resources were very interesting.
Shauna Hicks reminded us that there are virtually no central records for Australia so it is necessary to know when the state came into being and how it was governed prior to that date as the records would be located at the appropriate archives. Graham Langton spoke about the popular records such as wills, pre 1920 army personnel files, passenger lists, notices of intention to marry etc and how Archives New Zealand works. Robyn Williams’ talk on unusual New Zealand resources stressed that you should also “think outside of the box” with your family history research and looking at alternative sources such as school magazines/histories, church/local histories, gazettes etc to get a more rounded view of life in the times of your forebears.
One of the highlights was the Who do you think you are? Presentation by Jan Gow at the official dinner on Friday night which highlighted the family of the Topp Twins – Jools was present as were her parents.
A thoroughly but busy week-end.
Article from Shona Lewis -
It started off on the Friday, with registrations, and the setting up of exhibition stands, followed up by the NZSG AGM meeting. In the evening, the Governor General, Anand Satyanand, and Mayor of Hamilton Bob Simcock, attended the opening ceremony and dinner with a full Maori welcome.
The Fair started on Saturday morning with seminars being run throughout the day over both days of the weekend. Marie and I alternated between looking after the stand and attending seminars.
We had probably the best position right at the entrance to the exhibition hall and right next door to the main NZSG stand; which meant we attracted a lot of exhibitors.
Our stand was decorated with posters and flyers of our Family History events, and leaflets promoting our Family History collections, as well as a few promoting Specials and the Library as a whole. We had a Powerpoint presentation running on loop on the datashow, which showed off our digital library and what sort of information could be found within, and again, slides of our posters about our FH events.
The datashow proved very successful at pulling people into the stand, and allowed us the opportunity of being able to do live demonstrations on the other laptop of how to search on our digital library. On Saturday morning alone, I managed to find a total of SIX ancestors for researchers - immensely satisfying!
The seminars were of good quality - they covered all different topics and were relevant for the beginner right through to the more experienced researcher. As I often present to the public these days, it was of interest to me to watch the different presenting styles. Of value, too, was getting insight and inspiration of what might prove useful for future family history lunchtime sessions.
For me, personally, the most useful tip I learned was to use a different colour folder, box etc, for each branch of my family tree, and to start a new folder for each member of the family once they got married. That way you can tell at a glance which branch they belong to. Useful, as my personal research has got so large, its become quite hard to manage.
The Fair closed at 5pm on Sunday - and was extremely successful. Well in excess of 1000 people visited the Fair over the two days, and its hoped that it will be held again in two to three years time.
Article from Marie Hickie -
I recently attended the inaugural New Zealand Society of Genealogists Family History Fair which was held at Te Rapa.
The week-end included a series of talks lasting about ½ hour each and there were stalls showcasing a variety of exhibitors – Auckland Research Centre included.
I managed to attend three talks over the course of the week-end, these were about Archives New Zealand, Resources in Australia and Unusual New Zealand resources. The talk on Archives New Zealand and Australian resources were very interesting.
Shauna Hicks reminded us that there are virtually no central records for Australia so it is necessary to know when the state came into being and how it was governed prior to that date as the records would be located at the appropriate archives. Graham Langton spoke about the popular records such as wills, pre 1920 army personnel files, passenger lists, notices of intention to marry etc and how Archives New Zealand works. Robyn Williams’ talk on unusual New Zealand resources stressed that you should also “think outside of the box” with your family history research and looking at alternative sources such as school magazines/histories, church/local histories, gazettes etc to get a more rounded view of life in the times of your forebears.
One of the highlights was the Who do you think you are? Presentation by Jan Gow at the official dinner on Friday night which highlighted the family of the Topp Twins – Jools was present as were her parents.
A thoroughly but busy week-end.
POW! The North Island Children’s and Young Adult’s Librarians Conference
Juliana Austen, Children’s Advisor, Teri Ta’ala and Dave Tucker attended the POW! North Island children’s and young adult’s librarian conference in Rotorua on 22-23 July 2010
One of the key learnings taken from the conference was that “Kids are reading more, writing more and creating more but in different way.”
The curriculum & the library, presented by Tracy Dyett RNZLIANZ Curriculum Services Librarian
This is an article from Juliana Austen
Tracy outlined the different way students are approaching research in their schools. She explained the “inquiry approach” to learning concepts, which takes an integrated approach involving values and competencies. Resources must reflect the path of a questioning approach, emotional engagement, student choice, authentic real life purpose, challenges and reflection. Books may include fiction and non-fiction on many aspects of a topic including science, art, images, poetry, myths and legends. For online resources, the National library “services to schools” provides quick links and integrated searches to the National library’s databases.
Check it out at: http://schools.natlib.govt.nz/
Tracy’s presentation can be viewed at:http://www.scribd.com/doc/33685504/The-Curriculum-the-Library
Gifted children and reading, presented by Rosemary Cathcart.
This is an article from Teri Ta’ala.
A recurring theme at the conference was the ability of libraries to provide an escape from the outer world in this case for gifted children.
I would hope that all children’s librarians value their younger patrons enough to be aware of and cater to their varied needs. According to Rosemary, gifted children can feel marginalised by the educational system and perhaps even by wider society, and libraries (and great librarians) can amongst other things, provide a place of refuge for the gifted child.
Possibly the library’s most valued customers, gifted children are precocious readers and would give any summer reading programme a run for its money. A gifted child often begins reading before school, reads widely and is capable of becoming deeply absorbed in a particular passion. A great librarian may offer the kind of access to information that a gifted child is desperate for and the library can become a place to exhaust a consuming interest.
Being aware of the needs gifted children can help the library build a repertoire of books around their advanced abilities, our extensive knowledge of our collection can be essential for this. The recommended reading age of books can be misleading for example, when catering to the gifted child. They may also suffer from other problems such as dyslexia or dyspraxia.
Libraries may want to establish a rapport with local schools to work together in introducing their gifted children to the library. Rosemary recommends then harnessing the creativity of the gifted child by giving them books to review or asking them to help with recommended reading lists.
For further reading, see the articles at the REACH Education Consultancy website.
http://www.giftedreach.org.nz/index.html
One of the key learnings taken from the conference was that “Kids are reading more, writing more and creating more but in different way.”
The curriculum & the library, presented by Tracy Dyett RNZLIANZ Curriculum Services Librarian
This is an article from Juliana Austen
Tracy outlined the different way students are approaching research in their schools. She explained the “inquiry approach” to learning concepts, which takes an integrated approach involving values and competencies. Resources must reflect the path of a questioning approach, emotional engagement, student choice, authentic real life purpose, challenges and reflection. Books may include fiction and non-fiction on many aspects of a topic including science, art, images, poetry, myths and legends. For online resources, the National library “services to schools” provides quick links and integrated searches to the National library’s databases.
Check it out at: http://schools.natlib.govt.nz/
Tracy’s presentation can be viewed at:http://www.scribd.com/doc/33685504/The-Curriculum-the-Library
Gifted children and reading, presented by Rosemary Cathcart.
This is an article from Teri Ta’ala.
A recurring theme at the conference was the ability of libraries to provide an escape from the outer world in this case for gifted children.
I would hope that all children’s librarians value their younger patrons enough to be aware of and cater to their varied needs. According to Rosemary, gifted children can feel marginalised by the educational system and perhaps even by wider society, and libraries (and great librarians) can amongst other things, provide a place of refuge for the gifted child.
Possibly the library’s most valued customers, gifted children are precocious readers and would give any summer reading programme a run for its money. A gifted child often begins reading before school, reads widely and is capable of becoming deeply absorbed in a particular passion. A great librarian may offer the kind of access to information that a gifted child is desperate for and the library can become a place to exhaust a consuming interest.
Being aware of the needs gifted children can help the library build a repertoire of books around their advanced abilities, our extensive knowledge of our collection can be essential for this. The recommended reading age of books can be misleading for example, when catering to the gifted child. They may also suffer from other problems such as dyslexia or dyspraxia.
Libraries may want to establish a rapport with local schools to work together in introducing their gifted children to the library. Rosemary recommends then harnessing the creativity of the gifted child by giving them books to review or asking them to help with recommended reading lists.
For further reading, see the articles at the REACH Education Consultancy website.
http://www.giftedreach.org.nz/index.html
Monday, July 5, 2010
Round Table on Information Access for Print Disabilities
Anna Biazik, Library assistant from Leys Institute attended three sessions at the 2010 annual conference: think globally, act locally! on 23-25 May 2010.
Preconference tour: Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind (RNZFB)
The conference delegates visited the RNZFB faciliaties in Auckland. The tour included the presentation of departments by staff:
- Equipment services: viewed tools supporting everyday life of RNZFB members; from large print calendars to talking calculators and a machine recognising colours of clothing.
- Adoptive communications: JAWS, electronic magnifying glasses, programme STAR (learning Braille);
- Recording studio
- Library: circulation process; burn cd on demand facilities
- Adaptive technology: computer training for members
The vist was very rewarding as staff guided us and responded to questions. The most impressive for me was the Recording studio where we could observe life recording of latest issue of The Listener into DAISY format.
I would recommend a visit to RNZFB to MIS students as it is worthwhile to get familiar and see for yourself what DAISY is, circulation in the Library, recording issues, collage books, JAWS and electronic magnifying glasses.
Trend of DAISY playback device in the world
Mr Hiromitsu Fujimori, represnting PLEXTALK, presented the session updating on news regarding DAISY format and devices. Thanks to the cooperation between the company PLEXTALK and libraries, customers can enjoy news, books and magazines delivered through DAISY players.
There is a range of devices to suit customer's preferences, from small to big examples, from simple to more sophisticated functions.
In general, DAISY players gain popularity with customers as the device can play many formats including DAISY.
PLEASED: Victoria Public Libraries Enhancing Access:
PLEASED: Public Library Accessibility for Disabilities was programmes with a purpose to increase access for people with disabilities. The lesson learned from this programme:
Assess the needs of:
- people with disabilities, also aged customers
- caregivers
- staff
Regarding
- access issues (physical building, carpark, handrail)
- equipment
- training for staff and customers
- ongoing help and assistance for staff and customers
- staff disability awareness
This presentation really reminded us about the necessity of staff awareness of disabilities. It would be useful to include this element in customer service training in public libraries.
Libraries Building Communities: Accessibility needs partnerships
The presentation focussed on social inclusion an dpartnership between public libraries and organisations supporting people with disabilities. The success recipe seems to be an establishment of book clubs / reading groups as social outings, with focus on the market group and cooperation of supporting organisations. The feedback gained from users:
- library as a place to be and meet friends;
- disability becoming less difficult to deal with
- becoming self sufficient, more independent
The presetner read a very moving feedback from a customer saying that the book group saved his life as he considered other ways of ending his life. The programme was financially supported by libraries and government agencies.
This presentation made me aware also about the fact that print disability is not only blindness, but also sight impairment, or being unable to hold a book beacuse of Alzheimer, or perceptual disability.
We all shoul dremember thet Large Print books do not solve the problem as people with cataracts, glaucoma and dyslexia will not benefit from LR. There should be a wider selection of availble material for them, like audio books in DAISY format for example.
One upon a Library: NVDA and the Aotearoa People's Network Kaharoa
APNK presented a story on access improvements for people with print disabilities. Based on a customer's suggestions, APNK computers are equipped now in NVDA: Non Vision Desktop Access. Click on the link to read further about this project.
I also recommend that you watch this short presentation.
For this project, the APNKK was awarded with the Extra Touch Award, presented by the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand. The award recognises outstanding contribution towards an improvement in access or service to blind and vision impaired people and was presented to APNK for their addition of "Magnifying Glass and NVDA software to the PCs they make available in public libraries up and down the country
Monday, May 10, 2010
Waikato/Bay of Plenty weekend school
Jan Rivers, customer services librarian for Mt Albert Libraries attended the Waikato/Bay of Plenty weekend school in Whitianga on 30 April - 2 May 2010.
Attendees were from libraries including Taupo, Otorohanga, Tauranga, Whakatane, Te Kauwhata and Hamilton and they gathered together for a packed programme. The programme was divded into short segments (30 mins) for each presentation which showed how much could be learned in such a compact timeframe, a high energy mini conference.
I was invited to talk for Auckland City Libraries about Developing a Search Strategy. This search strategy is the same that is delivered as part of the reference interview training.
Rodney libraries also presented a paper on Value Managmeent of Volunteers. I was impressed by the demonstrations by librarians of freeware to create a virtual library tour (Wintec Library), online user education (Tauranga Public Library) and a kete for getting your local history and communities online. The kete included audio and video stream input from participants.
Thames library gave a great example of experiences running incentive based reading programmes for adults. Joan Gibbons from Wintec talked to us of the need to take our own responsibility for including Maori content, rahter than always depending on our Maori colleagues, illustrated by children's picture books with Maori knolwedge concepts as a vehicle for understanding.
Phillippa McKeown Green from the University of Auckland shared a great cheat sheet for finding free music, particularly sheet music, on the internet.
A LIANZA professional registration journal workshop captured participant's learnings from the weekend.
Attendees were from libraries including Taupo, Otorohanga, Tauranga, Whakatane, Te Kauwhata and Hamilton and they gathered together for a packed programme. The programme was divded into short segments (30 mins) for each presentation which showed how much could be learned in such a compact timeframe, a high energy mini conference.
I was invited to talk for Auckland City Libraries about Developing a Search Strategy. This search strategy is the same that is delivered as part of the reference interview training.
Rodney libraries also presented a paper on Value Managmeent of Volunteers. I was impressed by the demonstrations by librarians of freeware to create a virtual library tour (Wintec Library), online user education (Tauranga Public Library) and a kete for getting your local history and communities online. The kete included audio and video stream input from participants.
Thames library gave a great example of experiences running incentive based reading programmes for adults. Joan Gibbons from Wintec talked to us of the need to take our own responsibility for including Maori content, rahter than always depending on our Maori colleagues, illustrated by children's picture books with Maori knolwedge concepts as a vehicle for understanding.
Phillippa McKeown Green from the University of Auckland shared a great cheat sheet for finding free music, particularly sheet music, on the internet.
A LIANZA professional registration journal workshop captured participant's learnings from the weekend.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Te Rōpū Whakahau hui ā tau
From 17-20 March 2010 Judith Waaka and Anahera Sadler attended the Te Ropu Whakahau hui a tau at Onuku marae in Akaroa.
The venue was stunning and the manaakitanga of the home people were amazing!. One of the unique things about TRW hui a taui is that they are hosted on marae and we get to experience the culture, stories and history of the local iwi. All of the sessions were delivered in the whare nui "Karaweko".
The conference theme Te Pataka o Rakaihautu - Nga hua o te whenua - Nga hua o Tae me nga uri o Tangaroa, was about presenting traditional knowedge and values in a modern setting. This is the major conference in the area of Maori and information management, and the learning's from the hui will assist us in implementing practical and productive service enhancements for our customers.
I was interested in the Kai Tahu Reo Revitalisation session as it provided some background into the decline of te reo Maori in the South island and suggested ways of increasing te reo Maori. In terms of ACL's Pumanawa project I learned that te reo Maori revitalisation is best achieved by targeting families and not individuals.
The cultural mapping project was about the identification and recording of cultural resources and activities of Maori communities. I was particularly interested in this session as it used traditional knowledge with modern techology to create a valuable resource for both the iwi and the government.
He mihi miharo tenei ki nga whanau me nga hapu o Ngai Tarewa me Ngati Irakehu. Ka Mau te wehi.
The venue was stunning and the manaakitanga of the home people were amazing!. One of the unique things about TRW hui a taui is that they are hosted on marae and we get to experience the culture, stories and history of the local iwi. All of the sessions were delivered in the whare nui "Karaweko".
The conference theme Te Pataka o Rakaihautu - Nga hua o te whenua - Nga hua o Tae me nga uri o Tangaroa, was about presenting traditional knowedge and values in a modern setting. This is the major conference in the area of Maori and information management, and the learning's from the hui will assist us in implementing practical and productive service enhancements for our customers.
I was interested in the Kai Tahu Reo Revitalisation session as it provided some background into the decline of te reo Maori in the South island and suggested ways of increasing te reo Maori. In terms of ACL's Pumanawa project I learned that te reo Maori revitalisation is best achieved by targeting families and not individuals.
The cultural mapping project was about the identification and recording of cultural resources and activities of Maori communities. I was particularly interested in this session as it used traditional knowledge with modern techology to create a valuable resource for both the iwi and the government.
He mihi miharo tenei ki nga whanau me nga hapu o Ngai Tarewa me Ngati Irakehu. Ka Mau te wehi.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Somerset International conference for librarians and teachers 2010
Andrew J Stark, Head of library services and conference director for Somerset College writes an overview of the 2010 Somerset internatioanl conference for librarians and teachers, held recently on Queensland's Gold Coast.
The conference was, again, a tremendously successful two day event with activities and presentation on both days receiving extremely positive feedback. With Somerset International Conference being the academic precursor to the Somerset College Celebration of Literature Writers' Festival, it made March 15 - 19 a truly literary experience for everyone involved.
Conference Monday brought together 7 international recognised presentations who provided an inspirational insight into their areas of expertise. While all quite different in their areas of speciality, each presenter's paper resulted in delegates receiving a highly informative and global exploration of issues related to literacy, literature, research and the role of libraries in the 21st century. All presenters complemented the 2010 conference theme Reading Locally, Learning Globally: creating a universal experience and highlighted to those in attendance the need to understand the gloval implications of our profession, but no at the expense of local knowledge and resources.
Workshop Tuesday exceeded all expectation with the event being completed booked out. These informal sessions reflected the conference theme exceptionally well and I offer sincere thanks to all involved. Clearly, there is a real need for such workshops and networking opportunities being made available for librarians and teachers.
For your interest and reference, the conference presenters' papers are available for you to read online. I would like to extend to you an invitation to refer to these professionally challenging documents, to share their ideas with your colleagues and to consider and reflect upon teh issues raised by these experts in their fields.
Andrew J Stark
Head of Library services and conference director
Somerset College
The conference was, again, a tremendously successful two day event with activities and presentation on both days receiving extremely positive feedback. With Somerset International Conference being the academic precursor to the Somerset College Celebration of Literature Writers' Festival, it made March 15 - 19 a truly literary experience for everyone involved.
Conference Monday brought together 7 international recognised presentations who provided an inspirational insight into their areas of expertise. While all quite different in their areas of speciality, each presenter's paper resulted in delegates receiving a highly informative and global exploration of issues related to literacy, literature, research and the role of libraries in the 21st century. All presenters complemented the 2010 conference theme Reading Locally, Learning Globally: creating a universal experience and highlighted to those in attendance the need to understand the gloval implications of our profession, but no at the expense of local knowledge and resources.
Workshop Tuesday exceeded all expectation with the event being completed booked out. These informal sessions reflected the conference theme exceptionally well and I offer sincere thanks to all involved. Clearly, there is a real need for such workshops and networking opportunities being made available for librarians and teachers.
For your interest and reference, the conference presenters' papers are available for you to read online. I would like to extend to you an invitation to refer to these professionally challenging documents, to share their ideas with your colleagues and to consider and reflect upon teh issues raised by these experts in their fields.
Andrew J Stark
Head of Library services and conference director
Somerset College
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Webstock 2010 conference
Ben Yuan, web publisher from digital publishing team attended the "Webstock 2010" conference at the Town Hall, Wellington 18-19 February 2010.
Webstock is a premier web conference in NZ. In 2010, this two-day conference featured 24 internationally recognised key speakers. Topics were across today's web industry, focusing on web design, mobile application, web usability and open data. Attendees included web developers, user interface (UI) designers, user experience (UX) experts and project managers. Each presentation was about 40 minutes.
A number of presentation were worthwhile and beneficial undertaking for me. The following highlights a few:
Web design that grabs people - Scott Thomas
The first day started with Scott Thomas, Design Director of Obama Presidential campaign 2008. He emphasised the importance of simplified design to improve user experience and showcased the methodology for building website informaiton structure based on mission's architecture. Scott talked about creating designs that deliver clear and consistent messaging and elements between web and print channels. After Obama's success, Newsweek said "Obama is the first presendential candidate to be marketed like a high-end consumer brand"
Brian does the Andrew Sisters - Brian Fling
Brian Fling, mobile design expert, talked about mobile web development. The presentaiton gave some useful indications of the future web applicaiton on mobile devices. Brian listed that 56% generation Y (people born 1976 to 2000) own iPOD in US and mobile is atrillion dollar industry which equals the grocery industry. His talk also painted a bright picture for mobile web applications that looik great on iPhone/iPod and other devices. Follow Brian Fling on Twitter.
Security-centered design: exploring the impact of human behaviour
Chris Shiflett, a founding member of Analog, gave a fresh view of creating secure online user experience. IN this presentation, security was not just referring ot programming security, it's really about to understand how people think, so the production won't let people feel unsafe. Chris showed some real world examples to demonstrate meeting expectations is a fundamental of good security. Also this is an interesting example to show off the social media security issues. Follow Chris Shiflett on Twitter or take a look at his blog.
Continuous refinement and data driven dynamic personas - Sebastian Chan
Sebastian Chan, the head of digital at the Powerhouse Museum, presented how Poerhouse Museum tweaked content production on the fly based on web analytics and custom metrics. This presentation is my personal favourite and a number of tips could be applied to ACL website. Seb walked through a real cultural website and demonstrated how Google Analytics data was used to identify main target audience. The segmentation of visitors data then became the driver to continuous refine the content of the website. Follow Sebastian Chan on Twitter or follow his Powerhouse Museum blog.
More information about the conference is on the official website
Amazingly, instead of showing email contacts at the end of their presentation, all key speakers are having Twitter accounts. So, we can see how widely social media is being used in today's life.
Webstock is a premier web conference in NZ. In 2010, this two-day conference featured 24 internationally recognised key speakers. Topics were across today's web industry, focusing on web design, mobile application, web usability and open data. Attendees included web developers, user interface (UI) designers, user experience (UX) experts and project managers. Each presentation was about 40 minutes.
A number of presentation were worthwhile and beneficial undertaking for me. The following highlights a few:
Web design that grabs people - Scott Thomas
The first day started with Scott Thomas, Design Director of Obama Presidential campaign 2008. He emphasised the importance of simplified design to improve user experience and showcased the methodology for building website informaiton structure based on mission's architecture. Scott talked about creating designs that deliver clear and consistent messaging and elements between web and print channels. After Obama's success, Newsweek said "Obama is the first presendential candidate to be marketed like a high-end consumer brand"
Brian does the Andrew Sisters - Brian Fling
Brian Fling, mobile design expert, talked about mobile web development. The presentaiton gave some useful indications of the future web applicaiton on mobile devices. Brian listed that 56% generation Y (people born 1976 to 2000) own iPOD in US and mobile is atrillion dollar industry which equals the grocery industry. His talk also painted a bright picture for mobile web applications that looik great on iPhone/iPod and other devices. Follow Brian Fling on Twitter.
Security-centered design: exploring the impact of human behaviour
Chris Shiflett, a founding member of Analog, gave a fresh view of creating secure online user experience. IN this presentation, security was not just referring ot programming security, it's really about to understand how people think, so the production won't let people feel unsafe. Chris showed some real world examples to demonstrate meeting expectations is a fundamental of good security. Also this is an interesting example to show off the social media security issues. Follow Chris Shiflett on Twitter or take a look at his blog.
Continuous refinement and data driven dynamic personas - Sebastian Chan
Sebastian Chan, the head of digital at the Powerhouse Museum, presented how Poerhouse Museum tweaked content production on the fly based on web analytics and custom metrics. This presentation is my personal favourite and a number of tips could be applied to ACL website. Seb walked through a real cultural website and demonstrated how Google Analytics data was used to identify main target audience. The segmentation of visitors data then became the driver to continuous refine the content of the website. Follow Sebastian Chan on Twitter or follow his Powerhouse Museum blog.
More information about the conference is on the official website
Amazingly, instead of showing email contacts at the end of their presentation, all key speakers are having Twitter accounts. So, we can see how widely social media is being used in today's life.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Marketing Management (offered by University of Auckland – Short Courses)
Greg Morgan, service planning & enhancement management manager attended a short course at University of Auckland on Marketing Management.
Steve Bridges is something of a NZ marketing practice guru. That said, he is an American who has had considerable experience as an academic as well as generalist marketing consultant. Steve migrated to teach the first university marketing course in this country in the early 1970s (at Victoria) and was for a time professor of marketing at Massey University. This two day course aims to give participants an overview of sound principles and practice that would normally take about 70 hours of teaching and learning time.
The course objectives were:
Real marketing, however is the down to earth business of identifying and satisfying customers' needs and wants at a profit. In a library context better language might be, solving customers' problems "profitablity". It follows that true marketing is a consumer-customer or client-centric activity.
And it is a philosophy. Ghandi:
"The customer is the most important visitior on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. She is not an interruption to our work - but the purpose of it"
We explored case studies of how (negatively) organisations sometimes copy the form but not the substance of marketing and when (postively) the marketing manager acts internally as both consumer's advocate and integrator. Advice is absolutely to seat the small stuff, to invest in client-friendly practises and to treat staff too as customers.
The course looked at the component parts of a maketing plan, and this section was full of illumination. I really enjoyed working through hypothetical cases:
Do we understand customer behaviour? Do people's apparently rational answers to surveys really connect with the true feelings and emotions? Do we assume that humans are happy decision makers? The reverse is true - we don't like making decisions and avoid or subvert them. How do customers make choices? How can we in the way we relate to customers reduce or eliminate the anxiety they feel around deciding whether to use our services?
Negative customer feedback is especially valuable to the development of relationships that build detractors who care into loyal customer-advocates. In taking a quick look at market research we reviewed the pros and cons of tools such as focus group interviews, telephone surveys, mail surveys, door to door and web based surveying. We thought about how to make research pertinent, ethical and cost effective.
The course rounded off with sections on branding, marketing communications and social media. Each session was relevant to library service, and to an organisation which has for a long time put resource into understanding the library related preferences of users as well as non users.
Superbly presented and accompanied by carefully selected references to further reading and online resources, this course was just right for me at this time. It gave me a lot to think about in terms of my current role. Further more, it left me confident that I actually know a bit more about marketing approaches than I might have thought. After all, as customers we are epxerts of our own experience.
Steve Bridges is something of a NZ marketing practice guru. That said, he is an American who has had considerable experience as an academic as well as generalist marketing consultant. Steve migrated to teach the first university marketing course in this country in the early 1970s (at Victoria) and was for a time professor of marketing at Massey University. This two day course aims to give participants an overview of sound principles and practice that would normally take about 70 hours of teaching and learning time.
The course objectives were:
- to learn or refresh the basic principles of marketing
- to enable us to critique our own organisation's approach to marketing
Real marketing, however is the down to earth business of identifying and satisfying customers' needs and wants at a profit. In a library context better language might be, solving customers' problems "profitablity". It follows that true marketing is a consumer-customer or client-centric activity.
And it is a philosophy. Ghandi:
"The customer is the most important visitior on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. She is not an interruption to our work - but the purpose of it"
We explored case studies of how (negatively) organisations sometimes copy the form but not the substance of marketing and when (postively) the marketing manager acts internally as both consumer's advocate and integrator. Advice is absolutely to seat the small stuff, to invest in client-friendly practises and to treat staff too as customers.
The course looked at the component parts of a maketing plan, and this section was full of illumination. I really enjoyed working through hypothetical cases:
- trying to picture distinct customer segments
- creating a hypothesis for each (what is the particular problem they'd loved solved? teh benefit they would like?)
- thinking about appropriate marketing mix of products and/or services to deliver a solution of new customer benefit.
Do we understand customer behaviour? Do people's apparently rational answers to surveys really connect with the true feelings and emotions? Do we assume that humans are happy decision makers? The reverse is true - we don't like making decisions and avoid or subvert them. How do customers make choices? How can we in the way we relate to customers reduce or eliminate the anxiety they feel around deciding whether to use our services?
Negative customer feedback is especially valuable to the development of relationships that build detractors who care into loyal customer-advocates. In taking a quick look at market research we reviewed the pros and cons of tools such as focus group interviews, telephone surveys, mail surveys, door to door and web based surveying. We thought about how to make research pertinent, ethical and cost effective.
The course rounded off with sections on branding, marketing communications and social media. Each session was relevant to library service, and to an organisation which has for a long time put resource into understanding the library related preferences of users as well as non users.
Superbly presented and accompanied by carefully selected references to further reading and online resources, this course was just right for me at this time. It gave me a lot to think about in terms of my current role. Further more, it left me confident that I actually know a bit more about marketing approaches than I might have thought. After all, as customers we are epxerts of our own experience.
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