Category Archives: Communication

Communication, Tech, Writing

Monika Sengul-Jones is a Wikipedian-in-Residence, making libraries and the online encyclopedia ‘better together’

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(From GeekWire, by

“Monika Sengul-Jones is, more or less, she says, “a professional thinker.”

With a background in social theory and a focus on gender and technology, Sengul-Jones said she is concerned with “questions of access and representation” and “how that gets tangled up in objects — mostly digital, but not always.”

This year she joined the Seattle office of the Online Computer Library Center as the Wikipedian-in-Residence, part of the nonprofit’s Wikipedia + Libraries: Better Together project, aimed at strengthening the ties between U.S. public libraries and the free online encyclopedia.

Sengul-Jones is also GeekWire’s newest Geek of the Week.

“I care about the daily lives of people and how they make sense of their worlds,” Sengul-Jones said. “This informs my approach to gender and technology. More generally, I like to read, think, and to make things — be they projects or metaphorical bridges or new arrangements.”

In addition to her work with OCLC, Sengul-Jones is finishing her doctorate in Communication at UC San Diego.

Learn more about this week’s Geek of the Week, Monika Sengul-Jones: Continue reading Monika Sengul-Jones is a Wikipedian-in-Residence, making libraries and the online encyclopedia ‘better together’ →

Communication, Services

One Concept that Improves All Your Customer Service Interactions

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(From CustomerThink.com, by Martha Brooke )

In the US market alone, there are hundreds of customer service consultants offering thousands of customer service improvement strategies which begs the question: does anyone need yet another customer service improvement plan? I think, decidedly, yes, for the simple reason that most customer service remains lackluster and inconsistent—while executives routinely believe their customer service is better than it really is. (For more information on this, just ask, we’re happy to share.)

So why does customer service tend to be largely reactive, inefficient, and overly transactional?

From having evaluated tens of thousands of customer service interactions, I find that when customer service disappoints it’s almost always because it has been managed in an overly general, cookie-cutter way. The result is that customers are treated more similarly than they really are, as though they have the same needs, expectations, and perceptions. But of course, that’s not true. Each customer is unique, making their inquiries at least a little bit different. So when companies treat everyone the same, rarely are customers fully engaged or completely satisfied.

Antidote! What I outline here is a plan that actually improves customer service. I know this plan works because we’ve been using it for more than a decade to improve customer service for clients in a wide array of industries. And the reason it works is that the entire plan hinges on a single proven concept—one that’s paid huge dividends for our clients: specificity. That’s specific ways to add value, relative to specific scenarios, measured by specific scoring rules, summed with specific metrics and last but not least, coached with specific model answers to build necessary customer service skills.

Continue reading One Concept that Improves All Your Customer Service Interactions →

Books, Communication

It’s Towel Day!

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It’s the great holiday of Towel Day!

Every year on May 25 we celebrate Towel Day, and commemorate the author Douglas Adams.

Possibly you don’t know about the joyfulness of Towel Day; if this is the case, I refer you immediately to this book:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

 

 

This is the first book in an increasingly-inaccurately named trilogy: five books written by Adams and a sixth in the trilogy written by Eoin Colfer.

You can follow the fun in a variety of places:

From Wikipedia:

“Towel Day is celebrated every year on 25 May as a tribute to the author Douglas Adams by his fans. On this day, fans openly carry a towel with them, as described in Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or share their folded animal towels to demonstrate their appreciation for the books and the author. The commemoration was first held 25 May 2001, two weeks after Adams’ death on 11 May.

Continue reading It’s Towel Day! →

Books, Communication, Materials

American Library Association Urges Schools Not To Remove ‘13 Reasons Why’

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“The popularity of the series might really save lives and so might more reading and talking about the issue.”

From Huffington Post, By Katherine Brooks 

“Following what’s been described as a “rash of suicides in southern Colorado,” a school district in the state ordered librarians to temporarily remove the book Thirteen Reasons Why from its shelves.

The YA novel, written by Jay Asher, is the source material for a wildly popular and highly contentious Netflix adaptation of the same name, about a high school girl who decides to commit suicide after compiling a series of tapes that chronicle her reasons for doing so.

The show, considered a smash success for the streaming service, has been both praised by critics for its unsettling take on teenage-centric TV and denounced by psychologists for its irresponsible depiction of mental illness.

Teachers and parents have expressed similar concerns, claiming that the TV show glorifies and romanticizes suicide ― taking issue with the graphic depiction of the lead character’s actual suicide, which some have claimed opens the door for copycats.

In response, the curriculum director at Mesa County Valley School District in Colorado, Leigh Grasso, told her schools’ librarians to temporarily pull copies of Asher’s book from circulation. “I think we were just being cautious until we had the opportunity to look at the book and see how closely related to the movie it was,” she told The Associated Press.

According to the AP, the order “rankled some librarians who called [the decision] censorship.” Following protests, the books ― 19 of which were already checked out by students at the time ― were officially returned to circulation.

“Censorship is a slippery slope,” one librarian wrote to the school, according to emails obtained by The Daily Sentinel through a Colorado Open Records Act request.”

Communication, Programs, Public

Dinosaurs roam Gail Borden Library in Elgin

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From the Chicago Tribune

“On Monday, Gail Borden Public Library officially unveiled its Dinosaur Giants interactive exhibit, timing it with the launch of the library’s summer reading program.

“This is why it’s important to have these exhibits,” Gail Borden executive director Carole Medal told the dozens in attendance. “It’s wonderful to have them right in your backyard.”

The exhibit features four full-scale dinosaur skeletons, one dinosaur skull, and one full-scale flesh model of animals that once inhabited what is now part of Africa 110 to 135 million years ago.

The centerpiece is the Jobaria skeleton, which stands at two stories tall, its head and neck fitting in between the library’s spiral staircase opening.

While the skeletons are all made of plaster casts and not actual fossils, the exhibit nonetheless is impressive, said Medal.

“Each display is interesting, colorful,” she said. “Oh my God, jaws will drop.”

Curiosity bloomed from practically everyone who stepped foot inside the library Monday. A group from St. Mary’s Catholic School, children and adults alike, gaped at the Jobaria skeleton.

“We’re very lucky to have a library like this close to us, that our kids can come to from school and see this, it’s pretty impressive,” said Barbara Colandrea, the school’s principal.

Some actual fossils are sprinkled around Gail Borden. Near the entrance of the children section is the femur fossil of the Jobaria, weighing in at 350 pounds and 135 million years old.

The exhibit continues the library’s long run of attention-grabbing displays, such as castles, Legos, robots and artwork from childrens author Maurice Sendak.

“From beginning to end, this project was so exciting,” said Mary Amici-Kozi, the library’s exhibits manager. The first items and artifacts of the exhibit were delivered last week, and many staff members were working double-digit-hour workdays, said Amici-Kozi and Medal. The Jobaria skeleton took two days to set up.

It is also a return to dinosaurs, having done the same thing in the fall of 2005. Medal said that first exhibit was a game changer for the then-new library, which had opened only two years earlier.”

(Read the rest of this article here!)