Archive for the ‘Mobile Technology and Libraries’ category

Library Thought Leaders Q&A: Lisa Carlucci Thomas

January 12th, 2012


Today’s Library Thought Leader is Lisa Carlucci Thomas, Director of design think do.

We have been exploring the idea of “Patron Relationship Management” (PRM) and it is the theme of this Q&A series. What areas of PRM are you seeing where libraries can benefit the most? What roles can mobile technologies play?
Libraries employ a variety of methods to establish and maintain quality service relationships with customers. Defining a patron relationship management (PRM) strategy ensures that library services align with the vision and goals of the institution and sets the standard for service consistency. As emerging information technologies have driven demand for new library communication channels, we’ve seen increased interest in the use of mobile and social tools to promote interactivity, expand outreach, market programs, and enhance the library service experience across digital platforms, and in our physical spaces, too. PRM tools offer integrated solutions to help libraries identify needs and priorities, obtain and assess feedback, and strengthen customer relationships.

While all libraries strive to deliver timely, effective, and seamless service to their users, many operate with minimal staffing and limited financial resources, which inhibit opportunities to take even modestly innovative risks. When you factor in the steady technological advancements of the last five years alone, combined with the outstanding cultural shift taking place in the way we collectively communicate and interact with information, what’s needed now and what’s realistic for libraries to implement right way become very different conversations. Meanwhile, patron expectations continue to evolve, and mobile users seeking mobile access to library services and collections expect to find what they need readily available. What they’re actually finding ranges from splendidly concise library mobile websites and mobile searchable catalogs to advanced and complex apps; from straightforward SMS reference services to mobile-social communities via Facebook and Twitter; from value-added mobile services (QR codes, augmented reality, place-based digital collections, research guides, and more) to no mobile services at all. How do you prioritize services and engage users across the spectrum of mobile interest? Early adopters are now adept at navigating the mobile information experience, and fledgling users expect those delivering the information to anticipate their needs.

Patron relationship management via text messaging supports mobile users at all levels of engagement by promoting direct, responsive, communication, and allows libraries to address and assess mobile information needs of their unique customer base. Mobile PRM expands the SMS reference concept to combine marketing, outreach, and interactivity to meet a broader need for information services beyond the reference inquiry. A study of the Text a Librarian statistics at Southern Connecticut State University, where I implemented and managed SMS reference from 2010-2011, determined a 60/40 split between reference and non-reference mobile interactions. As more libraries provide mobile offerings, including patron self-service features, mobile payments, room reservations and program registrations, and access to ebooks and digital collections, expect non-reference communications from mobile users to increase.

Social media is such a hot button topic for libraries as well as companies in CRM (Customer Relationship Management). How do you respond to libraries that say “Ok, we have a Facebook Page and a Twitter account. Now what?”
Consider how these accounts support the communications and PRM strategy of the organization. Actually, this should be part of the first step, along with determining the name and brand that will be used to represent the organization. If you have the accounts already, make the time to have these discussions retrospectively. Document the organization’s social media objectives and priorities. Include a flexible structure and expect it to evolve. Train staff in social media norms and culture, functional use of the technology, and how and which channels to use for different types of content, and why. Staff the position like any public service. It’s not enough to simply monitor accounts; social media is proactive and interactive. Connect with others and build a network; this is your audience and community. Publish regular content, communicate with and respond to users, set goals, and track and assess progress. Who in the organization will be responsible for delivering timely, informed, interesting, valuable content on a regular basis? If multiple staff members will participate, who will manage the service and ensure consistency? Who will answer incoming questions across the organization’s social media channels and adequately and appropriately represent the organization’s vision and values? Who will manage analytics and report on statistics? Who will determine what content will be archived and how? Social media offers short-term, immediate engagement opportunities which can have long-term effect on consumer interest and loyalty. The advantages are high; the barrier to entry, generally, low. Libraries and organizations can work with partners, peers, and firms like design think do to establish an action plan for implementing and assessing communications, marketing, and PRM strategies via social media.

What is the most innovative new technology you’ve seen or heard about? Is there a way libraries can and should utilize it?
Mobile technologies, and related developments in the mobile-social information environment, are a driving force for innovation today. It’s difficult to pick just one aspect of mobile tech and call it “the most innovative” especially since we’re in a time of constant development, advancement, and growth, and mobile culture has widespread, cross-industry implications. Smart phones, such as iPhone and Android devices, multi-functional e-readers and tablet devices, such as the iPad, B&N Nook, and Kindle Fire are all being used to search, access, store, create, organize and interact with information. This is all still new technology to many of us; and even for the mobile-proficient, next generation devices and new applications with increased functionality and complexity continue to vex and inspire. Furthermore, expanding public interest in mobile services, including access to e-books and digital content, is fueling controversy related to digital publication, distribution, and licensing, for libraries, publishers, vendors, and organizations of all types. Libraries can and should utilize mobile technologies within the context of their organizational priorities and community needs. At minimum, librarians should actively learn about the changes that are taking place in the mobile sphere and consider how mobile technologies, social media, PRM and related innovations fit the goals and objectives of their libraries.

Thanks so much for your time! In closing, what are some great resources (along with contacting you, of course) for libraries looking to improve patron experiences and service?
Selected resources on mobile libraries, mobile culture, and patron self- service:

About Lisa:
Lisa Carlucci Thomas is a nationally recognized librarian and author known for her leadership, innovation, and research on mobile and social technologies. Her expertise includes ebooks, mobile libraries, social media, and technology trends and training. Lisa is the Director of design think do, providing custom creative services and innovation consulting for libraries and information organizations interested in mobile culture and services, ebook workflows and licensing, new media, and professional development programs. Lisa’s recent projects include the Library Journal Virtual Tech Summit: Power to the Patron: From Systems to Services and the Connecticut Library Consortium’s “Trendspotting 2011: eBooks: Collections at the Crossroads” symposium. Lisa is a 2010 Library Journal Mover & Shaker  and 2009 ALA Emerging Leader. She previously managed library systems and digital initiatives at Southern Connecticut State University, and access services and digital collections at the Yale University Library. She writes the Social Eyes column for the Journal of Web Librarianship.

Contact:
Lisa Carlucci Thomas
http://lisacarlucci.com
lisa@lisacarlucci.com
twitter: @lisacarlucci

Director, design think do
http://designthinkdo.org
http://www.facebook.com/designthinkdo
twitter: @designthinkdo

Do you know a library thought leader (maybe you?) who’d be great for our Q&A series? Contact us! We look forward to hearing from you.

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Posted in mobile crm software, Mobile technologies in libraries, Mobile Technology and Libraries, Patron Relationship Management, SMS Reference, Text 66746 (MOSIO), Text Messaging in Libraries, Virtual Reference

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Should your library implement a Foursquare strategy? Only 17% of mobile users check in.

May 5th, 2011


We’re all susceptible to hype, especially those of us in the mobile technologies industry. Hype is fun, it’s great getting excited about things. There has been a huge buzz building in the library space over the past year or so regarding Foursquare, Facebook Places and other location based services (LBS). When David Lee King (a librarian, blogger and thought leader we hold in high regard) wrote a post in January 2010 called “Foursquare and Libraries – Definitely Something There!” we watched carefully and yes, some of us signed up and regularly checked in. I personally tried 3 mobile apps (Foursquare, Gowalla and MyTown) for 2 months to see which one I liked best (Gowalla had the best design, MyTown had the best gaming element, Foursquare made me Mayor of my pet food store). I now use Facebook Places when I decide I want to check in.

Mashable’s post today, “Why Mobile Users Aren’t Checking In [Infographic]“, caused some mixed feelings around the office. Some of us were surprised to find out only 17% of mobile users “check in” to Foursquare and Facebook Places, others weren’t surprised at all. Should libraries implement a mobile technology strategy that appeals to less than 83% of patrons? It’s not really for me to say, but this report and infographic on the “reality behind the hype” is definitely eye opening for any organization deciding what to spend resources on in staying relevant using mobile technologies.

Random Four Square Fact (the real game): This year on February 25 and 26, 15 students from Manchester College broke a world record by playing Four Square for 30 hours. (via: Wikipedia)

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Posted in library tools, Mobile Applications, mobile libraries, Mobile Technologies, Mobile technologies in libraries, Mobile Technology and Libraries

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Shiny New Things: Beware of Early Adoption When Implementing Technologies at Your Library

August 24th, 2010

This post is from an entry I did a few months back for Attack!, a guerrilla and event marketing services agency I co-founded and where I served as President before co-founding Mosio, but the fundamental ideas are the same: new technologies and gadgets are great for those of us who love the newest shiny things to come out, but implementation and adoption at your organization is tricky at the bleeding edge. At Mosio / Text a Librarian, we see a full spectrum of technology interest/knowledge/experience in libraries, including a lot of librarians who are truly at the bleeding edge of new technologies and social media. I remain on the fence about QR Codes, but I certainly appreciate the enthusiasm. Rather than “Ctrl+F and Replace “Business” with “Library”, the original post is below, unchanged.

Being a marketing and technology fan, I was excited to read Ad Age’s Insights White Paper, Shiny New Things (pdf). Attack! has always been a very technology-friendly company. The mantra for our success is “People, Process and Technology” so I read the white paper on my flight to our LA office, excited to present some ideas I had brewing in my head along with any new nuggets of wisdom I found. In reading about the behavior and general importance of early adopters to brands and marketers, I couldn’t help but think how early adoption, while a passion (and sometimes expensive hobby) for many consumers, is dangerous for businesses. And as David Berkowitz points out, “many agencies will include it [the iPad] in their pitches and plans without thinking whether it’s the best platform for meeting their clients’ objectives.” It’s apparent that the danger of early adoption, for iPads or other shiny objects, can be easily overlooked in the search for innovation. Here’s why:

Shiny new things (SNTs) require employee training.
Regardless of how simple a Shiny New Thing (SNT) is to use, implementing it into your business requires implementation and training with some employees needing morHe than others. Implementing anything new into your business process needs careful thought so the learning curve and mistakes are minimized. Throwing SNTs into the mix increases your chances of confusing and/or frustrating your staff.

The first version is never the best, don’t bet the farm on Beta.
Every early adopter knows that the first version of a new technology is never the best. This means your business is subject to all of the glitches and bugs of the brand new product. It definitely pays to wait it out for the next version if you determine it is something that could prove beneficial to your employees or clients.

Shiny new things can make you lose focus.
I want an iPad. I want one badly. I think they’re a game changer for many industries and as I anticipated their arrival, I started brainstorming all of the possible ways Attack! could use them for our client projects. I’ll admit, I also tried to brainstorm how I could use one at work, ready to enlighten my partners on a revelation in Non Traditional Marketing Agency Management. My “Reasons Partners Should Get iPads” brainstorm notes are below:

There’s nothing wrong with getting an iPad because you want one and we’re headed to the Apple store at lunch to get them, but the mistake in the above thinking that it was rooted in “a solution looking for a problem”: I tried to think of reasons an iPad could be useful rather than thinking of all of the inefficiencies and challenges needing solutions and concluding that the iPad was the perfect tool to solve them. There is great wisdom in knowing the difference.

If you absolutely can’t resist…
There’s nothing wrong with being an early adopter. It’s great (and fun) to be in search of the New New Thing, of new ways of being innovative at your company. Some of the best ideas come out of being open to new technologies and products that can help your business grow. If you can’t resist the temptation to look for new technologies to implement, here are a few things to consider:

Make a list of your challenges and areas of improvement needed at your company.
By defining what it is that you need to improve on, ways your employees can improve process and efficiencies, when SNTs show up, you’ll know instantly where there is a fit. You’ll have a problem looking for a solution. We’ve recently defined several areas in our business where text messaging can improve efficiencies in our Account Management teams and can be sold as add-on services by our Account Executives. The end result will be time saved, archived data in contractor communications and additional revenues to our programs by giving events and street campaigns a longer tail.

Create a new technologies decision phase.
It’s pointless to tell early adopters to wait. Early adopters wait long enough hearing rumors, seeing leaked photos, specs and standing in lines to get their beloved new technologies. Instead, implement an internal timeline and process where you will explore if and how a SNT can help your company. Start with 60 days. Use the time to attend demos, identify pros and cons and ultimately make an informed decision on how you will implement the SNT into your business. You might need more than 60 days, but after the launch of a product, that should be long enough to help you determine if it will be good for business and also to hear about when the next version is coming out. See if you can wait for version 2.0.

Know which employees are technology-friendly and who aren’t.
This will be helpful in the implementation and training phase. Employees who are excited about new technologies can be the ones who help you test them out before you decide they should be implemented and they can help you educate the others who are less comfortable. If over 50% of your employees are not technology-friendly, every new SNT you add will be a struggle, so it’s best to pick your battles. If you have an employee or two helping you test things out in the new technologies decision phase, make sure they understand that you ARE testing out the technology against your needs, not trying to find a place for it to work.

Know when to cut bait.
You should default to “we don’t need this” then see if the solution it creates beats the need to let it go. But, as soon as it becomes apparent (hopefully sooner than later), stop testing the technology and let it go. Your time is valuable, your employees time is valuable, so there’s no point in hanging on to wait and see if something magical will happen.

I’m off to buy my iPad…because they’re awesome and I want one.

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Posted in Business Life, Mobile Industry, mobile libraries, mobile phones, Mobile Software as a Service, Mobile Technologies, Mobile technologies in libraries, Mobile Technology and Libraries, SMS Ref, SMS Reference, Text 66746 (MOSIO)

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Patron Relationship Management (PRM) – Mosio’s Future in Libraries

June 16th, 2010

As we gear up for another ALA Annual the company has had some interesting discussions on new announcements and our directions in the world of library software.

A couple of weeks ago I had a great meeting/conversation with one of our partners and the discussion of library customer service came up. At the end of our partner meeting, someone said “we can give patrons access to all of the data in the world, but if we aren’t there for them from a customer service standpoint, it won’t matter.” Very true. Andy Woodworth’s blog post “Why Closing More Public Libraries Might Be the Best Thing (…Right Now)” [link below] came up in an internal company meeting, specifically his two points about customer service and advocacy (from the comments it seems the post got a lot of people talking).

The idea of improved customer service, whether at libraries or businesses in general, will continue to be a significant function of an organization’s success in the information age. Aaron Tay’s recent blog post about regularly scanning Twitter and the web for feedback is great (he gives some tips on how to do so) [link below], obviously taking a page from what many companies are doing as part of their customer service: listening to social media mentions for good and bad comments. Neither are the first to talk about the ongoing need for pro-active/reactive customer service in libraries, but both are current and relevant.

So what does this mean for Mosio and Text a Librarian?

We’re still very new to libraries and we LOVE working with them. Frankly, we’re just getting started. While we have friends who are librarians and have a handful of amazing people advising us, we’re not librarians ourselves, nor have we ever pretended to be. In many ways we see this as a distinct advantage to building our product: we cast aside any preconceived ideas of how things should be done and focus instead on simplicity, usability and feedback from our customers. We also know the inner workings of mobile technologies, enabling us to offer reliable (and certified) mobile services to libraries. We recently made an announcement that Mosio’s Text a Librarian is being used by over 500 academic and public libraries. It’s something we’re very proud to have accomplished in such a short amount of time, but we could not have done it without listening to the people who matter most to our success, the librarians who use our software with the benefit of communicating with more patrons on-the-go. The combination of our expertise and passion about creating an amazing library service will continue to be the keys to our ongoing success.

Text Messaging: It’s Not Just for Reference Anymore

In the same announcement we also mentioned that Mosio is now offering our full list of mobile services to libraries. Text messaging can be used for so many things beyond virtual reference and we’re set up to offer additional services to the benefit of our customers. We’re thrilled to be able to continue working with new and existing customers in offering technology solutions that will help us fulfill our vision for our library software: Patron Relationship Management.

Patron Relationship Management

We truly believe this is going to be one of the key tools libraries will need in the future to maintain great patron relationships and relevance in the community. Two comments we hear often are “I wish we could answer all patron questions this way” and “I wish everything could be in one place.” One of those comments we take as a compliment, the other we are taking seriously as a wish list item. Our goal for Text a Librarian was always to start simply, create web-based software that’s easy to use, reliable and certified by the mobile carriers, then grow additional features, elements and uses to continue giving more patrons access to libraries on their mobile phones. You can expect to see more from us in the mobile technology space, but every new product or service we add will have patron communications and relationship management in mind.

Links

Andy Woodworth: Why Closing More Public Libraries Might Be the Best Thing (…Right Now)
Aaron Tay: Why libraries should proactively scan Twitter & the web for feedback – some examples
LISWire: Mosio’s Text a Librarian in Over 500 Libraries, Announces Add-On Mobile Services

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Posted in Digital Reference, Library Industry, Library Marketing Tools, library tools, mobile crm software, mobile libraries, mobile reference, Mobile Software as a Service, Mobile Technologies, Mobile Technology and Libraries, Reference Tools, SMS Ref, Text 66746 (MOSIO), Text Messaging Reference in Libraries

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Mosio and Text a Librarian’s Post to Facebook Function: Now Live!

April 13th, 2010

In February we launched a “Post to Twitter” function within the Mosio mobile messaging platform and Mosio’s Text a Librarian. We wrote a blog post about why this was good for libraries: user generated marketing.

I’ve pasted the original blog post about why it was good for libraries below. It’s great for every business and now the post to Facebook function gives organizations the ability to post questions and answers to the world’s largest and most powerful social network. If you’re a librarian you can read the information below as is, but if you’re a marketing or customer service manager at a company, simply replace the word “patron” with “customer” and “library” with “company” and you’ll see that the feature holds the same great function for either.

Enjoy!

Original Post

A “Post to Twitter” button on websites isn’t a new functionality, but after giving it some thought, we decided to add it to Text a Librarian. The reason? It’s User Generated Content that engages patrons and markets your library services.

SEO + Social Marketing + Patron Engagement
People searching online often type out an entire question in the search box, rather than just a few keywords, to see what results come up. Tweets are indexed by search engines like Google, Bing and soon Yahoo and when an individual searches online by typing out a question, your reference Q&A can appear in search results (aka helpful service + free marketing).

Here’s an excellent example of how the New York Public Library’s AskNYPL tweet of the question “What is the wingspan of a swallow?” is now indexed on Google, marketing their reference services.

Tweeting user generated content of funny, interesting and helpful questions and answers also engages Twitter-following patrons (and their followers through re-tweets) and informs them about your library’s reference services. We’ve seen great uses of Twitter by libraries engaging patrons with reference trivia and daily fun facts.

Spreading Love for Your Library
Many libraries are using Text a Librarian beyond questions and answers as a virtual suggestion box and for patron ideas and opinions about library services (questions, comments and feedback). When a patron texts good ideas and positive feedback, you can use the post to Twitter button to spread the love.

How Do I Start Using It? (for existing Text a Librarian customers):
The Post to Twitter button is an optional function of your service, controlled by your library’s Admin. Please visit the New Features section of your Text a Librarian microboard for details on how to turn it on.

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Posted in best mobile crm, Digital Reference, Mobile Industry, Mobile Marketing, mobile reference, Mobile Software as a Service, Mobile Technologies, Mobile Technology and Libraries, Reference Tools, social networks, software as a service, Text 66746 (MOSIO), text message marketing, Text Messaging in Libraries, Virtual Reference

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