Effect of What You Do

In the last two weeks, I have received some positive reinforcement for what I did years ago. It was nice. I am not naming names because neither of them gave me permission.

The first was someone who was in a library school class I spoke to back in my Connecticut days. I was a guest speaker (I did it many times) and talked about professional associations (ALA, CLA, NELA), about the cooperatives in the state, and what it was like to be a public library director. He now works in an academic library, but contacted me (and a number of others) to talk about some of the issues facing library administrators.

The second was someone I met when I interviewed for a job. As part of the casual conversation, I talked about how to get involved in ALA. It was fairly soon after I had served on the ALA Executive Board, and is something that I both care about, and know a little bit about. She took the advice and is now involved in several different parts of the Association.

You never know when you are in the process of "paying it forward." In both cases, they expressed their appreciation. It made for a great day!

Conversational twists and turns

I was in a work meeting today. All of the people in the meeting were colleagues whose commonality was that we deliver continuing education opportunities. We were talking about some of our experiences in delivering web sessions, and what participants think we can and cannot hear. The conversation, among a sub-set of us, took this series of interesting turns.

• Love that the web presentation software has a "Mute All" button. XXX is the Queen of Muting.
• Looks like they have really created a "cone of silence."
• Several of us commented that we enjoyed the old TV show Get Smart
• "You know, they really could make a shoe phone now..."
• But who wants to put their shoe up to their face....etc.
• What we need now is an "iFlop" -- You know, a flip flop with an iPad built in.

If Apple really does create an "iFlop," I am claiming credit!