This is the final installment of the L&P process - summarizing our experience with this project.  I really thank CML for taking this positive approach to new technology instead of banning it like so many companies do.  Our customers are becoming more tech saavy and we need to be able to keep up with the changes in way people socialize and get their entertainment/education.  This is a great way for staff to become more comfortable with popular tools of now, but if we want to keep staff educated, this needs to become a regular type of training.

One thing I noticed was some staff who were hesitant about all this start to actually enjoy some of the tools they were learning, like blogging.  I heard about some staff who didn't want to do it suddenly love blogging, now whether they keep up with it or not is another story.  I think the L&P team did a great job encouraging staff; they were positive, fun (videos), and educational (videos and hands-on trainings).  They also tried to connect those staff having difficulties with people who had a strong grasp of the product.  I know I was personally asked to help a staff member in my department with Twitter and then later that person asked me to help with RSS feeds for podcasts.  

I think the objective that I have personally seen have the biggest impact on staff is learning Twitter.  I tried Twitter at the beginning of the year and wasn't really impressed.  I only had one friend I was following and she wasn't posting very often and I thought who really wants to know what I am doing?!  So when the time came to use Twitter for L&P,  I tried again and got hooked.  Since so many people were using it,  I suddenly had people I knew at work that I wanted to follow and others started following me.  Then I started getting requests from people I knew of, but never really talked to before and I started following those people or asking to follow people I didn't know.  I've learned so much about people (personally and professionally) from following their tweets and met people I would never have otherwise really met or at least talked to regularly.

Twitter has also been more than a social tool,  it's been a learning tool.  I've seen staff tweeting from presentations or workshops they are attending.  These types of tweets can be very informative, especially if I never would have known that these presentations were going on to begin with.  One of the most recent tweet sessions from a presentations was when a staffer was sending tweets from PL's European Library tour, it was very interesting to hear what was being discussed because I didn't have the ability to go to the workshop myself.

So,  of all the L&P 23 things,  for me, Twitter has been very useful and fun.  I'd say probably the thing most people learned to do was blog.  You had to blog every experience you had and it was a consistant type of learning behavior so it probably was the one that stuck with most people.  There were other informative things, like using  Flickr, mashups, bloglines, RSS feeds, podcasts, etc.

Thanks to the L&P/DS group for giving us this opportunity and I look forward to more of these types of trainings/activities in the future.