Zoho Meeting

Thanks to Resource Shelf, I’ve seen a posting about Zoho Meeting.  I’ve been a bit of a fan of Zoho (as opposed to Google Docs) for some time now, and if this is good, I shall be glad of it.  The idea of being able to do low-cost web-conferencing is something that appeals to me, especially for training.  And even more, not being a google site, it’s less likely to be blocked by corporate firewalls for now.  Something to watch.  I’ll be interested to read what others are doing with it.

NSW Health Libraries’ Forum 2007

I could write a very long post about this, as there’s so much to comment on, but the first thing must be the excellent organisation. And attention to detail. The things I loved most were the “Bright Ideas” boards around the room, which encouraged everyone to write up things they would like to do (or see done); and the fact that we were not just talking about 2.0 anymore, but we were discussing putting things into practice, what we’d done, how we’d done it, and how it had gone. Given that all of us are from small, time-poor libraries, this was very exciting. Especially where the result was a resounding success in communication or marketing. And very replicable, if we want to do the same.

Just before I left, I was reading Meredith Farkas’ comments on going to two conferences back-to-back where she comments on the need for people to be good and enthusiastic presenters. I concur totally, especially for vendors who are trying to sell us their product. In this context, I was most impressed by the presenters in the Poster Session I chaired, where a couple of the presenters were clearly nervous, and new to presenting – but were clear, interesting, and kept to time. Well done!

Now comes the hard part – getting back to an overflowing in-box with little things to be completed before we can set out on the journey of new ideas from the Forum.  My genuine hope is that we can look back in a year and see more things that are happening, and that these two days will kick start some more interesting and clever ideas.