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As promised to Mike, I kept a running tally of the number of times I heard Michael say the word "Hot". Seemingly this word had been popularized within his presentations, but that time seems to have since passed, as you can see from the stats below. However, whilst listening to Michael speak, I did notice a different word that was much more prominent (though definitely helpful during the presentation to emphasize points). I also tracked a different, never oft-used word.

"Hot": 5
"Yay": 18
"Kerfuffle": 2

Kerfuffle?! Ha! Neat.
In context (I think): "Without first learning how to use the (blank) before releasing it to the hounds, it caused an unnecessary kerfuffle." ...he so much more eloquently used this interesting word. I don't think I quite captured its spirit.

I was lucky enough this evening to be asked to have dinner with the famed library blogger of TameTheWeb, Michael Stephens. I wasn't entirely sure of what to expect. I sat in on a presentation he gave at the Polaris Users' Group conference in Syracuse last summer and his talk was very inspiring and motivational. He'll be providing a day long presentation on two days (tomorrow and the following day) to a sold-out crowd of librarians and staff members interested in his talks (or told they had to attend by superiors, though I believe it's more of the former); I'll be attending Friday's session (long weekend, anyone?).

In a posting to a mailing list I've recently joined (Web4lib), Tim Spalding of LibraryThing fame hopped in to a discussion on Web 2.0 and what it means to libraries...and how libraries are abusing these technologies. Either way, the silly yet factual statement he makes breaks up the conversation quite well:

I don't think Web 2.0 is a fad, but it's clear the *term* has jumped
the shark when the media starts talking about powerful marijuana as
"Pot 2.0":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18310976/

Of course, everything will change when we have Pot 3.0, the Semantic Pot.

In the overall discussion, technology focused professionals in the library genre are trying to dispell the overly magical powers that our "Web 2.0" applications can grant us mere mortals. Libraries are springing up with blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds simply to use them, but not really thinking over how it will benefit the user -- something that many sites are guilty of (ours is beyond behind the times, so I'm not guilty of that, just many other things -- new site is in the works, finally).