Going Green for SLA

Late last year, SLA (the Special Libraries Association), began a going green initiative by asking all their exhibitors at their annual conference in June to think about ways to reduce or even eliminate their carbon footprint. This is a big challenge for large exhibitors like Dow Jones, who occupy 40' x 40' exhibit spaces with attendant superstructures, traditional construction techniques and massive amounts of paper handouts and interesting but eco-unfriendly give-aways.

As we began meeting with our exhibit design consultants, Atlantic Skyline, we also learned that going green does not come without considerable cost. Eco-friendly fabrics and dyes are more costly than conventional ones. Recycled carpets made from plastic bottles are more expensive than conventional carpets and reducing the amount of hard structures in a booth design requires skill and knowledge.

As we look forward to the June 15-18, 2008 SLA Annual Conference in Seattle (where better to practice going green than in the Emerald City) we have made some very good first steps. Here's what you can look forward to seeing - or not seeing - as the case may be:

• Use of Eco-Systems Dyesub Pillowcase fabric banners which use fabric and dyes much friendlier to the environment than traditional dye processes. Not only are they better for initial fabrication, but also better when they are ultimately recycled.
• Use of recycled rental carpet made from plastic bottles and re-used by others when we are finished
• We are recycling 95% of the 2008 booth construction for reuse in our 2009 exhibit in Washington, DC
• We are using local contractors when possible to reduce shipping impact, this includes local rental of all LCD panels and in-booth computers
• Eliminating about 90% of all printed booth collateral in favor of use of electronic print-on-demand documents
• Instead of physical giveaways such as pens, mugs, stress balls or other items we are featuring handwriting analysis as the booth ‘give-away’ and we are using recycled paper for the handwriting analyists to use
  

None of this is rocket science, and this is only the beginning effort, but we all need to start somewhere in thinking about how to reduce the impact of our global carbon footprint. We look forward to seeing you at Booth 401 in Seattle and to showing off our green efforts.

So long for now,

Anne

The Widget Webcast!

Last week's webcast "Widgets: Internet Sushi for the Web 2.0 Crowd" had a great turnout. A large global community of InfoPros, knowledge managers and interested parties joined me online for a look at the widgetsphere and how things are looking these days for one of the many stepchildren of the Web 2.0 family. Here are some highlights:

What makes it a "widget"?

• A widget by any other name still has the following two key attributes:
  It is a distributable web object (A miniature application that you can port into nearly any web environment)


• It allows for interaction with and displays dynamic content on the client side in a digestible visual format that changes via server-side updates and user initiated modifications

What makes it a “distributable” object you ask?

One thing that makes a widget (the generic term I will use henceforth) a distributable object is the use of code generators. Code generators have been around for ages. You simply fill in some fields, choose some values and click a button. Then copy your newly minted code and away you go!

Another method for creating a widget as a distributable object is the use of an object generator. They have many names, but do the same job…

According to the marketing gurus in the Widgetsphere, this method is preferred by both end users and distributors as it does not require users to copy and paste code or even leave the site to implement their new widget.

And what was that about “displays dynamic content”?

The dynamic content sits on the host’s servers and is often delivered via a feed. This “push” technology means that it is updated on-the-fly. “The blinkx Video Wall is a tool which allows bloggers and website creators to embed a video wall of clips from a selected search term into their sites (and pulling from over 18 million searchable hours of footage). The display is fed by RSS, so it updates automatically as new search results come in. Users can choose the size of their desired wall, composing it with anywhere from one to sixty-four glimmering video screens. Users can even compile a specific selection of videos to be made into a video wall and embed it to their pages with ease.”

And how about that “digestible visual format ”?

Because of the limited amount of visual real estate, it is essential that widgets can compensate for high levels of data transfer through graphics. “Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator.”And how about “changes via server-side updates…”?

Whether or not the user triggers the change to the content displayed, or it is updated on a timed increment, the push ultimately comes from the host. You may have your top RSS feeds displayed, or maybe you are employing a mini-search box like the Bitty Browser widget but it all comes down to a solid architectural connection between the embedded or framed object and the host from whence the actual data is pushed from.

The webcast continued on, describing the primary widget types and categories and eventually walked through the current obstacles facing the expansion of widgets as well as five recommended methods for ensuring a brighter future for these little apps. We'll be posting a recording of the webcast on our Dow Jones InfoPro page once it is available, but in the meantime take a virtual walk over to Widgetbox or Clearspring and see more of the widgets I've talked about and maybe incorporate one into your blog.

I'll be back with more on the widget webcast after these messages...

Regards,

Thomas