All-time 8 best tweets from the California Library Association #CLA09
The CLA conference was an interesting weekend of technology deficiency and lackluster participation from both the venders and presenters. Unfortunately there was a sadly insignificant amount of tweeting going on and this is probably due mostly to the fact that there was no Wireless Internet available anywhere in the workshops. However, a HUGE thank you must go out to @strategicimp for providing the one wireless area at the conference and for providing (in my opinion) the best part of the conference, which was actually the Unconference.
I won’t go into too many details, but truly, I’m not sure what I would have done had that area not been set up. There were a couple of good discussions and quite a few great librarians (and librarians to be) hanging around the unconference “stealing” the internet and networking with each other. I hope they continue this event next year and get even more participants.
Although the tweets were few and far between I did manage to find a couple that I thought had some significance. The following are (in my opinion) the top eight tweets from #CLA09 and most came from the movers and shakers presentation that I had to miss.
@derekwolfgram “sometime you just gotta do stuff, and it pisses people off” -Lisa R
@joycenlee Think about how to leverage your past experiences. Just b/c they’re not directly related doesn’t mean they’re not relevant.
@jdscott50 “Gain a broad perspective of the organization, own your job, your role, be accountable, create mentor relationships.”
@tiffanylora “Leaders motivate others to create their own vision and together we can affect change.” ~Cindy Mediavilla
@sudofonik Think and be positive; don’t assume you won’t get an interview. There might only be a handful of applicants
@kgould “policy is the history of bad behavior” (the Unshelved guys)
@strategicimp focus on the experience u want to create – them design services and environment to make them real. ABA !
@bibliotechnical: Step 1 for digital collection make friends with political figures in community
There were some other good ones, but there were some even better tweeples present at CLA. While I couldn’t list great tweets from every single one of them I did want to mention that the following listing of librarians on Twitter are awesome people for twittering about the conference and being cool! I was just going to make a list on Twitter, but that feature needs some work and you should probably just follow these kickass folks anyway so….
@Ddegrandchamp
@Frances_J
@leshaner
@amapolaroja
@SofiaDistracted
@tiffanylora
@derekwolfgram
@sudofonik
@msmith003
@SusieOhQuinn
@kgould
@GraceMellmanLib
@saclawlibrarian
@shanndev
@patoney
@CaliMel
@unpoete
@RubySlppers
@lifeinoleg
@maromatic
@gdhansen
@friedicecream
@julianyoko
@kbuxton
@KiyomiD
@joycenlee
@judybatt
@alli_librarian
@hbdanielle
@Zorrah
@HeyDiggy
And if I left you out of my CLA tweeples list, it was a mistake. Let me know that you were there and tweeting and I’ll add you in! Good times team 🙂
PC Sweeney 
Thank you for your thoughts on uncon. We learned a lot that will make another one next year even better – but I’m thrilled that you had a great experience and felt it worth your time. You voted with your feet and I appreciated all that you contributed to the dialogue. Especially in the conversations with students and recent grads – they all walked away with hope and inspiration when they had arrived glum and downtrodden regarding their career futures.
The interesting thing that you missed in the closing session, besides the inspiring panel, was that we projected from my laptop tweetdeck the #cla09 column. Everyone in the audience could read the tweets and we even asked our tweeps to post their questions via twitter. 1/2 were from audience (oral) and 1/2 twittered. Interesting idea for moderating a panel session or other interactive forum at a library… Our non-tweeting CLA leadership was ‘blown away’.
Your candid nature is an asset; don’t lose it and keep shaking things up!
Thanks! I Appreciate your good words. I am sorry I missed the closing session, I heard it was fantastic! I’ve very excited to see how the unconference develops for #CLA10. We’ll see you there
Thanks for posting your thoughts! I hope everyone shares their ideas of what worked well and what could be improved…especially since it looks as though I might be able to help plan next year’s CLA conference in Sacramento. 🙂
I want to bring everyone’s ideas and thoughts forward so we can build upon our experiences and develop a dynamic and forward-thinking forum next year.
Thank you again for being a part of the unconference and sharing your ideas with me and other future librarians.
~Tiffany
I know times are tough but don’t overlook the importance of providing wi-fi. The conference will be tweeted, blogged, vlogged, etc… (all this is advertising) and CLA can get some instantaneous feedback about the conference. If you get a chance, I would talk to @techfun who ran the technology for internet librarian for some great ideas about conference responsiveness and technology needs. He was great! I feel like I owe him a beer at least. Overall my complaints are few and far between. Good times team!