By: Vicki Mills

Vicki Mills — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:01:01 +0000

OK — Mary is twisting my arm to make a comment. I was at that same yoga class last night and I have experience doing things wrong, so I guess this qualifies me to comment. I agree with Mary that to be really creative, you have to be willing to make mistakes sometimes. And when working with people, you also have to be willing to be a little crazy and to use humor. You need to be comfortable having people laugh at you as well as laugh with you. We work on the reference desk and teach lots of undergraduate classes. Undergraduates are great — I used to teach kindergarten and lots of undergrads remind me of big kindergarten kids. They want to be really sophisticated, but the 5 year olds inside them are lurking pretty close to the surface. If you can do something to appeal to their inner 5 year old — you can hook them. We have an exercise where we walk around with students while they actually find books, journals and videos in the library. We give them a silly sticker on their exercise sheet, each time they show us the different things they locate. They love those stickers — it never fails. One time when I didn’t offer stickers to some of them, they complained about me. What does this have to do with marketing? Remember your audience and if you are marketing the library to students, particularly to undergraduates, think of fun, silly activities, logos, posters, etc. Think about pairing what you want to teach or introduce to your audience with things that are fun and that will be engaging. You can have a serious message that doesn’t have to be seriously presented. And don’t be afraid to make yourselves look at little crazy. It will appeal to the 5 year olds.

Comments on: What I learned in Yoga last night

By: Vicki Mills