Playing Catch-up in Learning 2.0

I've allowed myself to fall way behind in the Library's Learning 2.0 program, mainly because the Flickr and mashup discoveries were simply not my thing.

Flickr looks great to me in theory; I can see why those who love it love it, but I'm not someone who works with photographs or images. Even to play around with Flickr would mean I'd have to use other people's images, or copyright-free images from the web, and without that connection through personal interest, there's just no point.

Mashups, on the other hand, leave my creativity completely cold. I can't explain why. I've seen mashups and mashup tools that strike me as clever or funny, but I don't feel the slightest urge to do it myself. My creativity tends to express itself through language, and it's pretty stubborn about not showing up at parties where it doesn't enjoy the music.

However, after talking it over with fellow Learning 2.0er Ducky, I felt sufficiently guilty that I dragged myself out onto the Learning 2.0 path in a bid to catch up.

I signed up for Flickr, uploaded a photograph, toyed with a few tools, and concluded that I did, in fact, not enjoy it at all. Happy to pick up a few skills to share with customers, happy to use Flickr in the workplace if it ever comes to that, but most probably won't use it for myself.

Mashups, weeelll... I re-read the discovery post, contemplated it all for awhile, and conclude that no, that's not where I want to be putting my creative energy. At present, I'm short-changing those areas of my life that deserve as much creative energy as I have, so I can't justify to myself spending time in a creative area that doesn't meant anything to me. (Sorry, Learning 2.0 program.)

Tagging interests me more, since it's a means of keeping track of things, or organizing the daily deluge of information. For now, I contented myself with retagging the posts to this blog.

Leaving the delicious and digg activities (but practically no time left in the afternoon to do much with them). Both sound terrific. In the end, I signed up for both, and I'll play around with them on another day.