Isn’t it interesting that as the Special Libraries Association, a 11,000+ member organization representing corporate, government, industry, medical, hospital, and legal libraries as well as other specialized libraries residing in larger institutions, discusses once again a possible name change to the 100 year old organization that a there is an organization called The Corporate Library.  Out of Portland, ME, The Corporate Library is a 10 year old research firm that tracks corporate governance issues.  Huh.

Father's Day/ First Day of Summer

Even though I’m disappointed in the weather during my excursion to the Eastern Shore of the US following a gruelling week of conference-going in DC (SLA and see our twitter feed) , I am blessed to spend the time in a beautiful environment with great friends and get re-energized.  And I am always happy to see such great Google pics as today’s Father Day/First day of Summer/Beach pic.  Let’s celebrate these ocassions, and hope for a great sunny summer with just enough rain to keep our ecosystem balanced and happy too!

I have the incredible privilege of giving a session with Mary Lee Kennedy and Deb Wallace of Harvard Business School on critical thinking at SLA 2009 tomorrow.  Unfortunately, Mary Lee won’t be there in person, but she certainly will be there in content and in spirit.  Mary Lee embodies critical thinking — viewing “what is” and asking “why” and then doing something about it.  Just ask anyone that’s worked with her at Harvard, or, before that, Microsoft and, before that, Digital Equipment.  I’d ask “huh?” but Mary Lee would definitely ask “how can we frame this?”

The presentation is up here, but, in a nutshell critical thinking is really about unveiling and questioning assumptions and information that may not be valid.  Sounds easy, right? sounds reasonable.  Especially since so many decisions and problems we face are complex.  There’s often no obvious or even one right decision or solution.

BUT, it’s not easy or even reasonable in many circumstances to keep raising questions about people’s base “starting points” as they discuss potential options.  It can be downright risky to suggest to those making decisions that they “re-frame” how they see the situation, or that they set the “sunk costs” of a service or project aside as they examine options.  After all, very often we continue to ’sink costs’ into a service/project even though it’s obviously past its prime or no longer working.  As Warren Buffet said, “When you find yourself in a hole, the best thing you can do is stop digging.”  So why do we continue to put money into non-strategic services? or why are we reluctant to identify our underlying assumptions? or keep asking what the REAL issue is that we’re facing? Among the many reasons are that we don’t want to risk that past decisions will be seen as “mistakes” or we don’t want to be perceived as “not knowing”, or we want to avoid conflict.

But the benefit of critical thinking is a productive dialogue that results in much more valid decisions that, yes, have been thought through and examined from new perspectives.  As Colin Powell kept saying in his speech to SLA last night, “it’s not the same.”  It’s not the same, so we’d better stop making decisions in the same way.

The other, I guess, “side-benefit” of critical thinking is that we can engage those who have been educated during the past 10-20 years - labelled gen xers or yers or digital natives - in this productive dialogue.  Why? because they’ve been educated to think critically — to question the assumptions — to look at situations & ask “why”.  Quite frankly, those of us over 45 (stop laughing - ok, over 50) weren’t even allowed to ask “why” until university, and then when we entered the work force we expected to  do what we were told.  Many of our generation (not all!) don’t know how to question or re-frame issues. Students are now educated to question the status quo and to look at information and say “oh yeah? says who?”  That’s what critical thinking is all about.  It’s about getting the perspective of those not involved in the situation and making sure the right solution is chosen because it’s right, not because it’s safe.

If you want to know more about critical thinking - or productive dialogue (since it is about discussion, discernment & getting to action) - check out The Critical Thinking Community or “The Hidden Traps in Decision Making” in Harvard Business Review January 2006 by John Hammond et al.  AND, most importantly, either engage those younger employees in the process, or get them to guide you through how to question the current thinking.

I totally disagree with this statement (see below for the full context) — “The word ‘conference’ is synonymous with bad food, hard chairs and boring speakers. At least it is for many of us.”  But then, maybe I’m spoiled by the organizations I work with as a conference planner (Information Today is a great conference producer), or some of the conferences I attend (FastForward ‘09), or maybe I just make my own interesting experiences by networking with speakers and colleagues, choosing good restaurants to frequent with stimulating people who share their insights and ideas, and finding nuggets from most speakers.  Speakers always seem to spark thoughts and ideas in my mind; colleagues never fail to intrigue me with their experiences and practices.  Yes, I’m curious.

That said, here are some links to a program on the future of conferences at SxSW which discusses issues relating to use of blogging and twittering at conferences.  Both of these technologies are heavily used by conferences I attend, many having top trending tweets!

This could be really interesting.  Am checking out the video and sneak peek and a good article from CIO magazine.  “Google’s newly unveiled Wave may be called a communication and collaboration tool, but it’s much more than that. Wave combines key trends that we’ve seen the last couple years on the Web into one elegant application. And it may make today’s enterprise tools such as Microsoft SharePoint look ridiculously complicated.”  It “mixes old technologies like e-mail, IM and online documents in a unified, socially-oriented view, could break down the traditional ways in which we compartmentalize and separate information — both as consumers and businesspeople.”  Looking forward to hearing how this tool might affect knowledge management practices at KMWorld 2009, Nov 17-19, in San Jose CA.

Wish I had been at the first Twitter conference “focused on Twitter as a business platform: how to use Twitter to reach and engage customers, influence opinions and activate markets.”  Great speakers, a number of whom I am already following, and including the fellow who created the Twitterverse pic in my last post.  Live tweeting, which is still going on while people are commenting on the post-conference buzz in blogs — I really liked this post by Frederic Paul which included the author’s  5 tips from the sold-out one day conference along with his stream of tweets in chrono order.

Twitterverse by Jess3 & Brian Solis

Love this picture.  Certainly puts in perspective the influence of technology — trends and analysis, marketing/advertising, search, relationship management, contextual network analysis, communication management, mobile applications, event managaement, and more.  Great visualization. Thanks.

Art Sobczak's Pic. Thx.

Well, sort of.  First, let me say the dueling pianos and great songs were truly amazing.  The ACC in Toronto rocked.  Elton John and Billy Joel are two popular, talented and entertaining guys.  My ears are still ringing & I’m still humming their tunes.  OK lessons.

I just tried out Topsy, “a search engine powered by tweets”.  And I put in “Billy Joel Concert” since I’d just seen one last night and thought I’d fine some of my tweets and what others had to say.  Interesting, I found a blog post from an earlier concert entitled, Sales Lessons from the Elton John/Billy Joel Concert.  I loved the way this guy, Art Sobczak, used what he saw at the concert to make points about how to do sales.  The post does point somewhat to the differences in audiences (Canadian versus US), and that Billy Joel used many of the same jokes in Toronto as he did in Omaha.  Topsy also picked up a picture of Kevin Spacey with Billy Joel.  Not much came up with I added Toronto to the search.  Wonder where my tweets are.  Topsy tells you to put in your twitter name, interesting that it only picks up three listings for me. Hmmmm, what are the lessons here about searching conversations?

And because I like info and wanted more, I checked out John & Joel websites. I looked at Elton’s website — pretty interesting with videos, ecommerce, philanthropy, community, and more.  Not bad.  And Billy’s website which also has podcasts and a mobile section where you can send him text messages.  Even better.  More marketing lessons here.  And looking at Joel’s earlier pics I can certainly see why he referred to himself last night as Bill’s father!  Anyway, enough lessons and trying to fit concerts into my regular stream of posts.  But if you have the chance, take in the John/Joel concert.  Fabulous.

Oct 26-8, Monterey CA

The program for Internet Librarian 2009, the 13th annual IL conference, is getting ready to go to print and be uploaded to the conference site.  There is a terrific faculty of speakers which you will see soon but I thought I’d give you a sneak preview of the wonderful keynote sessions and networking events we have planned.  Conference theme:  Net Initiatives for Tough Times: Digital Publishing, Preservation & Practices.

Saturday Oct 24 — Library Camp Monterey @ Monterey PL, 9.30-12.30 — a new free interactive discussion about people, technology, and libraries.  There are a range of workshops in the afternoon too.

Sunday Oct 25 — full and half day workshops including the popular Searchers Academy & Web Managers Academy.  At the end of the day network, play, and have fun at the Gaming & Gadgets Petting Zoo.

Monday Oct 26 — The day begins with an insightful keynote interview with Vint Cerf, Internet pioneer and VP & Chief Internet Evangelist, Google focused on Digital Publishing, Preservation & Practices.  Four tracks of sessions during the day are following by the opening reception in the exhibit hall, always goodies there.

Tuesday Oct 27 — Paul Holdengraber, Director, Public Programs, New York Public Library & former Founder & Director, Institute for Art and Cultures at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is interviewed about Libraries of the Future: Places of Desire.  He believes that public conversations are a fundamental way to make libraries irresistible, ensuring their everlasting importance.  He talks about creating moments of magic, provides tips for oxygenating and transforming libraries for the future and does it in a delightful way.  Following a full day of sessions in four tracks, we have fun evening planned.  Rockin’ Battle Decks is a new format for IL, also called “PowerPoint Karaoke” where our speakers make a coherent presentation based on hand-selected , seeminly unrelated slides that they see for the first time live on stage.  After a fantastic live musical interlude, the judges announce the winner.

Wednesday Oct 28 — Growing & Grown-Up Digital:  Net-Gen Speaks features a panel of kids, teens, and young adults interviewed about how they consume media, use technology to learn, and live, work & play in an information-rich fast-changing world.   After a free lunch in the exhibit hall, and four tracks of sessions, the day ends with another keynote — Mobile Gadgets & Apps with some of the foremost leaders who showcase exciting new and futuristic technologie, practices and applications in the mobile world.

Mark your calendars, blog & twitter with our tag — #IL2009, and join us in Monterey in October.

Missing Link Fossil

Today’s Google pic of the Missing Link Fossil reminded me of the old and the new, probably because I’ve been working with ITI’s techie wizard JD Thomas on a new Internet Libraian wiki.  Whiles fossils are definitely old, I think of wikis as a new tec.  However, today I realized that we are working on our 4th wiki for the Internet Librarian conference — amazing!  Time sure flies.  Thanks to Meredith Farkas for getting started along the wiki path with pbwiki (now pbworks).  And thanks for JD for his new creation on tiki wiki — will let you know the link shortly and hope you’ll contribute!