A month from now, we’ll be in Monterey at the Conference Center, attending workshops, and getting ready for the opening day of Internet Librarian 2007! We’ll be visiting the Monterey Public Library which is graciously hosting an event for us called, “What’s Happening in IL Space?”. The Monterey Public Library has also been answering lots of questions about the area on the IL07 wiki. By the way, don’t forget to check out Eloisa Borah’s trick or treat on the speakers page of the wiki! Good idea. The list of cybertours — free short presentations in the exhibit hall — are now online and so are the dine arounds — casual dinners with fellow attendees at area restaurants to talk about various topics or just have fun and network! See you there soon.

Stephen Abram, VP Innovation, SirsiDynix introduced me to a niche event for academic libraries, e-Info Global Symposium, which is sponsored by the University of Alabama and covers topics related to Information Delivery & E-Access in Academic Libraries. Stephen is this year’s conference chair and there is a great line up of speakers.

Amazing to think that Google is 9 years old and Yahoo is 12 years old. When Yahoo burst onto the search stage eveyone thought it was a crazy name but a great product. Today, it’s graphics no longer look fresh to me like Google’s does — google has fun with their logo and I love it! Found this link to some of the Google logos from earlier birthday years. More fun.

Can you believe it? After years in the works, Intranets for Info Pros is being published by Information Today. Mary Lee Kennedy and I edited the book. Mary Lee wrote a big chunck too, as did authors Deb Wallace, Craig St. Clair, Jose Claudio Terra, Cindy Ross Pedersen, Avi Rappoport, Mike Crandall, Eric Hards, Ian Littlejohn, Cory Costanzo, and Angela Abell. Thank you all! And, as I noted before, Tom Davenport wrote a great foreward!

Author of The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, James Surowiecki, opens KMWorld & Intranets 2007 in San Jose on Tuesday, November 6th.

Talking about change, this year’s KMWorld & Intranets conference in San Jose, CA is an interesting, interactive program which features many top knowledge management (KM) gurus and practitioners: Dave Snowden, Dave Pollard, Cindy Gordon, David Gurteen, Hubert Saint Onge, Verna Allee, Steve Denning, Stacy Land, Ted Graham, Tony Sheehan, Richard McDermott, Seth Earley, along with content management experts: Alan Pelz Sharpe, Ann Rockley, and lots more terrific speakers. The conference theme, KM 2.0: A New World for the Enterprise will highlight discussions about strategic KM; the knowledge commons; knowledge sharing, transfer & retention; improving decision making; embedding KM into work processes; learning & organizational performance; connecting people to information; enterprise 2.0; Web 2.0 tools; supporting knowledge flows; innovation; Second Life & immersive worlds for business; social media; organizational change; collaboration tools and strategies, and many, many more leading edge topics!

I always love the business thinking and wonderful flow charts of Dave Pollard, consultant and former Chief Knowledge Officer with E&Y Canada, which is why I link to his blog, How to Save the World (look to the right under check these out). His most recent posting, How Change Happens, has a great chart on how you can influence and provoke change and the change process. As Dave points out, the world is changing ever faster with technology and the number of people while the people themselves, change slowly. As he says, “We are change-resistant. We change when we have no other real choice. Social change is therefore a complex phenomenon: It occurs only when a large group of people have no other choice.” He continues and discusses that you need a “catalyst, a provocation to change”, and as Rebecca and I have often said in our consulting work, you also need a sense of urgency. “But when we finally reach that tipping point, we can change remarkably quickly. Today I listened to a presentation (with a great story line) that changed the thinking of a whole room of people (more on it tomorrow). I’ve been through similar sudden, major Self-Changes, for example when I read each of the fifteen critical books on my Save the World Reading List.” Check out his list and also try the exercise the suggests:

Tell a story about some significant Let-Self-Change in your life. What was the catalyst? Did it happen suddenly or gradually? What did it feel like — was it an Aha! or a sense of sheepishness (”how could I ever have believed that?).
What does this teach us about how to bring about change in others?

Make sure if you are in California in October that you don’t miss the Tuesday evening program at Internet Librarian. It begins with our very popular Gadgets presentation by Barbara Fullerton, Aaron Schmidt, and Sabrina Pacifici. We always learn something new, something funny, and something we want immediately! To highlight the evening is a documentary premiere of a film being developed especiallly for IL07 that showcases gaming best practices in libraries.

Last year Erik Boekesteijn appeared in London to make a video documentary about Web 2.0 based on the program at Internet Librarian International. Erik and his associate, Jaap van de Geer, both from the Netherlands, have timed a new video production to culminate at Internet Librarian in Monterey. Here’s their Web page to publicize their activities. Check it out!

Here’s Erik’s interview with Michael Stephens about using new technology tools in libraries in the future.

Popular Information Today conference speaker, Aaron Schmidt, is quoted today in the Chicago Tribune’s story –
Libraries using IMs to attract young clients
Branches in suburbs turning to Internet as a way to help, as well as attract, young clients
By Robert Channick | Special to the Tribune September 13, 2007

The article mentions a number of area public libraries, and provides some interesting stats –
“Nationwide, about 140 libraries offer instant-messaging reference, the vast majority at universities, according to libsuccess.org, a library information Web site. Of the 37 public libraries using the service, 15 are in Illinois and mostly in the Chicago area.”

Here’s the part about/quotes Aaron:
“Chicago is kind of a locus for cool library technology,” said Aaron Schmidt, 29, an instant-messaging reference pioneer who launched one of the first programs three years ago while working at Thomas Ford Memorial Library in Western Springs.

Now director of a small public library near Portland, Ore., the LaGrange native has been influential in promoting instant messaging on his library technology Web site, walkingpaper.org, and leads workshops throughout the country, including a North Suburban Library System event scheduled for Tuesday.

Schmidt said many libraries have been slow to use the communication tool, even as they struggle to reach out to an increasingly indifferent younger constituency.

“There’s a lot of dead wood in libraries, and I think there’s a lot of administrations that are kind of just biding their time for retirement and don’t feel like putting forth a lot of effort,” he said. “I think there’s a general culture of resistance to change. That needs to go away.”

Check out Aaron at Internet Librarian 2007 speaking about “Games, Gaming & Libraries”, “Social Tools for Your Library” and “Gadgets”.

The ability to manage projects in libraries is one of the keys to success in the information world. Mary Auckland — consultant, former Director of Library and Learning Resources at University of the Arts London in the UK, and recipient of the Order of the British Empire, teaches a great course on project management. She is leading a half day workshop on the topic at Internet Librarian, Monterey CA, October 28th. She will also be teaching a course using audio conferences and online discussion (you can participate from own desk) for the Education Institute. The course is 5 weeks and begins on September 17th.