This fall Harvard Business pubished a book called Managing Change which contains lessons learned. Concise and engaging, it includes insightful essays by top leaders in industry, the public sector, and academia on the most pressing issues they’ve faced. The contributors share surprisingly personal anecdotes and offer authoritative and practical advice drawn from their years of hard-earned experience. But next week you can hear David Lee King, (picutred here) Digital Branch & Services Manager, Topeka Shawnee County Public Library, and frequent blogger, talk about Guiding Libraries and Information Professionals Through Change. It is part of the Education Institute’s Strategic Conversations with Leaders Series. Here’s a description of David’s one hour talk, Thursday, November 29, 3-4pm EST:
These days, libraries are all about change — especially technology changes! While many of us are able to steer successfully through those changes, others get stuck along the way. This “change management 101″ talk explains how to successfully get the library and the info pros through change. King discusses change and the transition stages people go through with change; guidelines to navigate through change, both for front-line staff and for managers; and provides recommendations on successfully transitioning staff through change.

Blackle.com, powered by Google Search, is Google’s “Black Google” energy-saving engine, “saving energy one search at a time.” It’s really very cool, and Google encourages setting it as your homepage (black works for me). There’s a blogpost that is sort of the wiki-esque on this reasoning how much energy is saved with the black screen. But the bottom line is, that every little bit helps - and it is just plain interesting to check out!

WOW! Finally, an e-reading device I’m interested in, really interested in. And as soon as the price drops a bit (it’s currently $399.99), we’ll be testing this at D&J - right, Jane? And I’m not alone. Amazon.com’s Kindle is so popular right now, it’s sold out and on back order. Weighing only 10.3 oz., with a screen that looks amazingly like paper and adjusts automatically to the light, this wireless reading device is getting some rave reviews (I want it). It not only holds books, but your subscriptions are delivered to it automatically (one of the reviewers said she now just stays in bed to read the paper since it is delivered to the Kindle, not to the front door.)
Holds 200 titles, doesn’t need computers, cables, wifi spots, nada, & the battery lasts 1 - 2 days depending on usage. Access to Wikipedia (now there’s an angle), and you can e-mail your word documents or photos so you can access them. It has a built-in dictionary, you can bookmark…wait, I’m sounding like an infomercial. Oh! and you can use the qwerty keyboard to search across all the content. Now…let’s consider this in the context of libraries. Oh yeah! oh yeah! How ’bout libraries running some trials & tests - for book clubs, for youth — like I said, the e-book is getting better & better…..and….ah….I want one.

Just listening to Mary Lee Kennedy talk at an Education Institute audio seminar about Intranet Tips for Info Pros based on a recently published book she and I put together. BTW, you can buy a copy from Information Today or Amazon! OK, so much for the sales pitch. What I really wanted to highlight was ML’s list of 8 steps to sucess. Although she was talking about intranet projects, these could apply to anything, even strategic planning which is a core of D&J consulting practice. So here they are:

1. Start with the end in mind — define, paint a picture, tell a story and engage all the major stakeholders in this critical picture — bring everyone with you, all your stakefholders, clients, etc. — create a description which authenticates what success looks like.

2. Set the scene that supports the end — communication is a key — constant but not annoying

3. Break it down — this helps to test your assumnptions, especially regaring design & technology

4. Define the interdependencies — the critical ones as all would take forever

5. Prioritize

6. Put a program in place — early buy-in, no surprises

7. End with the beginning in mind — use a checklist to take back to the those involved in the first step; scoring your work against the commitment agreed upon; sell the excitement attained through the project in creating the picture viewed in the first step

8. Begin a continuous loop — success involves a lot of listening and making sure there are many checkpoints; a community of practitioners might work well or an annual planning meeting to assure alignment and keep the connection with users/clients

Other tips — start a pilot with someone who really wants what you’re offering; use the language of the stakeholder; much change happens due to changes in technology.
Mary Lee’s slides will shortly be here.

I really found it interesting that two of the people I met during the last few weeks had been employed by Google for just over a year — they are apparently the veterans of the organization. 60% of the Google staff has been hired within the last year. 150 new Google staff start work every Monday morning according to one fellow to whom I talked. Amazing.

I recently met Stuart Henshall online when we had a conversation about Information Today’s media policy for KMWrld & Intranets 2007. Check out his blog as he posted a lot of comment on KMW07 conference.
Addendum: also check out http://www.henshall.com/tag/kmw07/ and
http://wiki.sla.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4817384 and
http://blog.simslearningconnections.com/?p=201

As per my earlier post about KMWorld & Intranets 2007 keynotes who spoke about Second Life and set up a place to chat in SL about knowledge management and the conference, here’s a great pic of those who met to chat!

Toby Ward, President & CEO, Prescient Digital, has a terrific blog, IntranetBlog.com, with lots of tips and thoughts about intranets. He also has great tips for writing for the web.

What recently fascinated me recently is his post on “Serena Software Adopts Facebook as Corporate Intranet”. I think we’ll see lots of new intranet platforms in the future, very exciting!

Hear editor and author, Mary Lee Kennedy, in an Education Institute audio conference, Thursday, November 15th, 3pm EST.
Rarely do information professionals hold positions responsible for driving the direction of an organization. These are the roles of functional leaders such as Marketing and Product Development, or CEOs, or heads of NGOs and government bodies. However, behind the scenes, and sometimes at the same table as CIOs, CKOs, or Executive Directors, information professionals play fundamental roles in ensuring the organization can accomplish its goals by leveraging the information and knowledge assets it needs to make the right decisions, learn, and create new knowledge. Mary Lee looks at how information professionals can enable the exchange of ideas, expertise and information within the Intranet. She presents the highlights of expertise from contributors to the new book published Information Today, Intranets for Info Pros. It provides practical, proven advice and know-how.

Today’s keynote speakers at KMWorld & Intranets, Cindy Gordon, Helix Commerce International and John Jainschigg, Director, World2World, CMP Technology, gave a great look at immersive worlds and how they relate to business opportunities. They even set up a place for people to talk in Second LIfe (SL) about KMWorld & Intranets; the keynote speakers and others will gather at 8:30 p.m. EST to chat. Go to CMP and the area for KMI right above it. Let me know how it goes for you!