Although Computers in Libraries 2009 anticipated going back to the Hilton Washington  in March 2009, the hotel is now scheduled for renovation during that time.  So save the dates, March 30-April 1 2009, for another exciting conference at the Crystal City Hyatt, a short shuttle ride from Regan National Airport.  The call for speakers should be up on the conference website in July, so start thinking about how you’d like to participate CIL2009! 

From ITWorld Canada: “Often, even great new technology needs a partner to really change the world. Here are 10 marriages of technologies that have shaken the digital world over the last 25 years.”

10. DVD’s + Entertainment on Demand: ” The whatever/wherever/whenever model of media consumption is turning both Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry on their heads, and forcing advertisers to rethink ways to capture our attention.”

9. YouTube + Cheap Digital Cameras & Camcorders: “Digital video has made mini-Hitchcocks of everyone. YouTube and its many cousins give the masses a place to put their masterworks. Journalism, politics, and entertainment will never be the same.”

8. Open Source + Web Tools: “The idea that media should be portable is disruptive. The notion that it should be free–and that some artists can survive, or even thrive, despite a lack of sales revenue–is even more so.”

7. MP3 + Napster: “The idea that media should be portable is disruptive. The notion that it should be free–and that some artists can survive, or even thrive, despite a lack of sales revenue–is even more so.”

6. Blogs + Google Ads: “Blogs give everyone a public voice, while Google gives bloggers a way to fund and market themselves–and the economy of the 21st century is born.”

5. Cheap Storage + Portable Memory: “Where would we be today without cheap, capacious, portable storage? No iPods. No YouTube. No Gmail. No cloud computing.”

4. Cloud Computing + Always-on Devices: “For enterprises, cloud computing provides the benefits of a data center without the cost and hassle of maintaining one. For consumers, it offers the promise of cheaper, simpler devices that let them access their data and their applications from anywhere.”

3. Broadband + Wireless Networks: “Broadband has created an explosion of video and music Web sites and VoIP services, while Wi-Fi is bringing the Net to everyday household appliances such as stereos, TVs, and home control systems. Together, they’re making the connected home a reality.”

2. The Web + Graphical Browsers: “Media firms, publishing companies, and advertisers now think Web first, and broadcast or print second.”

1. Cell Phones + Wireless Internet Access: “The ability to be reachable 24/7 is morphing into the ability to surf the Net from any location. And it’s forcing monopolistic wireless companies to open up their networks to new devices and services.”

Five Things We’d (IT Canada)  Like to See Disrupted:

• Plastic packaging: What happened to the packaging industry? Why do people need industrial-strength wire cutters to open the shrink-wrap on a $20 mouse?
• Pop-up ads on TV: We really don’t need to see tiny people dancing across the bottom of the screen promoting the next program while we’re watching this one, thanks.
• Rich-media ads on the Web: If we wanted to watch commercials, we’d be sitting on the couch in front of Oprah. Stop with the swirling, scrolling, popping, video ads; they’re not working.
• Digital rights management: When it comes to music, DRM is on life support, and we’re more than happy to stand on the oxygen hose. But for video–especially the HD formats–it’s still an enormous pain. When will Hollywood moguls learn that their customers are smarter than they are?
• Instant messaging: The Berlin Wall fell. Sixteen nations have collaborated on the International Space Station. But folks are still stuck with incompatible IM services and/or kludgy front ends. Can’t we all just get along?

Kathleen Delong, Associate Director, University of Alberta Libraries spoke to the Education Institute about developing leaders, an important .. today.   She talked about the distinctive differencs of leadership (leaders producing change, adatption) and management which involves making things work and often are talked about in terms of order, consistency, and stability.   Kathleen referred to the book, Leadership Theory and Practice wich talks about theories as well as applications.  She talked about leadership traits, skills, and styles as well as followers and transformation leadership which has been popular for the last number of years.  An interesing model is shared leadership.  Kathleen talked about IBM’s internship program called Extreme Blue where recruits are immersed in a system which focuses on group cohesision over “me first glory” and when these people left the program for other parts of IBM they received a publication called “Staying Extreme with tips on leading, do’s and don’ts, and the style that was expected from them. 

Kathleen talked about the 8 R’s committee of CLA which published the Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries.  Started with retirement and recruitment and expanded to repatriation, and other R’s.  Most libraries  require the skills of leaderhip, management and business roles and many were having difficulty meeting their staffing requirements for these.

How do new professionals engage with leadership?  Kathleen has been doing research in this area looking at leadership engagement factors — interests in and willingness to take up leadership roles.   She has found that new professionals are interested in general opportunities for leadership and taking leadership roles in organizations, in having mentor opportunities, and participating in leadership develeopment programs.   However, there does seem to be differences between willingness and practice (or ability to participate in these programs).

Alex Bennet, former (and first) Chief Knowledge Officer of the U. S. Department of the Navy, just sent me a copy of the book she, her husband and others just published — Knowledge Mobilization in the Social Sciences and Humanities: Moving from Research to Action.  From the prologue: “The leadership shown by the government of Canada in creating and implementing the Knowledge Impact on Society program designed to moe knowledge from the researcher to the citizens has stimulated the preparation and research forwarded in this book….The Canadian approach to knowledge mobilization serves as a model for future research…”  Chapters include: Exploring knowledge mobilization(KMb); Theory & approaches; The KMb program and process; The KMb activities model; Involving & evolving students; Execution in the action space; Outcomes & impacts; The KIS of SSHRC (mini case study of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada); Power plus comes of age.  

Alex & David Bennet are also founders of The Mountain Quest Institute – “a research, retreat, and learning center dedicated to helping individuals achieve personal and professional growth and organizations create and sustain high performance in a rapidly changing, uncertain, and increasinly complex world.”

This article on IT skills just crossed my desk and the following quote refers to technology pros but I think it could be true for information and knowledge pros too!  “Technology pros looking to find new work or secure their current jobs should get schooled on wireless, Web 2.0, and virtualization while also boning up on business basics.”  So true.  Other skills include database management, business intelligence/data mining, application delivery, security and networking. 

Google’s Earth Day scenario with the little turtle in front reminded me of a cool book that Rebecca and I used years ago in a creativity session with clients, Wheel of Wisdom: A Turtle & Hare Journey to Your Dream by Canadian author, Angelika Clubb.  The book is “for anyone who has ever had a dream or longs to find one” and helps you “tap into the energies of your inner turtle and hare to give your dream a plan and put a great plan behind your dreams.”   The inner hare is the visionary who spins out the dream and the turtle is the planner who grounds the dream and takes it forward, one step at a time.  Turtle teaches focus, discipline, patience and helps align the plan to the dream.  Hare teaches courage, thinking in possibilities, creative imagination and helps let go in order to seed a new dream.  Thanks, Google pic for reminding of this fun book.

Darrell Gunter, EVP/Chief Marketing Officer, Collexis Holdings Inc. referred to an interesting study, Semantic Wave Report 2008: Industry Roadmap to Web 3.0, and you can order the executive summary for free.  Darrell’s discussion of the knowledge plane where you extract knowledge and concpets, “searching to knowing” was very interesting.   He also talked about exploring rather than searching and explained the Collexis fingerprint engine.  From their website: “Collexis High Definition Search enables extraordinary knowledge retrieval and discovery quickly and accurately by utilizing fingerprinting technology. The CollexisFingerprint empowers users to immediately identify and search for documents, experts, trends, and new discoveries more quickly, accurately – and deeply – than conventional search engines.”  They are using this engine with a community of biomed experts.  

Interesting interactive site to visit – Interactive Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  Just heard from one of the creators, Chris Willis, VP Social Media, Footenote.com, who worked with a team to take pictures of the wall (6500) and then opened the site where people can share memories, memorabilia (including super 8 film), etc.  You can search the wall, browse names by category, enlistment types, service, and home town.   This new site ended up on the front page of CNN on Apr 2.  Very interesting. Footenote.com also has a partnership with the US National Archives.  Check it out.

At Information Today’s Buying & Selling eContent 2008 event, Y.S. Chi, Vice-Chair, Elsevier gave a great analogy about the different levels of content available to users.  He compared content to baseball.  You can watch a ball game from the bleachers, from box seats, from a private suite with pop-up screens and access to stats, video clips, etc., or from your TV at home.  It’s the same content, the ball game, but the user experience is different.  I love this example.  Chi also listed 8 ways information can retain value:  personalization (content tailored to you), immediacy (early content is better), interpretation, authenticity, accessibility, embodiment (tangibility), patronage and findability. 

Keen, who came out of O’Reilly’s 2004 Foo Camp as a Web 2.0 skeptic, was interviewed by Information Today VP of Content, Dick Kaser at the Buying & Selling eContent event.  Some interesting comments, quotes: 

We have to get beyond the cult of the innocent/child; how can they be wiser than expert?

Best book on Web 2.0 — The Long Tail.

Google chapter in Keen’s book,The Cult of the Amateur, is called 1984 2.0.  Keen believes Google is more successful than Microsoft and an ad monopoly.  It learns about us and our intelligence and wants to know us intimiately so it can sell us personalized ads.

 Keen believes that 3.0 (the next big thing) will bring the return of expertise, professionalism  and the curator.  He used the example of Mahalo.com a curated search engine.

Interesting messages in his talk for information professionals: stay away from the cult of the amateur, don’t be humble –”humility is the kiss of death”, open source software doesn’t translate into open source culture — a crowd can’t author books or write songs, revel in the role of authorative curator and use experts to build communities, like Kids