It’s so exciting how Information Today is using its content management system to build a community for their conference events that I’m using Google’s doodle to celebrate with some fiddling! Yes today is the 332nd birthday of Antonio Vivaldi, an Italian composer. But I digress, something unusual for me, right?
So go to the Computers in Libraries 2010 website and click on speakers. You can now reach those speakers through Twitter, Facebook, their blog, or LinkedIn when they update their speaker page. Check out Joe Murphy and myself, Jane Dysart, to get the idea. Computers in Libraries 2010 also has a wiki to build more community, and this year has a special section — 25th anniversary memory bank. If you have a vibrant memory of a past Computers in Libraries conference, please share it!
The Human Library in its initial form is a mobile library set up as a space for dialogue and interaction. Visitors to the Human Library are given the opportunity to speak informally with “people on loan”;this latter group being extremely varied in age, sex and cultural background.
With these principles in mind, OLA is featuring a career focus for conference delegates who wish to borrow a Living Book. The purpose is to encourage open discussion about interesting, unusual, or leadership career positions with a view to:exploring and expanding the scope of career opportunities for people to consider, anddebunking stereotypes (good or bad) associated with career paths (let’s face it – we have them!). The delegates may be students developing their career ambitions, or seasoned professionals who are intrigued by the career path you have taken.
Delegates will be informed of our loan policy: “please remember that all Living Books have kindly volunteered to be lent out as examples of some intriguing career paths. They must be returned to us in the same condition, as they were in at the time of check-out. You are encouraged to ask questions and share your own point of view, but always with respect for the person who has volunteered. The Living Book can choose to discontinue a loan and return to the Library, if he or she feels so inclined. “
It’s amazing how fast a year goes by and how much we cram into 365 days. Hope everyone has a great holiday season and a terrific year in 2010! At this time of year, I always look ahead to what’s to come, and 2010 looks like it’s shaping up to be exciting. Here’s a peek –
Rebecca and I are facilitating a pre-conference workshop on Wed Feb 24 — Leadership Renewal: Conversations, Insights & Revitalization (P004) which includes segments with Cindy Ross Pedersen, Strategic Volunteer & Entrepreneur, Ken Haycock, Director, San Jose State University School of Libary & information Science & Senior Partner, Ken Haycock & Associates Inc. and Gordon Vala-Webb, PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada PLC. This interactive workshop should provide lots of wonderful conversations and insights. Rebecca is speaking about Resolving Conflict - Reaching Consensus (317) on Thurs Feb 25 and Service Lifecycle Management: Pruning Gives Other Services Room to Grow (1228) on Friday Feb 26. We have also put together a session on Thurs Feb 25 called Digital Strategies: Practices & Services (1021) which features Aaron Schmidt, District of Columbia Public Library, Amanda Etches Johnson, McMaster University and Daniel Lee, Navigator Ltd. We hope to see lots of our friends and colleagues in Toronto at SuperConference!
This vibrant conference is filled sessions on topics of interest to all those in the information business. Check out the program and join us for stimulating discussions, lots of learning and networking, and of course, fun!
Rebecca and I are again facilitating a full day pre-conference workshop on Sat, June 12th — Strategic Renewal: Learning from Executives featuring Darrell Gunter, Chief Marketing Officer, Collexis Holdings Inc. Kate Noerr, CEO, MuseGlobal Inc., Barbara Robinson, Executive Coach, and Cindy Ross Pedersen, Strategic Volunteer & Entrepreneur. It should be an illuminating and revitalizing experience. Hope you can join us. Watch for more details coming soon.
“Adopting technologies without a strategy results in wasted time & effort”. How many times have you said this? Check out KMWorld 2009 keynote speaker Charlene Li’s slides. Some great tips. Her theme, “the future of business requires a holistic approach to adopting and integrating emerging technologies” is the same message Rebecca and I use with our clients – Organizations have to have a big detailed picture of where they are going before the strategies to get there can be put in place. And that’s way before technology, people and other structures are put in place.
I love Charlene’s slide of 4 focus areas surrounding the client: enterprise strategy, customer strategy, leadership & management, innovation & practices. Her tips, which I think apply more broadly than just tech planning:
* Leaders must let go of control but not relinquish command, create sandbox convenants to allow risk taking, creat a culture of sharing & model it
* organizations must connect to customers on their own terms, develop internal processes to connect with customers in real time, integrate the customer voice across the whole enterprise
* enterprises must allow all units to pilot new technologies & processes, design process scenarios around user roles, invest in innovation
* to innovate, organizations must fail fast & fail smart, inject fresh external thinking, enable safe places where mistakes and learning is encouraged.
On Wednesday our large group of about 250 from more than 50 countries, learned about the Italian Parliament, their Joint Parliamentaty Library and ended our day in the Senate which was first used in 1861 followed by a wonderful dinner in a fantastic atmosphere. More to come.
Some of us are not real visual people (that’s me, tho’ I have been trying to improve), but others are extraordinary. Images and videos are really adding to the learning experience, to gaining attention and making an impression, and so much more. Just saw this article on digital photography tips which reminded me about the Digital Photographer Boot Camp being held at Internet Librarian 2009 on Saturday afternoon in Monterey, CA. Led my Cindi Trainor, Michael Porter, and Michael Sauers, this workshop will be a great way to learn how to create, edit and add images to your website, to your marketing, and more. So if you’re one of those visually challenged, take advantage of learning from these experts!IL
Nancy Dixon just blogged about A-Space, a Facebook-like space for the US intelligence community. She mentioned this to me a few months ago when we were finalizing her participation in KMWorld 2009 and I’m really pleased to see the executive summary in this post and the full 30 page study here. It talks about how A-Space is shaping the analysts’ work bringing in cogintive diversity. It emphasizes:
A-Space is an environment in which analysts collaboratively create new meaning out of the diverse ideas and perspectives they collectively bring to an issue. Through this collaboration, analysts have the potential to break through long held assumptions to provide new ways of thinking about complex problems.
Networked relationships on A-Space provide a stream of cognitively diverse information without the costly time investment that maintaining strong ties requires.
A-Space is reinforcing the value of asking questions of colleagues, providing analysts the means to uncover flaws in their own data and reasoning.
A-Space is providing analysts a set of new practices to: 1) build cross agency networks, 2) gain situational awareness, and 3) hold discussions of interpretation, that operate in parallel with the normal production process. These new practices constitute an emerging model that provides a level of cognitive diversity not previously available.
The non-hierarchal nature of A-Space, results in analysts feeling that it is okay to offer their thinking even if it is not completely formed or thought through, increasing the speed of product development by eliminating faulty hypotheses early on and quickly settling on those that are viable.
Can you believe the Computers in Libraries conference has been running for 25 years? and that I have designed the program for the last 15? Amazing & exciting for me and hopefully for you too! The theme this year is Information Fluency: Literacy for Life. Information fluency goes beyond literacy (the ability to read and write), information literacy (the ability to find, evaluate and use information), media literacy (the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms), and digital literacy (the ability to use digital technology, communication tools or networks to locate, evaluate, use and create information). It extends to other types of literacy necessary to grow, learn and live – cultural literacy, global literacy, news literacy, scientific literacy, economic literacy, social literacy, health literacy, multimedia literacy, computer literacy, social online literacy, and more. Information, and fluency with it, permeates every part of our lives. Developing skills to become fluent with information is the key to our success individually as well as in groups, teams and communities. Send in a proposal to speak at CIL2010 and plan to attend the 25th anniversary of the “largest technology conference & exhibition for librarians and information managers in North America”.
Change is not easy and it’s definitely not a fast process. It requires a lot of communication and transparency. Transparency first came on my radar in 2003 withDon Tapscottand his book, The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business. We have been talking to our clients about transparency a fair bit lately, and so has Michael Edson, Director of Web & New Media Strategy, Office of the CIO, Smithsonian Institution SI). Michael was a keynote speaker in April at Computers in Libraries 2009 and just spoke to the Potomoc Forum about the transparency strategy process. The first number of slides are similar to those he used for CIL2009, but this new presentation has a lot more about the actually process that the Smithsonian is using. The SI has now developed three themes in their strategy: update the Smithsonian digital experience, update the Smithsonian learning model, balance autonomy & contrl at SI. Interesting and probably something that many libraries should be thinking about. They have eight goals: mission, brand, learning, experience, interpretation, business model, technology & governance. And, they have 54 tactical recommendations with 5 “do next” items: post doc to wiki, synchronize with other strategy efforts, appoint a leader, develop a tactical road map, & embrace the Smithsonian Commons, the centerpiece of the strategy, “facilitate learning, creativity, innovation through open access to Smithsonian collections, resources & communities.” Libraries have a lot to learn from Michael. I first heard him speak in Dec 08 and he has come a long, long way in moving a conservative organization along the route of transparency, planning and change. Good work, Michael. Will look forward to an update at CIL2010!
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!
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