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Jane Dysart posted this in Uncategorized on June 25th, 2009 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.
Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences on June 21st, 2009 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!
Rebecca Jones posted this in Leadership on June 15th, 2009 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
Continue reading Critical thinking: more than for decision-making, it’s how digital natives engage
Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences on June 5th, 2009 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!
The future of conferences
listen | download (12.4MB)
The word ‘conference’ is synonymous with bad food, hard chairs and boring speakers. At least it is for many of us. But it doesn’t have to be that way and, in fact, it’s already changing. We speak with three conferencing professionals about conferences past and future and the way the industry is adapting to meet changing consumer expectations.
Continue reading Confessions of a Conference Junky
Jane Dysart posted this in Uncategorized on June 2nd, 2009 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.
Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences on June 1st, 2009 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.
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