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Rebecca Jones posted this in Leadership, Learning on March 15th, 2012 Southern Ontario Library Service (SOLS) has been operating an innovative leadership program for the past four years. Spearheaded by Anne Marie Madziak, The APLL Institute (pronounced “apple”, this stands for Advancing Public Library Leadership) is specifically designed for those who aren’t yet in senior management positions. Running over 24 months, participants only need to travel to on-site classroom setting twice – once at the beginning of the program and then at the close. During the intervening months they participate in 12 online courses and discussions.
I’m delighted to be a part of this program as instructor of the Planning course. Anne Marie and I are in the midst of reviewing and redesigning this course. To inform our review Anne Marie contacted graduates of the first 2 programs. What she heard not only informs this leadership program, but has implications for other management and leadership learning events. Here’s Anne Marie’s comments:
As coordinator of APLL, I’m keen to understand what the lasting benefits of the program are two years after graduation. Are there courses that continue to be of relevance? The 9 APLL leadership practices that frame the program are:
Inspire and hold the vision Reach for exemplary service Make intelligent decisions Embrace strategic and purposeful change Create a learning environment Cultivate relationships Develop individuals Sustain a healthy workplace Navigate municipal and community connectedness
Are these leadership practices still useful or long forgotten? Are there particular skills, knowledge or competencies attributed to the program? With a new cohort beginning the program
Continue reading APLL Leadership Program
Love Seth Godin’s recent post, The Map has been Replaced by the Compass. He says it so well.
“The map keeps getting redrawn, because it’s cheaper than ever to go offroad, to develop and innovate and remake what we thought was going to be next. Technology keeps changing the routes we take to get our projects from here to there. It doesn’t pay to memorize the route, because it’s going to change soon.
The compass, on the other hand, is more important then ever. If you don’t know which direction you’re going, how will you know when you’re off course?
And yet…
And yet we spend most of our time learning (or teaching) the map, yesterday’s map, while we’re anxious and afraid to spend any time at all calibrating our compass.”
Rebecca and I have spent almost 20 years working with organizations to set their direction — we’ve called it direction planning for most of those years (although the term strategic planning keeps sneaking in as it is more familiar in most organizations). Seth is so right, setting direction (often with a vision of a preferred future state) is key to any journey and continues to guide the path taken. Thanks for this post, Seth.
Continue reading Got Direction? Use a Compass not a Map
Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences, Learning, Lib, IM, KM on February 6th, 2012 Knowledge, creating it and sharing, it is at the core of what I have been involved in throughout my career — in libraries, in corporations, at conferences, on the web, with friends and colleagues. I like the post this morning from Nina Platt, which included the following:
Those of us working in knowledge management (KM) have long said that we need KM more in troubled economic times than any other time. Why? Because using KM as a strategy for getting or staying ahead of competitors makes sense. KM can drive consistency, consistency drives quality, and quality work brings in repeat customers. While this is true, why did we see so many layoffs of KM staff as the economy turned south? Apparently, hiring KM staff picking up again or it may be that it is being outsourced? As a KM consultant, Nick Milton reports that his business is growing. Read more in If knowledge management is dead, why does it have such a strong pulse?
I am very excited about KMWorld 2012, October 16-19 in DC which will include Taxonomy Boot Camp (Oct 16-17), Enterprise Search Summit (Oct 17-19), and SharePoint Symposium (oct 18-19). The call for speakers for KMWorld 2012 is online and I hope you will consider sharing your experiences and knowledge with your colleagues at this key event for those in the KM field. The theme of this year’s event is Knowledge Sharing & Learning: Communication, Collaboration & Innovation . I’ll be sharing more information about new initiatives and keynote
Continue reading Knowledge, KM & Success
Rebecca Jones posted this in Learning, Lib, IM, KM on January 31st, 2012 Designing an Academic Library Learning Commons: Students Have Their Say Sue Reynolds @ University of Toronto Scarborough Library
Come talk with Sue about their research study with students on Thursday February 2, 2012 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm, Lower Lobby of the MTCC
This research study is a user needs analysis of the views and comments of potential student users as to what should be included in a learning commons, how the space should be designed and what services should be provided. Focus groups conducted with undergraduate student users of the existing Informatics Commons at the University of Toronto Scarborough Library showed that students appreciated convenient access to desktop computers and to staff help. In a future learning commons, students need spaces for quiet individual computer use, collaborative group computer use, and social activities. Service needs include improved technical, research and writing support.
Rebecca Jones posted this in Learning on January 25th, 2012 During the past 3 years I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work on several projects with Jim Morgenstern of dmA Planning and Management Services. D&J have always sought out the best associates to collaborate with on projects to bring different perspectives and experiences to clients’ unique opportunities and challenges. We don’t know everything that’s for sure! And working with planners who have vast experience in municipal and recreational sectors has been very rewarding, both for us and certainly for libraries.
As a planner, Jim has completed over 50 master plans, facility feasibility studies and operational reviews for public libraries in Ontario and Atlantic Canada. He is expert in all aspects of needs and market assessment; has redesigned service delivery models for urban and rural library systems; worked with architects on library building projects and conducted research for library organizations on planning guidelines and performance measures. He is the principal author of the recently released second edition of the SOLS Resource Manual, The Library’s Contribution to Your Community – which every library interested in demonstrating value should have.
Jim will be one of the speakers at the Leadership Renewal pre-conference Wednesday February 1st. With that much planning experience, in that many organizations he’s seen it all. He’ll work with participants to understand why plans fail, and, obviously, how to avoid failure. People say “oh I hate planning! The plans never get implemented anyway.” Well, as Jim will point out, it isn’t the planning that’s the problem — it’s the lack of clarity, honesty
Continue reading OLA Superconference: Expanding our Perspectives
Years ago I got really excited about “neoteny” when I read Warren Bennis’ book, Geeks & Geezers: How Eras, Values & Defining Moments Shape Leaders (2002). I love the word and the concept, and so does Joichi Ito, the director of the M.I.T. Media Lab, according to this article on innovation in the New York Times. He says, “Neoteny, one of my favorite words, means the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood: idealism, experimentation and wonder. In this new world, not only must we behave more like children, we also must teach the next generation to retain those attributes that will allow them to be world-changing, innovative adults who will help us reinvent the future.” Also, “education is [not] about centralized instruction anymore; rather, it is the process establishing oneself as a node in a broad network of distributed creativity.” Ito is also the general partner of Neoteny Labs.
I have given several talks on why libraries fail, and published an article on the topic, and one of the things I include in developing leaders is “the ability to retain youthful qualities as adults — curiosity, playfulness, eagerness, fearlessness, warmth, energy. Certainly this is the season for it, so strengthen your neoteny!
Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences, Learning, Lib, IM, KM on December 1st, 2011 Just because it’s Dec 1, no that’s not Ba Humbug but rather Ba, the KM concept of a physical or virtual collaborative space where participants feel safe and exchange insights. Since collaboration and communication are key to so many positive paths, including innovation, improvement, and learning, we should be looking for more Ba environments in our organizations and communities. I should have used the Ba concept in my recent post on imaging an engaging place, what a perfect term for a teen space — the teen ba! I’m trying to envision such a Ba space for next year’s KMWorld 2012 to support the conference theme Knowledge Sharing & Learning: Communication, Collaboration & Innovation. Thanks to Bill Ives & Stan Garfield for brainstorming with me. Got suggestions? Send them along. Thanks.
Rebecca Jones posted this in Learning on October 21st, 2011 Thanks to the 48 County and District Law Libraries in Ontario for inviting me to speak at the Conference for Ontario Law Associations’ Libraries yesterday. Such a wonderful, engaged group! There’s nothing like talking about what success means for each of us and how information professionals’ success hinges on their curiousity, ability to connect, contribute, and thinking critically, and – of course – their competence.
COLAL 2011 Top Ten Reasons Information Professionals Succeed View more presentations from Rebecca Jones
Just read this post, There Will be No Files in the Cloud, about ownership and access in the cloud and how the author used music as an example. Libraries have followed the music industry in many facets of its development — into CDs to store information and data many years ago, into iTunes and YouTube for informational, story telling and training videos and podcasts, and more. So when I read this post, the Global Library in the Cloud (GLC) or World Wide Library in the Cloud, popped into my head where are books are available digitally in whatever language you want. By clicking on a link you can download to a device to read or print, and there may or may not be a charge for this, and it’s as easy as Wikipedia I’m not sure how it will be organized, but that’s for the taxonomists and information architects to figure out! So in this GLC figment of my imagination would we need libraries? Well, certainly libraries would still
* provide community hubs for learning and discussion at all ages
* train participants to find authoritative information and specific facts & data — information literacy
* provide safe and social environments for all ages
* connect people without the means or abilities to the information or materials they need
* showcase and demonstrate new technology and new tools to deal with the information flood — technology literacy
So yes, libraries do have a future, but can you imagine a GLC?
Continue reading Library in the Cloud
Jane Dysart posted this in Learning on May 23rd, 2011 Learning is what humans do, whether it’s early learning from family, school learning from teachers and professors, self development or personal and lifelong learning through reading, viewing, listening, or watching. But we all need encouragement on the learning journey. I am blessed that my mother, a former elementary school teacher, instilled in me a curiosity and courage to learn and ask questions . Who else would go up to a nun in formal attire when they were 3 and ask, “Are you a penguin?” I have encouraged, I think, many people in my career. One close friend who was a one time was afraid to cold call people on the telephone and today is a worldwide thought leader and sought-after speaker. The other day, I was a conference, and during a table discussion heard a great process described. When it came time for the tables to share with the larger group, the person who shared this process hung back, and I encouraged her to speak up. She did and the whole audience was interested and conference leaders connected her with another attendee who really wanted to know more about her process. It takes so little to encourage others and give them the courage to speak up, share, and achieve. That’s what networking, mentoring, and caring are all about. Who have you encouraged today?
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