Library Buzz

I reported below about Futurist Andy Hines who gave a talk to the folks at the SLA Leadership Summit last week in Louisville, KY.

At one point he talked about the challenge for futurists to study trends, and not get distracted by noise. It made me think of a couple of things.

Many years ago I regularly watched the daytime drama - Days of our Lives. When I was able to watch it every day, there were little clues and comments that played into subplots - some of which would manifest themselves months later.

But I noticed if I watched the program twice a week I could catch up on the story lines and know what was going on. I didn’t get distracted by all the details - I was able to follow the story arch.

In real life of course, it is some of those little things that turn out to be the big story - so the challenge isn’t to ignore, but to monitor and see if something is a blip on the radar screen or if it becomes something bigger.

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Tom Calcagni, Chief Communications Strategist, and author of Tough Questions - Good Answers.

Most people would rather see their dentist than speak in public.

Difference between answer and a message. Answers deal with facts – a message is crafted in advance to convey what I want to convey. (Some politicians are great at this – they turn an answer into their message.)

Three key messages to have prepared

What – the essence of myself, my business, my objective in 35 seconds

How – more detailed but the plan to accomplish the goal or task at hand

Why –

Know your message – but don’t have it memorized. Express it in good, clear language.

Three uses for messages:

• Responding to open-ended questions
• Reinforcing key thoughts
• Answering tricky questions

Most every interview begins with an open-ended question. So, why are you interested in this job? What is this new product you have?

You can answer a direct question and then use a message bridge to return to your message. Yes, I have this skill and have used throughout my career, add your message.

Tricky question types:

• Open-ended
• Speculative – we answer questions based on what we know at the time. Staying on message helps us to avoid speculating down the road. Start answer with “You know, none of us really know what is going to happen here, there are so many market influences… but what I do know is this….
• Loaded-preface – if the preface is significant – First, I really disagree with what you said there – but what I think about the rest of your question is….
• A or B – don’t get caught – my answer is C, D, E, F, G,…
• Third-party
• Mirror

Interviews are a symbiotic relationship. Interviewers expect you answer questions, but not that you’d be a willing participant in your own execution. You should expect the interviewer to ask questions, and not be surprised if they ask difficult questions.

Stand up to speak – gives more power to your voice, but movement allows us to expel nervous energy.

Knowing our messages and knowing how to use a message bridge to get to those messages – will improve the confidence level.

A media or a job interview is not the time for original thought – stay on message. Even if the interviewer asks the same question multiple times.

Our three messages are an important way to emphasize what is important to ME.

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How do you do foresight?

• Framing the problem
• Scanning for information
• Forecasting – what are some future possibilities, what will those futures look like
• Visioning - what do we want our role to be in that future
• Planning - what steps to we take
• Action - do it

Futurists don’t predict. Look at indicators pointing toward different futures.
Look below the surface; don’t get distracted by the noise.
What are the patterns, the trends - that are running below the noise?
What are the worldviews that are supporting those trends?
What are the long-term stories that support this?

Locate issues in time.

Tracking the history of music file sharing from seldom through Napster to PIRACY.

Wildcard - Emerging - Event - Framed - Legislated - Litigated

Address things when they are still in the Wildcard or Emerging stages.

Typical responses to change

• Denial
• Acknowledgement, but too busy/not a priority
• Acknowledge - mobilization, but not sure what to do
• Planning

Benefits of Forecasting - too complex a slide

Values Trends:

The Three Worlds
World Values Survey - tracking values changes since the 1970s

Traditional country - you are born into a status and you will die in that same status
Modern country (economically developed) - you can work to change your status
Post-modern country (wealthy country) - I have all the stuff I want - but I’m not happy. Looks inward

The US is a more traditional country than our position in the economic world would suggest. We behave counter to the theory.

Reactions:

• Personalization and co-creation (Lego hackers, Linux users?)
• Simplicity - no tutorials and user manuals
• No - McWorld - the US culture hasn’t taken over the world. Good ideas are coming from everywhere.
• Ethical Consumption - voting values with our dollars
• Under (Time) Pressure - scheduled lives
  (We are sacrificing sleep, we are also sacrificing personal hygiene and household chores)
• Smart - everything
• Immersion
• Transparency - we all live in glass houses - how would this look on YouTube?

Work trends
Open source
From scarcity to abundance - the gift economy
Restructuring of work - what is core to us and what can we outsource, less hierarchical

Education Trends
Online learning
Lifelong learning

How does our traditional role of librarians adapt to the changing world of going from scarcity to abundance? So everyone can now find information - but our role - the value is in sorting, packaging and tailoring the information.

In a post-modern culture - are institutions of any value - who do people trust? They talk to people in their network - trust is peer-to-peer. Get our message out to the grassroots and become part of the network. Gen-Y and Gen-X turn to each other for information and support - not the Establishment or Institutions.

Branding is still important.

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Hey folks - this is a big week. I’m heading to Louisville, Kentucky for the SLA Leadership Summit . I wanted to go last year, but wasn’t able to work that out. It looks like an interesting conference.

While there I plan to confer, converse, and otherwise hobnob with my fellow librarians.

As previously noted I am the new Secretary for the Government Information Division in SLA. I’ll be there for the discussion and planning for the SLA 2008 in Seattle. Plus there will be workshops to attend. Should be interesting and fun too. I’ve never been to Louisville - we’ll see how it is in January!

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Hurrah - another new year!

Much is in store for us in 2008 - an election in the US, the Olympics in China, SLA in Seattle.

This is the time of year when we take a lesson from the god Janus and look back and look forward. So, I look back on the year 2007 and take lessons from that. And I look forward to 2008 and make plans for that.

I am excited to think about what I’ll be writing about this time next year.

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