Yestoknow

I am still learning.

These words have been attributed to Michelangelo and they came to mind when I contemplated this photograph I snapped back in March. It is an image of my grandmother Carrie only a few weeks before her 101st birthday. Her hands had never held an iPod. On a whim I placed it in her hands and brought up the Koi Pond app. Suddenly she held an experience that she could hardly fathom. I realized quickly that this thing I carry in my pocket each day was a thing of wonder. Seeing my grandmother’s 101 year old eyes light up as her fingers splashed the touch screen pond was a delicious moment. My grandmother spends her days quietly in her chair by the window reading the books and magazines people bring her. Now she was moving this digitized water and the fish were responding to her touch.  When I remember this moment a flood of ideas come to mind: how we take our little gadgets for granted, how the generations can find new territories for connection, and how the world quickly shifts for some but not all.

Only a few days ago I put this picture into a slidedeck for a presentation I’ll be doing soon.  ALA conference attendees who will be participating in the “Punch it up with Pictures” preconference will hear me talk about how a picture can open up a world of stories. As you can guess, this will be an image I’ll be using for sometime to illustrate that point.

Columbus Metropolitan Library is showing that important matters should not be hidden. By placing this very obvious, shocking screen right out front before you can access their Web page, there is no denying that this library wants you to know what they (and most Ohio libraries) are facing.  Is this an interruption to the library user? Absolutely. Does this speak volumes about the matter and how CML’s level of concern? Absolutely.  Libraries can often be subtle. Now is not the time for subtlety. This very unsubtle statement and well worth applauding.

 I’ve been reading through Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future in preparation for a webinar later this week. This books triggers a general (and vast)  interest I have in storytelling in its many forms. Pink includes a whole section on “story” and refers to a movement called “organizational storytelling” that is really quite fascinating. He briefly profiles the work that Steve Denning helped pioneer in this area.

…Denning discovered that he learned more from trading stories in the cafeteria than he did from reading the bank’s official documents and reports. An organization’s knowledge, he realized, is contained in its stories.

 Stories have an incredible amount of power! Power to move people, ideas and organizations forward. This same power can keep us in the dark, living in flux or simply the past.  Some of the big players are getting this concept and moving it forward into the fiber of their organizations. Pink mentions 3M, NASA and Xerox. Recently I attended a performance by Laurie Anderson and learned that only a few years ago NASA made her their artist in residence. What an incredible match!

How do we use these stories that float aroud us but perhaps never make the annual report? We know they play a big part in who we are.  Are these the stories that tell the deeper truth of who we are as organizations? I’m curious about how anecdotes turn into story and expand into the minds and behaviors of staff and leaders. What are the stories we tell ourselves–about ourselves? A great work is to harness the power of the stories that make us–libraries, nonprofits, businesses, families–who we are, or who we think we are. How do we broaden the story? When is it time for a plot change (when anecdote starts ruling decision-making, perhaps)? There are endless ways to celebrate our stories.  Now, what about those stories that simply need an ending?

In this past week I’ve become very aware of the fine line that we often draw between what it means to be business-minded and vision-minded. As the economy continues to plan a trip south and we find out what the reality of this means in our local worlds, I think that it can easily be open season on dreamers. Now is not the time for dreams to die. Now is not the time to sell our vision out to fear. This can be a tall order right now. Business and dreams seem to clash in the air. Where is the mix between the two? What becomes our guide? Do we cash in our vision to projections of hard(er) times. Vision that is grounded continues to lead if we allow it to do so. Has the world shifted in the past several months? Yes. Do we know where this is leading? No. Do we need to be really smart right now? Yes. Do we have to forget our dreams in order to be fiscally-minded? No. Business and dreams can exist together. Yes.

I offer up some thoughts to help dreamers make it through the day, into the board room and away from the cliff:

1. Fill in blanks where you can by telling what you know.

2. Create some method to get creative ideas into action (faster than usual).

3. Re-think before you re-write you reasons for being (don’t throw the vision out with the bath water).

4.  Keep stirring the dreams in the mix. Stir a little harder before watching the news.

Why are you not blogging? This is a question I’ve been asking myself since mid-December. I’m  constantly crafting posts–posts that simply aren’t going live (at least not outside of the sandbox). I’ve even asked myself the sharp question: am I a blogger anymore? Do I want to be a blogger anymore? Is YestoKnow still where I need to be channeling my voice, ideas and observations? I’ve thought about this much. So, here are 3 big reasons I’ve come up with to answer my question about why I’ve not been blogging much lately:

• Blogging is about communicating your ideas. I am doing this in a myriad of ways almost every waking minute of my day. Since taking on my new role in Boulder, I am crafting and recrafting communications each day–from focusing on taking Boulder Library’s primary print publication to be more of a newsletter, story-related format to crafting vision and goal communications. So, I’ve been feeling communicated-out a bit lately.
• Hiring a key leadership position is intense. Early on in my new role, I worked to re-focus and re-brand the Library’s Information Technolology Department to focus on a broader range of technologies and innovative applications. What resulted from this is a Library Innovation & Technology Department. Knowing that it would take a very dynamic individual to help lead this effort, crafting a job fitting description, getting it posted and finding the right manager for this effort was real work. I’m happy to say that we found a great LIT Manager who’ll be starting on Monday. Yeah and whew!
• Moving across the country in two chunks–before and after selling a house in Charlotte–in a 5 month span is utterly life shaking. There are so many facets to any move, especially a cross-country move. I recently read an article that discussed the difficulties many libraries are having with finding new directors, not because of the pool of qualified candidates but because of all the implications of making large moves.

Finding words for this has been a good little practice in looking back on the past few months of my life through the lens of blog-action.  Wheesh, there is a lot going on. 2008 was an intense, life-changing, growth-filled year. Now that can really keep you blogging–or not.

So, why are you not blogging?