WAAL09: Tale (Tail) of the Tyger

Tale (Tail) of the Tyger
Rev. Dr. David Joyce, President of Ripon College

• What do you think of when you hear "Ripon"? Harrison Ford, Rippin' Good cookies, and now "The bike thing"

Goal: Appreciate the worth in yourself and others so that you can influence and create your own future

• We spend too much time picking things apart, and not enough time putting things together


• "Nothing endures but change" - Heraclitus (500 B.C.)


• The rules are changing in this economy - old ways of doing things don't necessarily work - can't just look to the past - it used to be that if stocks were down, then bonds were up - not right now!

Fear-based decision-making:

• We instill fear in others to control what they do or don't do


• How much do we do or not do because we're afraid of what might happen?

Transformational Process:

• May be considered "inefficient" because time intensive - I meet with senior staff 4 hours each week to do this process


• #1 Mutual Worth - Begins with belief that "you have worth"


• #2 Authentic Interaction - What's going well? - everyone tends to jump to problem-solving too quickly - sometimes what's going well might be in our personal lives


• #3 Appreciative Understanding - everyone has a skill set, and they have more skills than you know - if you only look at those like you, all you'll get is those like you


• #4 Progressive Integration


• #5 Continuous Improvement


• #6 Transformation

Decision-making:

• Motivation (memory, emotions, attitudes) > Decisions > Behaviors > Perceptions > Trust or Distrust


• Ask open-ended questions


• Listen


• Paraphrase


• Instead of "Yeah, but" say "Yes, and"


• Enablers: awareness, reason, freedom, skills

The Bike Thing (Velorution):

• Ripon College is growing, and we were running out of car parking


• 1,100 students; 7,800 town residents > unhappy with students parking on streets


• "Creative Interchange":


• #1 Wish statement - "I wish/I would like it if... we didn't need to pave more green space to create parking lots for cars"


• #2 Another person paraphrases, then offers an idea - "We could give all incoming students a bicycle"


• #3 Next person paraphrases, then offers 4 reasons why they like the idea for every 1 wish statement


• #4 Continues until solution arrived upon - give out about 200 bikes per year

WAPL - Where are we going? Strategic Planning for Results

Cheryl Becker of the South Central Library System presented information on the PLA strategic planning process called Strategic Planning for Results.

Where is your library going? A strategic plan is a road map for the library. Planning is to prepare to do, and there is not enough money to do everything. The planning process helps to set priorities so that wise choices can be made. It is important to plan, but it should be done quickly so that you can get on with the doing.

Planning is about change. Keep the planning process short so you can do. The process as envisioned by PLA, needs to be community based. Three assumptions:

• Excellence must be defined locally.
• Excellence is possible for all libraries of all sizes
• Excellence is a moving target.

There are four key points:

1. Community Based Planning
2. Library Service Priorities
3. Measures for Success
4. Managing Change

There are extensive handouts.

It is a good idea to have an outside facilitator who can be neutral, has specialized training and skills and will come with a cost. You will want a committee with community members. You will probably want to be sure that there are the movers and shakers in the community represented. It should broadly represent the demographics of the community. Committee meets only 2 times (and have the dates set when asking).

The first meeting is longer, and has the group define the Community Vision, the condidtions, needs, which needs the library can address, and select preliminary service responses.

The staff and board input looks at the needs as developed by the community group. There are specific roles for the staff and board.

At Committee Meeting 2, you review service responses, review the input, select final service responses, prioritize service responses, and finally (and most importantly) thank them. It is important to have food at both events. The first meeting could be a whole day, and the second should be about a half day.

The new PLA process spends more time discussing managing change. There is a method for "taking the temperature" of the organization. It is important to have the distinction between values and service responses. The library mission needs to be written and often takes phrases from the service responses. Communication is critical, and when change is happening it is especially important to communicate or even "over communicate."

Cheryl went through the rest of her handouts. Some key final thoughts:

• the mission should be short enough that staff and board can say it
• there should be few enough service responses that staff and board can say them all
• the document should be a page (maybe a tri-fold)

The next really important step is the actual doing. This is where you may need to make the hard decisions about perhaps changing what you are doing.

Implementing for Results is forthcoming. Which are all part of the Results series published by ALA.

At the end you should have a plan that is short, is relevant, and shows that you are spending your tax dollars wisely. The Library will be at the heart of the community.

WLA 2007: Library Conference Planning 101: Backs to the WAAL

As a newbie to the WAAL 2008 planning committee, I couldn't believe my luck. An entire session on planning the WAAL conference, by members of last year's committee!

I was so impressed by these folks - they put a lot of good energy and work into coordinating a successful conference, and they clearly had fun doing it. Oh, and not only that, but they put that same amount of energy and fun into this session. They even brought a basket of candy for attendees, and gave out door prizes! Wow.

They had tons of practical tips and words of wisdom to share:

• Committee member pins and t-shirts ("It will be okay... I promise") helped establish team camaraderie
• Get to know your conference site staff, and show appreciation
• In-house program booklet is a lot of work and versioning can be difficult, but saves money
• Conference headquarters room for committee members is helpful
• Most program applications will come within a few hours of the deadline
• Very difficult to estimate attendance at a given session
• Whoever sends out the initial email will receive all kinds of communications, because there's no central "planning committee email address" and nobody knows who is on the planning committee and what their areas of responsibility are
• Flexibility is key - there will be cancellations and problems
• Be sure you have permission to use copyrighted images
• If graphics are done in-house, need to be professional about service, and not try to "own" your artwork; there will be multiple iterations until finalized
• Have entire committee look at program booklet to check for ommissions/errors
• You can turn a regular "school"-type folder into a nice conference folder with nice conference graphic sticker on cover
• On-site registration desk staff benefit from "ready reference" materials detailing who is doing what, where and when; maps of technology set-ups, conference center, surrounding area, etc.
• Local Chamber of Commerce may provide "goodie bags" of information, coupons, etc.
• Speaker forms: limit # of words for session description, ask if they can provide a Powerpoint file, ask if they would be okay with videotaping of their session
• Food: shoot for breaking even, although making money here can subsidize other parts of conference
• Ask local staff for costs of everything, including tablecloths, staffing, gratuity, etc.
• Ask if you can bring in outside food, or caterers
• Request specific foods; chefs can usually handle this - menu is just default
• Lots of positive remarks about providing bottled water, although expensive ($1.50 each)
• Attendees staying on site want to be entertained, but you can't please everybody
• Local planning committee member should float around and handle issues as they arise

While I came out of the session more informed, I was also anxious about not having accomplished as much by October of this year, as they had at this time last year...

WAAL 2008 will be held April 15-18, 2008 in Manitowoc. It's affordable, fun, and relevant! Confirmed guest speakers: Gary Price (Ask.com), Matt Goldner (OCLC), and Rochelle Pennington (WI author). Hope to see you there!