David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Open Leadership on Transparency

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One more post on Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead, by Charlene Li. This time on transparency.

I hear librarians talk about making the library “more transparent.” Or library staff saying “management needs to be more transparent.” What does that mean, exactly? Posting minutes from a meeting? having an “open door” policy?

I like how Charlene redefines transparency. She says (on pg. 193):

Rather than actually using the word “transparency,” which implies complete openness and candor, I prefer to describe this skill as making information and processes “visible.”

Maybe it’s just semantics, but visible makes a lot more sense to me than transparency. Transparency seems passive, visibleness seems active.

So, how does my library make our information and processes visible?

  • all our policies posted online (actually, you’d be surprised how many libraries don’t do this), as are our financial and board meeting minutes.
  • most of our website’s pages include a comment box and/or multiple ways to connect with us … and we answer those comments promptly.
  • Our weekly management meeting notes are shared with staff on our staff intranet (again, with a comment box).
  • We tend to include all levels of staff in workgroups. For example, I head a digital branch taskforce – members range from deputy directors to paraprofessionals, and pretty much everything in-between. And we share out our notes with staff.

What are ways YOU make your information and processes visible to staff and to customers?

One More on The Networked Nonprofit: Social Media Guidelines

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One more post on The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change, by Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine. I like the book – good read, and much to think about. I had to do a little “translation” work – non-profits and libraries are similar in some ways, different in others.

On to the subject of this post – social media guidelines! Beth and Allison point out some good ideas for “codifying the social culture” by creating social media guidelines for staff.

In the process, they two useful posts:

#1 – 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy, from Mashable. Their points are really good, and include: Be Responsible for What You Write, Consider Your Audience, and Bring Value. Go read the post – good stuff there.

#2 – A Twitterable Twitter Policy, from the Gruntled Employees blog. Again, another great post – go read it. But here’s the tweetable policy: Be professional, kind, discreet, authentic. Represent us well. Remember that you can’t control it once you hit “update.” They call it a Twitter Policy, but I think it works pretty well for any social media.

So – good stuff. Check out the book!

Get to Know your Free Agents

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The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change, by Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine. Good book!

In the first part of the book (pgs 15-20 or so) they talk about the rise of “free agents.” In the nonprofit world, free agents “are individuals working outside of organizations to organize, mobilize, raise funds, and communicate with constituents” (pg 15).

As I read that, I thought “you know, with a little tweaking of that definition, it works pretty well as a definition of some of our “super patrons.” You know who they are, right? For libraries, this is the group that “likes” your Facebook status updates, or comments. A lot. They RT you in Twitter. They are the Mayor of you library in Foursquare. And they tend to show up to your on-site events, too.

Beth and Allison suggest a few “rules of engagement” for their free agents – let’s see if these rules work for library “super patrons” too:

Get to know the free agents. the authors suggest really getting to know the free agents – read their blogs, subscribe to their Twitter feeds, friend them on Facebook. Email them, call them, take them to lunch. Find out why they do what they do.

Does this work for our super patrons? I think so. Why? You need to find out why they like your organization so much, and how you can help them like it more – because if they like it, others probably will, too. Plus, it’s a way for you to interact with a very pro-active library user. Think focus groups on steroids.

Break out of silos. The authors’ goal here is to help non profits break out of their usual cliques and interact with people of similar interests who embrace the same cause, but not necessarily your specific formal organization.

Work for libraries? I think so. Think of a fairly normal public library… most of the public services staff will know Joe, who physically visits the library every Tuesday and Thursday and asks questions at the reference desk. But how about Emily, who frequents their Facebook Page? Very possibly not – or at least, fewer staff will know about her. Sounds like a silo that needs breaking out of.

Young people and free agents need to explore and learn about issues and sort out their feelings about them. The goal here is to get organizations and free agents together, so the formal organizations can be challenged by a new way of thinking.

Work for libraries? It’s certainly worked for my library. We met with approximately 70  community leaders, who helped us create our current strategic plan.

Don’t ignore the newcomer. In the non-profit world, sometimes unknowns do amazing things.

How about in libraries? In Topeka, we have a group of younger professionals who are doing some cool things in Topeka, including doing enough online marketing about Google’s Fiber Internet project that on April Fool’s Day, Google jokingly renamed themselves Topeka. Should the library be networking with that loose-knit group? You betcha.

Keep the welcome sign lit. Free agents don’t always stick around … and that’s ok. We need to stay available and ready to work with them when they come back around, get interested in us again. Definitely works for libraries.

Let them go. OK – this was a lame one – basically another way to say Keep the welcome sign lit…

Don’t be afraid to follow. It doesn’t matter who came up with the idea if it’s a good one. Definitely works for libraries, too!

If I come across some other juicy tidbits from this book, I’ll share it. But go ahead and read it for yourselves, then tell ME what you liked about it!

bookjacket pic by cambodia4kidsorg

What Collaborative Tools do You Use?

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As part of my presentation today, I also tweeted this: “for the class I’m teaching in Miami – can you say hi, and share what tech tools you use to collaborate with? That’d be awesome – thx!”

And I received 17 replies, all with some great suggestions of collaborative tools. Here’s the list some of you helped create:

mediawiki
drupal
zoho project
diigo
twitter
search alerts
google docs
Skype
friendfeed
Google Chat
Facebook
blogs
email
google groups
sharepoint
phone
google wave
libguides
a staff intranet
IM
moodle
xtranormal!
a geocaching app
second life
world of warcraft
citrix
box.net
google calendar
jott

Interesting list!

How YOU Get Permission

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Here’s my third post on Getting Permission. In the first post, I covered how I get permission. The second post asked for tips from you guys.

Here’s what you said (from my comments):

  • Chris Freeman: “selling the outcome of the idea as opposed to the “tool” that will create the outcome is helpful. What will be better about our services if we implement this idea rather than “hey, here’s a new idea for us to try”?”
  • Chris also said: “identify who the “informal power brokers” are in the organization. Having an influential person stating support for your plans goes a long way toward swaying those who control whatever resources you need to accomplish your goals.”
  • Michael Casey: “If you can plug your idea into the strategic plan and highlight any efficiencies the idea might offer — either direct financial savings or staff-time savings — then you’re off to a good start.”
  • Genesis Hansen: Don’t just ask for permission to do what you want, offer something in return. Our City Council was very squeamish about letting departments use social media. In order to get myself on our City’s social media policy committee and be allowed to participate in a social media pilot project I compiled a lot of research on social media policies, organized it and sent it to the Committee chair. I also offered to do social media and policy training for other departments in the City. As a result, I was included in the process, got to give input into policy formation (didn’t win every battle, but did win some important ones), and made some valuable contacts in other City departments. And now any department that wants to start using social media will go through training with library staff.
  • Genesis also said: “Always try to demonstrate the tangible benefits your project will offer. If you’re in a place where the powers that be are generally resistant, don’t phrase your request as “this is something cool I want to try” but “I think I know a way to help the library meet this particular service goal, and I’m happy to do the legwork to make it happen.” Make it as easy as possible for your boss to say yes.”
  • ananka: “talk to someone who supports me and my ideas first, bounce it off them. It helps if they have some weight behind them with admin. Sell it to them, work out some of the issues that might arise, then slowly (within reason, depending on the scope of your idea) begin telling others about it, working your way up. Pretty soon they will be asking when your program starts.”
  • David Whelan: “The most important element is to be willing to ask the question. Some of the projects I have started came about because I sat with the decision maker and said, here’s what I want to do, how can I do it? It engages them and it highlights where your plan may need work. So once you’ve asked, be prepared that you may need to ask again. Sometimes a decision maker just need to be asked and you’re good to go.”
  • Lori Reed: “start small. Starting with small projects allows you to prove yourself. So instead of a social media makeover maybe just start with a Facebook page for one branch.”
  • Lori also said: “Now for ideas…you can look outside your organization as a place to grow. The ALA Learning Round Table has allowed me to stretch my wings and gain experience with skills that I could not use (at least not initially) in my day job.”

I also received some great tips from some of you via Twitter, as well (for another post – yes, I set up a hashtag #getpremission. No, I didn’t save the thing anywhere. Yes, I forgot that tweets pretty much disappear after 1 1/2 weeks. Yes, I waited too long to post this – lesson learned. Drat).

Heather at i_librarian said this:

  • 1. Do your homework.Get evidence. Provide WHY it is valid and what it will do for your library. #getpermission @davidleeking (found here)
  • 2. Mock ups, mock ups, mock ups. People need to see what it will look and feel like. Be as concrete as you can. #getpermission @davidleeking (found here)
  • 3. Get buy-in from others who will be affected. 4. Spell out who and how the work will get done #getpermission @davidleeking (found here)

Laura J. Wilkinson said this:

  • Make it easy for your boss to say ‘yes’ to your idea – think it out and manage any risks #getpermission (found here)
  • Make the business case for your idea #getpermission (found here)
  • Identify success criteria and agree a trial period. Monitor, evaluate, review #getpermission (found here)
  • Be prepared to work on your idea on your own time #getpermission (found here)
  • Get the support of someone in authority. Give examples of what similar libraries have done (works well in Oxford!) #getpermission (found here)
  • Make it easy for your boss to say ‘yes’ to your idea – think it out and manage any risks #getpermission (found here)

Did we miss something? Some great tip on how YOU get permission that isn’t here? Please share!

Pic by JanneM