This session (led by a team of 3: John Blyberg from Darien Library, Amanda Etches-Johnson from McMaster University, and Sarah Houghton-Jan from San Jose Public Library) was a good first session delving into the matters of technology implementation, which can often be a risky business.
The program had a loose format as the three presenters took turns with their tips. In an unusual, but in many ways welcome and appropriate move, rather than a PowerPoint presentation the three presenters would have had to share, a stream of Twitter posts that were being posted on the session topic throughout (with hashtag #cilninjas) was displayed.
Some of the noteworthy tips provided were:
- If experience has taught you what is best and you know something should be implemented even though you figure you will hit resistance for suggesting that it be implemented, go ahead and implement it. Most likely no will will notice for months, by which time you can point out that it's been running for months and none of the anticipated disasters have occurred.
- If you do something and you're wrong, apologize and learn from what went wrong.
- If there's something you want to get done and you can find a way that it supports your strategic plan, unashamedly use that fact to your advantage.
- Know who is key to getting a project done and get the support of those individuals early
- Avoid committees (who will debate endlessly the color of a button on a submit form) in favor of limited scope project teams that have a goal and a timeframe.
- Make sure the infrastructure is sound before adding on any new ambitious projects. This should move you from a state of reacting to a state of innovating
All-in-all a good session with some nice takeaway points.
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