MJ's blog

OLA Live: Interview

mjdelia — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 03:20:57 +0000

Here’s the interview I did with Erik Boekesteijn at the OLA SuperConference. We had a great conversation. You should also check out what he’s doing with This Week in Libraries.

Startup Library 101

mjdelia — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 03:13:00 +0000

Slides from our Startup Thinking 1010 presentation at the Ontario Library Association SuperConference 2014 (with the fantastic Helen Kula!)

Ignite Lego

mjdelia — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 02:59:50 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I tried my hand at doing an Ignite talk at Ignite Waterloo 10. If you’re unfamiliar with the ignite format, presenters have five minutes to talk about something that they’re passionate about, but there is a catch: you get 20 PowerPoint slides and they auto-advance every 15 seconds. If you have a tendency to ramble your slides aren’t waiting around for you to catch up – it’s cutthroat PowerPoint – and it was the most fun I’ve had in front of an audience in a long time. The adrenaline kicks in, you hit the space bar, and give it everything you’ve got.

I practiced many (many, many) times so that those five minutes of my life would not be a complete disaster. Strangely enough, I even enjoyed rehearsing it. The real power of the event was listening to such a variety of speakers and topics (check out the list for Ignite Waterloo 10 here). The organizers put together a fantastic event and the venue was unreal (Centre for International Governance Innovation) – definitely the best stage I’ve ever spoken from. I’m definitely going to attend again… you should probably come along too.

If you want to see my 5 minutes, here’s the YouTube link (the people at IW10 covered all the bases!):

Entrepreneurship Course (in five minutes)

mjdelia — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 14:41:26 +0000

Here’s a video that I created to provide students with an overview of the MCS*4100 course in Entrepreneurship. It’s certainly not as polished as the videos from RSA Animate (see a few posts below), but I’m happy with how it turned out. Putting closed captions on it wasn’t that difficult either – thanks YouTube!

If you want to know more about the course, click on the links below:

Full MCS*4100 outline for Fall 2012 [.pdf]

Visual outline (from the video) [.pdf]

Visual outline (from the video) [.jpg]

Library Forum Facilitator

mjdelia — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 04:03:12 +0000

I recently accepted the role of “chair” (I prefer “facilitator”) for our Library Forum meetings. I made the video below in an attempt to set the tone and establish a new direction for this important staff meeting. I know that the video won’t have a wide appeal (since most of you don’t work at U of G); however, it’s my first shot at using Camtasia so I thought I’d post it.

Education Paradigms

mjdelia — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:31:09 +0000

I’m sure some of you have seen this already, but I thought I’d share for those who haven’t. I’m a big Ken Robinson fan and what’s not to love about the RSA Animate series?

I particularly like how he distinguishes between divergent thinking and creativity (near the end of the video). I guess you can thank the education system for beating (or boring) the creativity out of you.

Librarian as translator

mjdelia — Fri, 27 May 2011 18:40:05 +0000

Building on my previous post, I found another analogy that I had scribbled in my notes (from way back in February 2007). Scrawled across the top of my piece of graph paper was “Librarian as translator.” I kind of like that. Think about translators for a minute: What skills do language translators need to do their jobs? Translators need skills like:

Ability to use translation strategies: translators need to be able to rephrase idioms and other figures of speech and still capture the spirit of the original communication.
Cultural awareness: translators need to be aware of the cultures on both sides of the translation.
Knowledge of terminology in specialized fields: translators have to know the jargon (or at least know how to negotiate it).
Ability to use the tools and rules of translation: translators have to know which tool (e.g. dictionary, software, etc.) to use and how to apply proper grammatical structure.
Ability to deliver on time: translators need to understand the urgency of the work (and need to deliver competently).

As I scan the bullets above I like what I see. I like the idea of librarians as translators in the Information Age. This is just a short post – you could definitely push this analogy a bit further.

If you’re interested, I paraphrased the above list from here.

Librarians are like detectives…

mjdelia — Fri, 27 May 2011 18:31:28 +0000

This past week I’ve been preparing my presentation for the Canadian Library Association conference in Halifax. My topic is “Librarians are like detectives and other generative metaphors to rejuvenate the profession.” I’ll admit my title is a bit of a mouthful, but the idea is pretty simple: generative analogies – and other types of associative thinking – provide new insight, new possibilities, and new pathways.

My contention is that we need to be more expansive when we start trying to define exactly what we (librarians) do and what we bring to the table (wherever that table happens to be). I feel like we tend to be quite self-limiting as a profession – and yet if the CLA keynote by Frank McKenna is to be believed, we have a lot to offer the knowledge economy.

Generative analogies are not about wordsmithing a definition of librarianship; they’re about striking a bold and broad vision of the profession. In my session, I plan to challenge the participants to push their associative thinking. For example, how are librarians like dentists? What might we learn from dentists? I’m curious to see what the group comes up with.

The Great (Education) Reset

mjdelia — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:49:22 +0000

Throughout The Great Reset Richard Florida uses two past economic “resets” as instructive examples for our current economic situation. The First Reset was called the Long Depression (late 19^th century) and the Second Reset was the Great Depression (1930s). In the final chapter of the book, he uses these resets to comment on the current state of education:

“The First Reset gave us the modern system of public schools and laid the foundations of the modern university and college education system, as well as modern engineering education. The Second Reset expanded higher education, among other things sparking the creation of the modern research-intensive university. Those giant strides forward are but small steps compared to the changes required today.” (p. 183)

Think about that for a second… if Florida is right, then we need to overhaul the entire educational system (or invent something new that can run alongside the existing system). It’s a scary thought, but perhaps those of us in higher education are living on borrowed time – it’s only a matter of time before students, employers, and maybe even governments decide that they’re not getting the right return on their investment in traditional higher education environments. Then what do we do?

Face it: you’re creative

mjdelia — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:48:54 +0000

The Great Reset by Richard Florida suggests that the most recent recession is more than economic stumble. It actually signifies a much more significant culture change across the developed (and developing world). Florida focuses primarily on North America and builds his case using a lot of economic arguments (which probably have significant counterarguments), but it’s his last chapter that I find most inspiring. Here’s a particularly great paragraph:

“A simple, undeniable first principle is that every single human being is creative. Each and every effort and policy initiative we under take can be measured by this simple yardstick: how do they increase the ability of people, organizations, places, and companies to mobilize human creative capabilities? … we all have something we’re good at, our own creative spark, and there’s little in life more satisfying and rewarding than the chance to exercise that talent.” (p. 182)

In my recent experiences with Innovation Boot Camp and at the Creative Problem Solving Institute conference I am convinced that the way forward for any organization is to make sure the people are plugged in and using their full creative capacity. Managers shouldn’t look to hire “creative types” when they see a gap on their team, instead they should actively work to increase the creativity quotient of their current staff.