losing ground

[Karen Campbell]

On Fri, 14 Jun 1996, Sara Weissman/Morris Cty Library wrote:
>   For nearly *anything* new you want to try in a library, try this:
>   "We want to try this for six months...what are your concerns?" People
>   react less phobically to a trial than to what they might perceive,
>   correctly or not, as an edict.

At this week's National Educational Computing Conference, Wednesday's 
keynote speaker, Garth Morgan of York University, addressed 
organizational change.  His thesis supports Sara's experience.  He 
suggests that rather than trying to change an organization, one should 
identify the 15% of the organization that is receptive to change.  Then, 
one should embark on a program of "permanent pilots".  That is, involve 
the 15% who are interested in change in a series of pilots and accept 
that this is the way change will happen.  Rather than announcing sweeping 
arbitrary change, allow those who can effectively implement it to lead by 
example.  It was in fact apparent in many of the sessions that an "each 
one teach one" or "train the trainers" approach seems to be the most 
universally effective means of implementing technological change.

I found this a very informative conference for anyone involved with staff 
development in technology in academia.  There is a web page for the 1997 
conference at http://ISTEonline.uoregon.edu/necc/necc97ca/neccall.htm


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Karen Campbell	                           Bush Memorial Library
kcampbel at seq.hamline.edu	           Hamline University
(612)641-2482			           St. Paul, Minnesota
We are "web weavers and dancers at the dawn of the Meso-Electronic Period"
                                       ---Paul Evan Peters
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On Fri, 14 Jun 1996, Sara Weissman/Morris Cty Library wrote:

> 
>   For nearly *anything* new you want to try in a library, try this:
>   "We want to try this for six months...what are your concerns?" People
>   react less phobically to a trial than to what they might perceive,
>   correctly or not, as an edict.//Two years ago, in an Internet workshop
>   for librarians, I said "It's tough to get 20 years into what you think
>   has been a good and productive career and suddenly be told you don't
>   know what you are doing because you don't know the Internet." I was
>   not prepared for the audible gasp that shot across the room...*many*
>   of the people sitting there felt precisely that. My experiences as
>   trainer have led me to incorporate Toffler (Future Shock turns out to
>   have been about the Internet!) and Galbraith on learning styles into
>   my course at Rutgers. I want my students to be comfortable knowing
>   that they can learn nearly anything when/as they have to, for that
>   I think is the rising tide of the profession. (Thump! jumps off sopabox.)
>