tedxlib
jdupuis | July 13, 2011A few weeks ago I answered the daily thought leadership countdown questions that were posed by the TEDxLibrariansTO conference. I enjoyed the process, forcing myself to respond to thoughtful and interesting questions every day, even on busy challenging days where I wouldn't normally make an effort to find the time for blogging.
However, since they were all branded with "TEDxLibrarians" name in the title, I don't think people who weren't attending the conference bothered to read them. As such, several of the posts had unusually low readership.
So I;m gathering them all here in the hopes…
jdupuis | June 25, 2011As you read this, I'll be at TEDxLibrariansTO helping out with registration. And having a great time talking about librarians as thought leaders!
As I've done for the last few days, here is my answer for yesterday's TEDxLibrariansTO Countdown Question:
Question 1: What means should librarians choose to encourage their institutions to embrace change?
I'm not sure I know how to approach even beginning to answer this question other than to just say 42!
However, I was lucky enough to attend Drew Dudley's amazing keynote address at yesterday's York IT Day conference. He really talked about…
jdupuis | June 23, 2011Following on from the last three days, here are my answers for today's TEDxLibrariansTO Countdown Questions:
Question 1: What are the similarities or characteristics of thought leaders that you know? Tell us about the attributes that your ideal thought leader would have.
I don't think any one person could actually have all the qualities of the idea thought leader but there are some commonalities across the ones I've encountered.
Originality. A thought leader needs to bring something new to the public sphere, or at very least take an established idea and present it in a fresh, original way…
jdupuis | June 22, 2011Following on from the last two days, here are my answers for today's TEDxLibrariansTO Coundown Questions:
Question 1: How can experience of failure contribute to making an effective thought leader?
Failure is useful for a thought leader in the same way that it's useful for everyone. We can learn a lot from our failures: how to dust ourselves off and start over, how to rethink what we've done before and learn from our mistakes, how to put what we do in a larger interpersonal, organizational and social context. After all, just as we rarely succeed alone, we also rarely fail alone. Sure, the…
jdupuis | June 21, 2011Following on from yesterday, here are my answers for today's TEDxLibrariansTO Coundown Questions:
Question 1: What should we expect/demand of our thought leaders?
I'm not sure I like the way this question is phrased, preferring something like, "What do thought leaders actually do?" We certainly shouldn't demand anything of our thought leaders, it's not like we're paying them to do their jobs. Even "expectations" seems like a strong word.
To a large extent, thought leaders just are. I'm not sure we can speak of "followers" having "expectations" of leaders in the same way we could in a…
jdupuis | June 20, 2011The very fine TEDxLibrariansTO team is counting down to this Saturday's big event with some daily questions for us all to consider.
The topic, of course, is Librarians as Thought Leaders!
These are the questions for Day 5. I'll attempt to answer them and every day's questions very briefly. I figure if I go for extremely brief answers, there's actually a chance I'll get to them every day!
Question 1: Name one thing we could do right now in order to be perceived as thought leaders outside the profession.
My Answer: Predictably, perhaps, I'll answer that we should mostly (but not completely)…