Notes from an Open Life

So what the hell?

Well, OK. The blog has been dormant for a while. And I've been regularly paying $8.95 a month for blogs I'm not using. And so I've been considering getting rid of the Typepad account entirely. So I cancelled my pay account on Typepad and just have the one blog on the free account now. 

On this blog, it changed over to this - interesting - template. I lost Music Therapy, but that's OK - I still have the podcasts themselves, and perhaps I should just put those in a public Dropbox folder. (Huh...not a bad idea.) Or I could restore them here. 

I will likely move over to Tumblr soon enough, but don't have the concentration today to do so. 

So that's what happened. I think it's about time to start blogging regularly again in some form - perhaps for the new year. 

 

A poem after so long

Talk to me. Sit and talk with me.

Tell me of all you know. Tell me of your story. Your trials. Your heartache.

I want to hear your story as lived. I want to hear the things that stick with you. The objects.

The loneliness.

The beautiful isolation that I know you’ve experienced.

Tell me of your faithless moments. And of those moments you knew you would come through.

Tell me of the unspeakable beauty.

Tell me of the writhing pain.

 

But I know

it’s the moments of beauty

that stay with you still.

 

And it’s those things

that I want you to recall

in their beauty

and their pain

how hard it is

even to hold them for a moment

that’s

the beauty

that I want you

to share

with me

Lovingly documented

Back in 2009 I created the title for this post, the idea being, roughly: almost everything can be beautiful, lovingly documented. Photographers know this (I think). It's not just about taking a technically good picture. There's something else at play that makes a photograph good. And it's obviously not limited to those who self-identify as photographers. Perhaps that's part of why Instagram is so popular.

I'm on Instagram, but I want something outside of Instagram as well. So I thought I'd start posting here. Though, perhaps, I'll move over to Tumblr soon enough. 

In any case - let's get started. 

How to make yourself indispensable – inside an organization, or working with an organization

What do organizations do?

They try to hire the best and smartest people they can to address their core business.

As an information professional, will you know more than they do?

No, probably not. 

Will you know more ‘broadly’ than they do?

Yes, probably.

Can you think differently and bring value to them?

Yes.

So what do you do?

• You get a request or a project.
• If at all possible – if it’s of interest to you and to them – you meet with them.
• You talk with them.
• You get interested.
• You understand their challenges, issues, interests, goals more broadly.
• You become a part of the team.
• You trust yourself to provide information that is relevant.
• You then do so.

What then?

• You listen to them.
• You meet whom they are meeting with.
• You listen to those people.
• You get interested.
• You understand their challenges, issues, interests, goals more broadly.
• You trust yourself to provide information that is relevant.
• You then do so.
• You become a part of that team.
• Repeat.

The tactical and strategic discussion - again

As a preface: 

This is one of those posts I have held on to for a couple of months. Why? 

• First, I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to use some of the language I use here. Yes, I've used the language occasionally before, but I wasn't sure if it was appropriate with this topic. 
• Second, I wasn't sure what the reaction would be to the sentiment expressed. I truly do believe in what I'm saying here - but I also found myself second-guessing whether I should express myself. 

I decided, in the end, that it is important to state my true opinion, and to see what happens. 

So here we go: 

So I was sitting in a meeting today with several high-level people in information work, and as we went around the table, I heard several people talk about 'moving from tactical to strategic' work. 

Which is the same fucking theme everyone's been talking about for years. 

And I started to wonder - why is that? Why are we still talking about moving from tactical to more strategic work? Why haven't we moved? 

First, I want to recognize that there is no escape from the tactical. Daily life is tactical. Eating lunch is tactical. There are always going to be tactical things that we need to do, in our lives and in our work. Let's accept it.

But to build on that - if you're doing tactical work and complaining about not being 'strategic', it's because you're choosing to be tactical. You are continually putting yourself in that mode. 

I'm guilty of this just as much as anyone. 

Here's the thing. Being strategic is not inherently in the nature of who we are, as 'information professionals' or librarians. We will never be strategic due to the very way we typically define ourselves. We are transactional by our very nature. By our training. By the roles we accept. 

I would claim that we often intentionally back away from being strategic - from providing perspective, analysis, interpretation. We don't feel comfortable or right saying what we think. We're afraid of taking the leap and not sticking by the data. We feel most comfortable sticking by the data. 

So how do we get out of this conversation? What is the way forward? 

• Let's examine and understand our expertise. Let's own what we do, and then let's apply what we do and be willing to stand by our knowledge - not the data, but our knowledge and understanding of that data. 
• Let's stop having the 'tactical vs. strategic' conversation among ourselves. Please. 
• Let's try giving up our defensiveness about our profession. We either own what we do and do a good job of it and push it forward, or we don't, and the profession goes away naturally. 
• Let's think about this: what if our profession is a mindset and a skillset that can actually be applied in new, interesting and useful ways? What if we're actually intelligent people who can have a conversation with, say, a VP of Strategy or a team trying to forecast the future? What if we can create new information and new understanding? How awesome would that be? 
• Finally, let's stop thinking we're not strategic and go out there and be strategic. 

Gee, that wasn't so bad after all.