What Administrators Need to Know About Technology
Roy Tennant, Senior Program Manager, OCLC Programs & Research
Writes the Blog: Tech Essence Info
-Blog is targeted to library administrators
Techessence.com/topten
1. Technology isn't as hard as you think
2. Technology gets easier all the time
3. Technology gets cheaper all the time
4. Maximize the effectiveness
5. Iterate, don't perfect
--Get something out there early, learn from mistakes, listen to comments and then iterate and put it back out there. (Look at Business 2.0, Netflix Mailers)
6. Be prepared to fail. We think by being perfect we won't fail, but nothing is farther from the truth. Failure is a useful teacher. We can learn from our failures.
7. Be prepared to succeed.
8. Never underestimate the power of a prototype.
9. A major part of any technology implementation is good project management.
10. The single biggest threat to any technology project is political in nature.
--This includes not having enough support within your organization to see it through to the end, or not having enough resources.
What Others Have Said Via Twitter
1. Have an exit strategy. No platform is forever. Ask not only how you'll move onto it, but how you'll move off of it.
2. Vendor solutions still require knowledgeable staff to make them work.
3. IT won't solve any of your problems without proper staffing and management policies which you should allow techies to shape.
4. Administrators need to know that just because a staff member can support certain technologies, doesn't mean they can support all technologies.
5. Allow your staff time and resources to experiment even if nothing comes of it. Innovation comes with risk.
6. Believe a staff member's opinion over a vendor's. Always. ALWAYS.
7. Never depend on technology alone to save your library.
8. The youngest people on staff aren't automatically techno-geeks.
9. Delegate the discovery phase to those who can dedicate more resources to coming up with concise answers to "how" and justify "why."
Comments from the Peanut Gallery
Technology is easy; it is the people that are hard. Having to change people's thinking is harder than incorporating technology.
Avoid the herd mentality. Don't implement just because everyone else has.
Consult the people that work with the users to find out what are the needs of the users.
An administrator with a little bit of technology knowledge is a dangerous thing. Administrators should have more faith in their tech staff.
Need to have ongoing training for library staff. Change in technology is constant, so training for new technologies should also be constant.
Technology can only take you so far. You still need people to make it happen.
***This session was good, and provided some good information. I have more complaints with the room and the fact that I did not have access to wi-fi in the room. The way the room was set up, it was almost impossible to see the screen and the PowerPoint slides. But there were definitely good points brought up for more than just administrators.***
2 comments:
I'm not so sure that a technology saavy administrator is a dangerous thing. I see both sides of the coin. However, an unbridled techie may be a dangerous thing. Actually, I think a tech saavy administrator's job is to empower the techie to move the library forward.
Ed, So glad that someone there is reading my posts. Yes I agree with you, administrators with knowledge is not really a bad thing. If there is one thing that I have learned is that it is important for Librarians and IT people to collaborate. I have had many conversations with both sides here that have been interesting.
Post a Comment