SLA Leadership Summit – An Overview from Louisville

With more than 250 in attendance, more than 80 for the first time, this year’s SLA Leadership Summit was held in Louisville, Kentucky, January 23-25. At each year’s summit, leaders of SLA, its chapters, divisions, sections, caucuses and committees, come together to finalize plans for the annual conference and to begin the planning for the following year’s conference. And for anyone who wishes to become more involved with the association, I strongly recommend attending this meeting. This year’s summit was especially energized by with discussions of the future of the association and the profession, and preparations for the 2009 Centennial celebration and conference in Washington, D.C.

Keynote by Andy Hines

While board and planning meetings took up much of the first day of the meeting, the summit was formally launched with the keynote address, “Anticipating the Future,” by Andy Hines, Futurist for Social Technologies. Hines presented on the topic of foresight, and how an organization, such as SLA, could “do foresight” and actively plan accordingly for its future and rethink “typical responses to change.” He broke down the benefits of foresight into multiple activities and their related benefits, including framing, scanning, forecasting, visioning, planning, and acting. Hines also discussed changes in values throughout the world and their related impact, and he looked at social trends, and the re-structuring of work and everyday life. He also talked briefly about how lifelong, online, continuous learning seems to be a part of our lives, which dovetails into SLA’s mission of supporting such learning for information professionals.

Stephen Abrams, SLA President

SLA President Stephen Abram, presented on “Reality 2.0: Attracting, Retaining and Engaging the Association 2.0 Member” and what SLA was doing to engage its membership and prepare its members for the future. He spoke of the many risks that are present, from economic to technological, and how SLA would hope to realign itself in light of these risks. He emphasized that SLA traditional values would be moved forward in the more interactive world that is here, and that will continue to thrive. He enthusiastically showed how SLA, with its innovation Lab, “technology sandbox,” and other initiatives, could be the premier information association, and expounded that SLA’s leaders needed to communicate to our colleagues the value that the association offers and will continue to offer.

The Realignment of SLA

Representatives from Fleishman-Hillard, the marketing and communications firm, presented on the association’s realignment project, which hopes to position SLA for the future while staying true to its core values. The representatives saw the upcoming association Centennial as an ideal opportunity to establish a shared vision for the future of SLA, so that the association not only continues to survive, but to thrive. It is hoped that the work that Fleishman-Hillard is continuing to undertake will be formally launched during the Centennial year.
A related session, entitled “Remembering the Future: Creating a Shared Vision,” divided the members into tables where we discussed and developed our professional timelines looking forward for three year and tied them to where we saw our organization in three years as well as SLA. This visioning exercise was enjoyable in that it made us focus on the not too distant future while getting feedback from fellow members on our goals and expectations. We sought to explore how our professional environment would potentially change in the near future, and how we might adapt to organizational changes within our environments.

SLA’s Kentucky chapter did wonderful work in hosting this year’s Leadership Summit. While most of the day was spent in meetings and presentations, the chapter hosted an enjoyable reception at the Louisville Slugger baseball bat museum, and worked to make sure that all in attendance enjoyed themselves, in spite of the sub-freezing temperatures outside. If you are interested in developing your leadership potential, which, by the way can only benefit you and your career, I recommend that you attend a future Leadership Meeting.

2008 Summit home

2008 Summit handouts

David Cappoli