Joyce Hardy - SLA Conference Report

I want to thank the Scholarship Committee and the Southern California Chapter for providing me the opportunity to attend this excellent conference, especially for the educational and networking opportunities it presented to me. I will be forever grateful.

SLA 2009 Summary


Conference attendance was by 5,856 – up 16% from 2008 – and attendees represented 30 different countries. There were 299 vendors exhibiting, including 48 first timers.

Janice LaChance and Gloria Zamora spoke about Alignment ‘09 and the importance of growing the “tribe” of supporters for the good of the organization. A tribe is a group of individuals, connected to an idea, who communicate that idea widely and effectively to bring more people into the tribe. SLA is a tribe in that regard, and now we need to build our tribe around the alignment research and the pursuit of a new name for our second century that effectively and powerfully states our value. “Will you help us increase our tribe? Will you align in ’09?” Stay tuned!!!

One big announcement was that all non-certificate courses on Click U are now FREE to members. So members can now take advantage of this new SLA membership benefit at their convenience.

Keynote speaker General Colin Powell

General Colin Powell kicked-off SLA 2009 with an upbeat talk about librarians and their relevance to meeting the information needs of the nation. SLA members are responsible for playing that role, for conducting research and identifying the sources of quality information and bringing it into organizations.

Powell’s talk was enlightening, funny and down-to-earth. He commented on how the “born digital” generation expects things at their fingertips, shared his experiences with communicating with his grandchildren on Twitter, and discussed his transition from public to private life and his involvement in multiple foundations, including a foundation dedicated to building an education center for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The planned facility will house the many gifts left at the wall in remembrance of those who lost their lives.
He believes we will continue to see a desire for SLA members, for people who can bring good information forward. “They are the information specialists, they're not the knowledge experts usually. By that, I mean you give me and my staff the good information we need and you toss aside the information that's flawed and that really doesn't answer the questions I'm asking for. It is up to us to extract the knowledge from this information.”
Powell said “The way I use my folks at National Defense University (NDU) is to send them e-mails all the time--get me every speech I ever wrote about civil rights, get me the paper I wrote, or locate a photo taken of me. And since most of this is digitized now, they can usually respond to me almost instantaneously.” He acknowledged the NDU Library staff and thanked them for their excellent work.
Powell shared his views of leadership and the importance of information technology. I think many in the audience were surprised at his self-effacing humor, especially when discussing his grandchildren’s request that he get a Facebook and Twitter account (he Tweets but does not have a Facebook account).

Dr. Ellen Kossek’s session entitled “The CEO of ME” was an excellent presentation on managing your work/life relationships.

As CEO of your life, you have the choice to avoid the flexibility trap. You can learn how to use flexibility to make your life better. You begin by understanding your flexstyle, which is how you are currently managing relationships between work and personal life – your style for creating a workable life. You also should take stock of how well your flexstyle fits the people with whom you live and work. You need to know what’s working and what’s not and how to make changes – sometimes small and sometimes more drastic – to shift where you draw the line between work and non-work in order to be more effective on the job and at home.

In analyzing your work-life paradox you need to consider your work-life culture, work engagement and rising stress. Ask yourself “How did we get where we are? Why are we here?”
Flex styles describe the different styles you use to engage with your job:
• How you define your work life boundaries
• Where to focus your attention and,
• The relationships you have at work and in your personal life.

Three flexstyles were discussed:

Integrators blend work and personal life physically in terms of time, schedules, and space or location. Psychologically, they also mix work and personal life in terms of their day-to-day thoughts, emotions, and energy. Think of them as having an “open door policy” and allowing or even encouraging interruptions.

Separators segment work from personal life psychologically and physically. They tend not to take work home, but if they do so, they are good at creating a separate space for working at home. Separators use physical space, time, and mental perceptions to manage their responsibilities to keep work and non-work in different compartments.

Volleyers switch back and forth, at times experiencing work and life as tightly demarcated from each other and at other times mixing all aspects of their life.

Self-reflection exercises can help you to understand pros & cons of you, find the flexstyles that give you control and fit your values, help you work better with your colleagues’ styles and be more productive.

Technology is changing work/life relationship and it is very easy to get into the position of risk of overwork and a lack of time/energy balance. Technology has made it easier to work at home in a global competitive market and free time is at a premium because it is so easy to be always connected to work. It seems in the past few years organizations often reward imbalance, encouraging more blending of work/life and encouraging overwork. In order to reach a balance in our life work, we should all be aware of our time/energy balance at home and at work.

As CEO of your life, you can take control of your life to make flexibility work for you instead of against you.

Recommended reading for analyzing your work/life: “CEO of ME: Creating a Life That Works in the Flexible Job Age” by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Brenda A. Lautsch.