5 June 2007
SLA Annual Membership Meeting, featuring Candidate Speeches
Speech given by Lynn Berard, Candidate for Preident-Elect
Thank you Stephen for the introduction. As Stephen said, I'm Lynn Berard and I'm a candidate for President-Elect of your organization.
Welcome:
Good afternoon everyone and thank you for being here - especially considering that there are lots of things to do in Denver while you're still alive. I do hope that you've gotten out and explored this great place -and I'm sure you join me in thanking our Denver hosts for a super conference.
Let me as briefly as I can tell you who I am, by way of giving you two of my central beliefs:
1) I believe that things should work
2) I believe people should have as much fun as possible, even when they are working
Why am I a candidate?
People ask me why I'm running, which is odd because they already seem to know: they ask and then they say that I must be either mildly crazy or wildly crazy, probably the latter.
So let me tell you how I got here:
As you might guess: they asked me, and I said yes
I've had a lot of benefit from this organization, and I'm the sort of person who responds when people - people whose judgment I trust, say it is time to step up to the plate.
I feel the responsibility to pay back some of what I have received.
But, I also have to believe that I can do the job, and having given it a lot of thought I know that I can do this job.
Anecdotes
Now, you can read about my various kinds of service to SLA in my CV which is available on-line and I'm not going to bore you by going through it in fine detail. I've done some service, let's say.
Instead I want to give you a couple of little anecdotes that might illustrate what I have in mind.
The first arose some years ago at an ice-breaking exercise at a board meeting.
We had to tell everybody something about ourselves that they would never guess, something surprising, perhaps even shocking. Those gathered knew each other quite well, so we all thought hard about what to share.
Well, you'll never guess what I told them.
I told them I'd had a recent experience in which I had discovered that I was at least moderately skillful with a shotgun. I had been given a gift certificate to a sporting clays facility in Pennsylvania and our guide, a woman, had dubbed me Annie Oakley when I finished the course with a double-- Imagine my surprise when I managed to hit both targets as they launched two at once. I was thrilled...and the name Annie Oakley stuck with me for the rest of the day.
A couple of board members did ask me with what may have been concern in their voices if I had brought my guns with me to D.C.
Yah, right, I thought.
So what's the real point ...Apart from the pleasant association with Annie Oakley who must have spent some happy times right here in Denver?
The point I'd like to focus on is the fact that I learned something about my ability to keep my eye on the target. That I learned I might just have a talent for staying on target, but more importantly, for hitting a moving target.
Now I see that I may have painted myself into a bit of a corner with my metaphor, because I don't want to suggest that members of SLA are moving targets, although if you allow a bit of leeway, perhaps we are. We have always been changing and developing, but right now we are particularly challenged to understand who we are in a time of rapid change.
Am I suggesting we have an identity crisis? Not exactly, although we do have something of an identity issue, a self-definition issue, that requires us to know our roles in an uncertain future.
Which brings me to my 2nd anecdote, about identity:
There is a very funny Peter Sellers movie, that you may know, called The Party, in which Sellers plays an Indian mistakenly invited to a big Hollywood party. At one point an irate guest demands of him: Who do you think you are?
Sellers indignantly replies: In India, we do not think who we are, we know who we are!
Well, in SLA these days, I think we know who we are.
We're special of course, we're knowledge workers with a specialty, all of us with a keen understanding of just how what we do intersects with the worlds of real work.
We serve all the business, academic, government, public and non-profit centers in the world by finding and providing what people need to make things work, make the economy run, make science possible.
But, as I said, we need to understand who we will be in the future; we need to keep our eyes on the target
Specifically
We need to aggressively recruit new members. Diversity is our greatest strength and challenge. We must build on that strength.
Make a place for distance education students. As a web-based teacher I have witnessed firsthand how isolated information science web-only degree students are; we need to bring them into the fold.
Let's work on better representation for our international members. We need to focus on supporting our international chapters in creating sustainable infrastructure that works in their unique environments, while reaching out even further. The world is shrinking, but our association should be growing!
We must engage the Xgen and Ygen knowledge workers AND afford them opportunities to bring their very different workplace expectations to work for SLA. I pledge, if elected, to work on a strategy to assist those rising stars in having a voice at the table. To go one step further, I suggest the creation of a ?cultivating committee' to serve the efforts of the Nominating committee: it is time to build a system for appointing new members to leadership roles.
I Support the current boards' goals and objectives; and would provide continuity in maintaining AND growing the programs and services that the membership says works for them. I am excited by our Click U partnership with the University of Toronto, Faculty of Information Studies and the delivery of continuing education courses for members, to name just one of the many privileges of membership in SLA. It is through synergistic programs just like this that we can expand our knowledge while gaining key partners.
Let us celebrate our 100 years as a team and plan the next 100 years together. Everyone has been buzzing about our profession being named one of the top "7 great careers for 2007" - even Al Gore thinks we're cool! With our centennial celebration just around the corner, lets build on this now.
In closing, let me remind you of my two central beliefs:
I believe that things should work - by that I mean that I will be spending my time trying to make sure that SLA works for you
Secondly, I believe people should have as much fun as possible, even when they are working.
Please join me in staying on target.
Thank you!
RSS
Feedback form
