Innovation comes from without the institution...

Innovation comes from without the institution...

Max Macias 08 Feb 2007 18:45

One of the things I notice about Web 2.0 concepts and applications is that they almost always come from without institutions.

I have a few theories about this.

One of them being that institutions are resistant to change, and that they also impose drastic restrictions to what can be done—thereby limiting new ideas, and concepts.

I think that it is interesting that the library world was left in the dust so to speak with these types of developments—especially since information organization and sharing is OUR FIELD.

How can we bring innovation to our institutions in a more rapid and freer manner?

One idea I have is to collaborate with the IT department and form a Web 2.0 team for my institution.

I think there must be a team of free-thinkers given more freedom to experiment and try new ideas and applications.

What do you think about these ideas?

ANY ANSWER WILL BE APPRECIATED!

Thank you!

Last edited on 08 Feb 2007 20:36 by Max Macias Show more

Re: Innovation comes from without the institution...

RoseMary 08 Feb 2007 20:26

I attended an interesting workshop on leadership last fall that talked about the difference between leaders and managers. Leaders move us from one paradigm to another, while managers make the paradigm work. So you have two different roles needed in a successful institution, leaders always looking to the future and managers making the present work. Some people are better at one than the other. It isn't often that you are in a position to be both. That made a lot of sense to me when I thought about it in regards to business and government and even libraries.

Re: Innovation comes from without the institution...

Max Macias 08 Feb 2007 21:41

Nice—thanks for the reply Rosemary!

Your post gives me something to think about.

I see what you are sayingand agree to a certain extent, butthere is little if any innovation coming out of institutions AT ALL.

All the great Web 2.0 ideas have come from people outside of the istitution.

By the time a good leader of an institution gets ahold of a good idea, and can grasp its usage, then there are already several newer ideas.

This leaves the institution as a follower, who is constantly tryint to catch up to the private or individual leaders of the pack.

Librarians are the ones who call themselves "information professionals' but they are NOT the leaders of innovation.

Thanks for your post Rosemary—you have given me something to think about.

Anyone else?

Re: Innovation comes from without the institution...

bjhcimlib 12 Feb 2007 15:09

A good point for discussion. I agree that there needs to be leadership in the organization for innovative ideas to be received. Some institutions are more forward thinking and have the resources and staff to be more innovative. In other organizations, there might be various reasons for the absence of innovation. One could be that there are a lack of resources or work load is incredibly high.

I've found it better to start with what I can accomplish given my resources and time and expand from there. My institution has a great IT staff but I recognize that they have a lot on their plate. I don't expect them at this time to expend resources and time on Web 2.0 exploration. So I choose to use services like Wordpress and Flickr instead of asking the IT department to set up such resources. And this is the great thing about blogs, they can exist to some extent "outside" the local network. However, I did make sure to gain the necessary approval from my library director, the IT department and other interested parties since this blog does represent the institution.

I usually ask myself "what can I do in my current environment?" and begin there.
Of course, I am not in a large institution and there is a bit more flexibility in how I accomplish these things.

Good discussion.

Last edited on 12 Feb 2007 15:11 by bjhcimlib Show more

Re: Innovation comes from without the institution...

RoseMary 13 Feb 2007 20:54

I was talking to my director about this today…. it began with a discussion of how social networking affects jobs and does it make teens "smarter", etc.
She is a Baby Boomer like me and I think we are getting to that time when we think what do we need all this stuff for? And that segued into the innovation and where it comes from and the leaders/managers thing. She had an interesting pov about what the role of librarianship is, which is organizing information, and always being the people coming after the information is there to organize it and clean it up so it can be found again.
If that is a common librarian mindset, then it makes sense that most librarians would be in the information management business… organizing it, making it work now. The innovators in library technology are not librarians, but are computer wizards without a librarian background. I think that is why a new system never works exactly the way you need it to because the innovators aren't thinking on the librarian management level. So… I am still thinking libraries need both, but librarianship, by nature doesn't exactly attract innovators.

Re: Innovation comes from without the institution...

Max Macias 13 Feb 2007 22:09

Now that’s an interesting subject. Communication and collaboration make people smarter. Social networking in itself is NOTHING, but with a good group of people networking and collaborating on things—new ideas will arise. New ideas about old things will also arise.

I hear you on the organization role—organizing info role of the librarian—however, I would say that applies to the old concept of the library. I think the one new concept (that has really been applied) is to collaborate with people both within and without the library industry.
I think it is a common mind set, but it will be replaced by the collaborative librarian, the librarian who interacts with their patrons in the most efficient and effective manners.
We now buy databases of information and don’t really organize them—we access them, and show others how.
There is still info-organizing going on, but that has taken a back seat to info-literacy.
Librarians can innovate, but they do need to work within the organization—as you have pointed out. I think that with proper clearance—we should always be pushing—as much as our times allow.

I agree that we still need both groups of people—organizers and innovators, but I would add that Librarianship—has an ever-changing definition, and would not say that we are merely information organizers any longer.

Thanks for the great post Rosemary!

Does anyone else have any ideas on this subject?

THANKS!