Living in More Than One World

Scranton, Pa., where I was born and grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, was not particularly a cultural hotspot when I lived there. But in recent years, the situation has changed dramatically. Many people know it as the fictional setting of the hit NBC show The Office. There are now Office-themed tours, the subject of Jayne Clark’s recent USA TODAY story Scranton welcomes fans of ‘The Office’. And during last year’s presidential campaign, the city became known for the family roots of both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Biden. Among the major improvements in recent years include two top minor league franchises shared with their neighboring city, The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, the Triple-A baseball affiliate of the New York Yankees; and hockey’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, the top affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain (near the baseball stadium) books major pop music acts during the summer. These big-time sports and music activities would have been nearly unthinkable when I lived there, and it’s nice to see the progress. The latest major development is the new Commonwealth Medical College, which has just seated its first class. It went from idea to reality in less than five years. Read the fascinating two-part series in The Scranton Times Tribune, by Sarah Hofius Hall. It shows how far the city has come in the long, painful transition from a coal-based and manufacturing economy to becoming more knowledge-based. There are also excellent, long-established local schools of higher learning including The University of Scranton, Marywood University, Penn State Worthington Scranton and Lackawanna College.  The tourist attractions such as the Steamtown National Historic Site and the natural beauty of much of the area and its surroundings, combined with its relatively short driving distance to both Philadelphia and New York City, are also making people see Scranton in a more positive and hopeful light.

Guardian.co.uk continues to produce useful, thought-provoking content in easy-to-digest formats. The latest example I’ve discovered is How to Believe. So far, this series of blogs by expert commentators is mainly centered on philosophy, with some religion. Mark Vernon, a multi-talented author, journalist, teacher, broadcaster and former priest in the Church of England is doing a series of eight blogs on Plato; two so far with the next due tomorrow. His next book, Plato’s Podcasts: The Ancients’ Guide to Modern Living, will be published in the UK in October. He does a nice job of setting Plato in context in the two blogs so far, demonstrating his importance in the middle of the linked chain of philosophers between Socrates and Aristotle. In the August 3rd posting, Plato’s dialogues, part 1: Why Plato?, Vernon writes, “We live in an age of religious pluralism, secular innovation and ideological searching. Reading him encourages us to delve deep and refashion a way of life that can speak truth to our own times.” In the August 10th posting, Plato’s Dialogues, part 2: Who was Plato’s Socrates?, Vernon’s interpretations about how we can make uncertainty and the unknown work for us, as we navigate change in our lives, are inspirational. “It might be said that the genius of Plato’s Socrates,” Vernon writes, “was to embrace ordinary human uncertainty and doubt, and fashion it into a flourishing way of life.” This embrace of and desire to reach beyond the unknown can further our creativity, innovation, love and wisdom. The postings have drawn many passionate comments, showing that Vernon has hit a nerve, no matter what you think of his ideas. Kudos to guardian.co.uk for devoting so much thoughtful and impressive coverage to these important areas of life. And to follow more of Vernon’s work, see his own Philosophy and Life blog.

As someone who teaches grad school (if only one semester a year), I was quite interested to read about the array of online ventures that are trying to provide new models for higher education in Anya Kamenetz’s September 2009 Fast Company feature, How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education. While some of the innovations revolve around major universities putting their content online for the outside world (besides online learning initiatives available to their own students), the article demonstrates that there is not one particular model that is winning out for how people who are not on a campus will take advantage of online learning. One thing that is clear is that only a select group of people can pay the eye-popping tuition prices of some our universities. If there is a way to receive, if not the exact experience someone would get by spending four years at Harvard, Stanford or similar schools, but something similar at a greatly reduced price and other barriers to entry, an educational revolution would be possible. If prospective students can mix and match course content from a number of top professors and universities, our whole idea of what it means to be highly educated will change. If this can be accomplished at no cost, or a relatively inexpensive cost, there will be unlimited opportunities for for-profit and nonprofit organizations to apply not only the tools we have now, but those that will be developed in the future. Also check out the sidebar, 5 Startups to Watch, with thumbnail descriptions of 2tor Inc., EduFire, Grockit, Inigral and Knewton. What will happen if schools as we currently know them don’t fully adapt to the new technological possibilities? If that is the case, there is the chilling prospect, Kamenetz writes, that they “will find themselves on the wrong side of history, alongside newspaper chains and record stores.”

Gordon Pitts of The Globe and Mail in Toronto has a fascinating Q&A today, Why Joseph Rotman hates the ‘do-gooder’ label,  with businessman/philanthropist/volunteer/educator Joseph Rotman, who seems to embody the idea of living in more than one world. The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is named after him. He is highly educated himself and recognizes the value of education not just to individuals, but to all of society. One theme I took away from the interview was that working with and strengthening nonprofit organizations and the arts was in everyone’s interest. They are part of the pillars of making a better life for everyone in a community, or an entire country. Rather than focus so much on shareholder value in business education and running corporations, he says we should use a broader view that takes into account a wider set of stakeholders. “You are part of a total system,” Rotman says, “and, as a corporation and business leader, you have a responsibility to participate in all aspects, which is why I do my community work, why I do my public policy work. I am lucky enough to afford to do it and love doing it.” He sees the arts and the creativity that underpins it as a crucial part of life that should be appreciated on the same level as business, science and technology and other endeavors. The interview is relatively brief, but gives a nice overview of his life, the decisions he’s made about his career and education and how he’s gotten to where he is at age 74. Although he’s well past traditional retirement age, he is doing work and putting his personal fortune to use to benefit as many people as possible. I think it’s significant that the tagline for the Rotman School is “a new way to think.”

It’s always encouraging when a first-rate mind is celebrated in the media. That’s been the case recently with Amartya Sen, an economics Nobel Laureate who will shortly publish a new book, The Idea of Justice. Sholto Byrnes of London’s The Independent has an interesting interview with Sen on July 19, The thinker: Inside the mind of prized intellectual Amartya Sen. Byrnes points out that Sen’s work has had a significant impact on the world and that he is going strong well past what would be retirement years for some others. “Sen is 75,” Byrnes writes, “but his mind has a sharpness that those decades his junior would envy.” The interview was conducted at Trinity College, Cambridge, where Sen was master from 1998-2004. He was then off to Dublin to receive an honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin. His official Nobel autobiography lists a mind-boggling number of universities in which he has taught, including “Delhi University, the London School of Economics, Oxford University, and Harvard University, and on a visiting basis, at M.I.T., Stanford, Berkeley, and Cornell.” Sen was also recently featured in Jon Snow’s blog on Britain’s Channel 4, Meetings with remarkable men: Amartya Sen. (Snow muses that Sen would be one of eight people he would sit at dinner with Nelson Mandela). Also see Paul Cullen’s interview with Sen, Beacon of light in a dismal science, in The Irish Times on July 11. Cullen notes that more than 500 people came to hear Sen speak in Dublin, with many more turned away. All these pieces celebrate not only the power of the mind, but also the importance of intellectual curiosity. Cullen describes Sen as “a soft-spoken polymath whose work spans an impressive number of fields – economics, philosophy, social theory, ethics, even feminism.” Besides his honorary degree, Sen was also in Dublin to receive an honorary membership in the Royal Irish Academy, and spent the morning before at the National Gallery. Clearly a man who makes the most of his time!

As I noted in my previous post, the major reason I attended the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago from July 10-14 was to do the first signing for my new book Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. Today I’ll briefly note some of the sessions I attended, with links to investigate further. Although I have been teaching since 1996, I still learned a lot from Preparing Yourself to Teach: Touching all the Bases, sponsored by LIRT (Library Instruction Round Table). The three presenters (Lisa Hinchliffe and Beth Woodard, both of the University of Illinois-Urbana; and Monika Antonelli, Minnesota State University) all had interesting perspectives on developing teaching skills. The increasing importance and intricacies of digital collections was examined in Collecting for Digital Repositories: New Ways to Disseminate and Share Information. The three speakers (Paul Royster; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Sayeed Choudhury, Johns Hopkins University and Dianne McCutcheon, National Library of Medicine) made their subject seem doable, even with its inherent complexities. Michigan-based public librarians Holly Hibner and Mary Kelly led a lively session aimed at public library reference librarians, Thingamabobs and Doodads: Why Tech Support IS Reference. I enjoyed talking to both afterwards, and discovered that their blog, Awful Library Books, is developing a cult following. The Power of XML to Enhance Work Flow and Discovery explained and demystified a lot about the history and practical applications of XML in libraries. I had interesting conversations afterwards with both presenters, Patrick Yott of Brown University and David Ruddy of Cornell University. Finally, the Library History Round Table Edward G. Holley Lecture, Five Studies of Readers of Journalism, by David Paul Nord, a journalism and history professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, was a thought-provoking way for me to end the conference. I also enjoyed my brief talk with him after his lecture. Tomorrow, one final ALA-related post on my encounters with a few participants who are not librarians, and have no connection to my book.

If personal reinvention is something you’re considering, or would just like to learn more about, take a few moments to read a brief, interesting first-person account, Reinventing Myself: My Journey Back to Music, by Steven Tjernagel, on the extensive jazz site allaboutjazz.com. In eight short sections with subheads such as “A Reevaluation Of Priorities” and “The Crisis,” through “A Good Plan Never Dies” and finally “The Light at the End of the Tunnel,” Tjernagel details how and why he began his reinvention as a jazz guitarist after years of a well-paid job that he did not find satisfying. He reignited his longtime love of playing music and determined that he wanted to enter a one year jazz studies masters program, finally settling on The University of the Arts (UArts) in Philadelphia.  It cost a lot of money, and involved a difficult audition, but he finally made it on the second try. (He was accepted the first time, but his financing fell through and he had to wait two more years until everything fell into place.) This piece shows that simply having an idea for personal reinvention is only the first step. Many difficulties and roadblocks will probably lie ahead, and it’s all too easy to give up. Yet reading about how he made his decision and overcame some of those roadblocks is inspirational. Becoming successful in music is tough. Tjernagel is to be commended for getting this far, as he notes that he did well in his first semester and is starting his second. “I’m extremely optimistic for the future as I continue to reinvent myself once again,” he writes. His words and experience should resonate for all of us traveling on the road to reinvention.

A nice place to be this week, starting two days ago and running through July 5, is the Aspen Ideas Festival. A large and diverse group of big thinkers from academia, business, law, science, government, nonprofits, the arts, architecture, media and more have converged in Colorado for what looks to be a highly stimulating event. Since most of us can’t be there, the next best thing is following it online at the festival’s website and on the blogs from Atlantic Online. The Atlantic is a co-sponsor of the event, along with the Aspen Institute. Just a handful of the more recognized names from the 200 speakers and moderators: Madeleine Albright, James A. Baker III, Stephen Breyer, David Brooks, Marian Wright Edelman, Thomas L. Friedman, Howard Gardner, Frank Gehry, Alan Greenspan, Sandra Day O’Connor, Tim O’Reilly, Susan Rice, Charlie Rose and Eric Schmidt. You can see the entire list of the speakers and moderators, with photos and thumbnail descriptions, on the festival site. The Aspen Daily News has an interesting piece reflecting on the first day of the festival, and looking to possible highlights from the upcoming speakers. You can view videos from the festival on the Audio Video Library portion of the festival site. One of the several that are available now is Google Looks at the Economy: In Conversation With Eric Schmidt, in which Google’s Chairman of the Board and CEO is interviewed by Kai Ryssdal, host of “Marketplace,” on American Public Media. We are fortunate to live in an age where we can have a virtual experience of these major events (including music and literary festivals, and to some extent, professional conferences) that we can’t attend in person.

I spent seven days, from last Sunday through Friday, at three different conferences and workshops, beginning with the American Independent Writers Annual Conference in Washington, D.C, on June 13, the 100th annual conference of the Special Libraries Association/SLA, also in D.C., June 14-17, and the Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative marketing workshop, hosted by ASTD, the American Society of Training & Development, in Alexandria, Va., on June 18-19. Berrett-Koehler is publishing my first book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life, in August. I had the opportunity to meet and learn from a number of my fellow B-K authors at the workshop. I found them all to be talented, generous people. Over the two days there were many top-notch speakers and workshop leaders to guide us through such areas as marketing, publicity, selling, the effective use of social networking technology and finding public speaking opportunities. At the end of the workshop, everyone participated in a brief but intense co-consulting session, in which groups of four or five people helped each other think through something we want to work on immediately, and we had to report to the larger group what we’re going to do about it. This was a great vehicle for helping me focus my efforts on promoting the book, as we get closer to publication. Thanks to everyone who put on the workshop and ran it so smoothly, and to the many people who shared their knowledge and experience with a first time author.

My four days at the 100th annual conference of the Special Libraries Association/SLA, in Washington, D.C are over. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I met many new people, reconnected with old friends and colleagues – including a number I had worked with during my 21 years at USA TODAY – and saw many of my former students, including two from the first class I taught, in 1996.  Nearly 6,000 information professionals from around the world attended, a 16% increase over last year’s conference; quite an accomplishment in this economy. The information sessions I attended were very good, and the INFO-EXPO hall had many interesting vendors. It was a great way to learn not only about new products and services, but to find out about information products and services from a wide variety of large and small organizations through quick demos and talking with people working at the booths. A conference of this size would not be possible without vendors’ financial participation.  Check out more about the conference – either if you didn’t attend, or if you attended but want to find out what you missed, since there were so many things going on simultaneously – at these blogs: SLA blog, Infotoday blog (from the editors of Information Today) and Stephen’s Lighthouse, the regular blog of information world luminary Stephen Abram. There are handouts from the conference on the SLA site, which I found through Gary Price’s ever-helpful Resource Shelf.  Next year’s SLA Annual Conference will be held June 13-16, 2010 in New Orleans. I’ll resume blogging in a few days, so I can concentrate on a two-day Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative marketing workshop, starting Thursday and hosted by ASTD, the American Society of Training & Development, in Alexandria, Va.