Living in More Than One World

I’ve been fascinated by the National Football League and National Basketball Association player drafts for a long time. A fun part of my job during 21 years (1987-2008) as a reference librarian at USA TODAY was researching articles for the Sports section, including those on the drafts. This year’s NFL draft was held last week, and the media coverage was the most intense ever, especially from national outlets like USA TODAY and ESPN, which broadcast the draft live, in prime time.
As expected, the first two picks were quarterbacks: Stanford’s Andrew Luck, chosen by the Indianapolis Colts, followed by Baylor’s Robert Griffin III, to the Washington Redskins. But the draft, even with intense scouting, interviewing and statistical research, is not an exact science. Success at quarterback is particularly difficult to predict, as shown in a 2008 article in The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell, Most Likely to Succeed: How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job? Lots of high-round draft choices fizzle, while low-round choices end up becoming superstars. The most famous of those cases in recent years has been New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who wasn’t chosen until the 6th round of the 2000 draft. For an enlightening look at low-round picks who made it big, check out the NFL.com photo essay Best late-round NFL draft steals since merger.
Brady and the other draft “steals” illuminate something important that reflects much of the interest in this big-money business exercise. Teams, players and fans are given a sense of hope – if only for a short time – that the future will be better than the past. Or in the case of the top-of-the-standings teams, that their success can be sustained in the future. That sense of hope will be transferred to the basketball world soon. It’s less than two months to June 28th, the date of the NBA draft. More futures (individually and team-wide) are about to be created, for better or worse.

Tom Butler-Bowdon, author of the 50 Classics series, has a new book, Never Too Late to be Great: The Power of Thinking Long, that should provide considerable inspiration to many people who need it the most. Among those who should find it especially interesting and helpful are late bloomers, career changers, people in transition and even procrastinators. The premise is that significant success, even and especially in middle age and beyond, is possible if you think strategically in long enough time frames, while working hard and doing what is necessary to make it happen (e.g. additional learning, networking, and gaining experience in a field any way possible). And try not to be too impatient.
He is a master synthesizer of information who tells a story succinctly and effectively. A key message is that success is rarely preordained. Although the stories of Howard Schultz of Starbucks and Ray Kroc of McDonald’s have been told often, they still seem fresh here, especially when told from this vantage point. Hard work, diligence, a fierce entrepreneurial spirit, ingenuity and vision for the future propelled people like Schultz and Kroc to success, not anything in their background. And I found particularly interesting the roots of Amnesty International and its founder Peter Benenson; and the Lonely Planet publishing empire, founded by Tony and Maureen Wheeler. Ditto the long climbs of such literary figures as the novelists Lionel Shriver and Vikram Seth.
Butler-Bowdon wrote the book when he was 43, and many of the examples are of people who did not find their greatest successes until they were 40 or older, some much older. He explains some of the main ideas from the book in a recent Huffington Post, Life Isn’t Short: What it Means For Your Success. I interviewed him in 2010 for my blog, and in 2008 I wrote about and interviewed him for USA TODAY. While his message is important for middle age people, I think that younger readers will also find inspiration in these examples. When you have potentially many years stretching ahead of you, thinking long from the start can give you a tremendous advantage, and even peace of mind.

Leave it to The Economist, and specifically the Schumpeter management column, to find the intersection between Leonard Cohen and entrepreneurship. The February 25th Enterprising Oldies explores, in a neat package, why all of us (no matter where we are chronologically in adulthood) may have to explore entrepreneurship and other forms of self-employment at some point in our working lives.
As we think about how to diversify our portfolio of work experiences, it’s worth digging deeper into how we can apply some of the life lessons of the 77 year old Cohen, a singer/songwriter/poet/novelist who was inducted into the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. He’s written such oft-recorded classics as “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire,” and the more recent “Hallelujah.”
As pointed out in The Economist and a recent New York Times interview, part of Cohen’s recent renaissance has come about because he had to resume touring and recording to help make up for millions of dollars lost in dealings with a former financial adviser. But no matter what the impetus was, the fact is that he has a new album, Old Ideas, and has toured the world recently at far beyond traditional retirement age. What can we learn from his example?
1.    Diversified creative output. He has a tremendous body of work, going back more than 40 years, to draw on. It’s entirely possible that his poetry books are not major money-spinners, but he also has his albums, songwriting royalties (perhaps a considerable sum, given all the cover versions of his songs) and concert fees.
2.    A  powerful personal brand. Mention the name and people instantly associate it with him and his work.
3.    A global outlook. He has a worldwide following, with his books and music available worldwide, and fans everywhere, well beyond his native Canada.
4.    Remaining relevant. People are eager to listen to the new output of this 77 year old man, and he’s adding new fans all the time.
5.    An impressive body of work. One reason millions of dollars are at stake from Cohen’s career is that he has written and recorded so many important songs over more than 40 years.
Even if the work you do is not creative in nature, chances are you still may have to/want to work beyond 65. It’s never too soon, or too late to be thinking about amassing a high-quality body of work, diversifying your output, building your brand, thinking globally and remaining relevant.
As ties to traditional jobs and employment arrangements continue to evolve and become more tenuous, we will increasingly find ourselves in what could be called The Leonard Cohen Economy.

One of the best examples of a multidimensional person living in more than one world is Chuck Leavell. He is probably best known as a top-level pianist who has played with The Rolling Stones for nearly 30 years and was with the Allman Brothers Band before that. He has also led his own band, Sea Level, and his discography is jaw-dropping. But as his recent bylined piece, A Rock ‘n’ Roll Tour de Forest, in The Wall Street Journal shows, he also operates on many other important levels: operator (with his wife, Rose Lane) of a tree farm in Georgia, conservationist, environmental/sustainable development advocate, author and tech entrepreneur.
His recent TedXAtlanta video about balance in life and balance in development demonstrates the personal characteristics that have made him a success: he comes across as passionate, articulate, genial and informed. Although I never met him during my music world days, I’ve known about him since the beginning of his music career in the early 1970s. I’m sure he meets and interacts with a fascinating diversity of people in each of his roles, and that his involvement in so many worlds feeds an intense intellectual curiosity.
It’s encouraging that he has attracted so much attention. His most recent book, Growing a Better America, was published earlier this year. In recent weeks, besides the WSJ piece, there has been a New York Times college football-themed blog post interview with him, Postcard From Alabama: Playing for the Stones, Rooting for the Tide; and Chuck Leavell On Piano Jazz, a recent piece on NPR.org that includes his enjoyable and informative 2003 interview/music appearance on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. We should all be grateful that Leavell is truly living in more than one world.

Last year, I spent the early days of November in Claremont, Ca., doing a presentation at the Drucker School and being on a panel of authors at  Drucker Day 2010, the culmination of a year’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Peter Drucker.
This year I was also in Claremont at the beginning of November, but for slightly different reasons: two days of intensive research in the Drucker Archives at the Drucker Institute, followed by Drucker Day 2011, the annual Drucker School event gathering together alumni, current students, faculty, staff and others.
Although there is a tremendous amount of free material that the archives maintain online, in cooperation with the Honnold/Mudd Library (the Claremont Colleges Library), there is still a lot of material that you can only access by being there. It’s truly a magical place.
The morning speaker for Drucker Day was Vivek Ranadivé, chairman and CEO of TIBCO; a pioneer of real-time computing technology and the author (with my former USA TODAY colleague Kevin Maney) of The Two-Second Advantage: How We Succeed by Anticipating the Future–Just Enough. Ranadivé was a captivating presenter,  weaving together business ideas with his compelling personal story, which began in India. He also recounted his adventures coaching his daughter’s basketball team. At first, he knew little about basketball, but the team’s eventual success was chronicled by Malcolm Gladwell in the 2009 New Yorker article How David Beats Goliath: When Underdogs Break the Rules. Ranadivé is now co-owner and Vice Chairman of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.
The afternoon session was a dialogue on job creation in California, with Michael Rossi, the newly appointed Senior Advisor for Jobs and Business Development in the Office of the Governor, being interviewed by Matthew DeBord of KPCC radio. Rossi has his own compelling personal story, growing up in a modest household, and rising to the heights of the banking world. His affection for his alma mater, University of California, Berkeley, was touching. He is adamant that no matter how important college is to job creation, even more crucial is the need for improvement in K-12 education.
Drucker Day was not only educational for me, but also a networking paradise, as I saw old friends and met new ones. It has been nearly six years since Drucker’s death, but his spirit permeated the entire day.

Today’s post has two aims: to point towards my two recent guest posts, and to thank the people who provided me the opportunities to write them.  The more recent is An Appreciation of the Life of My Father, Paul Rosenstein (1916-2011), on Santo (Sandy) Costa’s Humanity at Work blog. My dad died at 95 on August 5th, and I think Sandy’s blog is the perfect forum for me to celebrate the life of a man whose work ethic meant that he did not retire until he was 92. Sandy has written a terrific book, also called Humanity at Work, which shows him to be a wonderful example of the Living in More Than One World principle.
In that same category is his colleague Dianne Legro, whom I got to work with during the planning for publication on the blog. She exemplifies emotional intelligence in action.
During the summer, my post Building a Framework to Embrace the New and Expand Your Horizons ran on the SLA Future Ready 365 blog. However, it started life as an entry in 2011 Best Practices for Government Libraries, the excellent publication produced and edited by Marie Kaddell of LexisNexis. Marie was also the person who chose to include it as a group of guest posts for SLA. She has provided me with writing opportunities before, including guest posts on her Government Info Pro blog, and also an entry in 2010 Best Practices for Government Libraries. And she also provided me with the opportunity to do one of my favorite author presentations, giving the keynote for a government librarians event last year at the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C., The New Face of Value: Creating and Sustaining Value in Your Professional and Personal Life.
So I am happy to begin my work week with a big thank you and shout out to the generosity of Sandy Costa, Dianne Legro and Marie Kaddell!

Living in more than one world can be demanding. One of the Peter Drucker-related life lessons I’ve applied is to revise my schedule of activities when new realities demand it. That’s why I am resuming writing my blog, after not blogging since late June.

It’s been a whirlwind summer. Shortly after my presentation at the SLA Annual Conference in Philadelphia came an intensive, six-week teaching semester for the course The Special Library/Information Center, at the Catholic University School of Library and Information Science. The students completed two major papers: a site visit at a Washington, D.C.-area special library, as well as a Virtual SLA project, in which they followed online, after the fact, and reported on the SLA Annual Conference. In one part of the paper, each student had to interview two librarians who had been at the conference, but whom they did not know previously. A major highlight of the course was the 16th Special Libraries Symposium, where a panel of local librarians met with the class and special guests to discuss their career journeys and the state-of-the-art in the profession.

While teaching I was also working on my first complete issue (the forthcoming Winter 2012, which will be out in mid-December) as Managing Editor of Leader to Leader. I’m learning a lot every day and interacting with a whole new set of people within and related to the leadership world. There are many deadlines involved, but I have always prided myself on making them in a timely fashion. In this I agree with Drucker, who once told me that “deadlines are sacred.”

Sadly, the summer also saw the illness, and eventual death, of my 95 year old father, Paul Rosenstein. His funeral, in Scranton, Pa., where I was born and raised, was a deeply moving experience. I will write more in the future about his great, long life.

Now blog writing beckons again. If anyone else had a similar experience of adapting to new schedules, demands and routines this summer, I’d love to hear about it!

It’s been nearly two weeks since I attended the one-day annual conference of American Independent Writers. And it has been more than a week since I’ve returned from presenting at the 2011 SLA Annual Conference in Philadelphia. The ALA Annual Conference is beginning in New Orleans, but I won’t be there this year. I attended last year and in 2009, when I did the first book signing for Living in More Than One World. Professional conferences are great experiences, on many levels. They are a valuable way to learn a lot about a particular discipline in a relatively short period of time. In that spirit, last year I gave a thought exercise to my students at the Catholic University School of Library and Information Science. If you could attend any conference, anywhere, that was outside your professional discipline, but in an area of interest, what would you choose? The trick here is not to get sidetracked by location. Just because a conference happens to be in a city you’d like to visit isn’t a reason for choosing it. Rather, what professional discipline outside of your field would you like to learn more about, enough that you would spend three or four days immersed in it? I think this is a worthy thought process for any knowledge worker. It allows you to consider subjects you are curious about, and gives you the opportunity for checking online to see how those disciplines present their conferences. A quick source of ideas, for academic conferences, is Conference Alerts. Ideally, you are picking a field that is a stretch in terms of your current knowledge and experience. It’s true that this is all speculative, and in reality you are not going to be transported there. But just reading through the conference information online gives you worthwhile information about topics and people important to that subject. And who knows, maybe next year you’ll take a leap of faith and attend the conference on your own?

The SLA 2011 Annual Conference in Philadelphia has been over for two days. Now, for all of us who attended and participated, the hard work starts. The theme was “Future Ready,” and if you made the most of your time, you are better placed to face the future than you were a week ago.  My contribution was Creating Your Future the Peter Drucker Way, a Wednesday morning “Spotlight Session.” There was a sense of coming full circle: a number of people raised their hand when I asked how many had attended Drucker’s keynote at the SLA Annual Conference in Los Angeles in 2002. Although I had to miss this year’s closing keynote speaker, James Kane, I found Sunday’s opening keynote by Thomas Friedman to be highly interesting and relevant for information professionals. I drew a combination of information and inspiration from Friedman and many of the other presenters, including Larry Prusak, Guy St. Clair, James Matarazzo/Toby Pearlstein and Joe Murphy/Scott Brown, whose “60 Apps in 60 Minutes” was a supercharged look at apps that can inform and enrich our personal and professional lives. There was not time to do everything (for instance, I missed the presentation by the always-interesting Stephen Abram) or to talk to everyone. But I still became friends with many interesting people and renewed friendships with others. For the second straight year, people could “virtually” participate. And I  assign the students in The Special Library/Information Center, the class I teach at The Catholic University School of Library Information Science, to monitor the conference online, after the fact, and to interview two people who attended, for one of their major papers. Whether you participate in person or online, or during or after the conference itself, the big takeaways for me are that the future can be bright for information professionals who find the proper mix of the technological and the personal, and who can apply the human touch (including Prusak’s admonition about using good judgment) while taking advantage of relevant tools. All of this is hard work that demands creativity and perseverance. SLA members and other knowledge workers have the important, ongoing task of creating the future, beginning with the actions we take today.

If you are attending the SLA Annual Conference in Philadelphia next week, I hope you’ll consider participating in the session I’ll be presenting on June 15th, from 10:00-11:30 AM, Creating Your Future the Peter Drucker Way. On this post, I’ll provide a sneak preview, and why I think it is important for information professionals to hear this message. I recently wrote a guest post for the Government Info Pro blog, 25 Years of Drucker, discussing Drucker’s role in helping to create my future when I was a library school student in 1986, leading to my 2009 book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life.  Chapter 3  is “Creating Your Future,” which begins with the following Drucker quote, from Management: Revised Edition, which I reviewed for USA TODAY in 2008: “The purpose of the work on making the future is not to decide what should be done tomorrow, but what should be done today to have a tomorrow.” He also advised to identify and take advantage of “the future that has already happened.” What are the current trends that affect your professional and personal life, and what are the implications for the future? What can you start doing right now to remain relevant in your workplace and in the profession? Many people are getting close to retirement, or could be downsized, or have their library closed down. You may decide to reinvent your life and career by tapping into your willingness to change, and learning from your existing networks and new ones you can create. Giving this presentation, which will also include my 21 minute video interview with Drucker, conducted seven months to the day before he died, at 95, in 2005, has another special meaning for me. Drucker gave one of the keynotes at the SLA Annual Conference in Los Angeles in 2002, and I interviewed him for a feature story in USA TODAY the night before his address. I’d like to think that he would be pleased that things have come full circle, and that his future-oriented ideas will have another opportunity to influence the lives of SLA members.