The Green Kangaroo

Of the content meetings I attend from time to time, one of the most interesting is the annual conference of the World Future Society, which met in Toronto at the end of July. It's a small conference by ALA standards -- taking place entirely in one hotel. That said, it is always very international -- this year with delegates from 34 countries. The organizational and professional background range is equally broad -- education, engineering, design, librarianship, criminology, financial services, government, association management, and so on. There are also people who think of themselves as futurists -- by training, orientation and practice. Given this diversity, the opportunity for different perspectives -- even profound disagreement -- is large. I go to have my perspective shifted, to be jolted out of an habitual way of thinking about something, to attend a session on something I didn't know I'd find interesting.

Plenary session speakers ranged from David M. Walker, the U.S. Comptroller General, who opened the conference, along with reporter and editor Joel Garreau, to inventor Ray Kurzweil.

In between, there were as many interesting sessions as I could absorb. I also shared panel duty with an association colleague, Marsha Rhea (Anticipate the World You Want; Learning for Alternative Futures, from Scarecrow Education)and Chris Lowry from BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) in Toronto, who distributed a interesting list of "Resources for Sustainability Education, K-12." Being on this panel gave me an opportunity to point an audience of primarily educators to the March 2006 report of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Results that Matter: 21st Century Skills and High School Reform. (The American Association of School Librarians is a member of the group and AASL's announcement of the report provides a clear statement of the link to school library media centers.)

Recapping the whole meeting exceeds my present capacity -- but here are some of the references, ideas and sources I've added to my list...

- Artin Kiani, a student from Vancouver, talked about facuty-student "cyber salons" on critical issues. You can check this live project at the Applied Foresight Network site.

- Thomas Frey from the Da Vinci Institute, whose paper on "The Future of Libraries" caused some stir on discussion lists earlier this year, teamed with William Crossman (VIVO)for a discussion on "The Future of Libraries." So, I was extremely happy to find myself in a meeting room with a lot of librarians -- from public, academic and school libraries -- to get our voice into that discussion. Thanks to all of you who were there and added your voices to the debate! It's important for us to be in this discussion.

- In the category of "presentations I didn't know I wanted to hear" -- but found interesting -- Stan Gibson from the Ecologos Institute in Mississauga did a quick presentation on his idea for reinventing regional action to advance a "just and sustainable" future. Even at 7:00pm, it was interesting. (Even by ALA's high standards, the futurist crowd attends sessions! This was one of a wide array of quick, half-hour programs at 7:00pm on a Saturday night, preceding a later two-hour session. With my meeting planner hat on, I wasn't optimistic -- but sessions were well attended.)

- Futurist Wendy Schultz, who has presented at library events, pointed us to some interesting sites to explore (here,here and here). She urged us to "get loopy" or to think in "geodesic" -- not linear -- terms. Other people in this session -- mostly focusing on digital communication strategies -- were Wayne Pethrick from The Futures Lab in Australia and Joseph Tankersley, senior show writer with Walt Disney Imagineering. This was a lively discussion ranging from graphic novels, to wikis to games to literacy in a visual age. Ideas from the mix... Don't be blinded to new communication options -- and needs -- by "the tyranny of text." In literacy, we need to be teaching - -and learning -- how to "deconstruct" images. Try "backcasting" -- what are the elements, how did we get here, what assumptions were made.... An interesting turn-of-phrase I'm still pondering -- "innovative familiarity." We are telling stories -- always. We need to put the technology in the service of the storytelling, in the service of the participants. Be inclusive. Let the audience be proactive -- not reactive. We need to provide "sturdy handrails to the future" for our members, our staff, our users. Another site to check is that of the Media Ecology Association (MEA). (It's true; there's an association for everything.)

- David Pearce Snyder, The Futurist contributing editor, did two sessions. In the first, he focused on the transformative nature of current information technology: "Open-Knowledge + Groupware = Communities of Collaboration." Among other points, he connected the decreasing cost of gathering information and flattening or disaggregation of organizations (virtual, vs. vertical, integration), pointing to the work of Nobel economist Ronald Coase (and Coase's Law). In his second talk ("The Future is a Funny Place") he posited four "futurist" mindsets: the discounters (nothing's certain, have a contingency plan, "muddle through"), the extrapolators (extend the trends), the modelers (scenarios, simulations) and goal-setters (big initiatives, critical path, leadership, with roughly 40% of us in the 1st category, 30% in the 2nd, 20% in the 3rd and 10% in the last. Working with this framework, he managed to cover a lot of ground. Many of David Pearce Snyder's speeches are posted; these are not yet -- but likely will be. Check here.

Finally, Ray Kurzweil also made two presentations -- a late Saturday evening talk (which did entail getting hotel staff to expand a room, when people simply refused to abandon the full-to-capacity session) and the closing plenary. In both sessions, he used a succession of logarithmic graphs to show why you can see change coming -- but, because we tend to use linear graphs, we experience it as "coming out of nowhere." Samples of his charts are in the Wikipedia article on Kurzweil. Among other points he made, the current changes "will go into hyperdrive," when we master the underlying processes (Think about the new 2.0 ways of working together.) By 2020, "information technology" will be most of the economy. With a heavy focus on bio-technology and artificial intelligence, Kurzweil pushes hard on the limits of my "futures" thinking.

For those who may be interested, the 2007 meeting will be in Minneapolis, July 29-31 -- and the process for submitting a proposal is here. You're taking libraries, information literacy and learning into the future. Be heard here. This is a diverse group of people trying to look seriously at our future and how the choices we make -- in our personal, professional and civic lives -- might make a difference.

In Ottawa for the Canadian Library Association, doing meetings, sessions and networking -- all the things one does at a conference -- on the one hand, and finishing work for ALA Annual on the other... It makes for a full life.

CLA president Barbara Clubb (Ottawa Public Library) reminded us that we come together in conference to "gather courage and energy." A good way to think about it. Ian Wilson, Library and Archives Canada, talked about libraries as part of the "intellectual infrastructure of our communities," and a member of the Canadian Parliament focused on the importance of the "documentary evidence of who we are as a society" built and preserved by libraries.

After the opening session greetings,association and governmental,in English and in French, CLA opened with a really fine father-son presentation by Stephen and Avi Lewis. Stephen Lewis is currently the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV in Africa. In 2005 he was on Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world. His son, Avi Lewis, is a documentary filmmaker and broadcaster -- particularly in music journalism. Led by Avi, their opening session was an unscripted conversation about generational differences in activism and strategies for social change. My note-taking suffered somewhat from my absorption in the conversation.

They started off with Stephen's observation -- in response to Avi's question about why he stayed engaged with institutions -- that he had grown up with the tradition of "engaging with an institution to try to save it from itself" and that to really support an institution or organization you have to have a critical relationship with it. Avi noted his decision, on completing university, that it might be more "subversive" to work within the media than within politics.

From there they ranged widely over global politics and economics before settling into the question of why and how activism and the "impulse to try to save the world" come to be handed down from parent to child. Avi noted he grew up surrounded by a "Don Quixote ethic." They discussed the importance of reading aloud and both agreed that books and reading "reformatted our minds," and gave them a different sense of the "possibility of change." Stephen talked about William Steig's books as a "testament to appropriate human behavior." Avi noted that the books his father read him "dignified the act of empathy." This legacy of activism, these values had to be "fashioned into a narrative." "There's a shape to what we do," and we learn and transmit knowledge in stories.

Pushing to identify a "most important" issue, both father and son pointed to global weather change -- noting Jared Diamond's book (Collapse), AL Gore's new film and The Weather Makers. (Stephen Lewis had a "can't remember the author" moment on the latter -- I'm sympathetic. It may possibly be Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Cllimate and What It Means for Life on Earth.)

As the conversation drew to a close, Avi asked his father "why do you keep fighting when things are getting worse?" Stephen's response was that he saw no real choice, that "futility leads nowhere."

It was a fascinating and engaging conversation -- even well past dinnertime at the end of a long day. From the perspective of a conference planner, this was a high-risk format for an opening session -- and it was exactly right, with real heart and intellect. Congratulations, CLA.

OK. I admit it. I like footnotes and bibliographies. In preparation for a meeting next week, I just finished reading a new book by the meeting facilitator -- master mediator Mark Gerzon. (Leading Through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differences into Opportunities) Sometimes a book slides right into the middle of a number of things you're working on -- and this was one of those times.

One of the trails I've marked in my greenroo space is the whole area of civic engagement/community dialogue/deliberative democracy -- whatever words you want to use -- and the role of libraries, including maybe particularly "2.0 libraries," in fostering it. Conflict -- between priorities, between individuals, between perspectives -- is always a part of my space, and yours too. Another of those trails through my space is the whole "2.0" concept itself.

Looking beyond technology, communication seems very much at the core of "2.0" concepts. Gerzon makes a strong case for "conscious conversation," for being "mindful" of the way we choose to speak and to listen. He focuses a lot on listening. "True listening involves entering into the perspective of another human being. For this reason, it can be frightening because it is a step into the unknown. It is much easier to listen defensively, particularly when there is conflict, than to listen with an open heart."

Focusing on listening caused me to step sideways to another of my trails -- storytelling -- and to a powerful experience at the ASAE (the association of association execs)conference last summer. I attended a session on storytelling. We were working in pairs, alternating between telling a story and listening. As listeners, we were specifically charged to do nothing except listen with 100% of our attention. No critiquing. No thinking about your response, your dinner plans, your email. Just listening with your whole attention. We were asked later to comment on the experience. Many of us went immediately "under cover" and said something that sounded "appropriate." One brave person just laid it out. She said she had never before had that experience of true attention -- of being listened to, being heard. Her quiet comment came with a force that hurt.

I've thought of that statement many times since then. This seems to me to be one of the real challenges in this 2.0 world and one of the factors in "radical trust." We all want to be heard. That sense is palpable in daily interactions, in a read of almost any day's blog postings, in the media. But even in a 2.0 world, there are still only 24 hours in a day, only 7 days in a week. At the end of the day, who did I fail to really hear, with full attention and an "open heart," because I was also trying to work on my reply, keep up with another conversation or think about another problem? If I read your post, but don't take the time to think through a thoughtful comment, how do you know I "heard" you? How do I know I've really, deeply "heard"? I don't have any answers here -- in case you're waiting -- but only a need to move this up higher on my "work on this" list.

But, I started this post with footnotes. Buried in the footnotes for this book is a lengthy quote from Hal Saunders of the Kettering Foundation, writing about the distinction between negotiation and dialogue: "...The aim of dialogue is a changed relationship....The outcome of dialogue is to create new human and political capacities to solve problems....Dialogue may change relationships in ways that create new grounds for mutual respect and collaboration." So, there we are, back at 2.0 concepts. Sounds like a foundation for "radical trust," perhaps.

Oh yes, and the bibliography is rich, too. Good bibliographies, footnotes, references shared in blogs....these are all among the reasons my "stuff to read" list grows faster than my "have read" list.