Internet LIbrarian 2009- Meredith Hammons

This morning, I began my sessions with the awesome title “Selling Tech to Power”. It was a group of tech savvy decision makers advising people on how to persuade administration of the benefits of using new technologies. The first speaker, Danis Kreimeier, Director of the Napa City-County library, pointed out that directors have a large number of people to report to as well, including city/county governments, Friends groups and other donors, etc. She offered a number of questions to ask oneself before beginning any initiative.
What problem are you trying to solve? Whose problem is it? Is it sustainable (i.e. if you leave, is someone else going to be able to run it?) Where does it fit into the library’s goals and objectives?
She also gave a strategy script for communicating to those in power:
1) Tell people where you are headed.
2) Give facts and statistics to support the project.
3) Give the actions you are proposing and show that you have thought them through.
4) Describe how it fits with other plans and strategies (i.e. green initiatives).
5) Take advantage of existing assets and resources.
6) Tell them how and when you’ll know it is successful.
7) Show your passion! Invite them to join you.
Danis said that she had used this script for 18 months in submitting proposals to the board and had yet to be turned down.
The second speaker, Fred Cohn, Assistant City Manager of Monterey, pointed out that technology projects are no different than other business projects. He also offered the point that when times change, we cannot keep doing the same things and expecting different results. He then emphasized the importance of marketing, which he defined as identifying and meeting needs. His primary pieces of advice were to be careful of perspective and make sure you are meeting the community’s needs and interests, not just your own and to see yourself as part of a broader organization.
The last part of the presentation allowed people in the audience to discuss previous attempts to introduce new technologies that hadn’t worked and offer suggestions of how to improve the process. The primary advice was to identify all the stakeholders and speak to their concerns and goals, do research and get concrete information, show how an iniative will save time or moeny, get allies within your organization, focus on activities with low investment and high results.
I’ve been trying to get a Facebook page for our library for several months and this presentation gave me a lot of good ideas of how to get this accepted. It will require some initial research on my part, but will be much more effective.