OLA Staff + Innovation Summer Camp

Yesterday, Robin and I ran an innovation workshop for staff at the Ontario Library Association. Typically, we run workshops with librarians at libraries, so working with the largest library association in Canada was an interesting twist. In addition to our usual innovation stuff, our session really focused on playing (and working) together. Since it was summer we decided to adopt a summer camp theme and kept the afternoon fairly informal (not that we’re ever really formal). OLA has a great group of people who jumped right in – see for yourself:

 

Innovation Summer Camp

The main event for Innovation Summer Camp with the OLA staff was a rapid prototyping exercise. Their task was to rethink the SuperConference experience; in particular, to build a registration desk that matched the conference theme they were assigned. Basically, they were asked to be obsessive about incorporating the theme into all elements of SuperConference (translation: move beyond the content of the sessions or the graphics for the program). Here’s what they came up with:

 

UTM Library “Futures Ready”

Last Friday, Robin and I had the opportunity to travel down the highway to do a short IBC workshop with the library staff at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Susan Senese had attended our Spring session in Jordan and wanted to put some of the staff through the same basic workshop. Our session focused on divergent and convergent thinking (with a lot of laughter thrown in).

It was great to facilitate a group of people who seem to genuinely enjoy working (and playing) together. The enthusiasm and engagement from the UTM library staff was truly the reason for the successful event. Enjoy the pics!

We couldn’t have done it without our fearless UTM Library facilitators. Thanks Susan, Mindy, & Candy! Best of luck with your futures planning!

 

Spring Conference

The last conference on the IBC agenda is the ACRL Western New York and Ontario Spring Conference. This year ACRL WNY/O also invited OCULA librarians to a conference centre in Jordan, Ontario (Niagara region). This one day event offers a single-stream for participants (no concurrent sessions), so we had about 65 participants for a 3-hour afternoon workshop.

We kept the fitness theme for this event, but we switched up the activities a little bit (facilitating 65 people is a lot different than facilitating 24). We split the afternoon into two parts: divergent thinking activities and convergent thinking activities. By the end we had flip chart paper everywhere (we weren’t allowed to tape them to the walls) and people were exhausted (us included!).

It was a great session. Special thanks to Randy Oldham and Sarah Barriage for helping me facilitate the activities.

Also, thanks to Jennifer Peters-Lise (Seneca College) for helping us make all of the arrangements and answering my last minute questions!

 

Preconference Participant’s thoughts

Here’s a great blog post from one of our ACRL preconference participants. Jenica also runs an interesting library-themed blog: http://www.attemptingelegance.com/?m=201103

 

Showtime

On the morning of the preconference we were up bright and early setting up the room and posting signs around the conference centre (some of which we may have forgotten to take down). The day was full of energy and went by very quickly. We had participants from across the U.S. (obviously) but we also had some folks from South Africa and the Netherlands too – of course, they loved our Canadian accents – we’re an endearing bunch, eh.

For some photos check out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattymarbles/tags/acrl2011/

 

ACRL 2011 Training Manual

Since the IBC preconference session was a full-day, we decided to create a “training manual” for each participant. Basically, this manual functioned as a workbook for the activities and for personal reflection. It worked really well and showed off our adapted logo:

 

ACRL 2011 in Philly

At the end of April we delivered a full-day preconference experience for people interested in Innovation Boot Camp. We dropped the military metaphor and stylish camouflage in favour of a fitness metaphor with track jackets, stopwatches and whistles. We put 24 people through the paces with shorter “circuit training” activities in the morning, and a longer “rapid prototyping” build challenge in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, Robin Bergart was unable to make the trip, but Randy Oldham and Robin Sakowski (original IBC recruits) were there to pick up the slack.

 

IBC: Test drive for ACRL

Through February and March we spent a lot of time planning our full-day preconference session for ACRL 2011 in Philly. A long time ago we proposed a preconference session, but when we were actually accepted, Robin and I just looked at each other and said, “now what?” – such is the blessing and the curse of IBC I guess.

We started out with a rough idea about what we wanted to accomplish and slowly refined it. In the end we did 16 drafts of the presentation. Part of our process was testing out the activities on some of our local guinea pigs (the staff here are wonderfully tolerant of our efforts). We tried everything from blindfold drawing to sticky note brainstorming. In the end we kept some activities and cut others. These test sessions really did help us improve the overall presentation – so thanks to all who came out (you know who you are)!

 

IBC @ U of Waterloo

After the Ontario Library Association conference, we were invited by Nancy Collins at the University of Waterloo to give a session at their Librarians’ Association speaker series. Since the Guelph and Waterloo libraries have a tight relationship, we were happy to oblige. We discussed the IBC program and put the UW librarians through some fun activities (e.g. our straw build and a Madlibs activity). As you can see from the straw structures, working at a school known for its engineering prowess does appear to have its advantages…

Thanks to Nancy and the group of good sports at Waterloo for coming out (and for lunch!)