As promised in an earlier post, I’m putting together a final wrap-up post from last week’s Project Compass National Convening, which took place at the Sheraton National, in Arlington, Virginia. The purpose of the two-day event, which gathered library professionals from all 50 states, was to continue the work begun in 2009, helping to shift mindsets and help build necessary skills and help libraries increase capacity in order to be key catalysts in America’s workforce recovery. Continue reading
Category Archives: PCNC-2012
Thursday morning coming down/PCNC 2012 getaway day
Today is getaway day after a very full day yesterday, at the Project Compass National Convergence 2012.
So, what happens when you stick someone like me, a non-librarian; someone with his patchwork background in workforce development, a writer and publisher, with a strong entrepreneurial bent, as well as someone that understands how to partner and the value that comes from one’s personal network–smack dab into the middle of 200+ librarians for two days? I’m not entirely sure, but I think I’ll be able to better answer that later, when I finally put together my final wrap-up post, which will probably go up late Sunday, or early Monday.
As of this moment, Thursday morning before sunrise, on the 10th floor of the Sheraton National, here’s how I see it, so far. Continue reading
Gary Golden-professional futurist
[This was a live-blog of Gary Golden’s keynote at PCNC 2012. I’ve gone back and edited it slightly, mainly for grammar and flow.–jpb]
Gary Golden is a futurist. Apparently traveling to the future is good, because he looks very young. Golden’s card does read “futurist.”
What does a “futurist” do? According to Golden, futurist thinking is grounded in sociology. This field grew out of a NASA program, which attempted to look forward and try to predict social change. This brand of thinking looks at how society adapts to change, and in part, how individuals address change. Golden mentions that a futurist tries to introduce some “structure” to change.
A futurist is interested in understanding how the world is changing and seeks to address these issues from the “outside/in.” According to Golden, often, institutions are trying to address change from inside/out, which doesn’t work and leads to problems. Perhaps this is why the last 20-30 years has been so bumpy in the U.S. (my own point of view). Continue reading
PCNC 2012-Off and running
Let the convening begin!
