When I received the brochure in the mail in November for the 2007 SLA Leadership Summit, I knew I wanted to attend. And not because it was going to be held in Reno! The keynote topics and speakers were “Made to Stick: Six Hooks of Successful Ideas” by Chip Heath and “Leadership and You: Tackling the Dragon” by Ken Haycock. Both looked excellent.

I was debating whether I could afford to spend the time and the money to attend when a posting appeared on the SLA-ILINFO email list: the Chapter was offering a stipend for one member to attend. I started writing my application immediately, and at the Holiday Party I found out I had won the stipend. (And no, it was not given to me all in quarters.)

Off to Reno

The summit had several good sessions and a lot of opportunities to network. Networking at the annual conferences often means walking around receptions clutching a wine glass, working up the occasional courage to introduce yourself to someone, only to find you have nothing to talk about. Not at the Leadership Summit.

There were 200 to 300 people attending for the Summit, including people from outside North America. This is an event geared towards leadership development for those in Association leadership positions, but is open for anyone to attend. This was my first Leadership Summit and I found it both enjoyable and useful. The two days were filled with sessions including the excellent keynotes by Chip Heath and Ken Haycock. On Thursday evening, there was a wine-tasting reception held in one of the hotel restaurants sponsored by SLA and the Sierra Nevada Chapter.

I met someone on the planning committee for the 2008 Annual Conference in Seattle. I talked to vendor representatives. I met other Chapter and Division leaders from all over the world. Unfortunately the packed program schedule doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for this kind of networking activity.

Sticky Messages

Chip Heath was excellent in talking about creating "sticky messages." As information professionals, he warned us of “The Curse of Knowledge,” (try imagining what it would be like to not know what you know) and a more familiar problem, information overload. We have to be on the alert for these and other problems when we try to create our sticky messages. The formula to remember for creating sticky messages is:

S -- Simple
U -- Unexpected
C -- Concrete
C -- Credible
E -- Emotional
S -- Stories

To find out more, read the book that he and his brother (Dan) wrote, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

After a book-signing of Made to Stick by Chip Heath (I got my copy!), Betty Jo Hibbard spoke on “Communicating Your Message.” She reminded us to focus our message on our customers and their needs. We each created our own 30-second elevator speech to practice at the networking lunch that day and to take home.

After lunch SLA President Rebecca Vargha and CEO Janice Lachance spoke about SLA’s 2006 accomplishments and what’s coming up in 2007. A few things to take note of are:

• Information Outlook’s new look
• A content rights management course developed jointly by SLA and the SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association
• Some new ClickU developments including quarterly updates by Gary Price and ebrary titles available to SLA members.

Donna Scheeder then led a nearly two-hour session on running effective meetings. The time included a 15-minute exercise where each table got to have a mini-meeting, attempting to use some of the things that we learned in the session.

To A Better Future

Friday morning we started off with professor and director of the School of Library and Information Science at San José State University, Ken Haycock’s keynote presentation, “Leadership and You: Tackling the Dragon.” He spoke about the differences between management and leadership, and suggested four competencies for leadership: managing attention; managing meaning; managing trust; and managing oneself. He defined leadership with the phrase “Great leaders rally people to a better future.”

The rest of Friday much of the content was focused on the inner workings of the Association and new initiatives. Two notable projects are:

• Designing and implementing a new Association management system from Euclid and
• Embarking on a strategic realignment of the Association.
  

The first is a new enterprise management system and will be used not only by headquarters but by the leaders of all of the units. It should provide a lot of functionality and help to streamline operations, especially relating to keeping track of our membership. We received a presentation during lunch on the system and there was also a focus group in the afternoon. The system is being designed now and will be implemented later this year.

The second is a new effort to understand how to market SLA to information professionals and those that we interact with. There was a lively discussion about this. Watch out for more information soon from headquarters.

See and Be Seen

Why attend the Leadership Summit? I can say that I found several benefits:

• As an elected or appointed officer at the Association, Division, or other unit level, or for someone interested in being one, this is a great opportunity to understand the Association workings and meet the people responsible for many aspects of keeping things going.
• It provides an opportunity to meet many people also new to the whole thing and many with various levels of experience in Association activities as well as the profession without the overwhelming aspects of the annual conference.
• The Summit is an excellent platform upon which to build one’s skills, contact base, and toolkit of capabilities that can definitely be utilized in current and future workplace situations.
• And it enables attendees to become known over time and build a reputation for possible future leadership roles.

Please consider attending the Leadership Summit next year, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Reach Katrina Perez at katrina.perez@dbr.com.