In praise of late adopters

I've decided to come out of the closet.

No, no, not that closet. But I need to fully confess that I am  a confirmed "late adopter." No more subterfuge, no more denial, no more embarrassment.

I am out and proud of my foot-dragging tendencies.

Most of us are familiar with the Rogers "Technology Adoption Lifecyle" popularized by Geoffrey Moore in his book Crossing the Chasm. (Info and graphic below are from Wikipedia.)

The original model was based on a study of farmers who adopted new agricultural methods. Rogers described the groups as:

• innovators - had larger farms, were more educated, more prosperous and more risk-oriented
• early adopters - younger, more educated, tended to be community leaders
• early majority - more conservative but open to new ideas, active in community and influence to neighbours
• late majority - older, less educated, fairly conservative and less socially active
• laggards - very conservative, had small farms and capital, oldest and least educated

Moore and others saw this curve with all technology adoptions.

Why am I suddenly identifying with the "older, less educated, fairly conservative and less socially active" group, Well,  I recognize that it does increasingly fit my description. As the t-shirt says, "Over the hill and picking up speed."

But really it's because last weekend I got completely disgusted at having five different goddam ends for five goddam different devices that need to be charged.

• My cell phone
• My MiFi 3G wireless router
• My iPad and iPod
• My Kindle3
• My laptop

I got more cords than a Wurlitzer organ. (Or maybe that should be chords.)

I am quite sure others in my late adopter peer group will not have to deal with this recharger nonsense; that a common "tip" for all devices must be on the horizon. All good things come to those who wait.

This lack of consistency is just one thing that makes sane people drag their feet about any technology adoption. Why should a busy teacher need to remember what charging cord goes to what do-hickey and carry a bag-full around? (Don't get me started on those kits that have several interchangeable tips, either. Expensive and lost in 30 seconds.)

Educational leaders (innovators) spend a lot of time encouraging and persuading the early adopters and even the early majority, but few pay much attention to those of us who want to make darned sure the time, effort and expense of doing something new is worth it.

We late adopters add stability to institutions in a world that changes at an unsettling rate. We demand hard evidence that the new thing is also the better thing. We recognize that there is value in some aspects of the status quo. We are more than happy to let others be on the bleeding edge and have the kinks all worked out of the system by the time we get to the new technology.

Here's my advice for getting those of us in the back of the line on the tech bus...

• Make sure it works flawlessly, every time.
• Make sure it really saves me time or makes me more productive.
• Make it as transparent as possible.
• Don't make me use so many steps I've got to write them down or keep a manual by my side.
• Have plenty of endorsements about your technology from building-level practitioners - not starry-eyed visionaries.
• Don't make be get a different charger.

Join me for Late Adopter Pride Week. I'll let you know when it is. If ever.

I "shipped" in 2010 - you can too

What did you ship in 2010?

This might be a useful exercise. Doesn't matter whether it was a hit or not, it just matters that you shipped it. Shipping something that scares you ... is the entire point.

[Funny, it's actually difficult to publish a list like this... maybe that's another reason we hesitate to ship, because we don't want to tout too much]. Seth Godin

"What did you ship?" is a great question for all of us to ask ourselves. What, beyond just doing one's job, did you accomplish (not try to do, not intend to do, not think about doing, not hope to get done, not plan to do - but actually DO) in 2010? What did you do that was a little bit scary? That you might have drawn criticism for? That may changed the world just a little bit?

Godin listed a baker's dozen of things he "shipped." I can only think of nine things I shipped outside my day job. (But then he is Seth Godin and I am not.) Here they are:

1. Presented nationally at FETC in January, the Catholic Library Association conference in April, Spotlight on Books cconference in April, Rhode Island School Library Conference in May, Newport News school library workshops in June, ISTE in June, MEMO, Sioux City school workshops, ITEC and ILA in October, North Carolina school library conference in November, and TIES in December. (If I missed somebody, I apologize!)
2. Presented internationally at the American School of Bombay's Unplugged Conference in Mumbai in February, CEESA in Estonia in March, and AAISA in Nairobi in October.
3. Presented in Second Life twice and presented using web conferencing/Skype software four times.
4. Published these articles/book chapters:
   
   1. “Changed but Still Critical: Brick and Mortar School Libraries in the Digital Age,”InterED, Association for the Advancement of International Education [AAIE], Fall 2010.
   2. Taming the Chaos, Learning & Leading with Technology, November 2010
   3. “Miles’s Library: Annotated” - chapter in Visionary: Leaders for Information compiled by Dr. Arthur Winzenried from the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, Australia.
   4. Information, Communications, and Technology (ICT) Skills Curriculum Based on the Big6 Skills Approach to Information Problem-Solving. 2010 with Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz.
   5. Guidelines for Educators Using Social and Educational Networking Sites (with Jen Hegna) Library Media Connection, March/April  2010.
   6. “Censorship by Omission”  Library Media Connection, January/February 2010.
   7. “Computing in the Clouds” Leading & Learning, Dec/Jan 2009/10
5. Published these columns:
   1. “What Does a Good Library Tell You About a School?” Head for the Edge column, Library Media Connection, November 2010.
   2. “The E-Book Non-Plan” Head for the Edge column, Library Media Connection, October 2010.
   3. “School Libraries as Third Place” Head for the Edge column, Library Media Connection, August/September 2010.
   4. “Gone Missing” Head for the Edge column, Library Media Connection, May/Juel 2010.
   5. “Don’t Confuse Social Networking with Educational Networking” Head for the Edge column, Library Media Connection, March/April 2010.
   6. “21st Century Libraries and 20th Century Schools” Head for the Edge column, Library Media Connection, January/February 2010.
6. Published 265 blog entries.
7. Spoke at my local Kiwanis club on hiking and e-books, chaired a club foundation board and servered as club webmaster/photographer.
8. Hiked NZ's Abel Tasman coast with my son in April and summitted Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro in October.
9. Got a physical, walked 3 miles a day, 4-5 times for about 80% of all weeks; and lost 20 pounds.

OK, I will admit that writing and speaking and most of this stuff is more fun for me than work. I don't have small children or other dependents to care for. My day job doesn't require much overtime. I don't play golf, fish, or square dance. My Saturday and Sunday mornings and many an evening are spent writing and reading and designing presentations and workshops. I have, through just plain dumb-luck, very good health, a supportive wife, an interesting job and great co-workers, and lots of opportunities to speak and consult.

I personally measure my days not whether they were happy or unhappy, but whether they were productive or unproductive. Did I have a fruitful conversation or meeting? Did I get something finished? Did I write something worth sharing? Did I read something challenging? Did I do an hour's worth of physical activity? Did I clean up a mess, revise an article, or organize something for the future? Did I do something that made my own life or someone else's just a tad better?

All of us need to "ship" - do more than is necessary on our jobs and professions (especially librarians and tech integration specialists), at home (as spouse/partners/parents/grandparents), and for ourselves (exercise, healthy eating, recreation, and the occasional reward). I am by nature a lazy person of middling intellect - so if I can ship, you can ship.

What did you ship in 2010 and what will you ship in 2011?

BFTP: The gift of creativity

A Saturday Blue Skunk "feature" will be the revision of an old post. I am calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. This post originally appeared December  26, 2005.

Toys opened last night. Roboraptor was a huge hit. I did not know it, but it was on 4-year-old Paulie's wish list, but vetoed by his mom and dad as too expensive. Paul was so excited he could barely talk (which is almost impossible for that little chatterbox). The cats see the robot as their own very large squeaky toy with a tail that is eminently bat-able.

For Paul some toys become "real." They are beings with back stories and are worthy of care and concern. His vivid imagination and  storytelling ability regarding them is seemingly limitless. Whether the subject is his invisible sister Jessica (for whom we must leave the bathroom door open), Snakey his favorite giant blue rubber snake, or now Roboraptor, each of the characters in Paul's mental world has dozens of details that come directly from somewhere in his creative center. As a grandfather, it's difficult not to think Paul is a uniquely talented boy of superior genetic make-up, but my experience is that all children are inherently creative. And we then do our best as educators to bleed it from them.

Of course educators pay a lot of lip service to encouraging creativity in our students, but do we really? Creativity seems to have been relegated to art classes. (See Concerns about Creativity.) Oh, we throw in a "fun" writing assignment among the three paragraph expository essays, but most of the time we discourage originality through stay-within-the-line rules, one-right-answer tests, must-be-followed templates, and praise for conformity.

If I had one wish for Paul and all students this coming year, it would be that every teacher builds the expectation of creative thinking and communication into each assignment.

Such a wish is not just fuzzy, feel-good claptrap. From BusinessWeek Online's Best of 05: The Way To Succeed In The Creative Economy: Innovate

The Knowledge Economy is giving way to the Creative Economy. Information has become a commodity like coal or corn. People once thought that superiority in technology and information would ease the economic pain of outsourcing manufacturing to Asia. But it turns out that a good deal of knowhow--software writing, accounting, legal work, engineering--can be outsourced to places like India, China, and Eastern Europe, too.

The solution: Focus on innovation and design as the new corporate core competencies. To prosper, companies have to constantly change the game in their industries by creating products and services that satisfy needs consumers don’t even know they have yet. That’s how loyalty is built. Mastering new design methods and learning new innovation metrics are the keys to corporate success, if not survival. Smart companies now have a senior-level executive charged with driving innovation or sparking creativity. Perhaps it’s even the CEO.

(We've heard this from Daniel Pink too.) 

I won't pretend to know enough about best practices in science, social studies, language arts or math to suggest how original thinking might be added to these areas, but one place where librarians do have influence is in information literacy and technology projects. So how might we spark, rather than discourage, creativity in research and when using technology with kids? Along with standing by my suggestions in Designing Research Projects Students (and Teachers) Love, I'd propose some rather simple actions:

1. Banning clip art.  Or at least asking that clip art be modified.
2. Encouraging a visual representations of concepts as a part of all assignments.
3. Asking for the narrative voice when writing and for storytelling when giving oral presentations.
4. Integrating more technology into art and music classes - and more art and music into technology projects.
5. Asking for multiple possible answers to questions or multiple possible solutions to problems.
6. Giving points for "design" or formatting on all assignments - more than just "neatness counts."
7. Instead of simply marking a response "wrong," asking for a reason why the answer was given.

I know, easy to do is easy to say. But I can hope. Your ideas for encouraging creativity?