First, yes, I missed yesterday. Considering I got more than half way through the month before missing a post I’m not too upset by it. So, on to today’s post…
Emily over at Shelf Check (yes, she did end up reposting the original Shelf Check #420) has written a great post titled “What would you do if you didn’t need the approval of 15 committees?” Take a moment and read it. There’s a lot to think about here.
I don’t want to get too much into detail about how things work at the Nebraska Library Commission but lately I’ve felt like that too many of my ideas have needed to get the input and/or approval of too many people. A few times this month I’ve wanted to just look people in the eye and say “you know, I do know what I’m talking about.” (I’ve done it indirectly but that’s me just wanting to avoid conflict.)
However, we’re starting an internal staff blog here at the commission and is was my idea. I’ve been running this concept a little different from the beginning. Before proposing it I did get lots of input. Just not input from everyone. I did propose it to a committee but one that doesn’t meet all that often and in my opinion doesn’t seem to overanalyze things; they just decide if something needs to be done or not and then schedules an event to cover it. Then, last week the director came into my office and said “Let’s go ahead. Do whatever you need to do.” Music to my ears.
My hopes is that the new blog will be up and running by the end of the month. I’m also trying to convince people not to even think about it before it’s running. What I don’t want to happen is long discussion of what should or should not be posted to the blog, or how things should be tagged/categorized, or what template should be used. Why, because it can all be changed in seconds should we decide something’s not working.
Ultimately, I hope that this project will be an organic process. I’ll plant the seed and see what grows. It might be a success, it might not. But what I can guarantee is that it won’t die by committee before it even gets started.
