Tips and techniques from Made to Stick, Weird Ideas That Work, and the Art of Woo. Apply these tips to help librarians get support for innovation in their organizations.

1. Persuasion,
Influence, Innovation
(despite barriers)
Internet Librarian 2009

2. Rebecca Jones
Partner, Dysart & Associates
rebecca@dysartjones.com
Nicole Hennig
Web Manager & Usability Specialist
MIT Libraries
hennig@mit.edu

3. Get the slides
slideshare.net/nic221/presentations

4. Want to innovate?

5. But having
trouble with
naysayers?

6. Your situation
• bureaucracy
• shrinking budgets
• staff who resist
change
• micro-managers

7. Research-based tips

8. Made to Stick
• Chip Heath, professor at
Stanford
• Dan Heath, Researcher,
Harvard Business School

9. Sticky ideas
• Simple
• Unexpected
• Concrete
• Credible
• Emotional
• Story

10. Unexpectedness
• Break expectations

11. Masaru Ibuka
Transistors

12. Masaru Ibuka
Transistors + Radios

13. “pocketable radio”

14. Radio

15. 1957 - first “pocketable radio”

16. Tell stories
• stories as simulation
• stories as inspiration

17. The conference storybook

18. “The curse of knowledge”

20. Weird Ideas That Work
Robert
Sutton
Professor at
Stanford
Engineering
School

21. Skyline - IDEO
Story of IDEO and the thousands of toy ideas. Develop 4,000 ideas, turn 230 into prototypes,
sell about 12. They keep showing ideas to potential customers.

22. Hotel hangers
Brendan Boyle, designer from IDEO prototyped hanger tops so people could use hotel
hangers at home. Top half of a hanger with a small “slit” for the ball, so you can use it at
home. Never used it, but it’s a charming failure.

23. Reward success & failure,
punish inaction
• Innovation comes from
quantity.
(in my next talk:
how to make it safe to fail)

24. Art of Woo
• G. Richard Shell, professor,
Wharton School
• Mario Moussa, faculty,
Wharton School

25. Jodi Thompson & Cali Ressler
ROWE - Best Buy

26. We have more autonomy as college
students than we do in the modern
workplace.

27. Jodi Thompson & Cali Ressler had the idea, they worked with mid-level managers to try it out
under the radar. Gathered data & testimonials for two years before approaching skeptical
senior managers. Resonated with the culture, used language the managers could understand
(data).

29. Foot in the door
• Find the right
audience
• One small step
• Under the radar
• Speak the language of
those you want to
convince.

30. MIT Libraries Betas
Modeled after
Google Labs

33. "I don't understand why people
are scared of new ideas. I'm
scared of the old ones."
-John Cage

34. Inspired by

35. You’re invited to:

36. Get the slides
slideshare.net/nic221/presentations

37. Image credits
• Tag cloud made with wordle.net from Twitter feed
@nic221
by Nicole Hennig
• skeptical mannequin, Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremybrooks/
3575446260/
• 2.0, Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dasistdasende/
3302462199/
• Dilbert sunflower, Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smallbox/778670401/
• MIT Libraries betas: http://libraries.mit.edu/betas