The document outlines a presentation given at the 2010 LOEX of the West conference on innovation in learning libraries. It discusses how the University of Guelph Library is fostering a culture of innovation through organizational renewal, including transitioning to functional teams. It describes an "Innovation Boot Camp" run by the library using Tom Kelley's book on the 10 faces of innovation as a framework to teach creative problem solving skills. The goal is to build staff capacity for innovation as the library adapts to tighter budgets.

1. Innovation: The Language of Learning Libraries
LOEX of the West 2010
Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta
June 10‐12, 2010
Presenters
M.J. D’Elia (mdelia@uoguelph.ca)
Learning and Curriculum Support Librarian
University of Guelph
Randy Oldham (roldham@uoguelph.ca)
Web Development Librarian
University of Guelph
Robin Bergart (in absentia) (rbergart@uoguelph.ca)
User Experience Librarian
University of Guelph
Objectives for this presentation
1. Understand the importance of innovative practice within learning
organizations
2. Learn simple strategies to foster more innovative thinking in your
organization
3. Recognize the value of play to productivity
Free Association Game (Instructions)
• In small groups, answer the following question: How is a library like _______?
• Fill in the blanks with one of the following words: Airport, submarine, gas
station and garage, spa or salon, hotel, hospital, tattoo parlour, orchestra,
research laboratory, ski resort, farmers’ market, amusement park, hockey
arena, cargo van, police station, farm
• In 2 minutes, brainstorm as many similarities between libraries and these
objects/places as possible
Free Association Game (Purpose)
• Simple activity to get participants to practice their lateral thinking – forces
participants to look for connections or free associations between seemingly
unrelated objects
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2. • Shifts the mood and signifies to the participants that they are in for
something different (and that’s okay)
• Can reveal a more interesting picture of the objects that are being free
associated
• Highlights the importance of looking outside our industry (libraries) for
solutions to the problem (too often we focus on what other libraries are
doing and we miss broader trends in other industries)
University of Guelph (http://www.uoguelph.ca/)
• Mid‐sized teaching and research institution
• Undergraduate, graduate and professional programs
• Over 22,000 students
McLaughlin Library (http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/)
• Primary library on campus
• Sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts
• Busy hub on campus – 11,000+ visitors each day during the academic year
• 120+ staff members, approximately 23 librarians
McLaughlin Library: Organizational Renewal & Innovation
• Transitioning from a liaison librarian model to a functional team model
o Need to be more flexible and responsive
o Need to do more with fewer resources
o To be more strategic in the face of tighter budgets
• Revisited some of the Library’s defining documents as part of the renewal
process (e.g. our core values, our mission, our service philosophy, etc.)
o Administration involved staff at all levels right from the beginning as
we attempted to shape the future of the organization
• Recognition that innovation is one of the Library’s core values – yet too many
staff members believed that they weren’t innovative or creative
o Need to combat the belief that creativity is an innate ability and
cannot be learned
o Building our capacity for innovation and creative problem solving will
be essential as we move forward
• For more information on the Organizational Renewal check out:
o http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/about/organizational_renewal.cfm
o http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/about/components/documents/organiz
ational_renewal_2009.pdf
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3. Key Questions: Innovation Initiatives
• If we’re going to push ourselves to be more innovative in our practice, then
we have to address a number of key questions:
o Can everyone learn to be creative?
o Can innovation be developed and nurtured, like a habit of mind, or a
discipline?
o If so, what might that environment look like?
o What does innovation mean in a library?
o Is there an inherent tension between a library’s mandate to control
information and the chaos that comes with disruptive innovation?
o What’s the difference between promoting creativity in a person and in
a group?
o How do leaders best promote creativity?
o Does more a more innovative library in fact better support student
learning?
Innovation Boot Camp
• Operated a 12‐week social experiment called Innovation Boot Camp
• Adopted a military metaphor (including camouflage) because:
o We wanted to be disciplined in our training (like military boot camp)
o Inherent tension between the chaos that often comes with creativity
and the regimented order that comes with the military
• Delivered an open call to the library and recruited six individuals
• Spent 2 hours every Friday afternoon for an entire semester some creativity
experiments and learning together
• Used Tom Kelley’s book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, to structure the
program
o Kelley works at IDEO (http://www.ideo.com/), a fairly well‐known
international design consulting firm
o Divides the ten faces into three categories:
 Learning personas
 Organizing personas
 Building personas
o Presents a broad perspective of the types of personas required for
innovative thinking (enabled us to see what we’re good at, but also
where we’re lacking)
o The goal of the book is not to identify with a single face, it is to become
aware of the faces needed to generate and execute good ideas
o At times you may play multiple roles on a given team, or you may play
one role on one team and a different one on the other
o While you may inherently lean toward one “face”, you can develop
skills and abilities in the other faces
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4.
The 10 Faces of Innovation: Short Overview
Learning personas
• Description: Information gatherers
• Purpose: To help the organization avoid becoming too internally focused
• Responsibilities:
o Gather new sources of information
o Openly question assumptions
o Remain open to new insights (regardless of the source)
• Credo: Enemy of complacency
The Anthropologist
• Develops a deep understanding of how people interact
• Observes human behaviour with products, services and spaces
• Watches subjects in their natural environment
• Key phrase:
o “fresh eyes” – it’s about seeing things for the first time like a tourist in
a foreign place
The Experimenter
• Learns by trial and error; takes calculated risks
• Continually prototyping and product‐testing new ideas
• Expect to fail often, but failing early leads to faster and better solutions
• Key phrases:
o “experimentation as implementation”
o “thinking by doing”; “thinking with your hands”
The Cross­Pollinator
• Explores other industries and cultures
• Translates findings from other environments into the current context
• Efforts are focused externally
• Nurtures curiosity; explores adjacencies
• Key phrases:
o “connect cultures”; “work the metaphor” – every object has the
capacity to stand for something else
o “connect cultures”
Organizing personas
• Description: Idea sorters
• Purpose: To help good ideas move forward in the organization
• Responsibilities:
o Move past organizational challenges to accomplish tasks
o Allocate resources effectively
• Credo: Survival of the fittest
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5.
The Hurdler
• Has a knack for overcoming obstacles and roadblocks
• Intricate knowledge of the organizational processes and hierarchy
• Politically aware and unafraid of bureaucratic process
• Willingness to bend the rules to accomplish tasks
• Thrives on constraints – doesn’t like to hear that something “can’t be done”
• Key phrases:
o “seek forgiveness not permission”
o “see through constraints”
The Collaborator
• Brings eclectic personalities and diverse individuals together
• Encourages and enables cooperation among the team members
• Helps generate multi‐disciplinary solutions
• Co‐opts the Devil’s Advocates
• Gets people learning and doing together
• Thrives in the messy spaces of people working together (conflict, friction,
strife, delight, creative potential)
• Key phrases:
o “Lead from the middle”
o “break down silos”
The Director
• Gathers talented crew and inspires them to perform
• Intimate knowledge of team members’ strengths
• Ability to harness the creativity of others
• Allocates resources, keeps people on tasks, showcases the team
• Draws people out – motivates and encourages
• Less dictation, more facilitation
• Puts others on the centre stage
• Key phrase:
o “showcase the team”
Building personas
• Description: Idea executors
• Purpose: To turn great ideas into real projects
• Responsibilities:
o Apply insights from learning personas
o Recognize successes from organizing roles
• Credo: Build it and they will come
The Experience Architect
• Design compelling experiences
• Connect with customers and users at a deeper level than mere functionality
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6. • Surprises and delights in unforgettable experiences
• Authentic
• Attention to details
• Key phrase:
o “make the ordinary extraordinary”
The Set Designer
• Create a stage on which members can do their best work
• Consider the physical environment as a tool
• Find hidden performance improvements by reshaping space
• Builds spaces for creative play
• Provides the materials to be creative
• Key phrase:
o “shape the spaces”
The Caregiver
• Anticipate customer needs and are ready to look after them
• Willing to move beyond simple service
• Demonstrates empathy toward the plight of the customer
• Goes for “intimacy not scale”
• Treat people as individuals not as an aggregated group
• Provides valuable expertise
• Makes people feel good about themselves
• Key phrases:
o “show more, tell less”
o “smile”
The Storyteller
• Build internal morale through stories
• Reinforce organizational culture through firsthand accounts
• Create external awareness through stories (marketing angle)
• Importance of authenticity
• Use a variety of tools to communicate
• Key phrase:
o “collect compelling narratives”
Straw Build Challenge (Instructions)
• In small groups, have participants find a spot on the floor
• Challenge:
o Build the tallest free standing structure
o Materials: 100 straws and 15 cm of tape
o Time: 10 minutes
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7. Straw Build Challenge (Purpose)
o Generate a sense of team (groups have a simple, shared objective)
o Get teams working quickly – just enough time to accomplish the task, not
enough time to be distracted by political power struggles
o Encourages participants to work with their hands
o Communicates the importance of rapid prototyping and the iterative
design process (build, refine, build again, refine again, etc.)
o Recognize that there is no single solution to a given problem or challenge
o Groups build very different looking structures to accomplish the task
o Importance of embracing failure – not all structures will stand on their own
o For an entertaining discussion of a similar build challenge (called the
Marshmallow build) watch this TED talk from Tom Wujec:
o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0_yKBitO8M
Key Themes (or, The Things We Learned About Running Boot Camp)
Work is play / Play is work
• The group that plays together is simply more productive
• Organizations are increasingly pressured to become more efficient in an
effort to save money, but this could send the wrong message to the
employees (they turn off and morale starts to drop)
• Enabling them to play and have some fun loosens up the mind, gets people
engaged, and truly leads to innovative breakthroughs
• When you play, failure is less of a concern (because there is no cost) – if we
can translate this to the work environment we’ll be less afraid to try stuff
• Similarly when employees are at play (outside of work) they notice things
that they can bring into the workplace (i.e. cross‐pollinate)
• Work and play are not polar opposites – they reinforce each other and can
work (or play) quite nicely together
Innovation is a Social Process
• Creativity is not the magic of a lone genius
• We learned that working in a group provides many advantages
o Builds team
o Enables more diverse ideas to emerge
o Encourages people to “jump and build” on each other’s ideas
o Allows the group to accomplish more and arrive at more suitable
solutions than any single individual would have on their own
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8. Use the space
• Think of your space as a character in what you’re trying to accomplish
o How can you change it, or use it to your advantage?
• Changing the space before a meeting can entirely change the demeanor of the
participants
o Signify to the team members that something is different – allows them
to break out of their mental models of that particular space and
provides an opportunity for fresh thinking
o Variety helps the mind work
• Some simple ideas to implement:
o If you are always facing a screen, then face away
o If you’re always working on a table, take the tables away
o If you rely too heavily on PowerPoint, then ban PowerPoint for a
month
o Move your meetings to different locations (even outdoors)
Constraints can be enablers
• The creative process can get bogged down by constraints or barriers (e.g. we
don’t have the budget to do that, we don’t have the people to do that, we
don’t have the skills to do that, etc.); as a result, projects and good ideas
never get off the ground
• Think of these constraints as opportunities rather than barriers
o With more restrictive constraints the group cannot take the well‐
traveled path
o Members have to push themselves to think more creatively about
solving the problems at hand
Creativity is a practice
• There is a role for everyone in the innovation process
o You don’t have to be a designer or an artist to be called “creative”
• Creativity and innovative practice can be learned (just like you can learn to
be a better web designer, or a better teacher)
• Practicing creative habits is the key – if you expect to deliver innovative
breakthroughs when it counts, then continually practice simple creative
exercises
o Start small and push yourself out of your comfort zone a little more
each time
• If you’re facilitating a creative brainstorming/problem‐solving session, then
provide an environment where participants can grow
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9.
Build Your Own Boot Camp
• Libraries are perfectly suitable environments for innovation (in fact,
innovation and creative problem solving may be essential for the future of
the profession)
• With buy‐in from management, “boot camps” can be done inexpensively (e.g.
aside from the cost of staff time, our entire 12‐week program cost under
$500)
• If a full semester program isn’t feasible try something that fits better with
your institution/organization:
o Take one morning per month
o Take a day long retreat with your team
o Use simple creativity exercises at the beginning of each staff meeting
Motivate Your Organization – Borrowed from Drive by Daniel Pink
• Autonomy – give people the opportunity to be self‐directed
o Give the team a clear objective, but don’t be too prescriptive in how
they need to achieve the objective
o Trust your people to deliver
• Mastery – give people the opportunity to get better at stuff
o Try to avoid “one‐shot” creativity training
o Work to make it a habit by incorporating it throughout the
organization (even in small ways)
o People will eventually overcome their initial fear and become more
willing to take risks
• Purpose – provide tasks that a relevant and meaningful
o No one wants to do something for the sake of doing it
o Be transparent in with your purpose and you’ll get “buy‐in” from
participants
• For more information on Dan Pink’s book check out this video from Royal
Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce:
o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
Innovation Boot Camp (Steal These Ideas!)
• More information on Innovation Boot Camp can be found at our blog:
o http://innovationbootcamp.wordpress.com/
• Feel free to borrow and adapt these ideas for your organization!
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