Over the years as a product manager I have attended, worked booth duty, or presented at a large number of industry tradeshows/conferences in the software industry. I have always had a fun time seeing how others get their message out to the audience. Some do it quite well while others get lost in the gimmickry of having card tricks, song and dance, or skits.

I have attended a lot of Keynotes at other conferences/tradeshows with varying degrees of interest for me from some that were not interesting at all to others that had me gripping onto the presenter’s every word. Well today’s keynote at CIL 2008 was “out of the box” and by far the most fascinating I have seen yet. I didn’t want it to end and the rest of the audience enjoyed it as well.

An innovative group from the Delft Public Library in the Netherlands took filmed a documentary on how various Libraries across the US are innovating and what their best practices are. The program said to come and “be inspired” and that I was!

They showed clips from the film and interviewed people from those clips or representative of that episode from the audience such as a Library school student. Not only was this an interesting format, but they were clearly able to show how various Libraries are innovating and responding to their current challenges they see.

I would highly recommend anyone to check Shanacietour out. I look forward to seeing it all and it has inspired some ideas for me to consider. It will inspire you.

Yesterday I presented with Rebecca Ranallo Kahl from Cuyahoga County Public Library on Staff Training: High Tech and High Touch. Noticing our 4:15 slot on the schedule right before the cocktail reception in the exhibit area both of us were concerned that we might have a sparse turn out for our presentation. We surveyed our room where we were presenting and it was big, meant for about ~200 people….

Well our fears didn’t come true, we had a very large crowd with few empty seats, and the turnout was FANTASTIC!

Thanks to all of you who attended the presentation and for your engagement. I was quite pleased to see the high interest of the audience at CIL 2008 in Staff Training and how they can further develop their staff. Rebecca and I split the presentation into two parts. I lead off presenting some recent market research that WebJunction had done with Public Library systems showing what methods were used, the ROI, and challenges faced in training by Libraries. Rebecca then presented what they are doing at Cuyahoga County presenting how she is doing staff training in the real world. We were quite pleased by the engagement of the audience and the number of questions afterwards as we were followed by the reception. Everyone was asking Rebecca a lot of interesting questions such as how they overcome fear of change and work to build a culture of Learning.

As a product manager I always enjoy meeting Partners/Members who work with us. A number of people came up to tell me how much they enjoyed WebJunction how it helps their Library system. For me I can never get enough time hearing feedback from people who use WebJunction and how it is valuable to them. As the Learning Product Manager I am quite interested in those using our Courses and Wimba Classroom service as well as how we can help them with their Learning needs. Making connections with the people who use the products and services you work with is definitely one of the best parts of being a product manager.

I look forward to meeting more of you as I attend the Innovation and Change sessions today and the Learning track tomorrow (Wed). I am interested in hearing from others how you were doing with your staff training and development. What works? What would you like to have, but don’t? What challenges and barriers do you see? What have you found to be successful? What is the impact it has on your Library?

In addition to my presentation I am excited to see what Libraries are doing around Learning as well as innovation and integration with new technologies in both the sessions and exhibits. A number of WebJunction and OCLC staff will be joining me at CIL, with Michael (Libraryman) Porter also presenting.

We hope to see you there.