What will it take to reach your goals this year? Well, you could wait around for the politicians, economists and technology geeks to dream up with some fancy new program, but really, if that’s your plan, you’d be better off hitting the casino. Don’t worry – we have a better idea – thirteen of them, in fact. Even if you only try half of them, you’ll have a better chance of reaching your dreams than, well, just dreaming.

So, let’s get started!

1. Write down four goals. One for each quarter. Be specific. No fuzzy “have more time, make more money” stuff. Identify targeted, measurable goals: A new car, paid off credit cards, fourteen sales, more sleep.
2. Do a time study. Manage your time, not your task list. Study last month and analyze what you did each day: Know where your time goes, exactly, so you can use it, purposefully.
3. Talk to one influencer a day. Pick a past client or a current one, or maybe someone in your industry. Build a “listening period” into your schedule – a few minutes regularly to hear important feedback and see potential growth opportunities.
4. Measure something. Stop just doing things, and start measuring them. How many leads did you generate? From where? Who were they? Why did they contact you? Learn about what’s happening, to discover how to do it more, or better.
5. Try four new things. Like goals, set a quarterly learning objective. Adding four new skills or techniques to your personal or professional abilities is an ambitious plan for any year.
6. Take time off. Humans are not machines. We don’t compute all day, all night. Turn stuff off. Take a break. Make recharging your body and mind as important as any other activity in your growth plan.
7. Be yourself. Whatever job you’re doing, it’s made better because you’re you. You’re not a brand or a logo or a flyer. Incorporate yourself into your job. Lead, manage, sell or service with all of yourself, not just the part that was trained for your job.
8. Systematize. Take time to “un-chaos” any part of your day that have become harder because they’re disorganized. Get control of paperwork, task lists, even co-workers, by establishing a process and sticking to it.
9. Practice focus. Work on one thing at a time. You might be surprised how hard it has become. We’re used to “being distracted” by writing, talking, eating and watching simultaneously. Slow down, my teacher used to say, and you’ll get more done. More important stuff, at least.
10. Mentor someone. An excellent way to improve your own actions is to teach them to someone else. As you explain the “best” approach to them, you often realize ways to spiff up your own performance, too.
11. Team up. Find someone who will has similar growth plans and collaborate. Team up while prospecting, marketing, and learning new technologies. Practice, motivate and support each other as you grow.
12. Plug in. Every day there’s a new and exciting way to leverage technology to work smarter, healthier, more effectively. Or to simply work less. Find one or two and master them next year.
13. Create. Don’t just produce things, like sales, deals, reports and websites. Create something every week. Leverage your non-work passions: Cook, dance, sing, photograph, write, paint. Make something, express something, and you’ll find it easy to create better outcomes at home and work, too.                                       by Matthew Ferrara  (bbj)

NN/LM Communicating During a Disaster Summit

When: March 7^th and 8^th, 2013

Where: University of Illinois at Chicago

Sponsors: MidContinental and Greater Midwest regions of NN/LM

Funding: Eligible NN/LM MCR members can apply for Professional Development Award funding (http://nnlm.gov/mcr/funding/index.html)

Program:

• Speakers from libraries and the emergency planning community on roles libraries/librarians can play before, during, and after a disaster, focusing on communication strategies
• Networking opportunities with NN/LM, DIMRC (NLM’s Disaster Information Management Research Center), and the  emergency planning community
• Take-away tools for improving your library’s readiness (including a one-page service continuity plan)
• Disaster Information Specialization training: U.S. Response to Disasters and Public Health Emergencies
  
• And more to be announced …

/ch

Knowledge Management in Hospitals:

Developing a team to test and ensure success.

This 1.5 day workshop will explore how corporate knowledge management techniques and processes are applied in a hospital/health system. Multidisciplinary participants will work together to craft a strategy to adopt an expanded role for librarians in hospital/health system. This expanded role will establish a foundation for librarians to support the clinical environment by providing excellent knowledge management techniques and processes.

The purpose of the interactive workshop is to:

• Engage participants to explore how a corporate-modeled knowledge management process can be enabled in hospitals.
• Provide opportunities for institutional teams to work together to design tests to measure project success and use these results to champion knowledge transfer within their health facility.
• Craft a description of optimal roles for medical librarians and others in knowledge management.
• Share examples of participation in knowledge transfer in hospitals from both the traditional and expansive views to craft a list of model activities. Tactics currently in the field include: building expertise directories, managing communities of practice, collecting and sharing best practices and stories to support clinical and organizational improvement.
• Draft processes to implement these tactics to illustrate an expanded application of the expertise of information professionals, break down silos, share experiences and sustain organizational learning.
• Define an implementation plan for this role that includes measurement of its impact on the quality and safety of health care.
• Engage participants in evaluation in order to change and improve the role of librarians as partners in healthcare safety and quality.

Participants should commit to:

• Complete a modest amount of pre-work to prepare for the session.
  • Light introductory reading.
  • Participate in two Adobe Connect sessions focusing on the goals of the work and core concepts to be applied in the workshop.
• Engage with others in a positive way to ensure group interaction and consensus building.
• Partner with other teams to run a post-workshop pilot test of tactics described using the Plan-Do-Study Act concept.
• Conduct a pilot project and report back in several conference calls to the group on progress and share “lessons learned” as a to sustain the learning and inform progress.

Audience: This session is designed for pairs of individuals from hospitals who are interested in the application of knowledge management and transfer concepts in their organization. One member of the team must/should be a librarian. This strategy will build a pair of champions to support uptake of how knowledge management can be applied in the acute care setting through modeling hospital corporate culture. There will be a simple application process to interested parties.

 Date:  February 7-8, 2013

Co-Sponsors: NN/LM MidContinental Region and NN/LM Greater Midwest Region

Registration:   Register at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GVDL3CK.  Registrations must be received by December 1, 2012.

Cost:                Three pair of applicants from each region will be selected to receive travel expenses to attend.

Location:         University of Illinois at Chicago Library of the Health Sciences.

The session will be limited to 30 participants to facilitate effective small group work.

For questions contact: Lorri Zipperer, Cybrarian and meeting facilitator.

lorri@zpm1.com / 505-559-4458

Funded by the National Library of Medicine under a Contract No. HHS-N-276-2011-00005-C with the University of Illinois at Chicago Library of the Health Sciences and

Contract No. HHS-N-276-2011-00006C

with the University of Utah Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library (bbj)

Upcoming Webinar Announcement:
This Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) webinar session will highlight health disparities among American Indian and Alaska Native populations, with a focus on strategies and challenges to achieve health equity for Tribal and Urban AI/ANs.

Time: 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM EST
Date: September 6, 2012
Opening Remarks: Dr. J. Nadine Gracia, MD, MSCE, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health (Acting)
Speakers: Patricia Parker, President/CEO, Native American Management Services; Ralph Forquera, MPH, Region X Health Equity Council, Seattle Health Board, Urban Indian Health Institute
Register Here: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/487463951  (bbj)

NLM and the NN/LM MidContinental Region offices will be closed on Monday, September 3 for the Labor Day holiday.

Special Session -  Fair Use Guidelines – Wednesday August 29, 9:00 MT, 10:00 CT – This session is jointly sponsored by the MCMLA Education Committee and the NN/LM MidContinental Region, which through the Professional Development Award, provided funding for attendance at a recent conference,  Managing Copyright Use.

Responding to the ever increasing role of technology in education, Marie Reidelbach will present information for educators involving copyright, fair use, and intellectual property.  Issues in the academic environment related to using others’ materials in the classroom as well as the publication of one’s own research will be highlighted.  Mary Helms will also be available to address some of the more commonly asked questions, particularly relating to resource licensing, following the presentation.

This online session is FREE.   NOTE URL: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/mcr2/ Equipment: connection to the Internet and a phone,  Login: as a guest with your first and last name. Instructions to connect to the audio will show up once you’ve logged in. Captioning will be provided.  Questions to mmagee@unmc.edu. (mm)

Professional Development Award funding is no longer available for this contract year ending April 30, 2013, with the exception of two upcoming events sponsored in part by the NN/LM MidContinental Region.

1. Three awards of up to $700 each (one night) will be made for an E-Science conference to be held at the University of Utah. February or March  2013
2. Three awards of up to $1000 each (two nights)  will be made for an Emergency Preparedness conference to be held in Chicago in March 7-8, 2013

Information on the Professional Development Award is available at http://nnlm.gov/mcr/funding/#A2 . Applications for the Professional Development Award for the two above events will be opened once more conference details are available.

And the NN/LM has already funded a dozen – yes, 12 librarians to attend events in the 2012-2013 contract year!

We’ve updated our order form for NN/LM promotional materials! We have FREE materials available for you to use in your outreach efforts. Check out the updated form and make an order! http://nnlm.gov/mcr/services/promo/index.html

We recently mailed out packets with the 2011-2016 NN/LM Network Membership Certificates to all our renewing Network members. If didn’t receive your packet, please let us know. Contact: Suzanne Sawyer ssawyer@RML4.utah.edu

The new year has begun for the NN/LM MCR!   Once again, we are offering Professional Development Awards to be completed before April 30, 2013.    Funding is available for Full Members for up to $1500 for travel costs/conference registration for educational events that will help broaden your own understanding, and that can enrich our members as well!   Learn more about applying at:  http://nnlm.gov/mcr/funding/  (mm)