1 / 20

Cultivate Your Bottom

Cultivate Your Bottom. Wayne Bivens-Tatum. Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek. Oscar-nominated actress Salma Hayek (no relation). The Use of Knowledge in Society.

mmckay
Download Presentation

Cultivate Your Bottom

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Cultivate Your Bottom Wayne Bivens-Tatum

  2. Nobel Prize-winning economistF.A. Hayek

  3. Oscar-nominated actressSalma Hayek (no relation)

  4. The Use of Knowledge in Society “The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus not merely a problem of how to allocate "given" resources—if "given" is taken to mean given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set by these "data." It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality.” --F.A. Hayek

  5. In Other Words • Knowledge is dispersed • No person or group knows enough to plan everything • The problem: how to take advantage of this dispersed knowledge • For Hayek, the answer is the market

  6. A Non-economic Example Wikipedia provides a way to take advantage of dispersed knowledge, and the founder of Wikipedia was inspired by Hayek’s essay. "One can't understand my ideas about Wikipedia without understanding Hayek.” – Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia

  7. The Use of Knowledge in the Library • Knowledge in the library is dispersed, just like knowledge in real life. • Real life changes quickly. • How do we use the knowledge to deal with these changes?

  8. Knowledge and Change “If we can agree that the economic problem of society is mainly one of rapid adaptation to changes in the particular circumstances of time and place, it would seem to follow that the ultimate decisions must be left to the people who are familiar with these circumstances, who know directly of the relevant changes and of the resources immediately available to meet them. We cannot expect that this problem will be solved by first communicating all this knowledge to a central board which, after integrating all knowledge, issues its orders. We must solve it by some form of decentralization.” --F.A. Hayek

  9. Decentralization • In times of rapid change, innovation requires taking advantage of dispersed knowledge at the moment of action. • In the library, that means giving as much knowledge and power to those on the front lines, the “bottom” of the library hierarchy

  10. What Does the Bottom Know? • Knows HOW to do things • Knows WHAT happens day to day • Knows WHO uses the library • Needs to Know WHY

  11. Why the Bottom is Important • The bottom does the library work • Library users work with the bottom • The culture of the users changes • The bottom needs to keep up with rapid change • To cultivate change, cultivate your bottom

  12. Cultivating Your Bottom

  13. The “Easy” Way Start with a great bottom. Hire the best.

  14. Support • What have you done for your staff lately? • Or, what has your library administration done for you lately?

  15. Education & Training • The bottom needs continuing education and training to know HOW. • Some of this is formal, some not.

  16. Playtime • Google offers their “engineers ‘20-percent time’ so that they’re free to work on what they’re really passionate about.” Maybe Google is on to something. • To keep up or innovate, librarians need time to play. • Structured play, unstructured learning

  17. Share Information “We need decentralization because only thus can we insure that the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place will be promptly used. But the "man on the spot" cannot decide solely on the basis of his limited but intimate knowledge of the facts of his immediate surroundings. There still remains the problem of communicating to him such further information as he needs to fit his decisions into the whole pattern of changes of the larger economic system.” --F. A. Hayek

  18. The bottom needs to know what’s happening at the top to know WHY

  19. Empowerment • Your bottom is cultivated • Now show it off • Let it make the decisions • After all, it has the knowledge

  20. Use the Knowledge • Rapid change requires innovation • Innovation requires knowledge • Knowledge drives decisions • The knowledge is dispersed • Cultivate those with the knowledge • Let them act

More Related