Teams Who Share Personal Stories Are More Effective; Harvard Business Review, 4/25/16

Francesca Gino, Harvard Business Review; Teams Who Share Personal Stories Are More Effective:

"...[I]ndividual team members’ need for social acceptance may hinder the team’s ability to share and integrate information they need to accomplish their tasks.

One remedy is for team members to devote some time to highlighting their different ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives. Robin Ely of Harvard Business School and David Thomas, the current dean of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, found in a qualitative study of diverse teams that openly discussing the unique qualities of different team members and integrating diverse perspectives allowed individuals to feel valued and respected. The team members were able to apply their unique knowledge, perspectives, and identities to the task at hand, which enhanced their cross-cultural learning and performance.

One psychological process that can heighten individual team members’ contributions and the team’s outcomes is relational self-affirmation, I recently found in my research with Julia Lee of the University of Michigan, Dan Cable of the London Business School, and Brad Staats of the University of Carolina in Chapel Hill. Relational self-affirmation involves asking individuals from a team member’s preexisting personal network (friends, family, and coworkers) to write narratives about times the individual made a distinct contribution...

Thanks to the various strengths they bring to the table, teams have the potential to outperform individuals yet often fail to capitalize on this potential. Finding ways to let team members know about how their behavior positively affected others in the past can offset concerns about social acceptance that come with exposing one’s unique perspectives and identity to others."

McBoom! McDonald's gets big breakfast boost; CNN, 4/22/16

Paul R. La Monica, CNN; McBoom! McDonald's gets big breakfast boost:

"The McComeback continues at McDonald's -- thanks in large part to breakfast anytime you want...

McDonald's has been in turnaround mode since former CEO Don Thompson retired last year and chief brand officer Steve Easterbrook was promoted to the top spot.

Easterbrook quickly came up with a plan to boost sales. In the past few months, McDonald's has tinkered with its menu, introducing new customized burgers as well as healthier items that include superfood kale.

The strategy is working."

How do we make the Guardian a better place for conversation?; Guardian, 4/22/16

Katharine Viner, Guardian; How do we make the Guardian a better place for conversation? :

"Last year, a few weeks before I started as the new editor-in-chief of the Guardian, I read a review in the New York Times of Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. The book looks at the emergence of public humiliations on social media, and the review ended by saying that “the actual problem is that none of the men running those bazillion-dollar internet companies can think of one single thing to do about all the men who send women death threats”. Since I was about to become the first woman to run the Guardian (not, sad to say, a bazillion-dollar internet company), I decided that I had a responsibility to try to do something about it.

That’s why, over the past two weeks, the Guardian has published a series of articles looking at online abuse, with more to follow in the coming months. You might have read our interview with Monica Lewinsky in which she described the trauma of being subjected to what could be called the first great internet shaming, and how she still has to think of the consequences of talking about her past – whether by misspeaking, she could trigger a whole new round of abuse.

Lewinsky’s experience has prompted her to tackle online harassment head on: she is now a respected anti-bullying advocate. But as we’ve considered online abuse in all its forms – the rape and death threats, the sexist, racist and ad hominem attacks, the widespread lack of empathy – it has become clear that some of the institutions that most need to follow Lewinsky’s lead are not; that police and tech companies are failing to keep on top of the problem, and victims are being abandoned to their abusers.

We’ve called our series the Web We Want. It’s an attempt to imagine what the digital world could and should be: a public space that reflects our humanity, our civility and who we want to be. It asks big questions of all of us: as platform providers, as users and readers, as people who write things online that they would never say in real life."

Monica Lewinsky: ‘The shame sticks to you like tar’; Guardian, 4/22/16

Jon Ronson, Guardian; Monica Lewinsky: ‘The shame sticks to you like tar’ :

"The reason why she finally agreed to meet me, despite her anxieties, is that the Guardian is highlighting the issue of online harassment through its series The web we want – an endeavour she approves of. “Destigmatising the shame around online harassment is the first step,” she says. “Well, the first step is recognising there’s a problem.”

Lewinsky was once among the 20th century’s most humiliated people, ridiculed across the world. Now she’s a respected and perceptive anti-bullying advocate. She gives talks at Facebook, and at business conferences, on how to make the internet more compassionate. She helps out at anti-bullying organisations like Bystander Revolution, a site that offers video advice on what to do if you’re afraid to go to school, or if you’re a victim of cyberbullying...

Later, she emails to explain why she didn’t walk away in the school playground – and why we read the negative comments. “I guess I was in shock,” she writes. “Psychologists speak about freezing as a response to a traumatic event. I was probably more afraid of the imagined pain of being completely outcast than the pain I was experiencing in that moment. Maybe there’s a twisted need to read the comments as a form of self-preservation, to be prepared for what may come down the pike.”"

Bystander Revolution: Take The Power Out Of Bullying

Bystander Revolution: Take The Power Out Of Bullying:

"What is Bystander Revolution?

Simple acts of kindness, courage, and inclusion anyone can use to take the power out of bullying.

Whether you're feeling afraid, ready to help, stuck, or inspired to change, you can find advice from someone who has dealt with a similar issue. Search by problem or solution to find tips from people who have been targets, people who have been bystanders, and people who have bullied.

Try one of the ideas. Share one of your own. You can be of real help right away. And if these ideas spread and become habits, it could change the dynamics forever.

Mission and History

Bystander Revolution was founded by author and parent MacKenzie Bezos to create a source of direct, peer-to-peer advice about practical things individuals can do to help defuse bullying. The ultimate goal is the discussion and spread of simple habits of leadership, kindness, and inclusion."

Librarian of Congress Nominee Carla Hayden Confirmation Hearing; C-SPAN, 4/20/16

C-SPAN; Librarian of Congress Nominee Carla Hayden Confirmation Hearing:

"Librarian of Congress Nominee Carla Hayden Confirmation Hearing: Carla Hayden, President Obama’s nominee to be the next librarian of Congress, testified at her confirmation hearing. Many questions Ms. Hayden answered concerned the Library of Congress’s functions, including its copyright office, and what challenges she sees ahead for the institution. Maryland Senators Barb Mikulski and Ben Cardin and former Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes testified in support of her nomination."

The Courage To Inform: Our mission requires brave librarians; Library Journal, 4/18/16

John N. Berry III, Library Journal; The Courage To Inform: Our mission requires brave librarians:

"In this election year, public libraries are being attacked. Robocalls to voters in Illinois’s Plainfield Public Library District were financed by Americans for Prosperity, the national conservative political action group founded by David Koch and contributed to by him and his brother Charles, co-owners of Koch Industries. The calls exaggerated the cost to the average homeowner of the $39 million bonds on the ballot for a new library building.

The library valiantly responded, “Here at the Library, helping people access accurate information is a critical part of what we do. For that reason, the planning process for the referenda included 22 public meetings over eight months, a telephone survey, and online feedback surveys. Every step of the process was documented on the Building & Expansion Planning web page, with supporting documentation available.” The library blog posts addressed all the questions about the bonds as well as the sources of misinformation, yet the robocalls continued, and the bond measure was defeated.

To those who have decided not to get too close to election issues and controversies, I understand, and in your situation I might make the same choice. I only wish the conditions and forces that prevent a library from informing the electorate didn’t exist. In America today, however, anyone who offers data that runs contrary to the views of voters energized by the current rhetoric of this campaign has to face the probability that the information will be challenged. Considering the damage to the library that it can cause, it will take a brave librarian to proceed.

To those who do choose to go forth, take strength from knowing that nearly two centuries of our professional history support your actions. You are carrying out the mission libraries were founded to accomplish."

In Solidarity: Standing with UK Libraries; Library Journal, 4/13/16

Rebecca T. Miller, Library Journal; In Solidarity: Standing with UK Libraries:

"Last month, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) released a series of articles on the status of public libraries in the UK. The news is dramatic. More than 300 libraries have been closed since 2010—the reported total of 343 includes 132 mobile libraries, with over 100 more on the chopping block—and almost 8,000 jobs have been lost. The advocacy drumbeat for UK libraries has been sounding for some time, with prominent authors and celebrities offering their support. Staring down the numbers reported by the BBC has spurred a barrage of public and professional response—some reinforcing negative stereotypes and others helping to build the case for more investment.

I reached out to Nick Poole, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), the library association for the UK, to get a better sense of what’s happening on the ground and behind the scenes...

One initiative CILIP developed is the “My Library by Right” campaign to raise awareness of the requirement for library service, to counter prevailing misconceptions about what libraries provide, and to build understanding of what recourse is available.

A longer term solution, says Poole, is to move toward a national library strategy, shifting the governance of libraries away from the local councils. This direction has had some success already in Scotland, he adds, and is gaining traction in Wales and Northern Ireland. With such deep reform currently stymied in England, however, a “Leadership for Libraries Taskforce” is focused first on improving the perception about libraries."

Libraries and Learning; Pew Research Center, 4/7/16

Lee Rainie, Pew Research Center; Libraries and Learning:

"Most Americans believe libraries do a decent job of serving the education and learning needs of their communities and their own families. A new survey by Pew Research Center shows that 76% of adults say libraries serve the learning and educational needs of their communities either “very well” (37%) or “pretty well” (39%). Further, 71% say libraries serve their own personal needs and the needs of their families “very well” or “pretty well.”

As a rule, libraries’ performance in learning arenas gets better marks from women, blacks, Hispanics, those in lower-income households, and those ages 30 and older."

The Born Loser; GoComics.com, 4/17/16

Art and Chip Sansom, GoComics.com; The Born Loser

Couple Threatened With Jail For Overdue Library Books; Huffington Post, 4/15/16

Michael McLaughlin, Huffington Post; Couple Threatened With Jail For Overdue Library Books:

"A Michigan couple faces more than three months in jail and hundreds of dollars in penalties for two overdue library books.

Catherine and Melvin Duren were arraigned Thursday in Lenawee County Court on a misdemeanor charge of failure to return rental property. If convicted, they could be sentenced to 93 days in jail and fined $500 for a Dr. Seuss title that’s missing and for a novel that they returned late.

The county prosecutor said the case is necessary to protect taxpayers’ money. The Durens said they’re being unfairly harassed over a small mistake."

ALA Releases State of America’s Libraries Report 2016 (Includes List of Most Challenged Books of 2015); Library Journal, 4/11/16

Gary Price, Library Journal; ALA Releases State of America’s Libraries Report 2016 (Includes List of Most Challenged Books of 2015) :

"Out of 275 challenges recorded by the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom, the “Top Ten Most Challenged Books in 2015” are:

Looking for Alaska, by John Green Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.

Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).

I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).

The Holy Bible Reasons: Religious viewpoint.

Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).

Habibi, by Craig Thompson Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.

Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.

Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”)."

State of America's Libraries Report 2016; American Library Association (ALA)

American Library Association (ALA); State of America's Libraries Report 2016:

"Academic, school, and public libraries continue to face an uncertain economy as they shift resources and services to meet the needs of the 21st-century digital world. The American Library Association launched a new public awareness campaign, “Libraries Transform,” to help shift the mindset that “libraries are obsolete or nice to have” to “libraries are essential.” This and other library trends of the past year, including the Top Ten Most Challenges Books of 2015, are detailed in the American Library Association’s 2016 State of America’s Libraries report, released during National Library Week, April 10– 16, 2016.

Press release: “State of America’s Libraries 2016” shows service transformation to meet tech demands of library patrons

Flipbook version at American Libraries Magazine

2016 State of America's Libraries Report (PDF)

Mike Tuchen of Talend: Watch the Road, Not the Wipers; New York Times, 4/8/16

Adam Bryant, Corner Office. New York Times; Mike Tuchen of Talend: Watch the Road, Not the Wipers:

"This interview with Mike Tuchen, chief executive of Talend, a software vendor that specializes in big-data integration, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant...

How do you hire?

The first questions are always going to be about management and leadership style. And I’ll ask a number of open-ended questions about what’s important to get right as a leader. Some people will talk about the people on the team and the best way to motivate them. The answers that kind of scare me are from candidates who talk about people as if they’re something on a spreadsheet. Leadership and management are all about people.

Then I want to make sure that you’re resilient, because things don’t always go the way you want them to. So I’ll ask questions like, what’s the hardest problem you’ve ever solved? Why was it hard? What did you do uniquely well that someone else wouldn’t have been able to do, and why?"

A New Rhode Island Slogan Encounters Social Media’s Wrath; New York Times, 4/6/16

Katherine Seelye, New York Times; A New Rhode Island Slogan Encounters Social Media’s Wrath:

"The idea was simple enough — to create a logo and slogan that cast the long-struggling state of Rhode Island in a fresh, more optimistic light to help attract tourists and businesses. A world-renowned designer was hired. Market research was conducted. A $5 million marketing campaign was set. What could go wrong?

Everything, it turns out.

The slogan that emerged — “Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer” — left people confused and spawned lampoons along the lines of “Dumb and Dumber.” A video accompanying the marketing campaign, meant to show all the fun things to do in the state, included a scene shot not in Rhode Island but in Iceland. The website featured restaurants in Massachusetts...

This was a reference to Milton Glaser, the world-renowned graphic artist and creator of the iconic “I Love New York” logo, who had been drafted for the Rhode Island project and came up with the logo and the slogan.

In an interview on Tuesday, the governor acknowledged some blunders. “We didn’t do nearly enough public engagement before rolling out the campaign,” she said. Nor did they get “stakeholder engagement and buy-in” in advance."

The most important Obama nominee no one’s talking about; Washington Post, 3/25/16

Robert Gebelhoff, Washington Post; The most important Obama nominee no one’s talking about:

"Meanwhile, the Copyright Office — which plays a major role in the digital economy by administering copyright law and protecting intellectual property — has been designing a plan to leave the nest and become an independent agency.

Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante has openly advocated for the move, citing “operational tensions.” She argues that the library performs a legislative role as the research branch of Congress (through the Congressional Research Service), which she sees as at odds with the executive mission of the Copyright Office. Others have suggested that the Copyright Office be relocated to the Commerce Department as a sister agency to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. For some commentators, such proposals translate to the Copyright Office focusing more on the interests of the “Big Content” industry — including publishers, the recording industry and movie producers — than delivering copyright law itself.

The key takeaway is that the next librarian of Congress will have a lot of tough issues to fix. If the library wants to maintain its mission of serving the public and promoting access to knowledge, the institution needs a leader who can shake things up and plot out a path forward.

Hayden does seem to be poised to take on the challenge. She’s known for her work to revitalize the Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library, upgrading its aging tech infrastructure and making it the largest provider of free-access computers in Maryland. In a video produced by the White House, she emphasized that the Baltimore library was a place where all people could come as a refuge from turbulent times in the city. She also outlined a similar mission for the Library of Congress: “In terms of how people view the future of libraries and what a national library can be, it’s inclusive. It can be part of everyone’s story.”"

“A remarkable feat of collaboration”: The incredible story of how the Panama Papers came to be; The Conversation via Salon, 4/6/16

Richard Sambrook, The Conversation via Salon; “A remarkable feat of collaboration”: The incredible story of how the Panama Papers came to be:

"The ICIJ has been criticised by some on social media for not putting all the material into the open for anyone to look through. For open media evangelists this would be the most transparent action to take. However, with such a huge trove of documents, any media organisation will want to ensure they act legally and responsibly – putting the material through an editorial and legal filter before publishing.

This is one of the defining differences between professional media and open data activists. In broad terms these are literally stolen documents – can news organisations justify publishing them in the greater public interest? Will undue harm to innocent figures be caused by open publication? The public interest seems clear in this case – but without knowing what else the documents contain it is hard to make a judgement about whether they should all be placed online.

The Panama Papers – like The Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, like Wikileaks Iraq War logs and like the Snowden revelations – lifts the lid on the activities of political and business elites in ways which will be discussed for many years to come.

They are also a rich example of how investigative journalism increasingly works in the age of big data and global media. We can expect to see more leaks, more international media collaborations and more reaction from governments trying to clamp down on embarrassing revelations."

Corporate Coalition Is Forming To Fight Mississippi’s Anti-LGBT Law; Huffington Post, 4/5/16

Alexander C. Kaufman, Huffington Post; Corporate Coalition Is Forming To Fight Mississippi’s Anti-LGBT Law:

"Yet another coalition of tech titans is forming to fight yet another discriminatory law in yet another Southern state.

Top executives from Salesforce, Microsoft and IBM decried on Tuesday a new “religious liberty” law passed in Mississippi that gay rights advocates say legalizes discrimination in the state based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The public statements, little more than condemnations at the moment, could be the first step toward organizing a divestment campaign such as the one currently growing in North Carolina. The announcements came hours after another tech giant, PayPal, said it would cancel plans to expand in North Carolina — a move that was expected to bring about 400 jobs to the state — as a result of the Tar Heel State’s anti-LGBT law."

Washington Metro, 40 and Creaking, Stares at a Midlife Crisis; New York Times, 4/3/16

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos, New York Times; Washington Metro, 40 and Creaking, Stares at a Midlife Crisis:

"“Clearly in the public mind we have lost credibility in both delivery of the service and some of the safety issues,” Mr. Wiedefeld, 60, said Friday in a surprisingly blunt interview. He said he saw Metro’s safety and reliability problems as rooted in “a very large disconnect between front-line employees and management,” and in a culture in need of an overhaul...

The story of Metro’s transformation from a point of pride to the subject of eye rolling among commuters (as well as a Twitter feed, UnsuckDCMetro, with more than 49,000 followers) is, experts say, traceable to a lack of basic maintenance, a history of inept management and an unwieldy governance structure in which three jurisdictions — Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia — share responsibility for the system...

Now, Mr. Wiedefeld and Mr. Evans appear to be pursuing a two-pronged public relations strategy. While Mr. Wiedefeld tried to tamp down the uproar over potential closures, Mr. Evans made clear in an interview that he was pleased with the reaction, which he hoped would help him “sell the region,” and Congress, on the need for an organizational overhaul and for more money. Metro also has a $2.5 billion unfunded pension liability, Mr. Evans said.

“Unless you are living under a rock,” he said, “everyone now knows that Metro has terrible financial problems.”"

Don't mourn the loss of libraries – the internet has made them obsolete; The Telegraph, 3/29/16

John McTernan, The Telegraph; Don't mourn the loss of libraries – the internet has made them obsolete:

"The truth, and it is a sad truth for former librarians like myself, is that the public are voting with their feet. Councils are only following the lead of the public with library closures.

We can, and should, still love books, but we should not be sentimental about libraries, because they are a means to an end. Access to information is now widely available via smartphones: three quarters of us have one, it was one in five in 2010. Library and information services have to be designed with that reality in mind.

The true inequality remains access to books and reading. Children who grow up with and around books do better educationally than those who don’t. That is where childcare, nurseries and schools are the key. Libraries must adapt to the changing habits of adults, where there is a clear and irreversible trajectory there. But they must never abandon children."

Companies turn to quirky interview questions — even after Google says they don’t work; Washington Post, 3/29/16

Jena McGregor, Washington Post; Companies turn to quirky interview questions — even after Google says they don’t work:

"Now, however, Google actually urges its hiring managers not to use such questions, according to a book released last year, "Work Rules," by Google's head of "people operations," Laszlo Bock. In it, he writes that they aren't actually worth much.

How a candidate performs on such questions "is at best a discrete skill that can be improved by practice, eliminating their utility for assessing candidates," he writes. "At worst, they rely on some trivial bit of information or insight that is withheld from the candidate, and serve primarily to make the interviewer feel clever or self-satisfied. They have little if any ability to predict how candidates will perform in a job."

Bock admits in his book that some questions like this have been used at Google, and may continue to be, though he says that "we do everything we can to discourage this, as it's really just a waste of everyone's time." When they do pop up, he writes, senior leaders "ignore the answers to these questions."

Instead, Google now bases its interview process on assessment methods that research has shown to be most predictive of performance, Bock writes. Technical hires go through some kind of test of their ability to do things like write code or design algorithms. And then the company asks "behavioral" ("tell me about a time when...") or "situational" ("what would you do if...") structured interview questions that help assess things like a candidate's cognitive ability or conscientiousness."

Sheila Corrall and Kip Currier win LIBER Innovation Award; 45th Annual Conference of LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries)

LIBER 2016; Sheila Corrall and Kip Currier win LIBER Innovation Award:

The Program Committee for the 45th Annual Conference of LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries) has selected a paper by Sheila Corrall and James D. “Kip” Currier for a LIBER Innovation Award. The paper on "Legal, Ethical, and Policy Issues of “Big Data 2.0” Collaborative Ventures and Roles for Information Professionals in Research Libraries" will be presented at the conference in Helsinki, Finland, on June 29-July 1, 2016.

The awards are sponsored by OCLC and awarded to the 3 most innovative and relevant papers submitted to the LIBER Conference. Award recipients receive a grant of 1000 euros towards travel and conference registration. The award ceremony takes place at the conference plenary on July 1.

Conference Theme: Libraries Opening Paths to Knowledge

Grade Inflation Nation; Inside Higher Ed via Slate, 3/29/16

Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed via Slate; Grade Inflation Nation:

"The first major update in seven years to a database on grade inflation has found that grades continue to rise and that A is the most common grade earned at all kinds of colleges...

The trends highlighted in the new study do not represent dramatic shifts but are continuation of trends that Rojstaczer and many others bemoan. He believes the idea of “student as consumer” has encouraged colleges to accept high grades and effectively encouraged faculty members to award high grades.

“University leadership nationwide promoted the student-as-consumer idea,” he said. “It’s been a disastrous change. We need leaders who have a backbone and put education first.”

Rojstaczer said he thinks the only real solution is for a public federal database to release information—for all college—similar to what he has been doing with a representative sample, but still a minority, of all colleges."

FedScoop unveils its list of D.C.'s Top 50 Women in Technology for 2016; FedScoop, 3/31/16

FedScoop; FedScoop unveils its list of D.C.'s Top 50 Women in Technology for 2016:

"Meet FedScoop's list of D.C.'s Top 50 Women in Technology for 2016 — an elite cadre of women transforming how the government uses technology...

But even as these women help change government for the better, honoring them is also a way of highlighting the gaps that still remain in the technology workforce.

According to the National Center for Women and Information Technology, only a quarter of professional computing jobs in the U.S. are held by women. Statistics about the next generation appear equally troublesome: The same report found only 22 percent of AP Computer Science test-takers in 2015 were female. And according to a National Cyber Security Alliance report from last year, the gap between the number of men and women who are interested in cybersecurity careers is more than five times greater than it was a year prior.

To bring more women to STEM, Smith said during a panel last week that girls need role models to help them picture themselves working in science and tech jobs."