The City of Brotherly Love Welcomes SLA 2011

Lisa Chow | Scholarship Winner | http://bit.ly/lisachow

Lisa is a 2011 SLA Rising Star and blogs at People Interact about usability, user experience, unconferences, interactions, and all things people.

Philadelphia's City Hall, Photo taken by Ayinde Listhrop

SLA 2011 took place in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.

Here are my conference highlights:

Opening General Session

Thomas Friedman was the speaker for the Opening General Session.
Two takeaways from his talk:

1. Most ideas are not original. If you thought of it, chances are others thought of it too. Whatever can be done will be done. The question is will it be done by you or to you.
2. Being average is officially over. What’s your extra? Find it, develop it and exploit it.

Conference Schedule Conflicts

There are always schedule conflicts at conferences. One of many conflicts involved my responsibilities as DBIO Medical Section Chair and SLA Rising Star. I couldn’t make it to the SLA Rising Stars/SLA Fellows Roundtable where Rising Stars and Fellows were paired up for discussions, since the Medical Section business meeting and program took place at the same time. It all worked out because a SLA Fellow couldn’t make it to the roundtable either because she was one of the speakers for the Medical Section program. For other conflicts such as interest in multiple programs taking place at the same time, I would hop from one program to another, if the program wasn’t what I expected. Otherwise, I try to get a copy of the missed presentation.

SLA 2011 Philly Banner, Photo

 taken by Ayinde Listhrop

DBIO Medical Section Program: It’s All Hallway!

Karen Huffman, Mary Talley Garcia and I presented It’s All Hallway! An Unconference Approach to Professional Development where we gave an overview of unconferences, talked about specific unconferences such as the SLA unconferences and HealthCampNYC and how attendees can organize their own unconference. We did a mini-unconference as a part of the program. You can also find out more about unconferences in a recently published METRO LibGuide.

Toot Your Own Horn

"Create a brag-ologue" - Mary Ellen Bates, Info Pro Guerrilla Marketing session

Mary Ellen Bates gave a talk on Info Pro Guerrilla Marketing.
Five takeaways from her talk:

1. Create a brag-ologue.
2. Strut your stuff.
3. Build a 3D profile.
4. See yourself as a brand.
5. Work with fear.

Speaking of tooting your own horn, I nominated myself for SLA Rising Star. Why am I telling you this? Because if you’ve done great work, don’t wait for someone else to recognize it - go ahead and nominate yourself.