Some of you may be following the conversation going on concerning ALA’s Library 2.0 Boot Camp. (If you want to catch up, read here, here, here, here (audio here), here, here, here, here and here).

I am a participant in the workshop, and I see the conversation that’s playing out as one big, (public) demonstration of the power and value of L20. There are both positive and negative examples for us to learn from here. My working group in L20 Bootcamp has been charged with answering the question: “How can Library 2.0 be used to enhance [ALA] membership?” What follows is my response.

First, a few thoughts:

I understand the Otter Group’s motivation to defend themselves against perceived attacks. I believe they set out to do good with this workshop. I’ll grant that their motivations are pure. I imagine they must be feeling a bit like “no good deed goes unpunished.” Having said that, I think their evolving response to the criticisms being levied at them could have been plucked whole-cloth from the ClueTrain Manifesto, under the heading, “What not to do” or “Example of corporation 1.0 in its’ death throes.” That is to say, while running a course that is, at its heart, about having conversations, they are investing time and energy and (allegedly) using the language of intimidation and threats of legal action to stamp out conversation because they don’t like what’s being said.

This is great!!! It’s great because it offers us a real-time, unfolding case-study, ripe with lessons we can sink our teeth into. I do not see this as a simple case of the big bad corporation versus the noble defenders of good. It’s a little more nuanced than that (most things are, right?). To the extent that we can resist our impulses to cast this as a drama of good v. evil, we can extract some useful lessons.

That I am getting value from my Bootcamp experience and the conversations that have sprung up around it is unquestionable. As far as I’m concerned, the fact that ALA is doing anything is a huge overriding value. I’m aware that much of the value I’m extracting as a participant is because of Otter’s (and Jenny Levine’s and Michael Stephens’) contributions. And some of it is in spite of their contributions. Right now people are talking about the “in spite” part. That’s ok. That’s natural. That’s healthy. But it’s not the whole story. What follows is my attempt to frame what I’m seeing, hearing, reading, and experiencing in a way that will help me learn and extract value from this experience. Nothing more, nothing less.

El Tuo’s L20 Manifesto: (Thoughts on using L20 to enhance membership in ALA

1. L20 is a conversation.
2. Don’t try to put the conversation in a box.
3. Conversations do not occur in boxes.
4. Conversations are organic. They go where they go. They grow where they grow.
5. The further a conversation goes the better. The wider it grows the better.
6. Go where the conversation goes or you will cease to be a part of it.
7. No one controls the conversation.
8. If you try to control the conversation, it will affect how others perceive you in spite of anything or everything else you are doing.
9. If you try to control the conversation, you will lose credibility (at best).
10. Credibility is the coin of the web 2.0 realm.
11. If you try to control the conversation, you will ignite and draw peoples’ anger or ridicule or both (if you’re lucky).
12. Your response to anger and ridicule can be a part of the conversation or separate from it, in which case it is simply prologue to your epitaph.
13. If you try to control the conversation you will be ignored as irrelevant (at worst).
14. Irrelevance is worse than death. People say nice things about the dead, but the irrelevant are seldom mentioned.
15. Anyone can participate in the conversation.
16. We add value by participating in the conversation.
17. It is the quality of our participation, not the quantity, that determines how much value we bring to the conversation.
18. We extract value by listening to the conversation.
19. The best listeners extract the most value.
20. The organization that listens best extracts the most value.
21. Organizations can’t just listen… They must participate.
22. ALL feedback is good.
23. Conversations flourish when ALL feedback is seen as good.
24. All feedback is useful.
25. Conversations flourish when ALL feedback is seen as useful.
26. The appropriate response to feedback is to say thank you.
27. Find another way to say thank you.
28. Repeat.
29. Now offer a thoughtful response to feedback.
30. Congratulations, we are now having a conversation.

(This manifesto has been cross-posted to: http://eltuo.pbwiki.com/ I encourage fellow boot camp participants and anyone else interested in growing the manifesto to jump in and edit. The pwd is eltuo.)

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EDIT: This was written and posted before reading Michael Stephen’s latest post at Tame the Web–really! A little bit of sychronicity…