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My first day at my first PLA
March 26, 2008 10:51 PM | Professional OrganizationsMichael Scott, Assistant Director
I write this blog post on the evening of the first day of my first PLA conference. Even though this is my first PLA conference, I am not new to attending national conferences. I've attended several Special Libraries Association and Medical Library Association conferences over the years.
The highlight of Day 1 of the PLA conference had to be John Wood's presentation at the opening general session. John is the founder and CEO of Room to Read, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children in the developing world break the cycle of poverty through education. John's goal for the organization (I think he said he will die trying to accomplish this goal) is to reach 10 million children with the lifelong gift of education by 2020. There work is focused on the part of the world where 84% of the world's children in poverty live: Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
Two key business points that the organization uses to guide its work really resonated with me. The first key that I latched onto was that they have an intense focus on results (which John picked up while working at Microsoft). An example of their results include opening a school every 31 hours. The second key that made me prick up my ears was dream big dreams. As John said, go big or go home. How did they apply this key? Well, how about Oprah Winfrey raising $1 million dollars from her viewers after an appearance by John on her show? (the huge number of donators brought the organizations 8 servers down!)
I was truly inspired by this organization's work and hope to read John's book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World (HarperCollins, 2006). I want to know if there's something we can take from John's experience and apply it to the SELCO region. Don't know the answer yet but will find out.
