David Whelan

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Latest from David Whelan

Reading Time: 7 minutes
I had some small hopes that generative AI—like Google Glasses and Facebook Smart Glasses—would be a flash in the pan. It still might be. But Microsoft and Google have now embedded it into their search and so it has become inescapable from an information searching perspective. It was interesting to me, then, to see a use
Continue Reading Tech When Tech Is Needed

Reading Time: 10 minutes
I work in a service profession. There’s nothing worse than when something gets in the way of the customer being served. Sometimes it’s within our control to remedy and sometimes it’s not. Law libraries intermediate most of our electronic materials, so if a legal information provider fails to function, we don’t really have much to fall
Continue Reading It’s a You Problem

Reading Time: 8 minutes
I struggle with perspective on a regular basis. You look at a problem and you see it one way and then you talk to someone else and they see it differently. Sometimes it’s just two ways of seeing something but, when you’re making a decision, the difference can determine how or whether you invest resources. The
Continue Reading Out of Frame

Reading Time: 11 minutes
We value what we can measure. In law libraries, that means we sometimes value only a subset of what is actually valuable in our organizations. But metrics can help you to show funders and decision-makers like governance boards your impact. Web-based metrics may be a growing part of the measurements we use, as physical metrics—foot traffic,
Continue Reading Turn On the Analytics Flow

Reading Time: 7 minutes
I run a bunch of web apps. It’s usually pretty easy. Each app updates as new features or fixes roll out. They all run on PHP and I have worked with them for a couple of years or more each. After an update, I can usually get in and fix things that aren’t working. But recently,
Continue Reading Careful Migration

Reading Time: 8 minutes
Over the last couple of years, I’ve done a lot of virtual meetings. Mostly interviews, if I’m exact about it. One morning, as I was preparing to join a media platform, I hit peak frustration. I had slowly added about a half dozen virtual meeting apps to my PC and this platform required yet another one.
Continue Reading Reasonable Expectations

Reading Time: 6 minutes
I’m coming up on my first year working directly with a governance board again. As some of you will know, a board will have its own personality. You may have one that is right in the middle, neither hot or cold. Some boards I’ve worked with will have one or two very active members. Those can
Continue Reading A Delicate Dance

Reading Time: 8 minutes
I am working on a presentation for an AALL caucus in the next month. It’s given me a reason to play around with Microsoft PowerPoint’s Cameo feature. It validated a concern that I have about virtual presentations, which is that the speaker and the presentation are split, visually, and that it doesn’t need to be that
Continue Reading A Cameo Appearance

Reading Time: 6 minutes
Twitter remains a key social media tool for me. Its value has substantially diminished in the last 6 months, although some recent changes like view count have been enlightening, emphasizing that diminution if anything. I have used TweetDeck as well, which is a Twitter tool that enables post management. It has lagged behind – or been
Continue Reading All Hands on Deck

Reading Time: 9 minutes
I read a lot about management and leadership. Other than my family, the people I work with are among the most important people to me. It’s not that we’re all great friends. I think I’m a difficult person to be friendly with, I’m pretty private. But when you run an organization, those people are your responsibility.
Continue Reading What is Your Baseline?

Reading Time: 10 minutes
Empathy is a foundational leadership skill. The ability to understand another’s feelings is integral to understanding how to work with them. It can help you understand what motivates them. Or when they are pushed to their limit and you need to ask less of them. But I am struggling with fear.

Empathy, and its manifestation as
Continue Reading Out of Reach