New Site Coming Soon

Under-Construction
That’s right, a new homepage is underway. As some of you may know, I like to use my home site as a sort of playground for new technologies. This one has gotten a bit…out of hand. So it’s time to simplify and get back to providing information quick and easy. Don’t worry, rss feeds will remain the same.

VRD Redux

It is ironic that I pushed blogging so hard at this year’s VRD and didn’t actually do any blogging during the conference…well, a few StoryStarter posts. I wanted to give some more information on my last post and the status of VRD 2006 (post to Dig_Ref soon).

The VRD conferences have been part of an ongoing contract with the U.S. Department of Education (the Education Digital Library Initiative). This contract ended in June 2005. This funding paid for program development and staff time. OCLC joined the contract in 2002 and has handled the logistics of the conference (they have always insisted they have nothing to do with the program to avoid any perception of bias, and have been the best partners anyone could ask for). While the conference has always been able to cover its own expenses, OCLC, and this year SU, donated a sizable chunk of staff time to make this happen. With the end of the contract, and a seven year run, we and OCLC have decided it is time to turn the conference over to the virtual reference community.

What does that mean? Well, it means that as a community we need to come up with resources to run VRD 8 if we (the virtual reference community) decide it is worthwhile. We need volunteers to put the program together, we need an organization to handle the logistics (registration, program printing, etc), and we need a place to host 300-400 folks. That could be a hotel, or a campus, or a conference center. Bottom line, we need to come up a with a community and point organization that wants to keep VRD going. This is, by the way, how VRD started. VRD 99 was co-hosted with Harvard and NELINET, 2000 with the University of Washington, and 2001 with Florida State.

Let me be clear, we’re not talking money (that would help), but time. You could volunteer to review papers, or staff the desk, or whatever. If you are in an organization that can provide space, or wants to expand a current virtual reference event to an international audience, that would be great.

In about a week or so OCLC and we are going to schedule a conference call to get together those interested in continuing the conference. If you are interested, please contact either George Needham or me, or watch out for the call information.

I think a VRD 2006 would be great, and I plan on being as involved as this community wants. However, it is time for that community to decide if they need VRD, and if they do, step up.

VRD 7 a Success

Thanks to all for making this year another successful VRD conference. As announced at the closing session, there will be no VRD 8 unless the virtual reference community steps up and takes it over. Keep your eyes out for more information on a December conference call for folks interested in volunteering and adopting the Virtual Reference Desk Conference. The future of the conference is in your hands.

VRD is Coming

Trolly
Lankes is gearing up for the 7th Virtual Reference Desk Conference – this year in San Francisco! Every year has provided the best information on virtual reference, and set the agenda for the whole reference community for the year. There will be a lot of news and events at this conference. You shouldn’t miss it.

Check out the conference website http://www.vrd2005.org

Seattle Innovation Symposium

I’ve been invited to a symposium at the University of Washington to discuss faster economic transfer of research and innovation in information, computer, and management science.

From the invitation:

We write to invite you to join us at the University of Washington on September 13 and 14,
2005, in launching a unique series of research symposia investigating the creation of new billion
dollar market segments in the 21st Century. By bringing together and building a network of multi-
disciplined leaders in the study of innovation, we believe that we, collectively, can reduce the
time to transfer new innovation into economic value.

For the past year, a number of us have been researching and meeting to discuss the
innovation process that leads to new billion dollar market segments like 3Com in Networking,
Adobe in graphics, Google in search, Real Networks in Internet video, and Amazon in e-retailing.
Nineteen new billion dollar market segments came out of Internet1 research and innovations, each
segment seemingly arose from a unique and rather messy innovation process taking 10 to 15
years.

We are now at the cusp of a second surge of emerging billion dollar market segments as
the Internet has reached ubiquity and deep penetration into business and the home, our work and
play. As this phenomenon is occurring, however, its speed and efficiency is slowed by limited
understanding of the innovation process that enables new market segments and companies to
emerge. All too often, innovation is undermined by reliance on out-dated management practices
and communications breakdowns between creators and managers.

The organizers of the symposium are: Mike Eisenberg, Dean, UW Information School; Ed Lazowska. UW Computer Sciences; Dick Nolan, UW Business School; and Rob Austin Harvard Business School