Staff Development Day 2015

“Team JPL: Tell Us Your Stories”

Since we last met for Staff Development Day, two years of challenges and change have required all of us to reclaim and reinvent our work as library professionals. As a team and as individuals, what we have accomplished is remarkable.

This year we would like to gather once again to celebrate our outstanding work and share with team members our stories of determination, inventiveness and “stick-to-it-iveness” in dealing with the day-to-day challenges of helping our customers and co-workers.

We want you to tell us those stories.  

In fact we are counting on your storytelling and have planned Staff Development Day 2015 (SDD15), Monday, April 20^th, to be built around your stories.

You may not realize it, but your stories of success can serve as a source of inspiration for other team members, positive messages to help us all to grow and learn.

Think about JPL situations over the past two years, large or small, where you have gone beyond the routine—to help a frustrated customer, to improve a work process, to find new or better resources and methods for doing a task, to help a co-worker get past a challenge on the job.

Write an informal 300-400 word story about this experience—or, if you prefer, create an art work or short video.  Use the following questions as examples to guide you:

- Why did you come to join JPL and what has kept you on?
- What was one customer experience that really stuck with you?  Has that experience changed how you do your job and if so how?
- Is there a fellow staff member who has altered your way of seeing JPL and if so how?  And how has that affected you moving forward with your career.
-  How long have you been with the library and in your time as part of the JPL family, how many branches have you worked at?  If possible, please provide a list of branches.
- Do you have an idea for the library but you have always been unsure if or how to share it?  If so, take this chance to share with us all, just don’t forget how this will benefit staff or customers.

Send your story to the JPL Training Blog at jpl.staff.training@gmail.com, using the Subject line “Stories.” If you prefer, send your story anonymously through Delivery to John Carter at Webb-Wesconnett.

We will share these stories with JPL staff in a number of ways:

- On the Staff Development Day 2015 page of the JPL Training Blog
- During the Kickoff and Keynote events on SDD15 on April 20^th
- In posters and displays during that day
- During a full staff storytelling event at the end of the day.

Remember, you can write about difficulties and failures, but keep it friendly.  We are sharing stories to encourage and to celebrate, not to criticize or blame.

Contact Mike Shell at mshell@coj.net if you have questions or suggestions.

Thanks, folks!