How to Build a Lasting Culture of Innovation (and What Not to Do): A Conversation with the Experts

Publishers often struggle with innovation. Attempts to introduce new people and ideas often fail to deliver meaningful and long-lasting change, leaving managers and leaders wondering what went wrong. Worse, repeated organizational attempts to create change can lead to a culture of cynicism around change management and fear of the dreaded re-org. They say that 'culture eats strategy for breakfast,' so it's tempting to think that the answer is to change the culture of an organization rather than just its products, processes, or even people. The focus on culture is laudable but can also be a trap because it's often rooted in the same paradigm that change is finite, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Truly innovative companies don't treat change as a single event to be managed but create business structures that enable and support innovation. This session explores how organizations can enable a culture of true innovation by hearing how experienced practitioners have succeeded (and failed!) in their attempts at building a culture of innovation: • A change expert in helping transform organizational culture. • A people expert in recruiting and managing people who can help organizations become more innovative. • A veteran - someone who's been there and done that, with the scars to prove it. Through listening to real-world examples as well as practical advice, participants will leave with a better understanding of the value of a culture of innovation, how to get started on building one, and tips on some of the do's and don'ts. || Learning Level: Mixed-Learning || Speakers: Katherine Christian; Kelly May; Sara Rouhi; Ann Michael

SSP Annual Meeting Session Learning Level

Mixed-Learning

Publication Date

2022 | Jun 02

44th Annual Meeting (2022)

34

“Building a More Connected Scholarly Community” The last 19+ months have been a fascinating contradiction, making us feel both painfully disconnected and also perhaps more bonded than ever before. How can we take the strengths we already possessed as a community, fold in lessons learned during the pandemic, and aim for being an even stronger, broader, and more connected community? Our Annual Meeting brings together academics, funders, librarians, publishers, service providers, technologists, and countless others with a communal interest and stake in the dissemination of scholarly information. We look forward to the 44th Annual Meeting as an opportunity to reconnect and to connect anew.

Ann Michael

1

Chief Transformation Officer, AIP Publishing

Ann Michael is Founder and CEO of Delta Think, a consultancy focused on strategy and innovation in scholarly communications. Throughout her career she has gained broad exposure to society and commercial scholarly publishers, librarians and library consortia, funders, and researchers. As an ardent believer in data informed decision-making, Ann was instrumental in the 2017 launch of the Delta Think Open Access Data & Analytics Tool, a comprehensive, interactive, regularly updated data set with diverse visualizations and extensive analysis, which tracks and assesses the impact of open access uptake and policies on the scholarly communications ecosystem. Additionally, Ann has served as Chief Digital Officer at PLOS, a member of the executive team, charged with driving execution and operations as well as their overall digital and supporting data strategy. Ann has served on numerous advisory and fiduciary boards and is a Past President of SSP. In addition to writing on the Scholarly Kitchen, she a member of the Learned Publishing Editorial Board, Chair of the ALPSP North American Chapter, a member of the Publications Committee for the American Society for Microbiology, and the Advisory Board for Johns Hopkins University Press. Ann has a MS from SUNY Stony Brook in Policy Analysis and Public Management and an MS in Business Analytics from the NYU Stern School.

Katherine Christian

2

CEO, Altmetric

Kathy is the Altmetric CEO and Digital Science Chief People Officer. She has been with Altmetric since 2014 but originally joined as the COO, working closely with Altmetric Founder and CEO Euan Adie. In 2017, Euan decided to step down from the role of CEO and promoted Kathy in his place. Prior to Digital Science and Altmetric, Kathy worked at Elsevier for 6 years and before that, she spent over 9 years in drug development, primarily with J&J. Kathy has an MBA from London Business School (but don't hold that against her).

Kelly May

1

CEO, May Strategy Group LLC

Sara Rouhi

5

Director of Strategic Partnerships, Public Library of Science

Sara Rouhi is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at PLOS focusing on developing new business models for sustainable, inclusive open access publishing. Since she’s joined PLOS, the organization has launched three non-APC based business models, one of which — Community Action Publishing — was awarded the ALPSP award for Innovation in Publishing. As a member of PLOS’ leadership team, she works to ensure PLOS’ commercial work aligns closely with its mission to foster open science globally. Sara is active in the scholarly communications community as a volunteer and thought leader speaking frequently on open access, equity in publishing, and diversity in scholarly communications. She is currently Board Member for the a Society of Scholarly Publishing (SSP) and was the recipient of SSP’s Emerging Leader award in 2015.