Collaborating with Strangers - Sivia Center, Gainesville (03/05/18) 

CoLAB Workshops facilitate connections and discoveries which otherwise would not happen, as many past participants have articulated. The "don't talk to strangers" mantra has impacted our culture's accessibility to new information and networks. Most people tend to avoid talking or working with people they do not know. But to do so short-circuits much of the creative potential that is so necessary for innovation, and that organizational stakeholders crave. Library staff members serve patrons by organizing and dispensing information so why not organize people and their assets in the same way?

CoLAB Workshops are asset-based community development facilitated processes for 14 to 120 participants. Over 2,700 participants have benefitted from CoLABs, most of which were presented through a service provided by the University of Florida Libraries. The CoLAB centerpiece is oneonone “speed-meetings” where participants reveal their professional interests, passions, skills, and other assets while wearing a "profile-sign." This information is shared during rounds of three- to four-minute conversations in which participants pair off and talk together on any topic that sparks their interests.  

Across 10 workshops in a recent communications-themed CoLAB series at the University of Florida, post-workshop survey findings revealed that 91 percent of participants rated the workshop good or excellent. When asked if they would attend a similar workshop again, 83 percent responded positively and 89 percent said they would recommend the workshop to other students and faculty. More than half (67 percent) reported that they “felt more confident approaching people they do not know.” Follow-up interviews uncovered ongoing networks of connections, resources and knowledge that extended far beyond the workshops. Interviewees described benefits such as learning about a free publishing platform for starting an open access journal, connecting with faculty from different colleges to create a co-master’s degree, getting a tip from a classmate on a new internship opportunity and discovering a statistician to help complete a complex research project.

For more information, please visit the Collaborating with Strangers website by clicking here.

Trainer: Bess de Farber, Research Administration Manager, University of Florida Libraries; and creator of the CoLAB Planning series®

Bess de Farber, MNM, CPF, president of ASK Associates, Inc. specializing in planning, and collaboration training , has spent the past 25 years working in the nonprofit sector as a financial manager, program director, funder, grants manager, executive director and now consultant/facilitator. She holds a bachelor’s in music, clarinet performance, from USC, a master’s in nonprofit management from FAU, and is one of 300 certified professional facilitators in the U.S through the International Association of Facilitators. de Farber has trained and provided technical assistance to over 700 organizations in Florida. She co-created the Nonprofit Resource Institute in 1998. In 2002, de Farber created the CoLAB Planning Series, currently the only known workshop series producing collaborative projects during workshop sessions. de Farber has served on grant panels for the Florida-Division of Cultural Affairs, National Endowment for the Arts, Education Foundation of Palm Beach County, the Dade Children’s Trust, and the George Snow Scholarship Fund. In addition to ASK, she currently serves as the University of Florida Libraries' grants manager.

Cost: NEFLIN classes are free of charge for Florida library staff.  Registration is required for all classes and NEFLIN members get priority.