I was raised by CPAs. One of those CPAs, my dad, was a senior vice president of a major trucking company. His office was on the top floor of the corporate headquarters (which was only the fifth floor, because we’re in Arkansas), and it was dramatically nice in a nineties way–dark wood, a grandfather clock, fancy rugs. I interned at the company one summer, and during orientation, the trip to the fifth floor was a big deal–it was even framed to us as if spotting an executive would be like a celebrity sighting. I’d been going to the fifth floor my entire life, and the idea that I should find it deeply prestigious was very confusing.

I tell this story because when I first entered my organization, I didn’t see it as having a ‘fifth floor.’ I didn’t really see it as being a corporate world at all. In a lot of ways, we have captured some of the energy of the ‘hyperlinked organization’ that David Weinberger outlines in the fifth chapter of The Cluetrain Manifesto, especially among the on-the-ground branch workers. One of the things at the heart of the hyperlinked organization, as distilled by Micheal Stephens in a section of Wholehearted Librarianship, is being human–moving away from corporate speak and red tape and focusing on human voice. I have a host of senior librarians that I can reach out to quickly via instant message, which we’re all encouraged to use with each other, and get a wealth of advice that is written in the hallmarks of internet speech. I can think of dozens of people who I feel are hanging out with me in a ‘hyperlinked organization’ of our own making–flattening the hierarchy of years of experience or library size into an exchange of ideas and advice. These are forums where we come up with guerilla solutions, like using a personal Canva account to help our technology function better (if you’re reading this, employer, please recognize that literally everyone is doing this, we don’t have a choice!).

An example of some hyperlinked problem-solving

And that little parenthetical above highlights exactly why I find this topic so compelling–because while to an extent, I’m working in a hyperlinked organization, there are also respects in which I’m not–the desperate need we have for certain technologies and our workarounds could definitely be solved and have definitely been expressed to our own ‘fifth floor’, but have been universally shot down over concerns about what we would do with unlimited access to creative formats. So we do it covertly, as sort of an ‘open secret’ that everyone seems very used to and okay with, but that I find incredibly stressful–what happens if someone decides it’s worth cracking down on this stuff? 

I have never been mystified by the fifth floor, and I can’t seem to muster the reverence I’m supposed to have for it. The Hyperlinked Organization appeals to me because it doesn’t seem to have much reverence for the fifth floor either–it points out the ways in which we are equal when it comes to our work, versus focusing on the mythic qualities often assigned to CEOs. As a child, I never found the fifth floor impressive because the people who worked there were like my dad, who was smart, but wasn’t a god. Now, I have a healthy respect for the ‘fifth floor’ of my organization because I know they have a lot of experience. They aren’t, however, experts at the teens who come into my library: I’m the expert there, whether that expertise is appreciated or not.

Through a rather odd turn of events, I’m now one of the most senior people in my branch. I may not have a private office, but I am definitely on the ‘fifth floor.’ So I’m thinking a lot about how I can bring the ‘hyperlinked organization’ into the work I do with the nine other people in the building–Stephens provides a sort of list in his ‘Hyperlinked Organization’ article, and I’m trying to focus on how I might implement those principles on a small scale. I’m even thinking of how I can bring transparency to the teens, especially when it comes to rules around food (chips? Easy to clean. Melted ice cream? Very difficult!). I have always been fascinated by hierarchies, and the way in which the hyperlinked organization seeks to break them down feels like the future to me–especially as the other young adult librarians and I maximize our illicit Canva use.

References: 

Levine, R., Locke, C., Searls, D., & Weinberger, D. (2009). The Cluetrain Manifesto. Basic Books.

Stephens, M. (2019). Wholehearted Librarianship. American Library Association.