Best-selling author and visionary Steven Johnson at ALA Midwinter Meeting

CHICAGO — Attendees at the 2013 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle can be ready for a presentation they won't forget, from Auditorium Speaker Steven Johnson, 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 26. One of the most brilliant and inspiring visionaries of contemporary culture, Johnson will offer his hopeful, affirmative outlook for the future. At a time when the conventional wisdom holds that the political system is hopelessly gridlocked with old ideas, Johnson makes the timely and inspiring case that progress is still possible and that new solutions are on the rise.

Johnson is acclaimed for multi-disciplinary storytelling and big ideas. Combining the deft social analysis of his earlier best-selling books "Where Good Ideas Come From" with the optimistic arguments of "Everything Bad Is Good For You," his most recent book "Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age" (Riverhead Books, September, 2012) makes the case that a new model of political change is on the rise, transforming everything from local governments to classrooms, from protest movements to health care. Johnson paints a compelling portrait of this new political worldview—influenced by the success and interconnectedness of the Internet, but not dependent on high-tech solutions—that breaks with the conventional categories of liberal or conservative thinking. "Future Perfect" has already garnered rave reviews and has appeared on several lists of best books for fall 2012.

Once attendees hear this speaker, they are likely to want to keep up with his thinking— his blog is a good place to start. Steven Johnson is also the author of the best-sellers "The Invention of Air," "The Ghost Map," "Mind Wide Open," "Emergence" and "Interface Culture" and editor of the anthology "The Innovator’s Cookbook." The founder of a variety of influential websites—most recently, outside.in—he writes for Time, Wired, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. His appearance at ALA Midwinter Meeting is sponsored by Penguin Group.

ALA Midwinter Meeting. The conversation starts here . . .

ALA Midwinter Meeting registration and housing are now open. Important conversations about the transformation and future of libraries will be taking place Jan. 25-29 in Seattle.

For attendees who need support in making their case for attending and why they’ll be more valuable to their institutions afterwards, ALA has put together resources that include step-by-step guidelines for what information to present, what previous attendees have said about what they took home from ALA conferences and events, a sample budget worksheet and more. Those resources are available on the Midwinter website.

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ALA Midwinter Meeting. The conversation starts here . . .