Reflections after starting A whole new mind by Daniel Pink. (Warning: this is a long serious digression. Feel free to skip to the next post.)
I think I understand why her Royal Cluelessness went wrong in her evaluation of DotLand. I believe she come in with the preconception that she would be dealing with oldfashioned accountants and library oriented file clerks engaged in oldfashioned Left-brain-directed mechanical activity. The first thing she would see in DotLand is that humoungous wooden card catalog. Far from being an example of oldfashioned mechanical work, that big cabinet is a good instance of the Right-directed activity of managing work with good space design. That big wooden cabinet, unused as a card catalog for over a decade, has been positioned to subtly discourage passersby from rummaging in the tempting shelves of brand new books waiting to go to libraries.
During the various interview and Strategic Planning processes, the words used to describe a lot of the tangible outputs of Dotland were words associated with physical paperwork. I don't think the Queen realized a) the extent to which those apparently physical processes were already automated and b) that the real work and importance of DotLand is in the Right-directed activities of building relationships and providing counseling on library issues. The mechanical is done by software; the work of Dotland is in understanding the whole picture of libraries and smoothing out any rumples in that picture.
I think the Queen believes that only she sees the "big picture". I think that in reality she is still so immersed in the L-directed sequential Information Age that she actually can't see the big picture. DotLand started moving to the Conceptual Age several years ago. The work of DotLand is now sufficiently R-directed that it can't easily be measured or described with the sequential lists and facts of the Information Age. Therefore, the Queen dismisses it as unimportant. I keep thinking "If only we could have told our Story better..." but then I remember that the Queen doesn't think Stories are important.