by Cynthia Berglez, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Legal Division

From California’s earliest days of physical and economic upheaval, we Californians have tended to be a little more comfortable with change than citizens of less volatile states. And there is no word that better describes the world today than change.

When I began thinking about this post the economy seemed to be improving, but today the Dow is down again, and who knows what it will be when this is published. How can we be ready for the next curve? Look forward, far forward, where the path is clearer. The terrain seems flatter when seen from a distance. See where you’d like to be in ten years, then pull back to where you are now and plan for it.

Business schools used to teach business planning for 5, 10 or 15 years. But for the past 10 years or so, organizations have been saying, “we can’t plan, it’s hard enough to just hang on for the ride.” Maybe they have forgotten the value of planning. A good plan will help a business change with the times, and it will work just as well for an individual, even a librarian. If you plan what you can but don’t carve it in stone, you can be ready for change. But try to keep that distant focus.

Why make a plan?

• It forces you to take a hard look at your current skills. This is good news. You can always add new skills, which helps your brain to stay active too.
• A plan will show you how much money and time you will need to get where you want to go.
• A plan gives focus and direction, relieving stress, streamlining your actions and eliminating distractions.
• Planning compels you to do your homework on market forces and the business environment. This will keep your skills current, and make you aware of changes as soon as possible.

Now, take the first step. You’re a librarian, which means that while you might not know everything, you know how to find it. Find a plan to take you into the next 10 years. There are loads of business and marketing plans on the Internet. We have relevant books in the libraries to which we belong. I just now looked for business plans and our friend Google said “about 88,500,000 results.” I’m sure there must be one you can use.

Think of your career as a business–YOUR business. Network and build your professional support group, among and beyond your librarian colleagues, and develop best practices for your future. I know you’re busy; you have important things to do. Who is going to invest in your career? You are!

References

Debaise, Colleen. “Why you need a business plan,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 28, 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125391138155241963.html

Wikipedia “Business Plan” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plan

Cynthia received her MSLIS fairly recently from San Jose State University, after spending the previous 12 years using her MBA in International Transportation. She was looking for something more stable. Flexibility and marketing her skills is something that she has learned by necessity. She enjoys helping others to find a comfortable path in the changing world.  She is currently the President of the San Francisco Bay Region Chapter of SLA, and the West Coast Research Librarian for the law firm Ropes & Gray.

Info-entrepreneurs, represented by the Association of Independent Information Professionals, stand out as innovative, forward thinking, and client focused information professionals.  This series of posts delivers future ready solutions and strategies from current and past presidents of AIIP.  As industry thought leaders they have much to share about staying ahead of the curve and delivering cost effective solutions to clients worldwide.  In this insightful series of postings readers will learn how to create a job for life by listening for opportunity, watching for changes, stretching to acquire new skills, finding a balance, planning for the long term, and drawing on your strengths. — C.S.

by Marcy Phelps

At a recent meeting of the I-25ers, a group of independent information professionals located in and around Colorado, we had an interesting discussion about staying focused. We all agreed it’s really hard these days, with the many hats we wear and the ever-increasing rate of change in our lives and work, to make decisions about whether or not to take a new direction.

In my nearly 12 years of running a business, I’ve found that long-range planning is the key to developing a path and staying on track. And it’s not just for business owners. Whether you work for yourself or for someone else, planning and setting goals for the next 5 to 10 years provides focus in our lives and milestones for success. It will also keep you sane.

We’re constantly juggling our varied job functions. Business owners, in addition to being researchers, knowledge managers, or consultants, also take care of an assortment of administrative, financial, marketing and other tasks on a daily basis. With cutbacks in the workplace, we’ve taken on additional roles and responsibilities – while trying to make sure our careers and our jobs are future ready. Having a long-range plan keeps you on target for each of your many roles.

It’s also easy these days to get distracted by the latest new toy or way of thinking. Technology develops at an ever-increasing rate, and ideas spread in an instant. It’s difficult to know what you should or should not pursue. Your long-range plan becomes a measure for how it all fits in with your life and your goals.

Long-range planning requires some time to think about where you want to go and how you’re going to get there. Block out a morning or afternoon, shut off email and other distractions, and find a place to work where you’ll be most creative.

Here are some tips for getting started with developing your personal and professional long-range plan:

Think big – It’s OK if you don’t reach all your goals. Go ahead and dare to dream. Visualize what you want your life to look like in 5 to 10 years. What kind of work do you want to do? At what level do you see your business or career?

Think about how to get from here to there – Consider what skills, resources, etc. you need to accomplish your goals. Should you take a class, join an association, hire a coach, or sign up for mentoring? What will it cost to carry out your plan, and how will you pay for it? 

Put it in writing – Don’t ask me why, but there’s something about committing something to paper (yes, pen and paper!) that sets things in motion. Trust me on this. When confronted by something new, take out your plan and see if it aligns with where you want to be and what you want to become.

Stay flexible – While your goals keep you on track, be open to new opportunities. You can’t plan for those out-of-the-blue job offers or disruptive technologies (who knew five years ago that we’d be tweeting with clients?). Again, use your plan as a guide.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from this Future Ready 365 blog, it’s that we are the ones who control our futures. It just takes a little planning to get on the right path and to stay focused. The investment you make now will pay off in the future.

Marcy Phelps is the owner of Phelps Research, a provider of research and analysis to support business planning. She served as the AIIP 2009-2010 President and is the current Chair of SLA’s Advertising and Marketing Division.

by Steven A. Lastres, New York Chapter, Knowledge Management Division

Since the earliest days of libraries, librarians have served as knowledge managers. Whether they were maintaining the scrolls at the Library of Alexandria, creating the catalog for the House of Wisdom (a Ninth Century Islamic library), or assembling annotated links for the law firm intranet, law librarians have always been in the forefront of organizing information and adding value to it. Librarians have long excelled at getting information into the hands of the people who need it. The precise definition of knowledge management (KM) is an elusive one, but one pillar of KM practice holds that knowledge management “is the process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets.”¹

Steven Lastres

Becoming Business Managers

What has changed is that the librarian needs to wear a new hat–that of a business manager. The array of tools available to today’s librarian has driven that change. No longer restricted to offering only upon-request services, librarians can instead embrace a broader view of their professional role. They actively manage their organization’s information assets rather than passively respond to requests.

KM, as evolved from traditional librarianship, today means identifying business opportunities within our organization to help our users practice more efficiently and effectively. Librarians need to understand how our users work, not just anticipate what their information needs will be.

As librarians expand their professional roles, their efforts at KM must align with their organization’s business objectives. Librarians need to become business managers. If we take the business view, librarians are selling a product (knowledge and information) to a market (our users) that needs to be serviced effectively (the right product), efficiently (at the right time), and cost-effectively (at the right price). Figuring out how to improve upon that business model is what knowledge management is all about. When it comes to knowledge management, the emphasis should be on management.

Why do librarians make good knowledge managers? The answer may be that librarians tend to be more eager to adopt new ways of sharing information than our users. Librarians look at new technologies and services with a critical eye to understand how to meet current and emerging information needs. KM is not technology for technology’s sake. Instead, librarians focus on content and its seamless delivery. In many ways, they can decipher what our users need before our users even ask. (After all, that’s what reference interviews are for!) They know the resources, they know how the resources are delivered, and they know how to find the information that our users ask for.

In addition to their skills, when it comes to knowing the content available, most librarians fit well into the KM mold because of their technical sophistication. Today’s librarians are perfectly at home in the online world. And unlike the past, when any project that lived on a server was automatically the ward of the IT department, KM projects are now managed by librarians. Library staff members drive the selection of tools to deliver content, the adoption of interactive services such as wikis and blogs, and the promotion of KM applications such as work product retrieval. This is a major change in librarianship, in which librarians are innovators and technologists, as well as content managers. Most librarians bring considerable technical savvy to their professional work. Librarians, in short, should select the information resources that best fit the practices they support, but they also should be involved in selecting the best delivery platforms. That includes managing the graphic display of information on portal or intranet pages and creating a Web-based presentation that is easy to use and search.

As librarians adapt to a changing world, it’s a good idea to understand some of the changes they face, including these:

• Users expect to receive information faster than ever.
• Users expect to have no impediments to get the information they need.
• Users depend on knowledge managers to keep up with KM innovations and best practices.

As knowledge management becomes more ingrained in corporations and law firms, KM managers need to become experts in three specialized fields: librarianship, legal technology, and business management. Librarians need to understand the technical possibilities–not just the nuts and bolts of the software but also the realistic research needs of the lawyers.

Change is propelling librarians forward in a world where they must adapt to new ways of thinking about the information over which they are stewards. This changing world means new opportunities for librarians, as librarians redefine themselves as KM managers who create value for the firm by effectively managing the information for which they are professionally responsible.

¹ Megan Santosus & Jon Surmacz, “The ABCs of Knowledge Management”, CIO Magazine, 2001.

Steven A. Lastres is Director of Library and Knowledge Management at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. His e-mail address is salastres@debevoise.com.