This week, SLA Europe take over the Future Ready blog. SLAE has around 250 members in half a dozen different countries. We are a thriving network of information professionals: individuals and organisations within the UK and across Europe come together to benefit from each others’ knowledge and experience. All areas of the information profession are represented by our members -  specialist librarians, researchers, knowledge managers, business insight consultants, information scientists, editors, content specialists, graduates and academics and we’ve got representation in many different divisions.

by Bethan Ruddock, Europe Chapter, Business & Finance, Leadership & Management Divisions

What’s the one sentence I remember most clearly from library school? (Apart from ‘you passed!’) The revelation, the moment things fell into place? The phrase that summed up everything I’d been learning? Interoperability is a mindset. I don’t know where it originally came from. All I know is that it’s become one of those phrases that I feel encapsulate librarianship, along with ‘the user is not broken,’ ‘content not container’ and ‘more cake please.’

Future ready is also a mindset. It’s about more than being open to change. It’s about always having one mental eye and ear open for the stirrings of change – and then adapting the way you think and work to accommodate this.  In games of mental strategy, such as chess and go, the ability to ‘read’ a number of moves ahead is considered vital for those aiming to become masters of the game. This comes from a combination of knowledge of the game – recognising known shapes, expected situations – and being able to think on your feet; to see a move and realise that it signifies, somewhere down the road, something for which you’d better prepare now.

This is the same in the information professions. The information landscape is our game. We need to be in the habit of scanning developments, no matter how routine the opening moves seem to be. By recognising how what we do now will impact later in the game, we automatically put ourselves a few moves ahead.

I was delighted to hear a story at the UK Archives Discovery Forum earlier this year, which demonstrated this perfectly.  One of the presenters was speaking about her experiences working in archives in the early 90s, and gave us a quote from her manager at the time (who is my new LIS hero). They said: ‘We may not have a database now, but if we have structured data then one day we will have a database to put it in!’ Being able to think about your database structure before you have a database? Now, that’s Future Ready.

Bethan Ruddock is an early-career professional, working as Content Development Officer for Library and Archival Services at Mimas, University of Manchester. She is Awards Chair and Early Career Co-Chair for SLA Europe, and Co-Chair of the LMD Marketing Section.  Bethan blogs at http://bethaninfoprof.wordpress.com, tweets as @bethanar, and is currently editing a New Professional’s Toolkit (http://lisnewprofs.wordpress.com/), due for publication in 2012.

This week, SLA Europe take over the Future Ready blog. SLAE has around 250 members in half a dozen different countries. We are a thriving network of information professionals: individuals and organisations within the UK and across Europe come together to benefit from each others’ knowledge and experience. All areas of the information profession are represented by our members -  specialist librarians, researchers, knowledge managers, business insight consultants, information scientists, editors, content specialists, graduates and academics and we’ve got representation in many different divisions.

Geraldine Clement-Stoneham, Europe Chapter, Academic, Biomedical & Life Sciences, Information Technology, Knowledge Management, Leadership & Management, and Taxonomy Divisions

Noone can really predict the future of our profession accurately, but we know too well that it is changing and changing fast. Good business planning in uncertain time involves the development of scenarios with associated plans of action, and an assessment of their likelihood. The assumption is that the best way to cope with uncertain outcomes is to have an array of possible responses available at all times, in the hope that one of them will provide a way to adapt to the new circumstances.

I believe that the same can be applied to career planning, and that the best way to prepare for the future is to seek new experiences in order to develop the ability to apply our core information management skills in different situations.  When we apply for a job, we tend to do so because our skills match the job description. Once we are in the job, at the beginning the new environment brings enough learning opportunities, but over time this gets harder as one settles in daily routines.

I have discovered throughout my career that unexpected activities I volunteered for enabled me to develop skills and experience which put me in a better place when time came to move on to the next job. I am lucky because I am a naturally inquisitive person, so I tend to look for new adventures all the time, having even been described as a “compulsive volunteer”! Whilst some might readily argue that an unusual activity is “outside the scope of their role,” and turn it down, I tend to accept if I think I can contribute valuably, and also get something out of it which I would find enjoyable (such as acquiring new skills).

My willingness to invest my time and skills in projects outside of my comfort zone has not only given me the opportunity to work alongside great people who shared their expertise, but also enabled me to influence outcomes and demonstrate the value of my professional knowledge. When I didn’t get the opportunity to grow my skills in my work place, I volunteered in my local SLA chapter. There I have been fortunate to work alongside people willing to share their experience and trust me to take initiatives forward. Today I know that I often rely on knowledge and skills that I have developed working on projects not mentioned in my job description. Many have demonstrated that to be “future ready” one must be flexible, and I would encourage everyone to seize new opportunities and develop new responses to a world that is constantly changing.

Geraldine Clement-Stoneham is an Information and Knowledge Manager at the Medical Research Council UK, where is she is responsible for knowledge and information management policies and systems, including records management, as well as the day to day management of a team of six. Her previous experience includes working as a researcher in a investment bank and managing an information unit for a large international law firm, providing support to lawyers and business development teams. She obtained an MA in Musicology and English from the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and an MA in Library and Information Management from University College London. She was the SLA Europe Chapter President in 2009 and currently serve as as the Membership Chair and an Alignment Ambassador. She is a member of the SLA Information Ethics Advisory Council.

by David Stern, Rhode Island Chapter, Knowledge Management, Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics, and Science-Technology Divisions

SLA is a great place to become future ready … because it is THE place where all the tools, knowledge, and opportunities exist to make you a more complete professional.

Where else will you find such a broad group of experts with comprehensive knowledge of the tools, the trends, and the bleeding-edge developments in the industry? Where else will you find a sandbox of the latest tools, with a cadre of colleagues ready to assist you and play in hopes of finding new applications? Where else will you find a risk-free environment in which to develop speaking, writing, management, and leadership skills? Where else will you find a ready-made network of librarians and industry colleagues interested in exploring new solutions to age-old or brand-new issues? Where else will you so easily find such a group of like-minded people, and develop life-long friendships?

And SLA does not just make you future ready by preparing you to face the rapidly changing information and knowledge world –  it also allows you to impact this future. In SLA you will be collaborating with vendors and publishing partners in order to influence the future. Be future ready and futuristic!

David Stern is Associate Dean for Public Services at Illinois State University. He is an SLA Fellow with prior service on the SLA Board of Directors, and as Chair of two Divisions and has spent numerous after-conference hours on the dance floors and at baseball games.

Reposted with permission from The Strategic Librarian (http://strategiclibrarian.com)

by Nina Platt, Minnesota Chapter, Competitive Intelligence, Information Technology, Knowledge Management, Legal, and Leadership & Management Divisions

My summer has been filled with a new job, new industry, new co-workers, new terminology with an overload of acronyms, and knowledge management all the time. I’m going through a transition that has had plenty of surprises for me and more to come if I’m right.

As someone who has been a director in a public library, technical services librarian in an academic library, information specialist, cataloger, systems librarian, technical services manager, and director in law firm libraries, as well as a couple stints as a consultant, I ‘ve had plenty of opportunity to develop and use the knowledge and skills of a librarian. I love my career. It provides me with challenges and variety of work that few people would expect a librarian to experience.

So why would I set aside the library part of the work to take on a role where I will be working as a knowledge manager without any library duties? In fact, I’m part of the company’s talent development team. It’s probably because it is a challenge I haven’t tackled. I’ve worked in knowledge management during the last 25 years but I always had traditional and not so traditional library duties as well. Knowledge management is what I’ve always said I wanted to do. Why then, is the transition so difficult.

While many new librarians are coming into the profession expecting to do work that isn’t traditional, most of us who have been working as librarians find the change just a tad bit difficult. It’s what keeps us from moving forward beyond the boundaries of what we know and will probably be our undoing. At the same time, it is our future. We have a lot at stake here. It isn’t news that the library and our responsibilities as we know them are changing.

You, like me, have probably taken forays into the unknown by stepping outside your level of comfort while taking on new responsibilities. When we do that we start a transition from what we know and how we operate, to the future knowledge and skills we will gain. The change may be easy, but it’s the transition that may send us heading back to what was if we have the opportunity to do so.

When a change takes place, the transition that follows, according to change management expert, William Bridges**, are three phased:

… transition is very different from change. Change is situational: the reduction in the work force, the shift in the strategy, and the switch in reporting relationships are all “changes.” Transition, on the other hand, is a three phase psychological reorientation process that people go through when they are coming to terms with change. It begins with an ending—with people letting go of their old reality and their old identity. Unless people can make a real ending, they will be unable to make a successful beginning.

He then goes on to describe the next phase, which he calls the neutral zone:

This is a no-man’s land where people are (in Matthew Arnold’s graphic image) “Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born.” The neutral zone is a time and a state of being in which the old behaviors and attitudes die out, and people go dormant for a while as they prepare to move out in a new direction.

Sounds terrifying, right? Despite the fear it brings, there is hope for a new beginning, which is the final phase:

Only after going through each of these first two phases of transition can people deal successfully with the third phase: beginning over again, with new energy, a new sense of purpose, a new outlook, and a new image of themselves.

While I’ve studied change management and have looked to Bridges as one of the great minds on change process in his focus on the transition instead of the change, when I started this new position, I still stumbled in my recognition of the transition I am in. It wasn’t until this week when I told someone else that I’m going through a transition, that I realized it myself.

I’m not telling my story because I think it is extraordinary. I tell it because I believe we are all going through a transition. We’ve been very focused on helping our users with change but what have we done for ourselves? In past posts, I’ve talked about doing what we need to do to stay relevant. If we want to be here to experience working with users, information, knowledge, and more in the future, we need to focus more on the transition we are going through rather than the change.

How do we make it through all this? We need start by saying goodbye to what we’ve known. This is where I am struggling – you may be struggling with it too. If Bridges is right, we won’t make it if we try to hang on to the past. If we do let go, the neutral zone in the next phase, will be a time when things just don’t seem right and we will probably want to go back to what we’ve known. If we manage to keep moving forward, we will experience times that make changes worth it. Bridges tells us that the neutral zone is a place where innovations and experiments are possible. When we get to our new beginning, we will arrive with new ideas, ready for the future.

Saying goodbye isn’t easy. The good news is, even if the changes we’re experiencing now and in the future seem troublesome, and the transition to the new beginning is fraught with frustration, we have a lot to look forward to. I say, let’s go for it!

** William Bridges, author of several books on change and transition including:

Technical communicators face many of the same challenges that confront information professionals when it comes to staying Future Ready in a profession that changes constantly. We reached out to a group of prominent movers and shakers in the profession and asked how they manage their careers, and these are their stories.

by Ben Moore, Senior Technical Writer/Project Lead (and part time comic book writer)

I’m lucky to have a stable job and a stable career. But stability can also equal stagnant.

Usually my eye toward the future is focused on keeping that stability. My life at home is exciting enough with kids activities, neighborhood picnics and the occasional evening out with my wife. But this was the year I needed a shakeup.

Juggling work, dad, husband, volunteer and coaching duties is not a problem. I’ve worked to become better at each of those activities. The problem is, I don’t spend much time stepping out of the box and improving me.

This year I wanted to check off an adventure in my bucket list so I’d at least not regret that I didn’t try – writing and publishing my own comic book.

Writing is what I do for a living, although it usually involves a bunch of 1’s and 0’s or a whole lot of strange phrases like “flip chip ball grid array.” In order to rejuvenate work life and my sense of fulfillment, I needed to write something creative.

They say when you want to lose weight, you should tell a friend because they’ll keep you honest. Without thinking, I casually told a friend that I wanted to write a comic book. He said “Great! Now go write it. You have until the end of the month.” I instantly had a fan and an editor all rolled into one.

Writing my first comic also turned out to be a valuable experience for my day job. All I wanted to do was tell a story, but I ended up making new business contacts, improving my writing ability, and thrilling my boss with some new technical documentation that was more exciting than the usual plain white bread we publish.

Coincidentally, during the time I started writing, my favorite comic book writer was teaching a new class at PSU, AND our division GM said we need to start taking one day a quarter to “follow our passion” to improve creativity in our work.  It was an open door to do anything I wanted, and out came a comic strip about how to log in to our project tracking system.

The GM loved it and wanted more. My company paid for me to take the PSU class. I ended up meeting two other aspiring Technical Writers. One of them ended up being a wonderful intern for me. And for the first time in my life, school was fun.

I used my newfound skills (and free time provided by said handy intern) to self-publish three comics within six months. Financially, only one of those comics broke even, but I’m still making adjustments. And I still have three issues to go, so who knows, maybe next year you’ll see my characters showing up on your child’s lunchbox.

Ben Moore has been a Technical Writer and a Technical Communication Project Leader at Intel for the past 8 years. After graduating from Pacific Lutheran University with a degree in Communications, Ben began his career as a sports reporter but later shifted toward careers with normal working hours. Now Ben spends his free time playing with his kids, coaching kids sports, bicycling, and reading comic books.

Technical communicators face many of the same challenges that confront information professionals when it comes to staying Future Ready in a profession that changes constantly. We reached out to a group of prominent movers and shakers in the profession and asked how they manage their careers, and these are their stories.

by Kurt Stewart, Kuala Kangsar, Malaysia

In December 2010, I knew beyond any lingering doubts that I was ready for a change. My wife and I had just sold our business of 20 plus years, an English nursery school and language institute we had set up in the Atlantic seaboard town of Porto, Portugal. And now the future was staring me right in the eyes. At the tender age of 55, I was in that scary but exciting place where I could dare to ask: now what?

I grew up in Oakland, California, and went to high school outside Portland, Oregon. I’d spent most of my adult life working as a trainer and teacher, first in Paris (my glory years), then later, in Porto with my Portuguese wife (the “mature years”). Along the way, I’d put together a skill set that gave me a few options in the education field.

In other words, all along the way, I’d kept myself Future Ready. Looking back, it seems like I had a plan all along. At the time, some of those moves smacked of fear and desperation. I worked as a consultant in Paris helping companies create language training packages for their employees. I earned further qualifications in “Teaching English as a Foreign Language” (TEFL) by obtaining the Royal Society of Arts diploma, and later, I got a job teaching writing at a private university in Porto.

I also kept up some freelance writing for newspapers in the U.S. and a magazine in Paris. In 2005, I thought I’d add another odd-colored feather in my cap by becoming a certified professional coach. All of these skills had made me Future Ready, but back to a central question: now what? Was I really ready for the future?

At 55, I knew windows were closing fast in areas where some of my skills might still be required. I considered my experience in TEFL and began searching for teaching positions abroad. But not just anywhere–I wanted to realize a lifelong goal of mine–to live in Southeast Asia.

I patiently searched the web for positions in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and southern China, until one day, up popped The Perfect Job. WANTED: mentor/teacher/trainer in rural Malaysia; three-year project, sponsored by the Malaysian Ministry of Education, working with grammar school teachers of English to help them develop new teaching methods. Bingo!

So now, here we sit, while the blades of an overhead fan stir the hot, humid air of my little Malaysian terraced house located in a small town on the Sungai Perak. Every day, I drive through thick strips of verdant jungle, past coconut groves and rambutan trees, on my way to the five schools I oversee here. Everything is different, and everything is new.

You need to start by embracing change, but keep going. Go out and grab it. Plan for it, work for it, and stalk it like prey. Just think about what it is you really want from the rest of your time on this planet. Think long and hard if need be, because the sooner you can see it in your dreams, the sooner you can make it happen.

Kurt Stewart grew up in northern California and took his degree in Classical Languages at San Francisco State University. When he realized that there were few people he could speak dead languages with, he moved to Paris where he studied French. While there, he worked as a freelance writer for USA Today and wrote for Paris Passion Magazine. To help pad his income, he started teaching English in companies in France. He liked teaching so much that he obtained a diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and eventually started his own language training institute in Porto, Portugal. He became interested in coaching and mentoring, and in 2005 became a certified professional coach and member of the International Coach Federation. He started his own coaching business, and became a trainer for the International Coach Academy. He currently lives and works in Malaysia where he has the good fortune to apply his passion for teaching and coaching, training and mentoring English primary teachers in rural parts of the country.

Technical communicators face many of the same challenges that confront information professionals when it comes to staying Future Ready in a profession that changes constantly. We reached out to a group of prominent movers and shakers in the profession and asked how they manage their careers, and these are their stories.

by Rachel Houghton

Rachel Houghton is a senior information designer for Sage Business Solutions, a leading software supplier for the construction and real estate industry. She has parlayed her active volunteer activities with her professional organization to keep her career future ready.

My writing career has been a long, constant struggle to make myself future ready. I earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a writing career in mind, and I even dabbled in journalism by writing on the school paper. But I sensed early on that the jobs I was qualified for weren’t going to lead to a satisfying career, and I felt myself drawn to technology. Now, looking back on the last 15 years, I can see how one constant theme has dominated my quest to keep my career relevant — participation in a professional organization.

My first job entailed what we call a “lone writer.” Essentially, I was the entire writing department for a company that created computer chips. I wore a lot of hats there – editor, template designer, trainer, writer, and graphic artist – and I enjoyed those roles immensely. But other tasks – receptionist, scribe, and note-taker – weren’t really up to my professional standards. I tried to move laterally, but my resume wasn’t getting me any interviews. So I began to boost my participation with the local chapter of a professional organization devoted to technical writing. I moved rapidly up the ranks, and soon I won election as the president of the local chapter.

The role of president brought me new skills, including public speaking, managing budgets, directing others, and working with like-minded volunteers. I caught the attention of a few movers and shakers at the annual conference, and they recruited me to help with conference programs, websites, and more. I completed the assigned tasks on time, and suddenly one of my new friends convinced me to run for a position on the board. Along the way, I gained the confidence to start submitting proposals for sessions, and I have now participated as a presenter. I’ve gone from a wall-flower to behind the velvet rope, because I pushed myself to keep up and get ahead of the crowd on topics such as social networking. That professional participation has helped me at work lately, as I was named to a pair of committees the company formed to enhance its own online presence.

Getting involved as an energized volunteer has paid dividends for my career over and over. I like to think I’ve survived layoffs, landed that key interview, been named to coveted committees, and got selected for enviable assignments because I’ve worked so hard to make myself future ready. The specific required skills have come and gone over the years, but one thing never changes — your energy and passion for keeping up with your profession are valuable things. Anything you can do to prove you aren’t afraid of change on a personal or professional level is good, because it shows you think about being Future Ready all the time. Employers like that.

Rachel Houghton is a Senior Information Designer at Sage, a company that specializes in leading-edge construction productivity and real estate solutions. She has more than 14 years of technical communication experience. Rachel is the Secretary for the Society for Technical Communication (STC), past program chair of the STC Technical Communication Summit, and is actively involved in the STC Willamette Valley community and reviews books for the STC journal, Technical Communication. She enjoys photography and Photoshop. Find her on Twitter @rjhoughton.

By Janice C. Anderson, Texas Chapter and SLA 2011 Conference Advisory Council

You may or may not have recognized the grey-haired female on the top banner on the SLA 2011 Philadelphia Conference registration page a few weeks ago. Well…it was lil’ol’ me. I wasn’t even aware that I was photographed, let alone that my mug had made it to the website. When Cindy Romaine reached out to me and suggested that I was the ‘poster child for the Future Ready Conference’, I could not refuse to share my thoughts for the 365 Blog?

As a member of the 2011 Conference Planning Advisory Council I was immediately drawn to the ‘Future Ready’ theme that Cindy presented to us. In many ways I have been living in the future for most of my career as a librarian/information management professional turned entrepreneur and business owner. I have challenged myself to think broadly and creatively in how to apply the principles and practices of library and information sciences in the business environments of my customers. I have challenged my colleagues and co-workers to create and apply effective and relevant techniques for managing information assets, and in an environment of constant change and continuous learning, to deliver value and transfer knowledge to others.

My emphasis has always been on technology and daily activities to keep up with the rapidly changing regulatory environments and tools that our customers use and need to manage and access information assets.   That emphasis is critical to both the present and the future.   You might ask yourself what else a 60-something grandmother, aka ‘little librarian lady’, could say or do that would help her and others be ‘Future Ready’…maybe prepare for retirement and ultimate wind-down? Coming out of a deep economic recession with Medicare and Social Security in trouble, what can we Baby Boomers do to be ‘Future Ready’?  After all, we see the good times in the rear view mirror, right?

Not so much!  You see, from where I sit the future is now for information professionals; my success and that of many folks a third of my age depends not so much on what we know, or even what we can learn. The bright future for all of us is shaped by our thinking and being, by our ability and willingness to dream and adapt.  There’s no time for looking back or whining; it’s time to jump onto the court and grab the ball.

So then, what does ‘Future Ready’ look like to me? It looks like

• Eliminating self-imposed limits and worn out thinking that cause us to hesitate, avoid risk, and postpone getting started.
• Learning something new every single day, even if that learning is that we are not as smart as we once thought.
• Working hard to remove barriers that limit our abilities to access information, learn, grow and contribute in meaningful ways.
• Sitting on the edge of our seats, working to make a difference, expecting great things to happen, and then celebrating when they do!

Are you in the game?  Get the right uniform attitude on…we’re playing in Philly.  See you there!

Janice C. Anderson is founder and CEO of Access Sciences Corporation, a 26 year-old information management consulting and technology practice. She serves on the 2011 SLA Conference Planning Advisory Council.

by Cynthia Eastman, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Engineering and Environmental & Resource Mgmt Divisions

We as individuals need to be future ready but so does our support structure, in other words, SLA. We talk about attracting members from outside our traditional venues but if they don’t see any division or caucus activity that is in their line of work how can we ask them to join? If we want to attract members from non-traditional fields, we need to identify those potential fields and think about what SLA should have in place to attract those people. One approach would be to identify say three fields where we think we can attract new members and then set up a new forum for those fields. Obviously these forums won’t be like divisions but they could grow into divisions over time. Perhaps they are just a few existing members getting together for discussion sessions at the annual meeting. Yes, we already have caucuses that do this but I suggest we do away with the formal caucus formation process for these forums. Perhaps it’s as simple as asking for a few volunteers to lead a discussion and then setting up a web page where discussion notes and other information can be posted.

Switching to the opposite direction, is it time to look at de-structuring some of our current divisions to help us attract and retain active volunteers? At every conference I hear stories about the difficulties some divisions have filling Board positions and supporting conference sessions. On top of that are the burn-out stories where someone steps up to be Division chair and then disappears from volunteer roles after their term ends (or even sooner). Can we come up with a “small division” option with fewer positions to worry about and a lower number of sessions to plan? Yes, I know that divisions aren’t required to fill all positions or to do the maximum number of sessions allowed. But many people are intimidated away before we get them to a point where they understand the option to wrestle things down to a manageable level.

The keynote speaker at this year’s Leadership Summit showed that “Opportunities to Gain Leadership Experience” is not one of the aspects of association membership that is rated high by non-volunteers. If we want to turn those folks into volunteers, we need to think about new options for engagement. Less structure and fewer procedural requirements might be one way to go.

Cynthia is Corporate Librarian at Kennedy Jenks Consultants, an environmental engineering firm in San Francisco. Prior to Kennedy Jenks, Cynthia was Director of Information Services as Keyser Marston Associates, a real estate consulting firm. She is program planner for the Engineering Division for the Philly and Chicago annual conferences and has served as Chair of the Environment and Resource Management Division.