by Hal Kirkwood, Indiana Chapter, Business & Finance, Competitive Intelligence Divisions

‘Alice remarked in great surprise, “Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree the whole time! In our country, you’d generally get to somewhere else if you ran very fast for a long time.”’

“A slow sort of country!” replied the Queen. “Now, here you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”

An article that I have kept and reread over and over is by Arnold Hirshon in Advances in Librarianship entitled ‘Running with the Red Queen: Breaking New Habits to Survive in the Virtual World’. In this article he talks about reinventing reference, meeting increased customer expectations, changing strategic directions, changing our physical spaces, changing how we collaborate, coping with the speed of technological change, and integrating technology effectively.

This article was written in 1996.

These issues are as relevant now as they were 15 years ago. The competition from Google, the multitude of technological options available, the need for building information literacy skills, the necessity to change our physical spaces and how we connect with our constituents are all challenges we as information professionals must face today. We must define our role. We must create the future. To remain relevant we have to run twice as fast to get anywhere, this is what Future Ready means to me.

Hal Kirkwood is the Associate Head of the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics at Purdue University. He is a past-chair of the Business & Finance Division.
Hal is currently running for one of the two Director positions on the SLA Board. He can be reached at kirkwood@purdue.edu.

by Sandy Malloy, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, News Division

David Meerman Scott, a marketing strategist whose work I see all the time, wrote a post on his WebInkNow blog, “Apple Is Not Different,” in which he opines that no product or company matters outside the context of the problems they solve for the user.  Says Scott, “What your buyers do care about are themselves and they care a great deal about solving their problems (and are always on the lookout for a company that can help them do so.)”

Substitute “patrons” or “customers” or “clients” or “users” for “buyers” in this statement and “librarian” for “company” and you have a situation that we librarians should take to heart.

Scott cites Apple as an example of a company whose products are considered cool.  But even the coolest products are only as good as the problems they solve.  Sleek design?  That solves the problem of “ho, hum, I have a computer on my desk”; in other words, boredom.  The “it-factor” of being a member of the Apple tribe?  That solves the problem of needing to feel a sense of community or belonging.  Lack of viruses?  Congratulations, you’ve saved the trouble of buying and maintaining a lot of external virus detection software.

Do you believe you should create a brand for yourself?  Remake your image?  Market your library?  SLA’s Alignment Project gives you tools to do all these things, and they are important, but mean nothing outside the context of understanding your clients and how you are going to solve their problems.

So, it’s not “my library.”  It’s YOUR library (you, my client) and I’m going to do my best to understand how you want to use it.  Do you want it on your desktop?  In your pocket?  Would a regular email newsletter help you do your job?  What about tweets of new articles that are available?  A spreadsheet of leads?  What can I do to help you get new business, or satisfy regulators, or help you look good to your boss?

Even the language barrier cited by SLA alignment research speaks to connecting with our clients.  When we use their language, we say that we understand the organization’s business or at least enough of it to be on their wavelength when it comes to solving problems for them.

As a group, we librarians or are a very service-oriented group.  But we can also be proprietary about what we know and the resources to which we have access.  In promoting ourselves and our libraries in terms of resources and our own knowledge, we are, in marketing-speak, touting features.  What we need to be touting are benefits.  To quote Mr. Scott once again, being aware of “what’s in it for me? [the client]“, we are “addressing real problems rather than reverse engineering a benefit based on the feature set. ”

Sandy Malloy is Senior Information Specialist at Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway company, the San Francisco-based distributor of press releases where she has worked for almost 22 years.  She received her MLS from the University of Southern California and has been an information broker, public librarian, academic librarian, medical librarian and sales representative (though not all at the same time.)

by Amy Degner

A few years ago I left Hoover’s to stay at home with my daughter. When I returned late last year to do some contract work, I was immediately struck by how “future ready” Hoover’s had become. It wasn’t that Hoover’s had suddenly started rolling out forward-thinking innovations; the company had achieved this virtually at its inception, featuring both free advertiser-supported and for-pay premium access to Hoover’s company information during the mid-90’s. But, when I reentered the workplace this time, the electricity in the air was different. Hoover’s had a renewed sense of commitment to its customers and an intense focus on sparking new ideas to make their jobs easier.

We’re all budding visionaries at heart. The key is finding the right time and place to brainstorm. Sometimes it starts in the shower. Other times it’s a rough sketch drawn on the back of a napkin. At Hoover’s we simply refer to it as the “Innovation Lab.”

Late in 2010, Hoover’s launched its first in-house innovation lab, designed to stimulate creative thinking within the context of industry trends, customer needs, and competitor offerings. The mission of the Innovation Lab is to think outside the box, generate project ideas, and use the latest technology to push Hoover’s into its next generation. The lab has a dedicated space and staff who works with internal and external folks representing customer interests. Often our customer-facing folks (sales or customer service) will bring a specific customer issue, either seeking a solution or with a suggestion in hand. The Innovation Lab staff then works with the appropriate product manager to determine how the inventive idea fits into the overall product strategy.

Hoover’s Innovation Lab also sponsors monthly innovation contests, encouraging employees from all departments to submit ideas; the winner then works with the IT staff to bring the concept to fruition.  The lab also hosts an active online ideas community and an internal Innovation Lunch Series.

So far, Hoover’s has completed three monthly innovation contests focusing on wide-ranging areas of our business, from helping our customers to making our internal processes more efficient.

For Hoover’s being “future ready” doesn’t necessarily mean providing the latest and greatest widget. It’s more about keeping our finger on the pulse of our customers—knowing not only what their needs and wants are today, but also anticipating what will be important to them tomorrow…and then focusing Hoover’s talent in that direction. The Innovation Lab is just one way that our teams bring our customers’ future visions to life.

To my fellow librarians, what could you do to foster an “Innovation Lab” in your group, division, or company? How are you keeping a pulse on your customer’s needs today and anticipating their needs for tomorrow?

Amy is a stay-at-home Mom and Librarian in Austin, Texas. During her 10-year professional career, Amy has held a variety of roles including: Research Associate, Librarian, Market Researcher, Competitive Intelligence Analyst, Project Manager, Product Marketing Manager and Consultant. Amy enjoys a challenge and variety in her work (see previous sentence) and dreams of becoming a Children’s Librarian in the future.

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.

by Jane Kirby, Oregon Chapter, Government Information Division

A few weeks ago, a library customer hailed me in the parking lot as I returned from lunch.  “Hi Jane, I have a DVD to return.  I’ll stop by the library when you open at 1:00.”  I glanced at my watch: 12:50. “No need wait,” I said.  “I’ll take it now so you can be on your way.  I know you have a manager’s meeting this afternoon.”  I smiled as I walked into my building. “Working in a special library is like being a librarian in a small town,” I thought. “You represent the library wherever you go and you always know what’s going on.”

We special librarians are in a position to know our customers very well.  After all, we have a long-term clientele made up of co-workers and business associates. This close-knit relationship offers a unique opportunity to anticipate and respond to our customers’ information needs. If we simply tap into the grapevine, we’ll quickly learn how we can help.

Is the government affairs manager convening a task force and looking for volunteers?  Step up and join the team.  Who better than a librarian to provide research and analysis for a high-visibility project? 

Does one of the engineers have a reputation for being demanding and difficult to please?  Win her over with the current awareness service and you might find your library’s best advocate.

Or, how about the young data analyst who is overwhelmed with a major project, not to mention a new baby at home?  Save him some time by delivering information to his cubicle. It only takes a minute.

Reach out.  Listen. Be flexible. The Future Ready special library melds high touch with high technology.

by Mary Strife, Pittsburgh Chapter, Academic Division

In this age of iPhones, iPads and “I want it now”, there are a few things that still take time. And sometimes we benefit by taking the time. The Evansdale Library opened in 1980 and received updated technology, some new furniture and new carpeting in 2000. By 2005, there was something lacking. We negotiated with the administration for funds to retool the first floor only. We added weight to our cause by conducting student surveys and focus groups. I sat in the room for all three focus groups, run by the chair of the Interior Design Division. She did a great job with the questions, getting the exact information needed to support our floor redesign. The majority of the renovation happened in the summer of 2009. Students did not get everything they wanted, but what did happen was a great change. We put in movable furniture, white boards, and three new study rooms. Students asked for space to display their projects, since students do not generally go into other’s areas. So we have used floor space and provided different types of cabinet space and wall cases for their projects.

The Fashion Design students and faculty were the first to take advantage of this area. Everyone was very pleased with the results. We are now working to install a hanging system for art work and bringing in other student displays. I think that giving students a way to connect with the library is essential to the future.

Mary Strife is the Director of the Evansdale Library at West Virginia University. She is a past-President of the New York Upstate Chapter, has been Bulletin Editor for the Chemistry Division, and currently serves on the Information Ethics Advisory Council.

by Deborah Rash, Minnesota Chapter

I got good and Future Ready last night by watching American Idol. I was working and tweeting while doing it, but in this case, the multitasking really was distracting from the main event, rather than the other way around.

I am not a fan of American Idol. I could take it or leave it, but most of the time I’m working and tweeting and just can’t pay enough attention. And now that Paula’s gone …

Whether fan or not, I suggest you check out the new judges on Idol this year. And watch a bit of the ingénue Oscar cohosts. Read “The Girl Who …” series. Pop over to TMZ.com every once in a while. And Google that Twitter trending topic you know nothing about.

Because sometimes these things matter, in two different equally important ways.

First, think about some of the trends that have been started by pop culture. Remember “The Rachel,” a haircut that is still popular sixteen years after Jennifer Aniston’s character in Friends got the look? Did you sip a cosmopolitan like the girls in Sex and the City (another late nineties screen-to-sales driver)? Working in marketing or any consumer driven industry these media effects do matter.

Now think about all of the forensic shows: NCIS, CSI, Bones etc. No police procedural is complete without a fingerprinting, particle-grabbing expert. Crime inflicted and mystery solved, packaged in a tight 60 minutes, minus the quarter hour or so of commercials. Why does that matter? Go ask the judge. Literally, ask a judge in a real courtroom and you’ll hear that the way cases are tidied up so quickly on these shows has changed the way that the average person, and thus the typical jury member thinks about how evidence should be presented. It’s been called the “CSI Effect.”

Similarly, if you watch the other ubiquitous type of TV drama, the one set in a hospital, you’ll get a very skewed perception of how medicine is practiced, not to mention how doctors comport themselves. Pop culture has changed the way we relate to health information in some of the same ways that going online to self-diagnose have.

Now you have to pay attention if you work in healthcare or a law firm. And if you sit in or near a cubicle, both Dilbert and The Office commentary might be overheard at the water cooler. So, office workers, listen up.

And if that isn’t enough of you who can glean information on marketing techniques, new product development, customer and client expectations or office politics, the rest of you can learn to love pop culture for a second reason. Think about the twenty-two-year-old new hires you are interacting with or the students you are teaching. The way people think and work bleeds into how they play and relax and sometimes knowing just enough to relate may be enough.

So, in preparation for the future, haircuts and bar drinks, maybe not so important. But jury deliberation and medical decisions and whatever is coming next? Might be.

And really, I’ve always loved that I have an excuse for watching Mad Men and reading People magazine. I’m working!

Deb Rash is a freelance consumer researcher and writer. Previously Deb was Knowledge Manager at Iconoculture and Carmichael Lynch, and had an advertising career at several agencies in Minneapolis. She is an active member of SLA, having served on the Annual Conference Advisory Council, multiple positions in the Advertising & Marketing Division and is immediate Past President of the Minnesota Chapter. 

by Kim Dority, Rocky Mountain Chapter, Business & Finance Division

The best way to predict the future is to create it. – Alan Kay

Almost anyone who’s talked with Cindy Romaine about the Future Ready initiative will end up wanting to take that energy and strategic thinking to the next level: what is one thing that each of us can or will do in the coming year to help our careers – and the profession – become future ready?

Thinking about that question, I’ve realized that for me and possibly for many others in the information profession, the answer lies not in preparing for what the future may look like, but rather in going on the offensive to create the future we want.

How to do that? Well, some things we know already:

• Technology will continuously change what we do and how we do it
• Companies – if not entire industries – that once seemed paragons of stability will contract if not disappear
• Other companies – and industries – will spring up to take their place
• For both information professionals and those we work with, there will be innumerable threats and opportunities and often they will be one and the same, depending on what we look for and how we frame them
• Information  will continue to be a critical part of decision-making for individuals, companies, communities, and nations – but will undoubtedly be aggregated/formatted/delivered in ways barely imaginable today

Knowing these things, how might we go about creating our own futures?  I tend to believe Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter was on to something when he said that entrepreneurism brings about a wave of creative destruction that, as it destroys established ways of doing things, simultaneously opens up new opportunities for innovation and fresh solutions. The challenge: being on the right side of that wave…in other words, creating the future we want to have.

In an attempt to stay ahead of that cresting wave, and thus create my own professional future, some of the things I’ll be doing are:

• Systematically monitoring the industries of existing clients to identify anomalies that may evolve into emerging growth trends – or contracting lines of business – so I can respond strategically
• Checking out all “innovation” award winners in various categories such as those offered by Fast Company, Mashable.com, and Inc. magazine with an eye toward unusual ideas that could signal growth opportunities (who knew the “casual learning” industry was now a $9 billion/year powerhouse?!)
• Practicing identifying the hidden opportunity in every perceived “threat” situation
• Continually rethinking how I can create and/or provide information that offers high-impact value, knowing that my ability to do so will determine my continued professional viability

Bottom line: perhaps our best approach to being Future Ready is to start actively creating the future we want today.

Kim Dority is the founder of Dority & Associates, Inc., an information consultancy with expertise in research, writing, editing, information process design, and publishing. Ms. Dority is on the advisory board of the University of Denver’s Library and Information Science graduate program, where she also teaches as adjunct faculty. She is the author of numerous articles and several books on information, Rethinking Information Work (Libraries Unlimited, 2006).

 by Dan Trefethen, SLA Treasurer 

As the SLA Treasurer, to me “Future Ready” means financial stability.  In my presentation last week at the Leadership Summit, I emphasized the importance of the annual conference, both to our coffers and to the vigor of the association.

To be Future Ready you have to engage with your colleagues, and the conference is the best place to do it.  You can help yourself, your colleagues, and your association by committing to attend the conference this June in Philadelphia. 

Early registrants help us generate excitement among the vendors who will be exhibiting there.  A wide range of exhibitors helps to make a vibrant and worthwhile conference.

Here’s how to do your part:  Register ASAP (meaning TODAY if possible) to show the exhibitors how valuable the conference will be for them.  Also, if you are talking to the vendors you deal with, tell them that you’ll be attending the conference, will look for them there, and (especially helpful!) that you can bring a colleague by the booth to introduce them. 

If you have colleagues who are in the market for a service or product, this is a very useful courtesy you can do, both for your colleague and for the vendor.  Personal referrals are important business connections.  Providing your colleague an opportunity for face to face vendor discussion and product demonstration at the conference is a great thing for you to do.  And let the vendor know so that he or she will be ready to greet you there.

Members and vendors are partners in delivering great information services to our customers.  Thanks for helping to make it happen.

Dan Trefethen is a long-time member of SLA and has held numerous positions including Treasurer of the Nominating committee, and President of the Pacific Northwest Chapter. He now serves as the Treasurer for SLA.

Pam Sandlian Smith, Library Director, Anythink Libraries, Thornton, CO

 “Gone is the time when companies could react quietly by just managing their assets.  Gone is the time when the success of the future was modeled on the past.  Disruption is a way of unearthing new opportunities.  It means being nonconformist, unorthodox, rebellious. It means always trying to change the rules.  It means believing that a company can transform its future through the sheer power of an idea.”   

Jean-Marie Dru, Beyond Disruption: Changing the Rules in the Marketplace

When the future is uncertain, to some people the safest thing is either to do nothing new, or simply accelerate strategies that worked in the past.  As marketing genius, Jean-Marie Dru notes, our future success cannot be modeled on the past.  To be future ready requires a willingness to rethink the rules, to be disruptive.  To be future ready requires a willingness to invent a future, hopefully one that works better than the present or the past.

Imagining our future at Anythink Libraries required a team of people who were willing to abandon library structures that were not working for our customers, or were not sustainable in a world of limited resources.  It required a collaboration of people who had infinite trust in each other’s abilities and perspectives.  It required a willingness to live with ambiguity as we were challenged to find the right answer, not the first answer, or the safe answer, but the answer that fit the criteria of a new paradigm. 

Instead of designing a library for books, we designed a library for idea people.  A place for people to connect, interact, discover, even play with information.  Playing with ideas, creating a place to think, discover and honor one’s inherent sense of creativity required a rethinking of our roles and responsibilities.  Our internal manifesto indicates a responsibility very different from merely organizing information:

You are not just an employee, volunteer or board member.  You do not merely catalog books, organize periodicals and manage resources.  You are the gateway into the mind of the idea people who come to our facilities to find or fuel a spark.

Part Wizard, Part Genius, Part Explorer

It is your calling to trespass into the unknown and come back with a concrete piece someone can hold onto, turn over, and use to fuel their mind and soul.

As Anythinkers, we are becoming future ready by exploring the responsibility of being part wizard, part genius, part explorer.