by Anne Rogers, Minnesota Chapter, Food, Agriculture & Nutrition, Knowledge Management Divisions

The dictionary definition of a value proposition is “a clear statement of the tangible results a customer gets from using your products or services.”  We as information professionals can use value propositions to:

1. Develop a better understanding of our unique skills, expertise and capabilities;
2. Define and articulate how those skills, expertise and capabilities can deliver direct value to the organizations for which we work (have a clear value proposition).

I believe that, as a profession, we have a tendency to focus on the traditional and too frequently overlook or undervalue our most unique and transferable abilities. During a project to evaluate scientific reference service, I had a key client, a chemical engineer, tell me that one of the most valuable services we provided was to help him refine and express clearly the research/business problem he was trying to solve. We’d been thinking about reference interview skills as a means to an end, not a value added capability in itself. And guess what? The ability to work with individuals or teams to facilitate creation of a clear, actionable problem statement is a critical skill applicable in many areas. I’ve used my reference interview skills over when working with teams to create business project charters and in defining challenges for innovation idea campaigns (a ‘wisdom of the crowd’/collective intelligence activity). In a recent Future Ready 365 Blog post by Amy Maule,Extreme-Embedded-Librarian, she points out that employers are looking for adaptable people and she is “appreciated most for my adaptability, constantly inventing and re-inventing my job. The skills that make you a good librarian could help you to stand out elsewhere in your organization–you just need to reinvent your job in a way that lets you shine.”

Thinking about your skills, expertise and capabilities from a ‘value proposition’ approach can help you understand and communicate where you add value in your organization, as well as potentially help identify new opportunities where you can leverage your abilities.

Anne Rogers is Director, Research & Knowledge Services at Cargill, leading a team of business and technical information specialists providing information research and analysis services. She is also responsible for a global idea management service, as well as knowledge capture and sharing initiatives to support Cargill’s Research and Development organization.  Prior to joining Cargill, Anne spent twenty years at The Dow Chemical Company, where she held various positions in knowledge and information management.

Anne was born and raised in Nashville, Indiana, obtaining a B.S. in Chemistry from nearby Indiana University, Bloomington, followed by a Masters in Library Science with a specialization in Chemical Information, also from Indiana.

by Cynthia Hetherington

“Future-ready” in my business means work in the pipeline. As a business owner and private investigator, I spend a lot of time nurturing my clients and waiting for their calls. As much of our work is reactive, we have to be ever-ready. To prepare for this, my team and I are always updating and re-sharpening our skills. Like first responders, when you don’t see us working on active caseloads, we are strengthening our skills by practicing on our search tactics and reviewing new vendors. This is not unlike the librarian, who is in a constant state of learning. However, applying these librarian principals to the private investigative industry is a new and unique approach.

There’s the rub! Being unique in your area of expertise is truly future-ready. That uniqueness will always allow for you to stand apart from the competition and, thereby, make you a more attractive resource. For example, when I’m in librarian circles I tend to emphasize my security and investigations work. Conversely, when I’m with law enforcement or investigative groups I remind them of my library background. Simple as that. I’m always remembered by those with whom I come into contact.

Once you’ve pinpointed your unique feature, it must be marketed as such. Get out from behind your computer and meet, in person, with clients at conferences, luncheons, and other networking events. Meeting in person once is worth a thousand tweets!

Future-ready has to be made to happen, so start building your brand and marketing your unique self.

Cynthia Hetherington, MLS, MSM, has been coaching, training, and working alongside private investigators, security specialists, and law enforcement professionals for nearly twenty years. She  has found a niche in the investigative industry, assisting in online and Internet research. A widely-published author, she has written Business Background Investigations and The Manual to Online Public Records. Cynthia founded Hetherington Group, a firm dedicated to private, corporate, and government investigation and security, utilizing the industry’s most highly-regarded and nationally known investigative experts.  It also publishes the Data2know.com: Internet & Online Intelligence Newsletter for investigators and security professionals, and provides one of the industry’s most trusted private investigative services, geared toward the private business sector.

by Deb Schwarz, Southern California Chapter, IT & Legal Divisions

As a working information professional, a consultant, and an entrepreneur in the library space, I come across a lot of my colleagues and peers in a wide variety of jobs and industries during the course of my regular work schedule. The strong level of commitment to the work usually exhibited by most everyone I meet is striking, even when I find out that in reality many aren’t really happy with their current job situation.  That commitment level to the “work” is laudable, and of course entirely appropriate, but perhaps in thinking about Future Ready scenarios on a personal-career level, info-pros ought to reserve some of their energy towards committing to leveraging and repositioning themselves within the organization they serve.

I think many of us believe that sooner or later the print-bound library in many organizations, especially corporations and even law firms, will see its demise. Of course this transition has not reached its conclusion everywhere, but it probably will, and by how much is just a matter of degree.  Is this bad?  Well bibliophiles will have to get their fix elsewhere, but for the working information professional it could be liberating by bringing (or forcing!) opportunities to go forward into the organization, bringing your skills right along with you. Call it embedded or assimilation, but getting out of the physical library and installed as, say, a researcher supporting a business unit, or a knowledge manager handling proprietary work product, or managing content on SharePoint, or developing and refining taxonomies—well, all that sounds pretty exciting and challenging to me!

So how to get there? One way is use your information and reference skills and apply due diligence efforts to position yourself.  That’s all well and good you might say, but how? Every situation is different, of course, but a basic tenet is to understand the organization’s business strategy and study it to determine where there is a fit. For example, most organizations (particularly in this still recovering economy) are spending time and money on finding new customers or clients and retaining existing ones in order to stay competitive and grow. From an  information professional’s vantage point that could mean supporting marketing, business development, and competitive intelligence or being part of an internal strategy group.  Since the value of information in an information-overloaded, social media-blitzed world is golden, then doesn’t it follow that an information professional should have a participatory, if not a key role? A lot of analysts can’t do their jobs without having comprehensive, up-to-date, accurate information to analyze.  Who better to partner with than a knowledgable information guru (er…professional!)?

With the billions of dollars being spent on content it also makes sense to work with an organization’s procurement or purchasing department to support them as they go about negotiating contracts with vendors for subscriptions, site licenses, and other content. It would do your organization and its users of this information a great disservice to have such deals negotiated strictly by the bottom line and outside of the context of information users’ needs. Who knows this better than an information professional?

Are these jobs well-defined and easily found? Not always and not necessarily – although we at LAC often see many of these qualifications and requirements in various job descriptions.  And we have created a lot of these jobs through our consulting efforts and recommendations. Future ready may mean trail blazing.   Maybe getting out of the library but pitching your value, expertise and skills to the COO or the head of marketing is the trail you need to blaze. You may have to take an opportunity and turn it around as well as inside out in order to strategize how to go for it, but do go for it if you want to be a Future Ready information professional in this rapidly-transforming, information-trading environment.

LAC Group is a professional services firm specializing in information management, virtual research, recruiting and outsourcing (www.lac-group.com).  Deborah Schwarz received her MLS from the University of Toronto, and is the owner/founder of LAC Group, serving as its CEO.

by David Cappoli, Southern California Chapter

Reputation, content, and convenience – these are the core areas on which I am focused for the near future.  I oversee the Friday Forums for the UCLA Department of Information Studies. The forums are a series of continuing education workshops geared towards the needs of information professionals. With subjects ranging from an overview of competitive intelligence, to movements in youth literature, to understanding the needs of paper conservation, these workshops introduce professionals to emerging ideas and new ways of thinking about ongoing challenges. Nearly all of the workshops are hosted on campus, but my goal is to reach out beyond the confines of UCLA and find new audiences who can benefit from these workshops.

In moving forward to attain this goal, I will utilize the well-regarded reputations of the workshop instructors, and the forums themselves, which have been confirmed by surveys and evaluations. The instructors have been cultivated and identified because of their high levels of expertise; interest in helping people learn; and, preparedness. Their collective ability to engage participants confirms their value. I will also continue to examine the needs and trends in the information profession so as to work with instructors and develop content that is highly sought after, and easily employed in one’s career. And as content is created and developed, I will work on new methods of delivering it, whether it is done by offering virtual workshops or hosting off campus workshops. These options make continuing education more convenient for professionals enabling a higher rate of participation and a wider spread of the benefits gained from attending the workshops. An expectation of broader participation is that the reputations of the workshops will be further enhanced, thus feeding into the expansion of the Friday Forums.

The personal network that I have constructed with instructors as well as workshop participants will aid me in focusing on reputation, content, and convenience, as I seek a broader audience for the workshops. I am also aware a substantial amount of time and effort will need to be invested in order to succeed, but the benefits will be plentiful.

David Cappoli is the Digital Resources Librarian at UCLA. An active member of SLA locally and nationally, David has been president of the Southern California chapter, and a member of SLA’s Annual Conference and  Nominating committees.  He currently serves on SLA’s Public Relations Advisory Council.