Hello from Wisconsin! We are delighted to contribute a week’s worth of postings from the Midwest! You’ll see that Wisconsin isn’t just about the cheese—our chapter boasts 120 members from diverse environments: corporate, law, academic, and other settings, many of us from unique national companies and associations. Our state’s two library schools have renewed focus on special librarianship and growing interest from our student members is evident. We are an active, enthusiastic chapter and happy to contribute our thoughts on future readiness! It’s great in the Dairy State!

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always gotten there first, and is waiting for it.”

-Terry Pratchett-

Eigengrau is the “color” seen by the eye in perfect darkness. Essentially, it is the absence of light, of illumination, and for this exercise, of knowledge. If we compare this to the practices of organizations, just how comfortable are we with making decisions in the dark?

Librarians are often responsible for the collection, retrieval, storage, analysis, and synthesis of information. Keepers of the Light, if you will. Therefore librarians are brokers of enlightened decision making. The difference between guesswork and effective strategic direction. Organizations all too often take for granted how little they know about the subject at hand, however they also take for granted just how much information is already within their organization, and often within the library. A ‘Future Ready’ Library is of no real benefit unless it is providing ‘Future Ready’ decision support, knowledge awareness, and illuminating the path ahead.

“Future Ready” capability comes from “Future Ready” information. An Information Horizon exists between what is already known within the organization and industry, and what will, can, and might be known in the future. While exceptions do exist, the source and method of collection is as important as the data itself for equipping one’s organization for the future. Market research, focus groups, industry reports, data analysis & modeling, syndicated content, databases, et al. can be essential sources for decision making, though this data needs to be understood as coming from within the information horizon. It is effectively repurposing and consolidating already-known information into long-winded briefs and massive pivot tables of data. The future requires more, and you’ll find this on the far side of the information horizon.

What organizations need to expand their information horizon, and illuminate their position in the market doesn’t fit well into PowerPoint slides, spreadsheets, and pithy quotes about “next quarter.” Expanding into new frontiers and conquering the darkness is tricky business, and more often than not the information needed for the future comes from a series of data points and sources that may seem unrelated. Knowing where to look for the information, how to find it, and what to do with it is where dark turns to light, risk to reward, possibility to profit. Intelligence collection, news monitoring, wargaming, and futurism looks at the far side of the information horizon, forging the path for what will happen, not what already has.

The quality of intelligence gleaned about the future is paramount. If a market research report is errant in a few data metrics it might only change a few percentage points, or less. However, if your intelligence reports are off, it might be the difference between a completely different product launch, a different quarter, region, market, or nothing at all. If you base decisions off of this wayward data, darkness may be your least concern. Eigengrau, the color you actually see in perfect darkness is actually lighter than the black of the night sky. The light emitted from a star shines contrastfull to the otherwise unknown blackness of space. Eigengrau is a shade of grey, not black. Therefore no data at all is superior to the false knowledge of misappropriated data. Nags Head, North Carolina provides a prudent example of such faulty data. In the early 1800s a group of pirates known as the Nags Head “Bankers” supplied merchant vessels with ‘false data,’ taking a horse with a lantern tied around its neck, they would lead it back and forth atop a coastline hill at night. To passing vessels this appeared to be a distant ship and they believed it to be a safe route through the treacherous Outer Banks. Until that data led them straight into the rocky coastline where the looters would plunder the ship, often making for a fatal mistake for the ships’ crew.

Blue Ocean markets lie ahead for your organization. Your Future Ready library is the Crow’s Nest, compass, and knowledge nexus of your organization. Your goal for the future is not only to chart attractive growth markets, but to identify the treacherous and perilous as well – delivering the difficult information, as well as the desired. In economic climates such as the current, organizations can be one false data point away from ruin; however so are your competing organizations. The unique advantage and difference can be the library – you. And the good thing about discovering information about the future is that you don’t have to wait for it to happen, you can start right now.

Zach Steltenpohl is the Sales & Marketing Manager for Aurora WDC, which provides news monitoring, primary research, and training to some of the world’s most respected companies. He is an active member of SLA-WI chapter and various SCIP chapters.

Introduction (Toni Wilson – Chair, SLA CI Division)

There is a great deal of discussion this week regarding the value of analysis – the exercise that turns information into intelligence. In today’s blog post, Emily Rushing emphasizes the importance and value of analysis and offers some practical ideas for accomplishing this important step in the competitive intelligence process, ultimately helping ourselves and our organizations become future ready.

by Emily Rushing, Texas Chapter, Competitive Intelligence and Legal Divisions

“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign…”

-         Signs, Five Man Electrical Band, 1971.

In keeping with this week’s Competitive Intelligence (CI) theme, I’d like to offer a comment on some favorite topics of mine: using CI to predict the future by reading the signs, and the value of intelligence analysis. I do so with apologies to readers of the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog who may have recently seen our post on “Applaud the Jellyfish.”

Many of us regularly engage in CI work and one of the most common, and most valuable, services we provide is the analysis of data. This analysis typically occurs when you’ve done the research, assembled an intimidating pile of data, and now need to sort through, sift out the meaningful stuff, and turn that into answers.

The process of providing that analysis helps us derive meaning from the signs. Or, to phrase that another way, to turn data into intelligence. A smart organization, with savvy library and information professionals, becomes future ready by watching for the signs, understanding what they mean and then using that intelligence to make good decisions.

So, we librarians and information professionals can demonstrate our future readiness by continuing to find and create innovative ways to add the analytical value to our work.

This analysis may be supported by exciting new predictive search tools, or temporal analytics, or just good, old-fashioned environmental monitoring. The processes may be improved with efficiency measures or with new and better technologies.

Whatever the latest techniques, as long as we are effectively turning signs into meaning, and data into intelligence, we will be future ready.

Emily is the Competitive Intelligence Manager for Haynes & Boone, LLP. Her interests include competitive intelligence, business and financial intelligence, legal and business research, business development, strategic planning, knowledge management, and information technologies. Emily has written and presented on competitive intelligence, research and technology. A Dallas native, her hobbies include reading, cooking, and reading about cooking.

by Eric Garland

The Special Libraries Association has chosen, most wisely, for this year’s theme to be “Future Ready 365.” The current moment is not only the perfect time to become future-focused, but moreover, the information professionals of SLA are the perfect group to help their organizations transform their cultures to make this possible. The key is intelligence.

Let us get some terms defined. The “future” is not just an extrapolation of yesterday’s growth trends – it’s a transformative disruption, a non-linear break from the world we know. Our current economy’s success has been based on the availability of endless resources, scarce information, and stable institutions. Tomorrow’s economy will be defined by scarce resources (notably petroleum, potable water, and certain heavy metals), endless information, and unstable institutions; a complete turnaround.

Yesterday’s success was driven by rapidly expanding industrial consumerism, buoyed by a large Boomer demographic and the complete failure of Soviet Communism. Every company, every country could follow essentially the same gameplan. Expand! Merge and acquire! Advertise! Downsize! Securitize! Profitize! Given unprecedented resource constraints, tomorrow’s success will be about each company, country, region, and individual choosing a creative path to transforming how value is created and shared. What’s more, as the financial system begins to strain under the weight of its own internal contradictions, we will not even account for it in the same manner.

Yes, this is a big deal. No, nobody has the answers. I don’t; as librarians, you don’t either. You will, however, begin receiving some very interesting questions.

• What is the business model of the future?
• Who are the competitors we haven’t yet even thought of?
• Who will our customer be in ten years? Twenty? Do we even know who they are yet?
• What are the wildcards, the low-probability, high-impact events that could mean disaster — or fabulous success?

Now that we know what might shape the future, we want to be ready. This does not mean you need to predict the future, but you can very well anticipate it, prepare in advance for your actions, and to act when prompted by events. To meet this high standard, an organization must have a steady stream of intelligence. This is where librarians can be major catalysts. You can become experts in where the best information resides, which questions to ask next, and even who can help answer them. Data is worthless, analysis is king, and insight is golden. As librarians, you can help your colleagues find trend data from the least biased sources and forecasts from the world’s best subject matter experts. You can ask the follow up questions - What does this mean? What information do we need next?  What scenarios are suggested by what we are finding?

Very few organizations create a culture that regularly asks these questions and provides the services that give answers. The ones who do are beating the market, indeed creating their own future. When SLA exhorts you to become future ready, it is declaring itself to be a group of leaders who truly understand what this transformation is about. Their challenge is daunting, exhilarating, and bound to make your intellectual life – and your career – an adventure for years to come.

Accept that challenge.

Author, speaker, futurist and intelligence expert Eric Garland guides leaders of all stripes through a world of chaotic transformation. He watches future trends, competition, geopolitics and everything else. He gives people ways to understand the change and make better decisions. You can read Eric Garland’s latest book, How to Predict the Future…and WIN!!!, follow him on Twitter (@ericgarland, and on the Web at www.ericgarland.co and www.competitivefutures.com.