By Marydee Ojala

As we all strive for a state of future readiness—while recognizing that the future will inevitably arrive whether we’re ready or not—let’s not forget our past. I was extraordinarily fortunate to work for BankAmerica Corporation in my first professional position after earning my MLS. I became enthralled by the story of the founding of the library in 1922 at what was then Bank of Italy. (The name changed to Bank of America in 1930.)

The first librarian, K. Dorothy Ferguson, didn’t answer a job ad. She wasn’t promoted from within. She certainly didn’t find the position through Monster.com or craigslist. She didn’t go through traditional channels for a very good reason. There was no job. There was no library. There was no bank employee thinking, “Gee, we really need a corporate library.”

It was Ferguson herself who created the job. She approached A.P. Giannini, the legendary entrepreneur who started Bank of Italy in 1904, and said, “To be a great bank, you need a financial library. Moreover, you need me to organize it for you.” He hired her. The bank prospered. She stayed with the bank until 1943, when she resigned to establish libraries in Africa and Asia under the auspices of the British government.

A strong advocate of SLA, Ferguson was the first president of the San Francisco Chapter (1924-25) and served a second term as president in 1938-39. She became national chairman of the Financial Group, which evolved into the Business and Finance Division, in 1927. On the job, she demonstrated strong marketing skills. By 1923, she had a regular column about the library in the employee newsletter, explaining how it could benefit bank employees.

Today, as we contemplate how to prove the value of libraries and information professionals, we try not to “preach to the choir” by getting “outside the echo chamber.” Ferguson, in the 1930s, was publishing articles in journals read by bankers, not librarians. Web 2.0? Obviously, Ferguson lived in a pre-internet world. But she continually stressed that library services were not confined to the physical premises of the library. She championed information sources beyond books and beyond the library’s walls. The library’s slogan—”When in need of data, consult our library”—resonates still.

The attributes I admire in K. Dorothy Ferguson are ones that I think make modern information professionals future ready. She was fearless, with a strong belief in her own abilities and convinced of the power of information. She seized opportunities, made her own luck, and creatively transformed her professional life. Future ready? Yes, she was. Follow her example, and you can be future ready, too.

You can read a fuller account of Ferguson’s career in an article I wrote to celebrate the San Francisco Bay Region’s 75th anniversary in May 1989.

Marydee Ojala edits ONLINE: Exploring Technology & Resources for Information Professionals and writes its business research column (“The Dollar Sign”). She contributes feature articles and news stories to Information Today, Searcher, EContent, Computers in Libraries, Intranets, Cyber Skeptic’s Guide to the Internet, Business Information Review, and Information Today‘s NewsBreaks. Her blog is ONLINEInsider.net. She plans conference programs for Internet Librarian International (London, UK), WebSearch University (various sites in the U.S. and Europe), and Buying & Selling eContent. A long-time observer of the information industry, she speaks frequently at conferences, such as WebSearch University, Computers in Libraries, Internet Librarian, Online Information (London, UK), INFORUM (Prague), Southern African Online Meeting, Internet Librarian International, and national library meetings outside the U.S. She has adjunct faculty status at the School of Library and Information Science at IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) teaching business information resources and online searching. Her professional career began at BankAmerica Corporation, San Francisco, directing a worldwide program of research and information services. She established her independent information research business in 1987, both in Denmark and the U.S. She serves as Past President for the Indiana chapter of SLA, and is an active member of IFLA’s Library Theory & Research Standing Committee and IOLUG (Indiana Online User Group). Her undergraduate degree is from Brown University and her MLS was earned at the University of Pittsburgh.

Introduction (Toni Wilson – Chair, SLA CI Division)

By popular demand, members of SLA’s CI Division are again blogging for the FR365 effort during the week of September 26, focused specifically on competitive intelligence processes and applications. We are delighted to provide content and an understanding that will help the FR365 audience understand what CI is and how it can be applied to add value across organizations. Helping ourselves and our organizations become future ready is the ultimate value delivered by a productive and successful competitive intelligence program. We hope you will enjoy and apply some of the concepts and practices we share with you during CI Week.

by Toni Wilson, Cincinnati Chapter, Competitive Intelligence Division

A common message mentioned during nearly every CI Division session at this year’s SLA conference was that competitive intelligence is not about our organization’s competitors, but about keeping our organizations competitive. This is an important clarification, but what does it really mean in practice? A couple of topics, to which we can and should apply our CI process, can have the effect of changing a marketplace as a whole – ultimately impacting our organizations and our existing competitors in the future.

One important topic on which we should focus as part of a CI effort is the role of changing technologies. Consider the role of streaming technology and its effect on cable and satellite TV services providers, as a current example. Huge numbers of individuals and families are cancelling their traditional cable or satellite services to depend on online streaming services for entertainment and/or invest in tools that make the process more convenient (I’m personally a fan of Roku). I’m not aware of the statistics, but this trend must be having an enormous effect on the providers of the traditional services. If these emerging technologies are not an immediate threat to these businesses, they likely will be in the future. Did they see this coming? Maybe…if they were future-looking and their CI functions were focused on the emergence of the streaming technologies, in addition to the activities of their established competitors. If not, they must be struggling to respond to these marketplace changes, which certainly impacts their respective abilities to compete successfully. I’d rather be the intelligence practitioner who brought this trend to the attention of my decision makers years ago than the individual forced to explain why revenues are being eroded today.

Competitive intelligence can also help identify opportunities for organizations, in addition to future threats. An obvious example includes the government legislation and regulations that have been created around the demand for environmental protection and the popularity of sustainability. Related laws were developed over a period of time – a focused CI process could easily identify opportunities for new products and services by using published bill- and regulation-tracking information, among other sources. The laws have impacted a number of industries, the most successful of which identified the related opportunities early and created and executed plans to take advantage of them.

While I’m certainly not recommending this, it’s possible that if the only thing we accomplish is to help our organizations understand the technologies and legal or political trends impacting their ability to compete successfully in the future – even if we don’t focus on individual competitors – we will be successful in adding value and making a real and lasting difference into the future.

Toni Wilson is the principal consultant at MarketSmart Research Services. She is an experienced competitive intelligence practitioner, having performed hundreds of projects over the past 20+ years, in a variety of industries and throughout the world. Prior to establishing MarketSmart Research in 2000, Toni was a corporate intelligence professional at LexisNexis for more than a dozen years. She is an expert in sources, tools and techniques for intelligence collection, and frequently speaks to groups and coaches individuals regarding the CI process. Toni is a volunteer leader, prolific author, enthusiastic mentor and professional award winner. She is the current chair of SLA’s Competitive Intelligence Division.

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.

by Jan Chindlund, Illinois Chapter, Academic, Museums, Arts & Humanities, B&F, LM Divisions

“Yes, I was invited.”

Think back to times in your career (in both your employment and your volunteer work) when you were personally invited to join the team, join the organization, write an article or post, render an opinion, edit a document, brainstorm, manage a project, research a complex issue, or lead.

✓How did the invitation make you feel?
✓What did you think when you were invited?
✓How did you respond to the invitation?

We’ve all heard Victor Hugo’s “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” True. And perhaps, there is no connection more persuasive than the personal invitation.

Recognizing a spark, talent or skill in another person and then inviting them to be involved honors the invitee and inspires them to get involved.

To be “Future Ready” has so many facets: strategic, critical and systems thinking; embracing technology; acquiring and applying knowledge; being politically astute; being nimble, flexible and adaptable; recognizing opportunities; and the list goes on. All important and essential.

Add to that mix: practicing the art of personal invitation. Establishing relationships is the key to gaining insight into situations and opening doors to opportunities to learn and to become involved. Personal invitations are a way to initiate and strengthen relationships.

In this era of high tech, the personal invitation can satisfy our need for high touch.

Seek ways to invite others…and to be invited.

In association volunteer work

When asked to lead, I invite a co-chair to work alongside me. At this point, I invite someone newer to our profession. So we can co-mentor each other. I might contribute knowledge about the organization or work at hand, the other person might contribute technical know-how or insights into how today’s audiences or clientele will respond to messages.

I have been in groups of SLA members when the question was asked, “Who has been hired because of their connection with SLA?”  The majority of hands shoot up…every time!  Well, think back, how did you get involved in SLA? Did someone invite you to join or to be on a committee or to speak?

✓  I attended my first SLA meeting because I was personally invited.
✓  I joined my first chapter committee because I was personally invited.
✓  I ran for office in a division because I was personally invited.
✓  I ran for office in our chapter because I was personally invited.
✓  I wrote this post because I was personally invited.

How did you hear about that job?  Did an SLA colleague inform you about the position, invite you to apply, recommend you?

SLA’s “Connecting People and Information” could be expanded to “Connecting People and Information, Expanding Information to Knowledge & Connecting People to People.” The cross-pollination of what is learned in SLA, and the connections made there, with our professional work is the penultimate value of belonging.

Personally invite others to join and to become involved.

In the workplace

Larry Prusak referred to “ground truth” as one source of wisdom in his presentation at SLA 2011. That resonated with me. Inviting those who are “on the ground” to share their insights is not only good business, but it provides valuable knowledge that can be used to make better decisions. In our professional life, this can provide new knowledge and connections, improving the richness and the quality of the work we produce and the wisdom upon which we make decisions.

Personally invite those “on the ground” to share their “ground truth”

As Kevin Kelly so aptly put it, “The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.” The human attention given through personal invitation is very compelling indeed.

“Yes, I was invited.”

Jan Chindlund has been Library Director, Columbia College Chicago, since September 2007. Previously she was Manager of McDonald’s Corporation Global Consumer and Business Insights Information Center and Assistant Vice President & Head Librarian, Duff & Phelps. Jan holds MLIS from Dominican University and MBA from Benedictine University. She has served in various roles at the chapter, division and association levels of SLA, currently Co-Chair of Local Arrangements for SLA 2012 to be held in Chicago July 15-18, 2012. Recipient of the Dow Jones Leadership Award and the Rose L Vormelker Award, she is SLA Fellow and extremely grateful for the learning, advocacy and networking SLA makes available to members.

by Jane Dysart, Dysart & Jones Associates, SLA Fellow, President 1995-6 & John Cotton Dana Recipient

It’s great when organizations, and people, think about their future. Many do not.  In their book, Competing for the Future in the mid-90s, Gary Hamel & C. K. Prahalad said,

“In our experience, about 40% of senior executives’ time is spent looking outward, and of this time, 30% is spent peering 3, 4, 5 plus years into the future.  And of the time spent looking forward, no more than 20% is spent attempting to build a collective view of the future (the other 80% is spent looking at the future of the manager’s particular business).Thus, on average, senior management is devoting less than 3% (40% x 30% x 20% =2.4%) of its energy to building a corporate perspective on the future. In some companies the figure is less than 1%.”

This statement resonated with me at the time and is the reason that Dysart & Jones Associates has had a successful strategic planning consulting practice for almost 20 years. We created an accelerated planning technique that we use to facilitate expedited planning with clients, we wrote an article on Standing in the Future in Special Libraries (precursor to Information Outlook) in 2000, we teach and talk about planning in many venues — most recently at the SLA conference last month in Philadelphia with Thinking Strategically: How to See the Big Picture/Possibilities.

But how do we, and how should you, get insights and ideas to create strategic and innovative directions and priorities to be ready for the future?

1. Be deeply aware of your context and environment, not just your own operation but your organization’s, your industry’s, your community’s as well as the technological, social, political, and economic realities and possibilities.  Have you studied your organization’s strategic plan or your community’s master plan?  Have you read what industry analysts are saying about your industry or emerging technologies?

2. Be open to seeing things differently & adjusting your “frames” with openness, flexibility and adaptability, by clarifying assumptions and questioning the status quo, by getting the facts, and by focusing on the future.

3. Practice good strategic & critical thinking which raises the right questions – clearly & precisely; focuses on the real problem or decision to be taken; gathers & assesses relevant information; uses abstract ideas to interpret info effectively; develops well-reasoned conclusions & solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards; relies on recognizing & assessing  assumptions, implications, & consequences; communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

4. Create a positive vision of the future, a preferred future that is a stretch from the current situation — stand in 2015 and imagine your organization at the top of its game, with highly skilled colleagues illustrating future ready competencies, with clients that rave about your services and call you “indispensable,” with perfectly working technology & processes that allow efficient & effective collaborative work spaces, with supportive stakeholders who fund your operation and are willing to try your new ideas. Isn’t that where you want to be in 2015?  Explain what you just envisioned to a colleague or friend using the present tense and you will definitely want to be there. Try it. Now. And remember what Eugenie Prime, formerly with Hewlett Parkard, exhorted a few years ago — “No puny visions!”

5. Be curious, listen & read.  See opportunities. Go to conferences where you can mix it up with all types of information professionals SLA Annual and Regional Conferences, Internet Librarian, Library Directors Digital Library Summit, Computers in Libraries to name a few, (and yes I have a vested interest in those as Information Today has been a wonderful client of mine for almost 20 years and allows me to grow and learn from great speakers and participants), or go to leading industry conferences that influence those in your organization whether it’s pharmaceuticals, food, medicine, etc.  Ask questions, talk to people, learn as much as you can about your environment so that you can see opportunities or gaps that you can fill. As Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Watch for difficulties and pain points; jump on those opportunities and create new services to alleviate those challenges.

by Deb Hunt, Candidate for SLA President-Elect, San Francisco Bay Region and Silicon Valley Chapters, IT, KM and Leadership & Management Divisions

Trends related to LIS employment show that in 2007, 15% of employers were not libraries and  in 2008, that number jumped to 27%.  In this same study, an analysis of emerging jobs outside of libraries shows a wide variety of titles: emerging technologies librarian, usability analyst, information architect, and more. With these types of titles in mind, the skills required and requested by employers continue to expand and change, including taxonomy creation, knowledge of metadata standards, etc.

As Stephen Abram noted (and I’m paraphrasing here): “LIS skills are good currency, but only for those with the flexibility and insight to exploit the opportunities. “

We must add flexibility, insight, and recognition of opportunity to our essential core skills! We need to move outside our comfort zone and reflect on our accomplishments so we can communicate them to current, future and prospective employers or clients. Else, how will they know what we can do and what we bring to the table?

Career sustainability (my candidacy theme) is about growing in our jobs now and in future jobs as we continue to deepen our expertise and experience. (Please join the Career Sustainability LinkedIn group.)

Many LIS jobs are not coming back or are coming back in a whole different way. We need to be resilient taking our skills with us no matter where we go. I believe that we have much potential and energy to move forward to career sustainability.

I’m passionate about what I do and what we can do as a profession. Together we can create a more healthy and sustainable future as we grow our skillset and shout from the rooftops the value that we bring to our employers, potential employers and clients.

Deb Hunt is Principal of Information Edge which empowers clients to find the information they need to do their work. Information Edge specializes in enterprise content management, knowledge services, professional research, and library design and automation.

Deb has been a member of SLA since 1986 and is a candidate for SLA President-Elect. She served on the SLA Board as a Director from 2008-2010 and is the creator and team leader of SLA’s 23 Things. She is a past President of the San Francisco Bay Region Chapter and a member of the Silicon Valley chapter and the Library Management, KM, and IT divisions. She is an active member in the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) and served on its Board of Directors from 2001-2003.

Jill Blaemers,  San Diego Chapter Director; Taxonomy and Social Science Divisions

Cindy Romaine has challenged us each to become future-ready, that is, to prepare ourselves for our desired future. In considering how I want to respond to that challenge, I am reminded of a conversation I had many years ago, with an executive at the company I worked for at the time. He asked me where I wanted to be in five years. The smart, albeit cliché, response would have been to tell him that I wanted to be in his job in three years, but, nope, that’s not how I think. Instead, I told him that, in looking ahead, what I saw was a continuing evolution in how we organize, disseminate, and access information, and that our roles in it were going to need to evolve as well; I wanted to contribute to figuring the whole scheme out. Staking a claim to one particular route to the future wasn’t to me then, and it isn’t now, a viable option for an individual or a company.

We each sit in the midst of a constantly changing reality that is the result, at any given instant of time, of a myriad of individual, social unit, and societal-level decisions, small and momentous, all influenced by factors in the natural world. Not to be trite, but change is endemic to the human condition, so to be future-ready, we need to be eyes wide open to its fact and its force.  What we need to focus on is our contribution, as information professionals, to creating whatever that future looks like, and to be ready for that requires a certain mindset, attitude, and action, the point Cindy makes.

To me, being future-ready means many things. Personally and professionally, the minimum requirements are resilience and adaptability. Future-ready means bringing my skills of assessment and analysis to the status quo, as well as skepticism to calls for change for change’s sake and speed for speed’s sake. It means being ready and willing to get my hands dirty today with the hard work of implementing change that makes sense for tomorrow, at the same time scanning and evaluating the external environment for opportunities and threats, all with an eye on the horizon. It means a personal and professional commitment to lifelong learning and the incredibly lofty, yet so critical, goal of achieving an information-literate society in a world where information is seemingly available to everyone while, at the same time, a digital divide persists. Fundamentally, it means a laser focus on doing my best to help connect users with authoritative, accessible, actionable information.

Jill Blaemers is an information industry veteran, currently working independently providing consulting services related to product development of electronic academic reference databases and assessment of user needs and market conditions/opportunities. She serves as a Director on the Board of SLA – San Diego, and is a member of the SLA Social Science and Taxonomy Divisions.

by Kimberly Silk, Toronto Chapter, Business & Finance, Academic, Leadership & Management Divisions

I graduated from what is now known as the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto in 1998, and since that time I have been mentored by many successful people, both within the information profession, and outside of it. Some of these mentors did not know they influenced me, but many of them did, and do, and I owe much of my own success to their wisdom, kindness and generosity.

Very early on in my information career, even while in graduate school, I was sure that I would not become a conventional librarian. Though I love libraries and am inspired by the knowledge they hold, I’ve always known I would not succeed in that workplace. Thanks to several wonderful professors and practitioners, I became aware of a wide variety of environments where information professionals could pursue their passions. These places were not libraries, or even information centres. But, they all employed information professionals, and those info pros were pivotal to the organization’s success.

Over the past ten years I’ve been asked to speak as someone who has pursued an “alternative” library career. I really enjoy talking about my career (who doesn’t??) but I’m surprised at how often I’m still asked. It seems to me that our profession should be evolving more quickly. I am concerned that my career path is still considered “alternative”. Here we are more than a decade into the 21^st century, where conventional library jobs continue to disappear, and at the same time the information profession is changing so quickly we struggle to define it. How can it be that my choice to not work in a conventional library is still unusual?

I am not alone in my confusion. You need to look no further than the struggles of our very own SLA to see that we’re all trying to figure out who we are, and what we want to be when we grow up. As president of the Faculty of Information Alumni Association, I talk with many students and new graduates, and it’s clear they’re nervous about the future. Of course feeling nervous as you enter a new profession is normal; still, I believe it’s our responsibility as practitioners to help new information professionals feel more confident in themselves, and optimistic about our profession.

Practitioners have a lot to offer new info pros: experience, knowledge, passion, and positive anticipation of the future. Many of us are being the change we want to see in our world. We are forging new paths, redefining our profession and weathering the bumpy road as we go. We run up against obstacles such as the squelchers who fear change, even though change is necessary, because the alternative is unthinkable. The world is changing quickly – we know we must evolve or die.

I believe we need to take personal responsibility for the future of our profession. We cannot do much about the squelchers, and it may be best to ignore them. Our energy is much better spent focusing on the future, and the future lies in the hearts and minds of the new information professionals. All of us can be active change agents through mentoring. Those of us who consider ourselves leaders can make an even bigger impact by mentoring our new colleagues – by talking with them about the exciting changes our profession is going through, the amazing opportunities opening up to us, and the adrenaline rush of achieving new firsts. I’m paying it forward through mentorship, and encourage you to, too. The most effective way to change the world is to make a positive contribution to the future, and for us, the future is the new information professional.

Kimberly Silk is the Data Librarian at the Martin Prosperity Institute, a think tank at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. She is also President of the Faculty of Information Alumni Association, and Technology Director for the Toronto Chapter of SLA. While she lovingly embraces the librarian moniker, her current job is the first that has ever held that title. Kim loves what she does, and likes to infect others with her enthusiasm. You can read her blog at www.KimberlySilk.com and email her at kimberly.silk@gmail.com.

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.