Introduction (Toni Wilson)

In this article from another of our CI Division experts, we move from understanding how CI makes information professionals and the individuals and organizations they serve future-ready to understanding the future of the practice of competitive intelligence itself.  In other words, as our respective marketplaces continue to change and evolve – prompting us to be prepared with competitive intelligence and insights – so does the practice of CI.  Another way to be future-ready is to embrace and prepare for changes in the way CI is practiced.

As the current chair for the SLA CI Division’s 2011 conference, I am particularly interested in what makes a conference session memorable and important.  One event I attended recently at the SCIP conference, which made an impression, was led by Dr. Craig S. Fleisher, a leading academic, expert and author – Dr. Fleisher delivered his interactive session, CI 2020, to a sold-out crowd.  The result was the collective reasoning of over 100 CI professionals regarding the future of CI.  Following are a few key takeaways:

1. The lines between primary and secondary research are blurring:  They will continue to converge due to the increasing use of social media in CI.  CI professionals may no longer specialize in one or the other in the future.
2. Info-glut, info-toxicity and data overload have us “drinking from an informational fire hose.”  This growing trend will require us all to become better analysts and create more sophisticated analysis.
3. Higher performance standards and certifications will be required.  Better standards for CI professionals to be measured by, as well as trustworthy certifications for CI personnel are a must.
4. The question of supply vs. demand is highly debated.  Forces increasing client demand include globalization and increasing competition.  However, CI professionals are not confident overall that enough educated practitioners can be trained with existing programs.

Dr. Fleisher will be leading a CI 2020 session at the SLA conference this year, entitled CI Unconference.  The results from these interactive sessions are used by Dr. Fleisher as part of a longitudinal analysis of the future of CI.  It’s very exciting that SLA’s members can take advantage of an opportunity to participate in this important, ongoing project, learn from the findings, and apply them to becoming more future-ready professionally.

Claudia Clayton is Managing Director of ViewPoint, a strategy, consulting and research firm established in 1993.  She leads the competitive intelligence activities of ViewPoint on behalf of major U.S. corporations in multiple industries.  Claudia is a committed and hard-working volunteer, primarily serving the members of SLA’s CI Division and the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP).  She won SCIP’s Catalyst Award in 2007 in recognition of her commitment to the CI profession.  Claudia is the CI Division’s 2011 Conference Chair and currently serves as the CID’s Membership Chair as well.

by Toni Wilson, Cincinnati Chapter, Competitive Intelligence Division

What is, and what is not, competitive intelligence? Practiced correctly, CI accommodates the ability for organizations to be ready for the future, by anticipating changes in the marketplace and avoiding surprises that might blindside our end users and clients, often as they are focused on making decisions and plans based on what the marketplace looks like today.

When we think about our respective marketplaces, we can’t be focused only on how “the game” is played at present. In the future, new competitors will enter the game. They seek to disrupt the way our organizations play the game, so they will move out of turn or invent new moves. Or, the rules of the game itself may change, affecting all of the players. Because of all of this likely change, CI is not really about the competitors themselves, but about keeping our organizations competitive into the future.

Information professionals are uniquely qualified to provide insights regarding the future of our competitive environments because we are chiefly responsible for gathering the facts that indicate change. Fact-gathering is the first step and foundation of every successful CI process, so our role in the process is invaluable. While gathering facts, we see all of the puzzle pieces before anyone else–-sometimes we’re the only ones who see all of the pieces – and can easily put them together to create a picture of the potential future.

A relatable way to explain what CI is, and its value, is by referring to a quote from The Great One, Wayne Gretsky. He often said: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” We can achieve greatness by helping our end users and clients know where the puck might be going-–what the future competitive environment might look like–-so our organizations can play there, remain competitive, and win the game.
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.

WE WANT YOU! Participate in the SLA Strategic Vision Project

SLA President Cindy Romaine has tasked members of the Board of Directors with developing a strategic roadmap for the association. The “Strategic Vision Project” has as its goal to provide direction and a strategic vision for SLA through 2014. The Board has been divided into three topic-related sub-groups:

• Skills & Membership Sub-Group: What skills do association current and future members need, and how best can we assist them in acquiring these? How can we build and retain association membership?
• Collaboration & Community Sub-Group: Are there other associations, groups, and projects with which SLA can collaborate to achieve a new goal, which we could not create individually?
• Alignment & Services Sub-Group: How can we incorporate the SLA Alignment Project research and strategies into association and member performance? What services can the association provide to facilitate this?

So, we would like to pick your collective and individual brains. What advice and/or suggestions do you have on these themes? Kindly post here—or contact any or all Board members. The Board will continue discussing this at its June meetings in Philadelphia.

Thanks!

Ann Sweeney, Ulla de Stricker, & Sara Tompson

Over the past 18 years, Ann Sweeney has served the European Union Delegation as Librarian, Webmaster, and now Senior Information & Communication Officer: Electronic Publications. Ann’s 40+ years’ career as a librarian spans positions at the Columbia University Graduate Business Library, the US Defense Intelligence Agency, the Port Authority of NY & NJ, the National Academy of Sciences, and public libraries.
Ann is active in SLA: having held multiple leadership positions over the years including Social Science Division past Chair, and current International Relations Section Chair. She received the 2006 Member Achievement Award, the DSOC 2009 Gale Group Murray Wortzel Award, and has organized the Annual Conference’s International Reception for more than a decade. Outside of SLA, she provided guidance on EU materials for the American Society of International Law’s Electronic Information System for International Law (EISIL) Editorial Review Group, and is a frequent speaker at TRB, the World Bank/IMF Joint Library, Georgetown University Law Library, and similar venues.

Ulla de Stricker is an Information and Knowledge Management Consultant helping clients address challenges and opportunities of discovering and capturing information objects and protecting and leveraging organizational memory. She is a well known speaker at professional events and frequent contributor to the professional literature. Her website www.destricker.com provides additional information and access to her KM blog.

Sara Tompson is serving as a Director on the SLA Board from 2011-2013.  She is a member of the SLA Finance Committee, and the Board liaison to all the California chapters, the Rio Grande, NM chapter, the SciTech Division, the Research & Development Committee and the Professional Development Council.  Currently finishing up a three year administrative appointment as a Library Associate Dean at the University of Southern California, Tompson will become the USC Libraries Head of Instruction and Orientation on July 1, 2011.  In her spare time she is an instrument rated private pilot, and enjoys flying her husband and friends around beautiful California.

by Betty Story

Developing research/technology curricula for International Baccalaureate and Middle Years school library programs the last few years has given me reasonable expectations of research and technology capability for middle and high school students who have continual practice with technology.

Fortunate young people have moved way beyond simply using Power Point for presentations. In elementary years they are mastering Glogster, Prezi, Story Bird, Garage Band, and pod casts. Innovative teachers use Moodle and Webquests for Internet enhanced lessons. Some middle and high schools use Noodleworks to craft research papers and citation software to create bibliographies. Electronic grammar and spell checks are taken for granted.

Although these students may be “future ready” with navigating software, how much they comprehend and adequately assess what they Googled or found on databases is a concern. Some students have learned writing by completing “report writing” and grammar worksheets; crafting sentences and paragraphs is an undeveloped skill. Plagiarism detection software as such as Turnitin are now part of high school and university teachers’ tool kits.

Research Strategies: Finding Your Way through the Information Fog, by William Badke, talks of “remedial information literacy”, that is needed to provide methods for students to sort and synthesize the overwhelm of information. From the my perspective, with capable librarians and teachers, motivated students (especially those in private schools or public school college prep programs) will rise to expectations of independent and critical thinking required for online research. Unfortunately, while these students learn to ably sort out information and go beyond paraphrasing, under served public high school students can lack information literacy.

Since public school library positions are being cutback, the digital divide may widen. A recent statement from the American Association of School Libraries ( AASL) and case studies backing up the report, School Libraries Work!, examines the impact of public school libraries that are under staffed. ( The impact of public library cutbacks and loss of computer access to many is a whole other post.)

Regardless, to end on a positive note, this digitally able generation is constantly evolving but does need guidance. Students can and will learn to understand a research problem, find relevant content, and transform the information. Finding the solutions to developing these skills for all young people is a piece of the future ready puzzle.

Betty Story has been a school librarian, school library consultant and trainer for 25 years. She has worked with several private international schools and colleges, but knows that our public school librarians are unsung heroes.
Also an independent information professional, she is also a member of AIIP  on their board as Membership Development Chair.

by Jodi Gregory

As an independent information professional for over 15 years, I’ve stayed successful and future ready by continually “connecting the dots.”  It is important to stay connected and when networking, we should be thinking about how we can bring together the new people we meet with other people we know for mutually beneficial relationships.  Often my connectedness allows me to tap into my network for the expertise I need for that missing piece in satisfying an information request for a client.  No longer should we expect to provide answers to our client’s questions only from online services, the open or invisible web.

Our work is continually defined and re-defined by multiple and varying clients and our responses to them.  Since we are experts at evaluating and presenting information, we should utilize these skills to identify future trends and anticipate what our client’s needs and questions will be.  We can improve our efficiency by setting up dashboards or alerts on trending topics so that when a request comes our way, we are already knowledgeable about the best and most reliable sources for the information.  Having this knowledge allows us to be even more valuable to our clients.  I get a little thrill when I can stay to my clients “I’ve read about that lately and I have already identified some experts and great sources for this information.”

One example of a new trend is the use of infographics.  Have you begun incorporating infographics in the presentation of your research results?  As always, they need to be vetted for their validity and quality but visual and graphic presentation of information is appreciated by my clients.  I’ve taken this one step further by working with a graphic designer to create my own based on the information I’ve assembled in my research.

We are experts at disseminating information so we can and should use our talents to provide research in advance of a client need.  Let us be the ones to connect the dots and provide research and analysis that is future ready!

Jodi Gregory is the principal of Access Information Services.  She has been an independent information professional for over 15 years and is a past president of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (aiip.org). She is also a columnist for Cyberskeptic’s Guide to Internet Research published by Information Today.

by Linda McKell

This is a question I am frequently asked since I work in a library staffing company. It is an interesting question, involving understanding people, organizations and what they need to keep viable.

In the library world, we have for-profit special libraries, non-profit academic and public libraries as well as an entire array of free-lance contract workers/consultants and vendors. While there are differences in funding sources for all of these entities, it still boils down to “where’s the money?”

That is why it is helpful to know about the overall structure, funding sources and directions for any organization, employer or customer that you are trying to work with.

How do you find this out? There are certainly unlimited amounts of information on the web; however, making connections with people inside the company can give you more insight on that and many other aspects of the organization.

Understand the Environment.

First, use your research skills to understand as much about an organization before applying and interviewing. Then you will be able to convey some understanding of their situation rather than just come across like a deer in the headlights.

Some possible questions to research are:

1. How is the organization doing financially? Have they experienced layoffs, downturns and how have they handled them?
2. What achievements, successes and goals do they have?
3. What challenges, obstacles and set-backs have they experienced?
4. Who does the library/dept. serve in the organization?
5. Who does the library/dept. report to?
6. What size staff do they have in the library? Do they have satellites, branches and other locations that they serve?
7. What services are offered by the library/dept.?
8. What is the job description for the advertised position?
9. What other services could be supplied if appropriate skills and resources are available?
10. How can you make a contribution/difference and generally be an asset to the library/dept.?

Get to Know People.

Second, explore your people network. There are more ways to network now than ever before. Now, in addition to just getting to know your immediate neighbors, you can explore the following areas:

1. Get social. Visit Facebook, Linked In, Twitter and other social and professional networking sites like listserves to find people who work where you would like to work. Ask them some of the above questions or others to more fully understand the environment.
2. Get professional. Attend professional meetings. Mingling with people in the profession provides information and direct connections. The programs also give you a heads up on what is currently going on in the field. Getting information virtually is great, but meeting and greeting live provides additional advantages.
3. Broadcast to your local network. Let people know that you are interested in certain organizations, venues or types of jobs. You will be amazed at how even your local network has connections. I once asked the head of an academic library who had worked in a corporate library originally what it was like to work in academia. She told me a few things and then said, “Why, are you interested in working in academic?” I said I would be interested, but now I was working full-time as an engineering librarian in a corporate setting. A few months later she called to ask me if I would like a part-time job in their engineering library while one of the staff worked on a special project somewhere else. I jumped at the chance and learned a lot even though I ended up working both jobs at 12 hour days!
4. Set up informational interviews. Find someone in an environment where you would like to work and ask if you can interview them about their job over coffee or an ice cream cone! Stop by the reference desk at your local library, find a willing person and start talking to them. Don’t monopolize their time, but you can glean a great deal of information from many small interactions over time.
5. Look for problems that need to be solved. See if you can volunteer in an area of interest and do a special project for which there is no funding or no time. This will not only give you a chance to see what the environment is like, but to gain some experience. Who says you have to be paid for work to list it on your resume?

By doing these things before you begin talking to a prospective employer, you will distinguish yourself from others by knowing something rather than little or nothing about them.

Make the Employers’ Job Easier.

You might think that looking for a job is the most stressful situation, but employers are under stress as well. They have to cope with work overloads, staff shortages, budget restrictions while conducting a candidate search. They have to justify their need for a person; handle recruiting activities directly or work with their Human Resources department which can be more of a wall than a door. They then either filter through a mountain of resumes and applications or find that too few qualified people are responding to ads. Lastly, they have to conduct myriad interviews with candidates who either know little or nothing about the job or they are faced with too many qualified candidates making the decision difficult. After making the hiring decision, they have to train and orient the new hire and hope that the person is not only what they seem to be, but, hopefully, better and not worse!

Keep in mind that the employer may be distracted or unskilled in interviewing, as well. You can help them along by creating a friendly atmosphere as you start talking to them. Make them feel comfortable with you. Don’t monopolize the conversation, but be relaxed and try to put yourself in their shoes. Try to make the interview a conversation and not a monologue on either side.

Meanwhile, what employers are really looking for is a person who can not only do the job, but who can bring more to the table, fit in with the work group, and generally make the services rendered the best they can be! They are not looking for people to do the minimum, don’t mix well with the existing work group, and are focused on what’s in it for me versus trying to achieve the goals of the department/organization.

In short, employers are looking for good employees. And that is the best thing you can be!

Linda McKell is President and Founder of AIM Library & Information Staffing headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information about the library job market, visit the company website at www.aimusa.com.

by Valerie Enriquez

Ask a humanities major to envision the concept of research and they would probably imagine long hours in a library or archive, perusing books and documents. However, ask a scientist to visualize research, and they will likely picture collecting data out in the field.

Open Science was born from Newton’s idea that scientific advancement relies on “standing on the shoulders of giants.” The sharing of ideas encourages the advanced development of knowledge. However, in the world of publish or perish, the shadow cast upon the shoulder is doubt: fear that in sharing preliminary data, a researcher may be scooped, to borrow a journalism term. As a budding archivist, I find the idea of preserving knowledge for future use appealing and the fear of being scooped short-sighted when considering the long game. What if raw data from someone’s research could be the missing piece to finding the cure for cancer, or at the very least, figure out why all the bees have gone and what we need to do to bring them back? What if important datasets faded to obscurity without anybody ever knowing about them?

What can we, as librarians, do to help encourage more sharing of research data? Article citation rate helps researchers by providing them with a way to measure their impact upon the literature within their field. DataCite is an initiative to help bring this level of prestige to data publication. So, why not help encourage data sharing and citation through outreach and advocacy? For example, providing handouts or workshops about data research and the proper citation of reused data (as per Altman 2007):

• Dataset Author
• Dataset Title
• Date the dataset was published/made public
• Unique Global Identifier (such as a DOI or Handle)
• Universal Numeric Fingerprint
• Bridge Service (such as the DOI resolver)

There are many tools available to help researchers share data. For example, OpenWetware offers researchers a wiki format lab notebook, where they can share their observations with each other and solicit feedback. Digital repositories such as ORNL DAAC (Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Archive) for biogeochemical dynamics, ecological data, and environmental processes; TreeBASE for phylogenetic information, GenBank for genetic sequences, and PANGAEA for geoscientific and environmental data help ensure that the data created through the hard work of researchers is preserved for future researchers to build upon.

Last summer, I participated in an internship with DataONE, where I attempted to find examples of articles citing data that had been created in prior studies. The experience was  like trying to find a friend on Facebook if all I knew about them was their hair color and favorite breakfast cereal. At first, I felt like a failure, since as an information scientist, what else could it possibly have been if I could not find the information I was seeking? However, this turned out to be an opportunity to prove the necessity of enforcing data citation standards and creating tools that track data reuse in the same way that we track article citation and journal impact factors.

What can we do? Ongoing evaluation is needed to determine the impact of data reuse and the need for citation standards. I am currently taking courses in evaluation and digital preservation and curation to learn more about past efforts and see how they have been refined over time. My internship mentor from DataOne is going to coordinate a related project that she refers to as the “Tracking 1000 Datasets Project.” Along with staying on top of trends in data research, we must also drive the creation of standards and tools to best serve our user populations. It is time to stop thinking of research and raw data as merely a step towards getting the end product of publishing. If it is truly a “publish or perish” world, we need to advance the idea of publishing, and helping faculty and students  find a place to deposit their initial data could be as much of an outreach and instruction opportunity as helping them find related articles or datasets.

It is little wonder that data librarianship is one of the fastest growing fields in library science. It is up to us to grab such opportunities and stay up to date about the resources available to our users, or risk falling off the shoulders of giants.

Thus, we should lead by example through:

• evaluation of the existing literature and of our own practices
• collaboration with our users, other institutions, and our vendors
• and instruction of our users, new librarians and with our own continuing education.

As I like to think of it, we are all in the process of building: building upon our individual base of knowledge, the knowledge of those in the library science field, and the knowledge of those who require our services. If we do not build upon past information and lessons learned from prior mistakes, our structure will fall with no foundation. If we do not build in conjunction with our present users and creators of tools, we risk having our great tower of learning fall to pieces, walling us in isolation and hindering communication. The past, present, and future of our profession are as inextricably connected as our relationships with researchers ought to be.

Valerie Enriquez is a Fellow with the Association of Research Libraries Career Enhancement Program pursuing an MLIS from Simmons College with a concentration in archives management.  Her internships have included the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Advanced Visual Studies, the Harvard Countway Center for the History of Medicine, and the DataONE Project.  Her career goal is to use the past to contextualize the present and shape the future of how we seek and process information.

Karen Sawatzky, Librarian, Tapper Cuddy LLP, Winnipeg, MB

Reposted with permission from Slaw.

Everyone’s talking about the future. From LegalTech New York, where the closing keynote was the practice of law in 2020, to IT’s role in the library of the future, and SLA’s FutureReady365 blog. It’s interesting to be reading about predictions on where our profession may be going. One document I came across a while ago was the Association of Research Libraries’ 2030 Scenarios : A User Guide for Research Libraries. I started reading it (it’s 92 pages!) to see if it had any application for a law firm library.

Can you imagine the world in 2030? I can’t, but the ARL Scenarios do. It’s not quite the future that I would like to see, but then, is the present what anyone predicted 20 years ago? The scenarios envision a world where researchers are free agents, and universities scramble for funding. (Hmm…how is that different from today, at least the second part?) There are four scenarios presented: Research Entrepreneurs, Reuse and Recycle, Disciplines in Charge, and Global Followers. Each one outlines a particular day in the life of a star researcher, Hannah Chen. The world is described slightly differently in each scenario, but varies on the theme that government funding of universities will dry up, mainly due to declining tax revenues, universities will seek more partnerships with businesses, and both students and faculty will be competing for meaningful positions.

So what are the strategic implications of these scenarios? Scenario 1: Research Entrepreneurs, resonated the most with me. Note the following strategic question that arose:

How do we begin now to develop the library professional of the future – a highly capable and credible service provider who can work directly with researchers with data preparation and curation capabilities? What skills are we currently developing in our library professionals that may not be valued in the future? (p. 39)

Replace “researcher” with “lawyer”, and we’re already at this scenario, at least regarding data preparation and curation capabilities (think compiling case law on a point of law, and determining which resources have the authority to be used to develop an argument). As to the skills we’re currently developing that may not be valued in the future – how about some of the audiovisual equipment training! All kidding aside, most of the skills I have are transferable across many occupations, and even something as library-specific as cataloguing can be useful in cross-training to write computer languages.

So how does this relate to the law firm library of the future? I’ve been thinking a lot about the physical space necessary to define the library of the near future, say in the next five years or so. My current space is fairly traditional – lots of shelving for (mostly) reporting series that are no longer collected, and a small work area. I haven’t quite figured out what is the best use of the space if I had the opportunity to renovate. Should there be more social areas, equipped with comfortable chairs and tables, to encourage use of the library as a place to meet and discuss? Or should it be a quiet area, where lawyers can review the resources they need without being disturbed? My personal preference is to see the space become more conducive to conversation – kind of like the lawyers’ lounge without the bar.

There have been a number of discussions of law library space recently. I especially enjoyed Louis Mirando’s posts, Rebuilding a Law School Library. Any ideas on what the future holds for law libraries? Will private firms outsource part or all of them? Or will it be a competitive advantage to house your own knowledge management team? What skills will we need? What does 2030 look like to you?

Karen Sawatzky is a law librarian at a business law firm in Winnipeg, MB. She is passionate about marketing and personal brand building.

by Gretchen Leslie, Oregon Chapter, Science-Technology Division

I am writing this post because I believe we, as an association, have not really done a good job of researching our industry—the information industry—and using that research to better position our members  and our association in the future.  We talk about being “Future Ready,” but I have not seen us applying our core research competencies to scoping where the growth is and what the trending is in the information industry, what skills we need to find work in the coming information industry scenario, who our potential partners can be, and where the hidden snakes lay on our path to the future.  The research, data, and analysis are out there, generated by companies such as Outsell Inc., Simba, IDC, and Gartner.  Are we using it?  If not, why not?

So I guess this post is a call to action for the association leadership to begin a program to buy and use the published research about the information industry. Perhaps we could even partner with other associations, and cooperatively build a sustainable way to get the needed data and analysis on a continual basis.  That way, we could always benchmark on where we are as informational professionals, vs. where the information industry is headed.

What do the rest of you think of this “info pros – research thyself!” approach to mapping out what Future Ready means?  I’d like to hear from my colleagues in SLA about the idea of using market research on ourselves; making market research of the information industry part of our websites and continuing education, applying the ideas of where the information industry is moving to how and what we teach in information science graduate programs, and ultimately, building a better understanding of the global information industry and where we fit in the future as information professionals.

Gretchen Leslie has a 35+ year career in special libraries, and has always wondered why we cannot do a better job of analyzing our own industry.

by Richard Huffine, SLA Board of Directors, Division Cabinet-Chair Elect

I am becoming future ready by pursuing new publishing models on behalf of my organization. I work for a Federal research organization with over 130 years of experience producing research to inform decision-makers. Our research has shaped policy and practice and the library has played an important role in supporting both the research and the dissemination of that research. Our library maintains the complete catalog of publications by our staff and we have converted more than half of our backlist catalog for on-line access. The future is digital, we know that but what will it mean to be digital in the future?

Do we want our research products listed in the Amazon Marketplace? Google’s ebookstore or Apple’s iBookstore? What does it mean to publish an ebook versus a traditional report? How do these new outlets (and their associated standards) change the way we prepare our research for dissemination and use by other researchers, students, and the general public?

The Library is the perfect place to be exploring these new publishing models and work with the institution to adapt to these new approaches to dissemination of information. Our library purchases ebooks, on-line journals, and database content. We are working with our users to figure out how Blackberries, iPhones, iPads and other tools will be used to consume information and to put data in the hands of our researchers in the field. Future Ready for me is about preparing my organization for the future and hopefully placing us ahead of the curve.

Richard Huffine is SLA’s Division Cabinet Chair-Elect. He is the National Library Coordinator at the U.S. Geological Survey.  He has been active in SLA since 2004 as the founding Chair of the Government Information Division.  He is also an active member of ALA, and is President-Elect of the District of Columbia Library Association.