San Diego, California is home of beautiful weather, spectacular beaches- and a group of highly motivated, driven and future-ready information professionals. The SLA-San Diego Chapter is proud to join in the conversation with our SLA peers about what it means to be Future Ready.  Our San Diego membership boasts a wide range of professional experience and expertise, and we hope that you find our contributions to the FutureReady365 blog to be both thought-provoking and useful!

by Britt Mueller, San Diego Chapter, Business & Finance, Engineering, and Leadership & Management Divisions

Years ago I was told a third hand story that had a huge impact on how I thought about my career and defined success in my work. In essence, it was one of the best pieces of advice that I have been given to make me “future ready.”

The story was about a person in a large company who was working on a project with a lot of visibility. Quite a few very bright and highly competent people were on the project and worked tirelessly on it for several months. They had great communication skills and worked effectively as a team but in the end the project did not fulfill the objectives that were laid out and failed to impress senior executives. When discussing the project with an executive, the lead described the significant teamwork, the long nights, and how hard people had worked. The executive listened to the project leader and simply said, “You are confusing effort with results.”

Although I was hearing this story third or fourth hand, the clarity and simplicity of this statement rang true. The fact that it came from someone who was in a high level position was also critical in that it clearly delineated what was important to leaders. Getting results counts – both personally in terms of what I deliver as an individual and also for the Library as an entity within the larger organization. I can develop personal and professional skills, my team can work hard, we can be busy – but in the end gaining and developing skills or trying hard is meaningless if you cannot produce results that matter.

I think there is a lot that library and information professionals can learn from this statement. I have attended many conferences, communicated with peers, read our literature over more years than I would wish to admit and I am often disheartened by the emphasis with which we work to define ourselves. I am sure many people would agree that they cannot attend a library conference without some mention by attendees of how nice a group of people we are, that we need to position ourselves for the future and develop new skills, or the oft cited lament on how people outside our profession don’t understand us and we have to get better at communicating our value. These are all good and often true observations in and of themselves, but they should never be how we define our success or our ability to be meaningful. These are attributes, tools and approaches that should help us do the final necessary step – get results that matter to our organizations, our leaders, and our clients.

I personally use the idea of results over effort to define what I work on, what strategic initiatives the organization I manage focuses on, and to communicate value to my leaders. It also requires me to be my own worst critic – to look for continued opportunity to produce results that matter. The outcome of focusing on results creates the best use of resources, assures that the work I do is meaningful and important, and positions the Library as a critical and necessary service – not a nice to have. Never confusing effort with results actually creates outcomes (or results) that we can all consider successes including recognition, support, resources, and growth as we position ourselves, our libraries and information centers as critical to the success of any organization.

Currently serving as President of the SLA San Diego Chapter, Britt Mueller is the Sr. Director of Qualcomm’s Library & Information Services department. Serving a global employee population of over 20,000 people, the Qualcomm Library provides just-in-time information, research and analysis to enable employees to increase performance and productivity for competitive advantage.

Compiled by Amy Affelt, Illinois Chapter, Business & Finance Division

Future Ready Toolkit

This post is from SLA’s new Future Ready Toolkit. The Toolkit was constructed by SLA members who have drawn upon substantial professional experience and alignment research to help you hone your skills in a way that is relevant and global. The toolkit is collaboration, alignment, adaptation, and community put into action.

Value-Added Intelligence

The knowledge that we provide is correct, citable, and on-point.  We deliver this knowledge on-time, in the format that the requestor finds most helpful, and either under or as close to budget as possible.

Facilitation of Good Decision-Making

We do this by gathering, organizing, and sharing high quality and highly-relevant information to ensure that the best decisions are made by our stakeholders.

Creation of a Culture of Knowledge Sharing

We do this by educating our colleagues on the best use of information sources (which are the most credible, most citable, etc.)

Creation of a Competitive Advantage

We do this by applying expert analysis to ensure that our stakeholders have the exact information they need to gain insight, understand trends, and secure an advantage over their competitors.

Expert Analysis

We go beyond “rip and ship” to inform the strategy of the organization by packaging results in such a way that sets the context for their use.  The knowledge that we provide ultimately reflects and enhances the organization’s overall goals.

Trend Identification and Insight

We look for trends across all industries and consider how those trends can be applied to our own work environments.  We anticipate the future by considering the present.  We read the news so that our stakeholders don’t have to, and we share developments immediately with stakeholders and in convenient formats such as through mobile applications.

Bottom-Line Benefits

Our work benefits the bottom line by saving stakeholders time and money.  We can conduct research more quickly and easily and achieve higher quality results than those with other job functions.

Context and Analysis for Knowledge and Results

We turn the information that we uncover into knowledge by setting the context for it as well as providing analysis of how it relates to the stakeholder’s challenge.  The stakeholder uses the knowledge we provide to ensure positive outcomes for the organization.

Amy is the chair of the SLA Public Relations Advisory Council, the Alignment Ambassador for the SLA Business and Finance Division, and director of database research at CompassLexecon, an economic consultancy.  She has a BA in History, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MLS from Dominican University. Amy is coordinating the Future Ready Toolkit.

by Dr. Craig Fleisher, Dean, School of Business and Public Affairs, College of Coastal Georgia, USA

The future for business planners, knowledge managers, and special librarians will require enhanced sense-making ability.  In the past, finding and organizing information was the key to competitive success. Those organizations who found it first had advantages that they could often leverage in the marketplace.  Today, most individuals and organizations have excellent access to data and information; in reality, my research has shown that most organizations have too much of both, and too little of an idea for what to do with it.

Making things worse, much of the collected data and information resides in storage (i.e., data warehouses, networks, spreadsheets, etc.) where it gets stale quickly and cannot serve any viable competitive use. Like milk, information spoils if it isn’t treated and utilized. The half-life of time for acting on competitive information continues to shrink in this day and age and isn’t likely to lengthen anytime soon.

Future ready means that analysts in companies will need to work on the front-end with their data acquisition and information management/knowledge professional colleagues, making sure that what is collected provides the missing pieces to the puzzles that analysts and planners know they need to put together to support decisions. The need to make decisions drives our analysis. Our analysis needs drives our data collection. The rule for future success: Don’t collect data or information for which we do not already have analytic mechanisms in place to use it within. Why buy and store milk if you are not going to drink it?

Dr. Craig Fleisher is a former President of the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals, author of several foundational books in CI and analysis, and was awarded its Meritorious recognition for lifetime contributions to the field.

by Paul T. Jackson, Trescott Research

© March, 2011

“People are resilient because they have to be…although the scars never disappear totally.”

By the time Naisbitt came out with his book Megatrends 2000 wherein he said people would likely have 4 or 5 careers, I was already on my sixth career track. Here are some lessons about being flexible and adaptable and future ready from those six careers.

Lesson 1:  Be open to new possibilities.

Over time I’ve experienced many successful endeavors simply by allowing them to happen and doing my best at the tasks given.

Without a job, and while attending a performance of the Royal Ballet of England in Detroit, I was standing next to an older gentleman.  We found we had mutual friends and interests, and I was invited to a late night dinner with him. Our dinner conversation led me to my library career under Kurtz Myers, head of the Detroit Public Library Music Department.

Years later, after my university position ended, I went to the office supply store to get some copy paper for my old wet copier.  The proprietor showed me the new 3M dry toner copier, and after looking at the copy sample, I exclaimed, “Wow, I could sell this!”  The proprietor said, “You’re on. When can you start?” Thus started a career of selling office supply and machines; helping people organize their files and paper processes. This knowledge and work eventually brought me to learning and selling computers and a partnership with a computer firm helping build databases for companies and organizations.

In all of these positions I was using all of my knowledge and past experience in libraries, music publishing, research, writing, and office supply and able to do a superior performance because of it.

Lesson 2:  Be Inquisitive and ask questions.   It can lead to new ventures.

In undergraduate school, a philosophy professor had told me, “Solutions start with questions.”

At library school I felt there was a need for an organization whose archives of recorded sound could come together to share information.  I wrote and asked the curator of the Ford Museum collection, Frank Davis, what it would take to get these and other archivists together. His response was, “First, we have to have a meeting.”  This led to several meetings including an exploratory one with 22 librarians and archivists attending. They represented the largest collections of recordings in the United States.  We met in June of 1965 at Greenfield Village/Ford Museum after the American Library Association conference in Detroit.  We met again at Syracuse University, and there, in 1966, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) was founded with over 40 people attending, representing not only U.S. collections and archives, but also Canadian broadcasting and the United Nations sound recording libraries.  ARSC ( http://arsc-audio.org/ ) is now in its 45th year of existence. It only takes a question, and action, to start something significant.

Lesson 3: Give Responsibility; Take Responsibility

As a supervisor it is your job, your responsibility, to help those you supervise. This includes mentoring and developing your staff. You need to be able to teach them to take over your job, or at least keep the place operational if you are not there; no one should feel threatened by this.  It is making things better, even people.

I gave inmates responsibility to operate their prison library and law library.  They came back with ideas, they helped with grant writing, they improved services, and they took turns running the classes on writing business plans, legal research, and helping in the reading lab.  I helped train them on computers. The Corrections Accreditation Commission reported twice, our library “second to none [in the nation]” over the 8 plus years I was Director. Great things happen to your staff and their self-esteem when they have responsibility.

Lesson 4: Focus on problems–It’s not about you or me.

Someone on staff takes credit for your idea—get over it!

You have to change to smaller space—get over it!

Someone damages your ego—get over it!

Your library closes—get over it!

None of these things are important to the business of solving problems for the employer or customers.  I’ve survived all these things and in the end found solving problems was more important than who got credit. The programs I’ve helped build have survived, which to me is vastly more important.

At the music publishing group, TRO, Inc. representing over 32 publishers in 18 countries, the executives were often arguing, but once the problem was solved or the action agreed upon and discharged, they would be seen heading out the door for lunch together.

Remembering what you learned makes you so much more valuable for the next job.  Get over the closing and go on. Solving problems for the company, the employees, the customers, is the mission of every employee. This is what is remembered.

Lesson 5:  Think altruistically about leaving!

Leave something better than expected.

Growing up, my mother taught us we were to leave things better. I’m not rich financially. My career didn’t follow a well thought out plan.  It wasn’t something I started out to do.  Along the way I created new libraries, new businesses, and helped establish a national association.  I count myself a success.  When you get done, (do we ever get done?) by being resilient and practicing the lessons, you too can say, “I did good.”

Two of my favorite quotes:

“Remember, to get anything done, you first have to start.”

“The one who says it can’t be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.”

Mr. Jackson is an Information Specialist. A retired Special Librarian in Academic, Public, Corporate, and Prison libraries, he has taught research to Ph.D. candidates, and published a wide variety of articles. He is currently Editor of Plateau Area Writers Association’s Quarterly and anthology series, Contrasts. He is a member of several musical ensembles and volunteers as church librarian.  His career positions are recorded in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who International, and a profile at his web site: www.trescottresearch.com

by Aileen Marshall, Virginia Chapter, Business & Finance, Competitive Intelligence Divisions

Here we are, March 2011…am I ready…are you? The job landscape for librarians and information professionals is more than tough, as we all know. Long-employed librarians face lay-offs, and students who are graduating soon are worried about finding work in the first place. Those who are fortunate to be employed face budget cuts and worry how they can keep up their level of service. In addition to all of this we have to fight a constant battle to demonstrate that librarians are needed! Add personal issues we all face to this mix, and I’d say this could be a very stressful year.

But fear not! Don’t think the glass is half-empty when, with a little bit of creativity and boldness, we can make it half-full again. Complaining about everything that is going wrong is tiring and does not lead to anything, really. Instead focus on how you can improve existing services with non-traditional resources and your passion for our profession.

About two weeks ago I attended a webinar facilitated by Scott Brown, a competitive intelligence professional, who spoke about using social media for business research. He showed us how to extract information from sources that are absolutely free! Using non-traditional sources for our work can be a huge deal, not only to gather valuable insight but also to stretch the budget. Just looking at his resources and how he utilizes something that most people see as completely unrelated to work inspired me to look for these kinds of information sources.

But social media is not only a great tool to obtain information. Working as law librarian in a public library, I use Facebook and Twitter to promote what the Central Rappahannock Regional Library has to offer. I have managed to increase patron awareness in our services by making use of social media and our blog. Many of my patrons are even willing to speak up for the library at the next budget meeting. Statistics and personal testimonies can go a long way when fighting for more money. I also advocate for my library and our profession in general as much as I can. So many people are not aware of the vast amount of materials that the library offers, and they are amazed when I tell them. And usually they come back with friends and family. So advocate, advocate, advocate. Involve your patrons and clients in your problems in a reasonable manner. You will see results in time.

Librarians are all about collaboration. So if you find a great new resource, let others know about it. Make use of our collective knowledge and wisdom to discover new ways of doing your job and getting results. Try to get out of your comfort zone, at least a little bit, and let people know how important libraries and information professionals are. Our future will be brighter than the present if every one of us contributes just a little bit.

Aileen Marshall is the law librarian at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library in Fredericksburg, VA.
She posses a MA from the Westfaelische Wilhelms-University in Muenster, Germany, and will graduate
from the University of South Carolina with her MLIS in May 2011. She can be contacted at www.cyndera.com

by Helen Josephine, Silicon Valley Chapter, Science-Technology and Engineering Divisions

A report on the new “bookless engineering library” was included in “Morning Edition” on NPR in July 2010. After this report aired, library and literary blogs quickly began discussing the future and fate of libraries in the digital age—is it the wave of the future or the end of the world as we know it? We find that some of our student and faculty users prefer digital content to print, while others do not. The digital library is not the end of the book and print collections, but the beginning of something new and exciting.

After four years of planning, the new Engineering Library at Stanford University opened on August 9, 2010. The vision document for the new library, SEQ2 Library Vision: The Information Collaboratory informed not only the physical design of the new facility but the staffing, collection and service models as well. In addition to the challenge to replace the physical collection with digital content, three themes for the new library were called out in this document: high-touch human contact, mediation and subject expertise and mutability or continuous change and experimentation.
To achieve our goal of becoming a largely bookless library with access to all of the online resources required by one of the premier schools of Engineering in the world, the constant questions we asked of our vendors were—can we get it online?, can it be flexible?, can it be self-service? We anticipate that even more innovative information resources and devices will be available to us as we continue to evolve and experiment with new technologies, new services and new vendors.

One current experiment is our e-reader program, a combination of circulating e-readers and tethered e-readers (10 Kindle, 8 Sony Touch,1 Nook,1 iPad) with content selected by librarians. In addition to the content we have selected and purchased for the e-readers, we are also testing the ability to load and read content that we have licensed from e-book vendors that allow for unlimited content download. Student feedback on the project has been positive and the e-readers are always checked-out. The e-reader program is part of our mission to understand the information needs of the current and future students and to experiment with new technologies.

Our physical space is one-third the size of our former library, but the open floor plan of the new library and the foldable, stackable, moveable furniture allows multiple configurations within our 6,000 sq ft. space. Collaborative work areas for groups of 4 or more with tables pushed together, individual work at tables near the windows, as well as impromptu classroom seating for groups as large as 50 are all feasible. The technology in the library includes a 60”digital bulletin board for announcements of library events and information plus School of Engineering events and student projects, a rolling display cart housing a 60” monitor with touch capability, an information kiosk using a 23” touch screen computer for basic library information and a 3M RFID system for book self-check out and security.

When you define your library as a place for innovation and experimentation with information technology and digital content, the possible roles for librarians are limitless and the types of services offered are dynamic and ever-changing. This is a true definition of “future-ready.”

Helen Josephine is Head of the Frederick Emmons Terman Engineering Library (http://lib.stanford.edu/englib), part of the Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center at Stanford University.  She is a past-president of the Silicon Valley chapter of SLA and has been a member of SLA since 1999. She has also been active in many regional, state and national library groups, including the Arizona Online Users Group, California Academic and Research Libraries, and ALA.

by Jill Heinze, Virginia Chapter, CI Division

From my vantage point as a research analyst, I see novel-worthy tales play out daily in the form of mergers, lobbying, new product launches, bankruptcies, client wins and losses, and on and on. With all of the drama unfolding in the marketplace, how proficient are we at capturing that dynamism in our presentations and reports? If you’re like me, you could probably stand to become a better storyteller. Even more, if you listen to some observers, you have to become a respectable storyteller to be future-ready.

In his book A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink asserts, “When facts become so widely available and instantly accessible, each one becomes less valuable. What begins to matter is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact.” Skeptical? Consider the success of Freakonomics¸ the book that transformed a collection of dry statistics into possible explanations for how society works and become a bestseller.

When weaving your tales, try emulating what I consider to be the traits of a good storyteller:

Creates well-developed characters.

A talented storyteller knows the history of her characters, their emotional and physical make up, what motivates them, and how they will grow and evolve. Similarly, a business info pro could enhance research by communicating the back story and drivers influencing “characters” like companies, executives, politicians, and products, and include suggestions about how those characters could change or act in the future given certain market conditions.

Says enough, but not too much.

There are few things more tedious than reading a story that leaves nothing to the imagination. While I don’t suggest leaving out key details or making too many assumptions, I do recommend considering how you can say more with less. Sometimes a single descriptive adjective, a clear graph, or a powerful image can get the point across and even improve the audience’s retention.

Constructs a plot.

Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. If you feel you’re assembling a collection of facts but losing the point in the mix, step back and see how you can reorganize the information so that it has a logical, compelling progression and reinforces your main conclusions.

Displays unique insight.

The best authors examine everyday occurrences in a new light and discover something profound. Maybe you’re no Shakespeare, but sometimes it’s those little nuggets that are commonly overlooked that can add large amounts of value to your deliverables. Try looking for themes, outliers, contradictions, trends and anomalies to deepen your clients’ understanding of a topic.

A note of caution: Unlike fiction writers, info pros need to tell stories responsibly. If you exaggerate too much for dramatic effect, you could sacrifice your credibility and, even worse, support bad decision-making.

To get going on your page-turners, check out some of the suggestions in Pink’s book and start small. In my case, I’m making a concerted effort to use graphics to convey my meaning and ensuring that each of my PowerPoint slides paints a verbal and visual picture. The future-readiness of PowerPoint is, well, another story.

Jill Stover Heinze is a librarian, marketing research analyst, active member of SLA’s Competitive Intelligence Division (CID) and Virginia Chapter, and a proud member of her profession. She earned her M.S.L.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has worked in academic and business environments and is an invited presenter on library marketing topics. She is currently serving the CID as blog editor and is participating in the division’s annual conference planning.

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.