by Cindy Romaine, SLA President

For my first official business trip as the new president of SLA, even before the mid-January board meetings and SLA Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., I flew to Las Vegas and walked the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show. For two days I explored the Show with Bay Area senior member Cindy Hill. We were immersed in new handheld technology, new reading tablets, and new cell phones. A tremendous amount of energy is going into the simple task of getting more, and better, information into the hands of consumers at warp speed.

Trends
There were nearly 2700 exhibitors and I was blown away by the sheer volume of new tech toys and applications on display from the hundreds of companies vying to be The Next Big Thing. But frankly, the energy and enthusiasm of the show were even more fascinating to me; there was no shortage of optimism about the future on that floor. Here are few distilled thoughts, stats, and trends from CES:

Stats:

• 80 new tablet devices were announced, including the new Motorola Xoom
• 20,00 new consumer electronic products were released
• 140,000 people attended the show

3D: 3D graphics are being showcased in gaming, sports, and art. The entertainment industry is leading in this space again, but expect to see high-end graphics soon in medical, educational, and other technical applications.

Convergence: Data, because it exists in the cloud, is more and more platform agnostic. Form factors—that is, your data device, whether it is a cell phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, car console, or smart TV—are converging in their functionality.

Social: Consumers are saying ‘I want to share my life as it happens’ and products, telecommunication capacity and  apps are making that possible. Social networking was integrated into games, such as X-Box Kinect, smart TVs and apps. Copia.com is an interesting app for book clubs.

Capacity: Capacity is increasing as cell networks transition from 3G to 4G, and there is an increase in computer processing speed as well. Expanding capacity enables complex problem solving, immersive entertainment, and new experiences.

Design: Data devices, or form factors, were very elegant and restrained. It seemed that there was an effort not to overwhelm the consumer with technical options, but to simplify and curate.

Implications

The CES is the leading tradeshow for an $186B industry that is driving economic growth and is an enabler for the new knowledge economy. Consumer electronics are an underpinning of the information industry, regardless of which corner of it you occupy. An interesting factoid is that now 80% of electronics are purchased by consumers, not businesses. It was not long ago that businesses were driving the purchases of electronic goods.

With all these new products and optimistic marketing, our clients—that is people using and consuming information resources—will be even more demanding of content delivered on the form factor that is just right for them. They’ll want information that is curated, edited, and analyzed to fit their needs. And information  that is customized to their locale and time zone.

The consumer electronics industry is moving very, very fast—and will eat our lunch if we are not moving at least at its pace of change. To keep up, we need to adopt a strategy of being flexible, adaptable, and resilient. In short, we need to be Future Ready!

Enchantment

As enchanting as it was to handle all those gadgets, one of the highlight of my visit to CES was listening to, and later engaging in discussion with, Guy Kawasaki. Author of The Macintosh Way and Selling the Dream, Kawasaki is the former Apple “wunderkind” who encourages his readers to rise above the usual marketing clutter to find emotional levels of attachment to products. He encourages marketers to morph into “evangelists” who create movements, not just spreadsheets. He epitomizes one of the ideas behind my push to make members more Future Ready – he wants us all to Think Big.  

In his book, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Kawasaki tossed SLA members a great compliment when he told his readers to “suck up to a research librarian.” I liked the way he put us on a pedestal, because it reminded me that ours is an honorable profession, and we add value. Someone obviously impressed Guy Kawasaki at one time.

After his talk, he and I chatted for a few minutes about his new book Enchantment: The Art of Changing Minds, Hearts and Actions. I asked him to consider posting for the Future Ready 365 blog. He seemed delighted to be asked and his thoughts will be posted here, tomorrow, February 22!

Are you feeling future ready yet!?

by Tom Rink, Oklahoma Chapter, Advertising & Marketing Division

This is the definition of “Future Ready.” When you stop to think about it, the future is really only a second away.  We spend out entire lives preparing for our futures. And while we cannot predict what these futures may be, our hopes, dreams, and desires help us steer toward our possible futures. 

Continuous learning is the key to being “future ready.” Informally, we learn from our parents and we learn from our environments and experiences; formally, we attend schools (and later colleges) to prepare ourselves for our individual futures. Our “futures” become our “presents” as we begin careers, but the learning doesn’t stop here; we continue to learn through in-service training, continuing education, and other professional development opportunities in order to stay abreast in our chosen fields.

Being an information professional was not my first career. Once I decided that this was the direction I wanted my life to take, I had to take the necessary steps to prepare myself for this new future. How did I make myself “future ready” for a new career? It all started with a plan. Having a plan/goal (i.e., knowing the direction that you’d like your future to go) certainly helps you transition from the present to the future. I went back to school to attain the formal education required, I read the important journals, I joined the professional associations, I attended conferences, and I networked with other professionals in the field. I immersed myself into the culture of my desired future so that when the opportunity presented itself, I’d be ready to grab this future with both hands and move forward. My plan worked. After a twenty-five year career in one field, I was “ready” for and successfully transitioned to the “future.”

How do I plan to stay “future ready?” I will continue to learn and take advantage of every available opportunity.  For example, I’m not the most “tech savvy” person in the world, but a couple of years ago I understood the importance of the whole web 2.0 and social media movement and completed the 23 Things program just to get up-to-date. I’m hoping to stay up-to-date by embracing and using these web 2.0 and social media tools (blogs, RSS feeds, etc.). 

The only constant in life is change and to be truly “future ready” you must conquer your fear of change, envision your future, and never look back.

Tom Rink is a member of the Oklahoma Chapter and the Treasurer of the Advertising & Marketing Division.  In 2005 he was named SLA Fellow. He is 25-year veteran of the Tulsa, Oklahoma police department who successfully transitioned to academia in late 2007.  He is currently an Instruction Librarian at Northeastern State University – Broken Arrow Campus.  Tom has been active in SLA since 1996 holding numerous leadership positions.

by Deb Hunt, San Francisco & Silicon Valley Chapters, IT & KM Divisions

When SLA’s 23 Things premiered at the SLA 2008 Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO in Seattle, it became one of the most popular benefits of membership in SLA. In 2010, it was time to re-establish the opportunity for collaborative learning, and I, who chaired the original effort, worked with graduate MLIS student Kim McGrath to rejuvenate the package. 

Now, 23 Things is making a new debut.

Some outdated links and resources have been removed, existing lessons have been updated, and completely new material has been added to the package.

A few highlights: Week 6 was remodeled to introduce “Social Media and Networking.”  Now included are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and how each one can be used to help you find a job, advertise your business, or gain competitive intelligence. Read articles and watch videos that point you to valuable resources you can put to use right away! If you’re a seasoned veteran, we’ve got next steps covered too.

With the Future Ready 365 blog in full swing, try out a few of the weeks, learn something new, and become Future Ready yourself. Spend as little as an hour a week, and reinvigorate yourself with fresh ideas and a mastery of tools like RSS, Tagging and Folksonomies, and more. If you’re new to 23 Things, all you need to do is create a username in SLA’s wiki dashboard to get started.

So what are you waiting for? Jump in and try out all 23 Things, sample a baker’s dozen, or just start with Week 6. No need to go in order, but it helps you experience the full effect. There is something here for everyone to increase employability and career skills, so don’t delay!

Sincerely,
Deb Hunt
Chair, 23 Things

Deb Hunt is a member of the Professional Development Advisory Council. She has held positions in the San Francisco Bay Region chapter and the Board of Directors.

by Kama Siegel, Oregon Chapter, Legal Division

I think most SLA members consider themselves to be tech-savvy, if not “on the cutting edge” of gadgetry, social media and other innovative forms of communication. Even those who find individual forms of communication distasteful make a point of, if not embracing it, then using it fairly competently. The reason one of my colleagues gives for reluctantly accepting Twitter, for example, is because she knows that a fair number of her patrons or colleagues rely on it as a handy tool.

However, what if you run across colleagues who refuse to even try out these new tools, let alone adopt them? Do you just shake your head and leave them to their Luddite tendencies, or do you explain to them how they’re shooting themselves in the foot? I advocate the latter for while it may be uncomfortable to tell someone they are falling behind, it is a far worse proposition to ignore a way for our patrons to slip through the communication cracks.

Here are some reasons why a colleague would eschew the use of some form of technology (hardware or software), and the way you might address each:

• Cost/budget – Most communication platforms cost nothing, and are hosted on the web. It is understandable if someone balks at spending $500 for an iPad or a smartphone, but there’s no excuse for ignoring a tool that even one patron might be using.
• Fear of the new/fear of looking ignorant – The best way to get over your fear of new technology is to play around with it. No one is disapprovingly looking over your shoulder. And if you play around with it enough, you’ll find that you will either incorporate the technology into your routine, or you’ll discard it in favor or something else. Once you’re competent enough to make that choice, you’re no longer going to be ignorant. Additionally, your colleagues are librarians – they’re used to helping people! No one is going to laugh at you.
• Lack of time to properly learn/continue using the technology – This one might be the most difficult to overcome. However, if you can convince your colleague that all they need for competence is a mere 5-10 minutes a day for as long as they feel comfortable, you’ve won most of this battle. The other half of the battle is finding the time to keep using the technology in your everyday job duties. But again, if you start with 5 minutes and work your way up, you may find that it helps with your productivity.
• Lack of interest in a specific software or item of hardware – “Oh I’ll never use _________” says your colleague. Oh no? Famous last words. I nearly gave up on Twitter before I realized just how useful it is as a tool to increase productivity, and industry news feed. Stress to your colleague that some of these tools might need a lot of front-end work before she makes the decision to discard them or move on to the next available product.
• Belief that no patrons will be affected by the librarian ignoring the technology – Have your colleague walk around your organization and see what sort of tools your patrons are using. Tell her to talk to her patrons to find out how they’re using these tools. She might be surprised about all of the different methods by which patrons are harnessing information.
• Not sure about what’s available – Encourage your colleague to follow tech blogs or tech-savvy librarians’ blogs. They need to be at least a little curious about the tools in the first place before they can start to use them.

Ignoring any method of reaching our patrons is the opposite of Future Ready. To do so willfully should constitute malpractice.

Kama Siegel is the President of the Oregon Chapter of SLA and is the Computer Automation and Reference Librarian at the law firm Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt.