by Christy Confetti Higgins, Rocky Mountain Chapter, IT & KM Divisions

Connecting and integrating is a critical piece in being future ready within your organization and in the delivery and management of your information services.

The term “connect” can relate to so many areas of the work that information professionals do.

Connecting….

• People with knowledge
• People with information
• People with people
• Information with information
• Information to innovation, knowledge, development, growth, and learning
• Information with social networking tools

Especially today, with the robust tools available to us to connect with our customers and create conversations around information services, it’s even more critical to leverage these tools within our organizations to stay relevant to the organization.

Tools such as blogs, wikis, microblogs, virtual worlds, instant messaging, and community tools all provide natural ways for us to embed ourselves into existing communities, create our own communities and networks, and connect ourselves and our services to the organization. Here are a few examples of connecting and integrating by leveraging technology and social networking tools in the enterprise.

• This example illustrates integrating information services into exisiting communities, leveraging wikis, and RSS feeds. This was the MyLearning portal at Sun Microsystems where we had our information video podcasts, eBook services, and news stories integrated into the home page. In addition, a search within MyLearning resulted in information from the LMS, internal information and knowledge, as well as information services purchased by the organization. Another key integration point!

• This example shows information services leveraging the virtual world space on the Second Life platform for Sun Microsystems employees. We invited employees from all over the world to participate in interactive events, conferences, and activities related to information services, and information and knowledge sharing.

• This last example is a recent example of leveraging social networking tools to communicate with and create conversation around information services at Oracle (Sun was acquired by Oracle in February 2010) where I have a larger audience and a new set of employees to engage around information. These tools have provided me a very effective way to quickly connect – in so many ways! I can’t show screen shots at this time but an internal Twitter-like application, internal Facebook-like application, and our internal blog have created great momentum for information services – it’s a matter of getting out there and leveraging the tools in order to CONNECT!

These are a few of the ways which have enabled us to more quickly and effectively impact our organization by providing them with information services that are highly connected to the business.

The efforts have resulted in new key relationships and partnerships with stakeholders and users. In addition, it has provided another way for current users of information services to connect with us and others users, and to stay informed.

So, Just Connect and grow your information presence in your organization, start meaningful conversations, integrate, and create additional value add to the business!

Christy Confetti Higgins is Cybrarian, Virtual Information Services (VIS) at Oracle Corp.  She is a long-time member of SLA, and currently serves as the Bulletin Editor for the Rocky Mountain Chapter, and is a member of the Virtual Worlds Advisory Council.