by Graeme Byrd

Reposted by permission from FMYI (www.fmyi.com/blog/single/we_are_information_sherpas)

We definitely are in the information age. People are sending 1,200 tweets per second (tps) and spending 800 million minutes a month on Facebook posting 900 million objects. Wow. What do we do with all of this information that is constantly being thrown our way?

With all this information being shared in a digital fashion, even Seth Godin has posed the question about The future of the library.

Godin believes that if one wants to watch a movie, “Netflix is a better librarian, with a better library…” Yes, the structure of a library is changing, but it continues to be essential to education, to future generations. Netflix may have a “library” of films, but is missing the human energy. “The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work at a library.” Wrote Godin, “A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher.” Librarians – information professionals – are more critical to knowledge sharing than ever before because of the increased amount of information being shared.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of presenting to and spending a day with the Southern California Chapter of the Special Libraries Association, an international organization of information professionals, discussing knowledge management and the relationships people have to information.

An exciting day of 5 speakers discussing tools for information sharing, building relationships with vendors and best practices for knowledge professionals, followed by an afternoon of unconference sessions full of engaged professionals.

• Britt Foster, a gradating MLIS student and blogger with a passion for public libraries shared social media tools to help engagement.
• Sandra Crumlish with the St. Jude Medical provided examples of how working closely with vendors and building a partnership provides for better adoption of services.
• Scott Brown with Social Information Group and Christy Confetti Higgins, Oracle’s Cybrarian shared examples of Oracle’s internal virtual library and how one person has built relationships in an international company to engage their team and share knowledge management tools.

The theme throughout the day was that as a member of a small team of information professionals in an organization (often, a team of one) build relationships with other stakeholders. Libraries are powered by human energy (like FMYI) – sherpas of knowledge.

These special guides are trusted more by colleagues because they provide relevant tools and resources. Information junkies can be change agents empowering teams to make a difference.

While librarians are “information professionals” you also are a knowledge expert in your organization. Are you ready to be a change agent?

We are surrounded by Change agents who are empowering teams to make a difference. Ian Symmonds is helping revolutionize the future of education by advising schools around emerging trends. Kevin Carroll is changing the world with a red ball and helping create a positive atmosphere for youth through sport. And Cindy Romaine (the SLA President) is leading SLA to be Future Ready in an ever-changing world. We all have knowledge. We all can empower others to make a difference. We all can be change agents.

As leaders in knowledge management we are uniting as change agents as the future of information is rapidly changing. Are you ready today to be an information sherpa for your organization? Be Future Ready.

Keep empowering.

Graeme Byrd is the Business Development & Collaboration Manager of FMYI [for my innovation], a collaboration software company, headquartered in Portland, OR, committed to positively affecting society through sustainability and technology. Thousands of companies, nonprofits, government agencies and universities use FMYI to communicate and collaborate. Committed to building a better future and engaging his generation in sustainability, Graeme is the Chapter Leader for the Portland Professional Chapter of Net Impact and serves on Oregon Environmental Council’s Emerging Leaders Board. Graeme has been a speaker at Net Impact, Sustainable Business Oregon and Special Libraries Association events helping others become change agents.

By Karen Huffman, Washington D.C. Chapter, Knowledge Management 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.

Overview

Organizational growth is closely correlated to individuals who are willing to network and collaborate outside their normal sphere of influence. People able to span the organizational hierarchy and build internal and external networks cannot help but grow and adapt. Growing adaptive organizations, transformational leaders realize the importance of blurring organizational lines, supporting collaborative communities and breaking down silos to encourage transparency. (Image on right: Wordle.net word cloud based on a Wikipedia article on “Stakeholder Analysis.”)

Definitions

Engagement

An act where two or more parties agree to a predetermined commitment.
Related terms: User adoption; collaboration; benefits.

Networks

Interrelated connections that can be physical, virtual, or both. Networks are relational-based. See also articles shared on the Future Ready 365 blog tagged “network.”
Related terms: Relationships; connections.

Partnerships

Two or more parties who have agreed to work towards a common vision, mission, purpose, and/or goals.
Related terms: Purpose-driven relationship; actionable, accountable relationship.

Project Management

A purposeful process that includes planning, organizing, securing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. The success of a project often relies on an analysis and involvement of stakeholders.
Related terms: Structured goal-oriented approach; task breakdown and analysis.

Stakeholders

Organizations and/or individuals who are positively or negatively impacted by decisions and/or actions. Anyone with a vested interested in a project, event, and/or outcome. Related terms: Users; clients; key, primary, and secondary stakeholders; stakeholder analysis.

Key Elements and Ideas

Crossing Boundaries for Growth and Collaboration

One of my ongoing goals is to foster collaboration and learning opportunities as well as continually grow personal and professional competencies. Last fall at KMWorld 2010, the speakers who spoke about “Optimizing Organizations through Collaboration” discussed the idea of “boundary crossing” which relates to some key elements and ideas around this topic on building a network to engage and partner with stakeholders:

• Analyze social and organizational networks to understand knowledge gaps.
• Ensure communities of practice are aligned to the business goals and encourage sustainability through people to people connections and participation.
• Capitalize on the power of social networks to build effective and adaptive learning organizations.
• Grow expertise and competencies requires knowing your current proficiencies, setting goals, and crossing many boundaries to grow new ideas and expand your knowledge.

The mind map (below) developed by Karen Huffman is based on David Snowden’s ASHEN framework (2000) and Patrick Lambe’s KM competencies for knowledge managers (2008).

SLA Members Shared Ideas

• Being there – being present: It’s an ongoing process of growing and cultivating relationships, building networks, gaining trust. ~Mary Talley
• Forming a community/building a network is a process that harnesses on-going process development and refinement as well as project management skills. ~Aimee Babcock-Ellis
• The goal and criteria for success when developing a network is to make it equally useful to both individuals and corporate management. ~Peggy Watkins
• Informed opinions about the possibilities and measured objectives that are jointly agreed upon. ~David Stern
• Stakeholder analysis – figuring out what they want – as well as marketing and negotiation skills. ~Vicky Platt
• Crossing Boundaries for Growth and Collaboration. ~Karen Huffman

To read more about their ideas, click here.

Models and Templates

Stakeholders

• MindTools offers some great “getting started” models/templates on Stakeholder Analysis and Stakeholder Management. It includes information on stakeholder analysis, winning support for projects and building communication from stakeholders. Great templates to employ with any project.

Project Management

• GovLoop’s Project Management Guide – the templates that capture the essential aspects of project management.
• Project Management Institute (PMI) website.

Resources

Books

Levin, Ginger (2008). Improve Your Interpersonal Skills to Achieve Greater Management Success! (Url: http://www.facebook.com/notes/management-concepts/are-you-connecting-with-your-stakeholders/422512295431.)

Sampson, Michael (2010). User Adoption Strategies: Shifting Second Wave People to New Collaboration Technology. (URL: http://www.michaelsampson.net/useradoption.html target=”_blank”.)

Blog

Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design

• Setting Up Business Stakeholder Interviews, Part 1 by Michael Beavers on 2007/03/26. (URL: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/setting-up-business.)
• Setting Up Business Stakeholder Interviews Part 2 by Michael Beavers on 2007/04/01. (URL: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/setting-up-business22.)

Karen works for National Geographic Society as part of the Software as a Service (SaaS) team in the Information Systems & Technology division. She supports the enterprise’s business needs with hosted solutions such as Google Apps for Business as well as develops customized solutions for targeted customer groups within the organization. She has been a member of SLA since 1999, serving in various roles including chair of the KM division (2009-2010) and developing resources for SLA-sponsored initiatives like 23 Things.

by Victoria Harriston, Washington DC Chapter

Innovation, always on my mind, sitting in traffic and yes even in my sleep. Why? Because I know that no matter what our Research Center is doing there’s always room for improvement, to be better than we are. Nothing earth-shattering here, just a few thoughts and musings on innovations that have given our Library/Research Center greater visibility from the top down, fostered increased demand for our expertise and services and kicked the value of our contributions to the organization up more than a couple of notches.

One of the best ways to keep your finger on the pulse of the organization and really get to know your stakeholders is to start a Liaison Program. No huge start-up effort and the rewards are a win-win for everyone. Know what’s going on within your organization, recognize and seize business opportunities.

Every librarian is a business entrepreneur. You’d be amazed how forming partnerships opens innovation doors. Partnership with our Staff Development Programs office gave us the financial support for our successful training program.

Advocate for your stakeholders. If your organization publishes reports organize public Forum events and invite internal staff contributors to speak. Spend time learning about programs or events within your organization to get the library involved. We regularly participate in our Graduate Fellows program. Showcase library value, publish an Impact Report (saved project staff 20 research hours, proposal research contributed to new project funding, citation analysis validated key report recommendations).

Gather those publisher backfile collections and create an Intellectual Heritage Vault. Innovation includes not reinventing the wheel (if you don’t have to!). Use publisher online tutorials for databases, use your Delicious guides as classroom instructor tools.

Victoria Harriston is Manager, at the George E. Brown, Jr. Research Center, National Academy of Sciences. Her 35 year career includes several management positions in special, corporate and academic libraries and serving for 2-years as Public Relations, News Bureau Manager for a telecommunications company.

by Denise Mc Iver

I’m still in I-school, so I’m new to the information profession.  Prior to going back to school to pursue my MLIS, I worked as a publicist in the music and entertainment industry for over a decade. Upon reflection, there are some lessons from that world that might apply to becoming Future Ready.

First of all, it’s true:  Publicists ARE control freaks (in the best sense, I should add) because that’s what we’re paid to be.  We control the public perception of our clients’ “brand” and we’re the “keepers” of our clients’ dreams and goals – whether they want to secure the cover of Rolling Stone, perform on a segment of The Today Show, or get ranked in the Top Ten on any Billboard chart.  So for me, a former flack in the music business, being Future Ready is all about branding.

Some lessons I’ve learned in my former professional life include…

Begin With the End In Mind: Publicists always begin a new campaign with this as our mantra.  For us, Christmas arrives in July.  If our client’s new album is being released in the fourth quarter, we spend a great deal of energy doing something called “set up” beforehand.  For information professionals and librarians, it might mean doing some setup by taking an audit of our skills, experience, and passion (a key ingredient!). We can then use these as springboards to ‘futurize’ ourselves.

Know Who You Are: Publicists understand that their recording artists have a public persona and the music they create (hopefully) extends this.  Lady Gaga gets this; had she made a boring entrance at the Grammy Awards a few weeks ago, it would have been clear that she wasn’t “on message” and her public would have been surprised, and possibly lost. Love her or hate her – she’s clear about her brand:  One-Who-Pushes-The-Envelope-Off-The-Table.  I’m not suggesting we become Gaga-ized, but it is vitally important that WE define ourselves first so that we can communicate who we are and what our value is to our various stakeholders and constituencies.  Capture the vision, promote it, and remember to stay on message.

“Grow Some Feet”: There’s nothing remotely glamorous about doing a bus tour of any kind (trust me on this!) unless your client is Mick Jagger or Beyoncé. If you want to sell albums, you’ve got to tour – it’s how you build awareness. The same goes for information professionals. I’m not one to sit behind a desk all day, so I hit the “road” (actually the hallways) and do short “drop-ins.”  I let my stakeholders know I’m a co-collaborator with them, and these drop-ins give me the opportunity to anticipate and determine what their needs are, possibly before they’ve even had the chance to think about them themselves.  This is how I make myself visible and sell my value.

Summing it all up:  After the press screening of Black Swan, actress Mila Kunis, who was strapped into five-inch high Christian Louboutin stilettos, expressed how exhausting and painful it was to wear them throughout the long evening. She also remarked how grateful and amazed she was that her publicist had the presence of mind to bring along a comfortable pair of slippers for her to change into as the evening wore on.

Now that’s a lesson in being Future Ready.

Denise L. Mc Iver is a recipient of an IMLS scholarship and attending the MLS program at St. John’s University.  She anticipates graduating in May. She’s a student member of the NY Chapter of SLA.