Executive Connections

Eight Days a Week

From time to time an interesting piece of news or information crosses my desk or computer screen about an SLA member doing something fascinating or, at least, out of the ordinary from their day-to-day job. Such was the case recently when I received an interesting email alerting me to the fact that Rachel Kolsky, who is a member of SLA Europe and has worked in the financial services industry for many years, was interviewed on BBC Radio earlier this month concerning her activities as a tour guide in London.

As it turns out, Rachel is not just any tour guide. She proudly sports the prestigious London Blue Badge from the Institute of Tourist Guiding. In order to wear the distinctive blue badge, a guide must pass what are described as "rigorous written and practical examinations covering all aspects of the life and history of London and Great Britain."

What you may not know about Rachel is that, in addition to using her incisive mind to inform business executives at AIG Research and Development and to captivate tourists eager to learn the most fascinating details about London's West End, she is past President of SLA Europe, was named Information Professional of the Year at the International Information Industry Awards in 2006, and even was the top recruiter during SLA's 2004 membership campaign. But even more than that, she is an energetic, kind and charming person.

So, all of this got me thinking.  What other interesting things are SLA members doing that combine their talents as info pros with the passions in their personal lives? If you or someone you know is doing something readers of this column might find interesting, please send it along.  I would love to feature it in a future posting.

If you would like to share your thoughts, views or opinions about this topic, please comment below or send me an email at janice@sla.org.

China Earthquake: Hitting Home

I am sure all of us have been touched deeply by the toll of human suffering resulting from the recent cyclone in Myanmar and the devastating earthquake in China. While Myanmar and the Sichuan Province of China are thousands of miles away from my home in the United States, we are linked to the the victims of these disasters not only by our common humanity, but, in some cases, by the profession for which you care so deeply.

I am including a link to a letter concerning the fate of four librarians in the ravaged Province of Sichuan.  While it is testament to the massive devastation there, it also is a reminder that we are not really very far from one another and the values we share, no matter where we live in the world. 

If you are interested in making a donation to relief efforts, the following link will take you to one of the organizations accepting donations to assist quake victims. There are a number of other organizations also providing disaster relief.  www.worldvision.org

I would like to hear your thoughts, opinions or ideas on this topic.  Please feel free to respond below or contact me by email at janice@sla.org.

Dr. Vint Cerf: Living Legend

If you are coming to the 2008 SLA Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO in Seattle next month, you are probably as excited as I am that our opening keynote speaker will be Dr. Vint Cerf, vice president and chief Internet Evangelist at Google. Dr. Cerf, who will be interviewed by veteran television journalist, Charlie Rose, has rightly been called the "Father of the Internet" and has been honored in just about every way imaginable for his ground-breaking work. If you have not made plans to attend this year's conference, it's not too late to register. http:/www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2008/registration/index.cfm

I recently came across an absolutely delightful interterview with Dr. Cerf online in Esquire. www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/vint-cerf-0508 It is a brief article, but I think it shows what a treat is in store for us in Seattle.

I hope to see all of you there.

Let me know if you like the interview. I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions on it. Please add a post below. 

Book Recommendation

It is estimated that about three out of every four people dislike public speaking, and nearly one in three actually fear it. Is there any reason to believe librarians and information professionals are any different from the rest of the population when it comes to the fear of speaking in public? I suspect not. There seems to be good news and bad news for info pros when it comes to public speaking. The bad news is you will probably be called upon more and more in meetings and gatherings to explain clearly and articulately the value of your profession and the strategic value you provide to your organization. The good news is there is something you can do about excessive nervousness that robs you of your ability to impress and persuade.

In her book Be Heard the First Time: The Woman's Guide to Powerful Speaking (Capital Books), author and speech pathologist Dr. Susan Miller explains how anyone can learn to overcome their most difficult communications challenges and become a more effective communicator. Do not let the title fool you, though. Even though it suggests the book is just for women, it is not. The valuable information, advice and exercises contained in the book apply just as much to men as to women. You will learn everything from how to enhance your voice and physical presence to how to use your breathing successfully to overcome "negative self-talk" or outright fear.

Be Heard the First Time is a quick, easy read packed full of practical advice. Whether you are a veteran of the rubber-chicken circuit or a relative newcomer to public speaking, I think you will find the book very interesting and helpful. And, who wouldn't want to be a better speaker, no matter how good they may be already?

I would be very interested in your thoughts, ideas and opinions on this subject.  Please post a response below or feel free to email me at janice@sla.org.

Buying & Selling eContent Conference

The Buying & Selling eContent conference was this week, and, as in the past, it provided a glimpse into the future of the information profession and industry. More specifically, it focused on many of the current and emerging technologies content providers are seeking to harness for the benefit of their customers.

I had the good fortune of moderating a panel featuring three outstanding representatives of SLA; Carol Ginsburg, senior consultant, BST America; Anne Lonergan, manager, strategy, research and innovation, Deloitte Services, and Barbara Hirsh, director, information resources, NERA Economic Consulting. They each belong to the newly formed Content Buying Section of SLA, which already has more than 100 members.

The session, titled After the Deal Is Done, focused on the relationship between buyers and sellers of online content once an agreement is reached. Barbara, Anne, and Carol provided unique perspectives on this relationship from their companies' points of view.

In my opening remarks, I reminded those who provide content that the relationship between buyers and sellers should begin well before any agreement is reached. I encouraged them to include SLA members as partners in the development of future products and services. After all, who has a better idea of what you want than you? I emphasized, of course, that this would not be a one-way relationship. As partners in this process, I underscored the fact that you would work to protect their intellectual property and licensing rights and could be the strongest advocates inside your organizations for their products and services. This, I told them, is a classic "win-win," or as that fellow in those radio commercials says, "This is the biggest no-brainer in the history of earth."

Collaboration has been one of the key drivers in the success of Business 2.0 and social networking. Isn't it about time for the users of content to have a bigger say in what future content offerings will look like?

I would like very much to hear your comments, ideas, and opinions on this subject. Please add a comment below or send me an email.

Ethics for Info Pros

If you say the word “Enron”…most people immediately associate the name of the now-defunct energy company with one of the largest corporate fraud and corruption scandals in human history. While fewer people, perhaps, would recognize the names Akafuku or Société Générale, both are companies caught up in messy ethical and legal scandals. Akafuku, a 300-year-old Japanese candy company stands accused of lying about the freshness of its ingredients, while Société Générale continues to try and explain how a mid-level trader allegedly could lose more than US $7 billion by investing billions of the bank’s money in index futures.

Following a number of widely reported financial scandals at public and private corporations, and non-profit organizations in recent years, governments throughout the world have sought to tighten controls. The intention of these stricter regulations and tougher reporting requirements is to bolster confidence in institutions that require broad public investment or significant public contributions by increasing their transparency. Despite initial objections by some and more recent high-profile scandals involving companies such as Akafuku or Société Générale, these reforms have been generally considered effective, especially considering that many organizations not required to operate under these more stringent requirements have begun doing so voluntarily.

What this suggests to me is that there is a widespread desire throughout the world for higher ethical standards in corporate and philanthropic life. In keeping with this spirit of higher ethical standards, SLA is launching an initiative to consider developing Ethics Guidelines for SLA members, and, perhaps, for adoption by other information professionals throughout the information industry.

Public Relations Advisory Council Chair Jill Strand expressed this sentiment very eloquently at the recent SLA Leadership Summit in Louisville, Kentucky when she said, “While hosting activities in our respective libraries can be a fun way to garner attention, we wanted to create something that would demonstrate our role as both stewards and stakeholders in the success of our organizations.”

Unquestionably, librarians and info pros are some of the most important strategic assets any organization possesses and we need to make sure senior-level executives of these enterprises understand this. In my opinion, the development of an SLA Code of Ethics or set of guidelines, which could be adopted enterprise-wide and relate to all forms of information management and sharing, including database integrity, records management, privacy or copyright for example, would not only improve the quality of information and data management generally, it could enhance the influence, power and prestige of info pros inside these organizations specifically.

To get this effort underway, we have asked chapters and divisions to appoint Ethics Ambassadors to represent their SLA Units and help gather feedback from members. We plan to host an association-wide “Global Conversation” on the topic and collect member feedback through “Town Hall Meetings” and through a survey we will conduct around the 2008 SLA Annual Conference and INFO-EXPO in Seattle, this June.

Members’ ideas and opinions will be added to those collected by an SLA Ethics Task Force that has been reviewing ethics guidelines used by other information organizations. And in Seattle, we plan to hold an SLA Information Ethics Summit to consider and discuss the feedback we receive from members and to reflect this feedback in a set of draft Ethics Guidelines or in a Code of Ethics to be considered by the association.

I strongly encourage you to take part in this important effort. It could have a lasting impact on the way you and other information professionals do your jobs in the future. More importantly, it would make a strong statement about the competencies, ethical standards and practices to which librarians and info pros are committed and could enhance your influence and respect inside your organizations over time.

I would love to hear your comments, ideas, and opinions on the subject. Please add a comment below, or send me an e-mail.

How did this effort originate? Some time ago, the Public Relations Advisory Committee recommended SLA suspend its International Special Librarians Day while considering ways to make the event more relevant and important to the global business community.

IGF Update from London

Greetings from Online Information in London...

We are on day two, with one more to go and the conference is fantastic as usual. In between the sessions, workshops and panels there is a whole lot of contagious enthusiasm, catching up, and networking happening- and I am so happy to be a part of this once again this year. 

Our friend Dick Kaser from Information Today caught up with me yesterday and was gracious enough to give me some time to talk about my recent trip to Rio de Janeiro where I represented both SLA and IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) at the second annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, a multi-stakeholder group formed as a result of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).   

He has posted our conversation as a podcast for those who are interested in hearing about how librarians are becoming an important voice in the discussion about the future of the Internet.

Lessons Learned: 2.0

As the staff here at SLA headquarters is planning for our programming in 2008, much of the discussion is focused around Web 2.0 technologies.  When are they most effective? Is this something our members will use?  Which 2.0 solutions will improve our communication, creativity, and communities?

Plenty of questions that we are asking on our end and I imagine that many of you are doing the same in your organizations these days. 

If so, you might want to read this blog post I came across the other day: The State of Enterprise 2.0.  If you have the same questions we do, read this article... it might give you some answers.

The author, Dion Hinchcliffe, does an amazing job at taking the pulse and assessing these technologies and the changes many organizations have gone through as they have implemented (or not implemented) 2.0 tools over the last year. I found the post very insightful and helpful, but I am more interested in how these tools have worked for SLA members and their employers over the last year.

For those that are just starting to wade in these waters- what are your questions? For those that live and breathe 2.0, and are now ready for the 3.0 wave, what lessons have YOU learned?   

Adding Value

Things are moving along at a very fast pace here at SLA HQ. While the staff works to implement a new Association Management System (AMS), our leaders and committees are making great progress on the activities occurring in 2008 and beyond, and I have been traveling to some very interesting conferences and meetings.  Be sure to read the September issue of SLA Connections in which I talk about my recent trip to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress in Durban, South Africa.

I continue to meet with members and industry leaders, and I continue to be amazed at some of the things that you are all doing!  As the profession changes, it seems almost daily, info pros are reinventing themselves, as well as they way they provide resources to their customers.

I saw one such example of this recently coming from the librarians at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis who have created the Liber8 Economic Newsletter- and excellent resource on the issues of the day.  This tool is timely, relevant and can be useful to all of their colleagues and customers.

Check out their inaugural issue on problems in the sub-prime mortgage market.  The issue contains links to articles with more detail as well as data sources and other resources for those who are interested in this topic.

As it turns out, I WAS interested, but I didn't KNOW that I was. I didn't wake up this morning wondering about it, but the newsletter answered some questions the consumer media never reported. My point is, I think this is an excellent example of how a librarians can use their skills and resources to create a new and valuable tool based on what they see happening in their world. 

Noticing a lot of people coming to your reference desk requesting information on genocide in Darfur? Put together a two-page briefing on it and push it out to clients who might have an interest in the topic.  I think you will find that your customers will quickly recognize the value you bring to the organization. You just need to take a few extra steps to remind them!   

I am interested in hearing from those in the trenches who are doing this and seeing results! What are you doing in your organization to showcase the value you can bring to the table? 

SIIA Content Forum

The last few months have been very busy for myself and the staff here at SLA HQ.  Annual Conference is fast approaching and I have been traveling around and talking to stakeholder groups as well as SLA chapters and divisions. It is great to connect with members and other friends of SLA in this way and I can't wait to see everyone in Denver in a few days.

On April 17, I gave the keynote speech at the closing session of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) Content Forum conference in San Francisco. One purpose of my speech was to encourage companies providing information software and technology to collaborate with information professionals on the development of the next generation of information products and services.  Thanks to good folks over at SIIA for posting the video of me speaking at their closing general session.   

It is important that we keep this conversation going in order for both sides to be successful in the future. So thank you, again, to SIIA for the opportunity to come speak to their conference attendees.