Challenges of Buying and Selling Content in 2011: A Report by Valerie Ryder

It was standing room only at the Tuesday, June 14^th session sponsored by the Leadership and Management Division, Content Buying Section at the SLA 2011 Conference that highlighted “Challenges of Buying and Selling Content in 2011”.  A panel of buyers and sellers discussed issues facing both sides of the content acquisition process in a debate style presentation that was skillfully moderated and involved the audience in the lively dialogue.

Topics and discussion ranged over a variety of “hot spots” in the content landscape.

Ensuring that terms of use regarding content are respected and abided by outsourcing firms or consultants

One solution was to establish a three-way license agreement among the content provider, the content buying organization and the outsourcing firm or consultant.  Another solution was to ensure that the contract with the outsourcing firm included actions and penalties to cover violations by the outsourcing staff.  Another issue that surfaced was the requirement to ensure that the outsourcing firm purged all data that was obtained from content providers when an outsourcing contract ended.  A related issue was to require precautions to be taken by the outsourcing firm to ensure that data obtained from content providers was used only on projects performed for the content buying organization.  Concerns were expressed that some offshore outsourcing contractors state that they can provide equivalent content, often at much lower prices, to replace the licensed content required for projects.  Content buyers as well as content providers expressed the need to ensure that the equivalent content was indeed equal to the licensed content and to determine that the source for the equivalent content was legitimate.  Some content buyers require that the outsourcing firm provide them with copies of their contracts with the content providers as proof of the content that will be used on their projects.

Vendor enhancements to their products

Content buyers took issue with the practice of added features resulting in additional cost for the product, especially when they were not involved in requesting or prioritizing the new features.  Content providers often request direct access to end-users to give them a better view of what users need.  Content providers lamented the decrease in interactions with end-users over time.  They expressed the concern that product development often misses the mark when intermediaries interpret end-user needs on features needed because they are too remote from the end-users.  Content buyers countered with the viewpoint that end-users always like new features without considering the value of the new feature or the increased price.  Panelists debated the question of who pays for the new features – the buyers or the sellers, as a cost of staying competitive in the marketplace.  The example was given that executives are high on using their iPads but does the vendor add the cost of an iPad app to an existing contract for content?  A balance must be reached between vendors wanting end-users to critique new features during development with a content buying organization’s requirement to control access to end-users by vendors.  Both sides of the debate agreed that effective product development involving end-users must be based on mutual trust and respect between buyers and sellers.

Price increases

Content buyers expressed the need to keep price increases within certain percentage range to abide by their budget constraints.  Content providers countered with the viewpoint that market demand dictates price increases.  Some content buyers are willing to consider price increases if there is more transparency in the factors used to determine the price increase.  One content provider expressed the opinion that conversations about price increases took place during the Great Recession that would never have occurred in the past.  Some content buyers suggested the approach that content providers keep their prices flat to enable content buyers to be able to renew their contracts because if they drop the content then they learn to do without that content and will not re-subscribe when budgets are increased.  Some content providers expressed their need to make up for past years of flat pricing in their revenue stream.  The discussion around usage-based pricing elicited the analogy of the “crack model” – get them hooked and then raise the price.

Usage data

Practices of certain content providers not to provide usage data were soundly criticized by content buyers.  Some content buyers include clauses in their contracts that require the provision of usage data and specify the level of data detail.  Content sellers promoted the view that buyers need to consider the value of the content used, not just the volume of usage.  Content providers also use data to determine which content to keep or discontinue so they track usage at the data element level.

Decision-making in the buying process

Content sellers lamented the change that has occurred in the last 4 – 8 years where the decision-making has shifted from the information professional to the purchasing, legal or market data group in an organization.  This shift has introduced a lack of transparency in the negotiations process as a group of people make the decision rather than one person.  Content sellers feel that this shift has driven up their costs in the selling process.  Part of their dilemma is that the sourcing person does not know their product nor its value to the content buying organization.  Content sellers must find a champion within organization because end-users can influence a decision but not make the buying commitment.

The moderated debate format ensured that many viewpoints were expressed, discussion was lively and appropriate amount of time was spent on each of the topics.

Valerie Ryder, Director of Information Strategy
Wolper Subscription Services

Content Buying – Content Aggregation or Disaggregation: A Report by Valerie Ryder

The popular topic of “Content Buying: Content Aggregation or Disaggregation” was debated at the Monday June 13^th session sponsored by the Leadership and Management Division, Content Buying Section at the SLA 2011 Conference.  A panel of publishers and content buyers looked at the future of content aggregation, trends in disaggregation and how these issues affect purchasing decisions and usability of information.

For purposes of discussion, the terms were defined as Aggregated Content being available on multiple vendors and Disaggregated Content being available only on one vendor platform.

Some industry trends were presented as an initial starting point for the discussion:

• Pendulum has swung towards exclusivity in recent years.
• 400 titles have moved into some degree of exclusivity in the past 5 years; 50% of those have moved to a single vendor situation.
• In 90% of the past 25 deals, it was the publisher that sought out the exclusive deal.

Publishers expressed the following reasons for seeking exclusivity for their content:

• # 1 Reason: only way to continue publishing that content was to go exclusive
• # 2 Reason: publisher wanted additional features for content and to accomplish that functionality they needed to be exclusive or semi-exclusive.
• Costs of digitizing content have not been recouped as quickly as anticipated, so they needed to increase revenue
• Wanting to “own the last mile” in the delivery chain to the end-user

Content buyers expressed the following issues with the move to exclusivity:

• Price increases that result from exclusive source for content
• Content that is only offered as part of a bundle
• More licenses to read and to determine what are the terms and restrictions on use of content
• Lack of notification when content is removed or moved to a new provider
• Some content is used in conjunction with other content from another provider so users want multiple content sources to be available on the same platform.

The discussion was congenial and respectful despite the strong feelings on both sides of the question.  This open dialogue resulted in a better understanding of the motivations for and impact resulting from the decision to move to disaggregated content.

Valerie Ryder, Director of Information Strategy
Wolper Subscription Services

Joint LMD-Consulting Section & Pharma & Health Technology Division Breakfast Session: SLA 2011. A Report by Jan Sykes. 

Speaker: Mary Ellen Bates

Sponsorship from Sage. There were approximately 30 persons in attendance.

Mary Ellen Bates, in a presentation entitled: “Pack Your Parachute:  Transitioning from the Library to an Independent Information Professional” discussed the skill set needed by persons interested in becoming information entrepreneurs including:

·         Tolerance for risk and ambiguity

·         Business owner perspective instead of employee mindset 

·         Client-focus

·         Strategic thinking

·         Self-discipline

Mary Ellen noted that she learned to be an independent information professional while working in a Fortune 500 company and she still draws on things learned earlier in her career: research skills, importance of a network of colleagues and the ability to identify opportunities to add value. She has developed business skills, such as the ability to close a sale, to talk comfortably about money and to look at herself as a brand and a business. She did not minimize the challenges of finding clients, managing cash flow, overcoming the imposter syndrome, keeping motivated and managing her time effectively. The serious, practical questions asked during the Q&A time suggest a number of persons are considering the pros/cons of ‘packing their parachute’

Creating Your Future the Peter Drucker Way: A Report by Ethel Salonen

Wednesday, 15 June 2011; 10:00 AM – 1:30 AM, EST

Speaker: Bruce Rosenstein, www.brucerosenstein.com

Worked for USA Today for 21 years as a librarian/researcher until December 2008

Beginning in 1996 he wrote about business and management books for the newspaper’s Money section

Presentation revolved around Bruce’s new book: Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life, Published by Berett-Koehler, August 1, 2009. The book applies the principles of Drucker, whom many consider to be the “father of modern management,” to individual self-development, by encouraging the pursuit of a more multidimensional life. It is based on more than 20 years of research into Drucker’s life and thought, including several interviews with him. Click here to learn more about the book.

His website show’s Bruce’s video interview with Peter Drucker on April 11, 2005, 7 months to the day before he died at the age of 95. Some observations from the video:

• Achievement focused and multidimensional life is what you should achieve
• There is still low productivity in knowledge workers but he sees more productivity than ever before.
• We still have an overload of data…still figuring out how to transform this into information.
• Advice to young knowledge workers – go to work..don’t emphasize attending a  school such as a MBA program. A 22 year old MBA is a waste. Work for 10-15 years, be successful, and then maybe go for a MBA.
• Teaching will be radically different in 30-50 years

His presentation focused on these major themes that are presented in his workshops:

• How to apply Drucker’s principles for self-development in your personal and professional life
• How to construct a complete, balanced life plan based on Drucker’s principles
• How to create your future through developing your core competencies, and pursuing parallel/second careers
• How to live a more multidimensional life by interacting with diverse people and varied organizations
• How to incorporate lifelong learning and teaching into even the busiest lives
• How to increase your sense of personal meaning and satisfaction through social entrepreneurship, volunteerism, mentorship and servant leadership

        Drucker quote, from Management: Revised Edition:

• “The purpose of the work on making the future is not to decide what should be done tomorrow, but what should be done today to have a tomorrow.”
• He also advised to identify and take advantage of “the future that has already happened.” What are the current trends that affect your professional and personal life, and what are the implications for the future? What can you start doing right now to remain relevant in your workplace and in the profession?

Comments from Bruce Rosenstein

• Focus on the future, not the past – stop defending the past
• What can you do to remain relevant in the various worlds you live in?
• Consider second careers in teaching, writing, art and music.
• Build continuous lifelong learning, exploring and teaching.
• Reinvent yourself, people change, different person, needs, abilities and perspectives.  Reinvent your life and your career
• Social entrepreneurship – consider choices and changes for the second half of your life – over or under 40
• Create and maintain your total life list. What initiative from this list is first?
• Don’t expect everything to happen at once.

Alternative Use of the Library Degree: A report by Ethel Salonen

Tuesday, 14 June 2011; 2:00PM – 3:30PM EST

Speakers: Kim Dority, GK Dority & Associates Inc.: Jean Fisher, Vantage Information Services; George Plosker, IEEE; Bethan Ruddock, University of Manchester

Sponsored by:   IEEE Xplore Digital Library

Moderator:  Ruth Wolfish, Client Services Manager, IEEE

Purpose of the program is to hear career agility stories using information professional skill sets

Bethan Ruddick – University of Manchester, UK

• She is the content development officer for the online UK catalog
• Bethan has used her expertise and skills (flexibility, self-starter, technical skills, an open mind, willingness to communicate) to have had different and successful career paths.
• It is important to be involved in the profession outside of the workplace. Some of her outside networks include SLA Europe, LIS New Professionals Network, and Voices for the Library, and CILIP. She is the editor of the 2012 LIS New Professionals Toolkit.
• Things she has learned:
  • Sharing  your experiences is vital for professional generosity
  • She has not experienced major failure – yet
  • Sharing includes blogging, tweeting, reading and learning, and advocating for the profession
  • Who will succeed? Professionals with an open mind; who go beyond the traditional way of doing business;  who know when to say yes or no; and those who continue to be engaged information professionals.

Jean Fisher – Vantage Information Services

• Has worked at Lexis Nexis, QVC, and other organizations
• She measures success as people who:
  •  Accept challenges; live with uncertainty; are quick to learn; and not afraid of change.
  • One needs to be flexible and to change hats often
  • Find the best solution within budgets issues arise
  • Possess a positive attitude
• Technical skills are also important. Working on the organization’s intranet/portal is a great way of learning current information software. Partner with your IT colleagues and help them develop the sources you need. If possible, knowledge of current computing solutions is vital. She has worked for a number of diverse organizations and is familiar with different service offerings.
• The future:
  • To succeed you must include public speaking and publishing as part of your repertoire
  • Work on your branding
  • Increase or begin networking
  • Diversify your service offerings
  • Will libraries exist in the future?
    • Public – yes
    • Corporate Info Centers – virtual and embedded staff
    • Academic – will become international and interdisciplinary

George Plosker – IEEE Customer Services Manager

• To be successful you must be:
  • Outgoing, approachable, responsive, and communicate well
  • Your personality needs to be flexible, open to change, possess a positive attitude, outgoing, inspire trust/confidence, be curious and a risk taker
  • Diplomatic and know how to work with diverse groups
  • Show the ability to facilitate collaboration
  • Confident about your core skills
  • Able to shorten your learning curves
• You need up-to-date technical skills
  • Understand all levels of search interfaces and data structure
  • Possess a broad knowledge of web apps and tools
  • Understand the linked nature of web and user expectations
  • Provide detailed specific requirements to the technical teams
  • Know how to competently use your organizations hardware
• Different approaches at work
  • Learn more about the business side more quickly
  • Say yes to a project that offers opportunities
  • Leave the reference desk behind
  • Work with non-library groups
  • Network, Network, Network
• Trends
  • More change is coming
  • More outreach and targeted communications
  • More segmentation analysis
  • More proactive at work and with customers
  • Services are more important than your collection
  • Keep speaking, networking, and constantly innovate
  • Demonstrate your relevance with metrics that make sense to your management
  • Take risks
  • Management will understand your value the more you work with them

Kim Doherty – Dority & Associates, Inc.

• Discussed trends and thoughts
  • LIS career opportunities – don’t leave out social media knowledge and use as part of your portfolio
  • Support each other and share information
  • We are all self-employed.  Manage your career as a business.
  • Change is always heading our way
  • The investments you make in yourself will define your career opportunities
  • Not perfection but resilient – What makes you different?
  • Be prepared to land on your feet while the ground is still shaking.
• Key points
  • Flexibility
  • Learning on demand
  • Have a broad view of your skill sets
  • Think just in time and not just in case
  • Think need-to-have and not nice-to-have
  • Learn what tasks will have the highest return on investment
  • Jobs come through person connections
  • Have an exit strategy

Chris Rhodes from the Statistics Resource Unit, House of Commons Library in the UK was the Leadership & Management Division sponsored ECCA award winner. He was asked to respond to the questions/presentation from the library students at the LMD tea.

——————————–

I attended the SLA conference for the first time this year after winning the Early Career Conference Award co-sponsored by SLA Europe and LMD. I found the conference fascinating and the opportunities to learn about information practices and meet information professionals from other parts of the world were quite incredible.

I was invited to the LMD afternoon tea on Monday and so got to hear the very interesting talk from Ning Han and Jennifer Keane of LSU. Among the various questions that they addressed regarding the nature of leadership and management, one was ‘what is the value of the LMD?’

One of the greatest challenges facing new LIS professionals, certainly in the UK, is the lack of a clearly defined career path. In some ways this can be viewed as an opportunity because it means that we don’t have to rigidly stick to the footsteps of our predecessors – we are free to enact our own path, without the constraint that professionals in other fields are subject to.

However, this can also be daunting. The vast array of names given to similar posts and the fact that organisations often have widely differing expectations from posts with similar names means that even choosing an appropriate job to apply for can be challenging. Added to this is the perfectly understandable (but frustrating) fact that salary scales in one organisation rarely even resemble their counterparts in other organisations.

One of the most straightforward ways for new LIS professionals to begin to make sense of this baffling situation is for them to study the career paths of senior librarians, who, by definition, have already negotiated this tricky path. And herein lies one of the most valuable aspects of LMD. Having the opportunity to meet and get to know LIS professionals who have become established within the profession serves to reassure that there are ways to progress up the career ladder, and also provides useful information about sensible roles to peruse and interesting ways to enliven a career or broaden experience.

There is a great pool of interest in the career paths of other librarians in the UK, born partly out of the necessity explained above, and partly out of general interest – librarians seem hugely interested in what other librarians are doing. With a view to this, some of my colleagues in the UK established the Library Routes project. This wiki collects the career stories of librarians from all over the world, in any sector and at any level of seniority. The wiki is endlessly interesting, and would only be made more so if some members of LMD were to add their biographies to it. So if you have time, please consider further enhancing the value of LMD, and the Library Routes Project, by putting something about yourself up there.

- Submitted by Chris Rhodes, ECCA award winner

At the SLA Annual Conference in New Orleans, I moderated the session "The Consultant's Toolkit: Tips, Techniques and Words of Wisdom" for the Consultants Section of the Leadership and Management Division.  On the panel for the session were:

• Deborah Wynot
• Jan Sykes
• Marcy Phelps 
• Margaret (Marge) King

In the audience were ~60 people, with ~30% already working as consultants, ~40% who were thinking about consulting as a career, and the remainder there to pick up tidbits that might help them deal with consultants.
Some lessons from the panel:

• When beginning a consulting business, it is important to have an lawyer, banker and accountant as advisors.  If you also include an insurance agent, you then have your BAIL team (banker, accountant, insurer, and lawyer).
• A lawyer and accountant can advise you on the best form for your business, e.g., corporation, S-corp, limited liability partnership or sole proprietorship. (more info)
• An information consultant does not have high start-up costs.  Often you can get started after designating some space in your home, acquiring basic office furniture, and a computer.
• While start-up costs are low, it can take months or years for a consulting practice to find a rhythm and to have steadier cash flow.  
• Marketing is always important, even when you have many projects.
• It is important to have enough financial resources to survive periods of low income.  You'll also need to have money to live off of at the start of your business, since it is generally unlikely to have a paying client immediately.
• Don't invest in a lot of marketing material.  While an expensive brochure sounds great, most find it unnecessary to invest in a lot of them.
• Setting your fee structure means understanding your costs (all of them).  You also need to know what your market will bear.  Mary Ellen Bates' book Building and Running a Successful Research Business: A Guide for the Independent Information Professional, Second Edition contains useful information that will help you with this task.
• Understand what type of work you want to do as well as the type of work that you do not want to do.  
• For work that is outside of your scope, hire someone else to handle it.  It could be a contractor or part-time employee.
• Being a consultant can mean working all the time, since you're your own boss and there is always something to do.  It is important to create time away from work.
• The number of projects/clients you can handle at one time will vary.  
• Your consulting practice/focus will change over time and that's okay.
• It is important to interact with other consultants and learn from them.  There seems to be a growing number of consultants in SLA.  There is also the Association of Independent Information Professionals.  Jan Sykes noted that the Consulting Section is going to work on a consultants directory for SLA.

The group told many stories to illustrate the points above as well as the other things discussed.  Consultants in the audience provided good information, too.  The questions raised by the audience were very useful.
Interestingly, after the session, I had two people tell me that they learned that they did not have the moxie to be a consultant and thanked me for helping them learn that!

The above was adapted from a blog post in Digitization 101.

Congratulations to Libby Trudell on receiving LMD's Karen J. Switt Award. Bill Fisher, Chair, presented Libby with the award during the 2010 LMD Annual Business Meeting & Tea.

Those nominating Libby had many examples of her leadership qualities including:

"Libby displays her leadership qualities by leading through example and
action, not by directing others. When asked, she says "yes" and quickly
moves through the process to form the team and create the tasks to get
the initiative completed—on time, on budget, and to the benefit of the
target audience. Libby builds collaborative environments, increasing
the power of the whole by drawing upon the contributions of the
individuals."

More information is available via the LMD Wiki.

Thank you to all those who took the time to participate in the awards nominations including Stephen Kochoff & Barbie Keiser, co-chairs, LMD Nominations Committee and C.Berger Group for sponsoring the award

 - Patricia Cia, Director, Leadership & Management Division

Consultants Section event – Monday, June 14 10:00-11:30am
Convention Center, Room 203

A panel, members of the Leadership and Management Division’s Consulting Section and the Association of Independent Information Professionals, will share their knowledge and answer questions from the audience. This session will be a must for anyone who is considering starting a consulting practice as well as those who are experienced consultants, because there is always more to learn. (Consultants Section)

Moderated By: Jill Hurst-Wahl, Hurst Associates, Ltd. & Syracuse University

Speaker(s):
Jan Sykes, Information Management Services, Inc.

Marcy Phelps, Phelps Research

Margaret King, InfoRich Group, Inc.
Deborah Wynot, Library Consultants, L.L.C.

All LMD Programs on spreadsheet & 2-page handout available on LMD wiki
Or see page 38 of the SLA 2010 Conference Guide

- Patricia Cia, Director,
Leadership & Management Division

Session Handouts

Several of the LMD sessions were "experiential" such as the one on Dynamic Communication, and so did not have handouts or presentation slides. However, some of the events have been reported in blogs including here in Impact (Conference Category). Feel free to contribute your impressions!

Available presentations, handouts or speaker notes are also housed on the SLA 2009 Conference Handouts page (and the LMD website) and include:

Monday

Social Networking: the Essence of Innovation(PDF, large file) / Jay Liebowitz

To stimulate innovation, people need to reach out beyond their own area.
Social networking research highlights the importance of carefully
constructing one's social networks to best leverage knowledge
internally and externally. Organizations should aim to provide enabling
mechanisms to stimulate knowledge discovery. Leibowitz discussed how
social networking can lead to innovation, based on his book "Social
Networking: The Essence of Innovation"

LMD Business Luncheon Presentation – No Excuses (PDF) / Stephen Abram

As part of the the LMD business meeting, Stephen Abram, the globe-trotting
past-president of SLA shared stories about innovative leaders from
around the world, focusing on their strategies and successes, and
illustrating how we can learn from the practices of others. Abram's
goal is to inspire us to become innovative leaders.

Tuesday

Critical Thinking (PDF) / Rebecca Jones, Dee Wallace

Critical thinking is a key competency for all information professionals. It
leads to results such as sharper competitive intelligence products,
clearer, more persuasive proposals and udget justifications, more
effective problem solving, and better taxonomies. How we can improve
our critical thinking skills and engage them in our work?

*** Thank you to our Partners and LMD Members

Patricia Cia is Coordinator, Technical Services & LIbrary
Systems at Langara College. She is a LMD Director and Member of the
Centennial Commission. Patricia can be reached at pcia@langara.bc.ca