The past twelve months were filled with a myriad of activities for LMD.  From a successful annual conference in Philadelphia with very popular programs to  virtual professional development opportunities in 2011 our division leadership team is working to bring the content requested by our membership.   The programming for Chicago is in place with many activities planned for the annual conference in 2012.  These are some of the highlights:

Two of our sessions at annual conference are designated as Spotlight Sessions:

1. Meaningful Measures: How Do Buyers and Sellers Show ROI?

2. Reinventing Library Skills

The range of other conference sessions is diverse from contract negotiation to marketing plus an architectural boat tour of Chicago and an open house.  There is something for everyone so make your plans soon to attend the SLA Annual Conference in 2012!  Our elections were held and new officers will be joining the leadership team next year.

We are on board with virtual professional development and hosted sessions in 2011 featuring Cindy Hill on Sept 22 and Matt Reis on Managing Conflicts on Oct 20.

Our new year starts off right with a  virtual session on Jan. 12, 2012 with Bethan Ruddock on Alternative Careers.  Wishing you a joyous holiday season!

Rebecca B. Vargha
Chair LMD 2012

Jamal Cromity & Ulla de Stricker

New Review of Information Networking (NRIN), Taylor & FrancisVolume 16, Issue 2, 2011 
pages 167-184

 Abstract

Our article acknowledges technologies and enterprise solutions as common tools for knowledge management deployed to help foster collaboration. Though the tools are made widely available by forward-thinking executives, and though there is a torrent of knowledge management thought as evidenced in the sample literature, knowledge workers continue to have difficulties transitioning to acting out the commonly accepted philosophy of sharing knowledge. The focus of our comments is a review to highlight some of the primary technical and behavior barriers hindering the use of collaborative technology….

For more go to:

http://jvenupub.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/silo-persistence-its-not-the-technology-its-the-culture/

Re-post from Jvenu.com …

Looking to get the most out my SLA membership in these lean times, I elected to attend a ClickU webinar for professional development. I found it very worthwhile and full of good tips and reminders. ClickU courses are free to SLA members and a great source of ongoing learning and development.

I've included my rough notes of some of the key points I took away from Dennie's presentation. It's a little long for a blog post, but, in my opinion, they're really useful.

• Stimulate
  creativity:
  an environment for innovation has to be created, creativity can't be forced
• Create a map of manager, stakeholders, customer and understand their
  priorities and struggles.
• Go to lunch with new people
  from different functional areas.
• View complaints as
  recommendations for changes, new ideas.

• See the big
  picture: if you
  understand the big picture (company/industry trends), you can spot
  opportunities. It also helps with making decisions and setting priorities
  for your department. How do you relate to the company's mission?
• Translate reports into more
  fluid language, ideas.
• Talk to people one level
  above you in your reporting line or another reporting line. How do they
  see your department and how it fits into the biz strategy?

• Show
  leadership: You
  can be appointed a "manager," but you are not necessarily a
  "leader." Get people to work for a common goal.
• If you can't get leadership
  experience in the workplace, use professional association for
  practice/experience. (Alert: personal favorite here!)
• Challenge things – ask why.
• Failure is ok. Start small in
  a protected environment.

• Persuade
  others: Appeal
  to logical way of thinking as well as character and emotion (like TV
  commercials try to do).
• Study buzzwords in your
  company and tie them into your presentation/idea. Listen to what other
  people are saying and work that into your conclusion. How can you mitigate
  people's worries?
• Be a trusted person. Deliver
  what's promised. Set a service level agreement on a personal basis.
  Outline your credentials or use a reference. Demonstrate that you know
  what you're talking about.

• Managing
  time and saying "no": We want to help people and please them, but it goes
  along with saying no and setting priorities.
• Negotiate: would a short
  solution work for now? Alternate solution? Better person for the job?
• Keep a running to-do list and
  block short time to go through it and check off quick items. Then plan the
  longer projects, but don't book back-to-back so you have flexibility for
  new projects.

• Adding
  value: it's
  perceived value by the customer, not just the value you perceive it has.
• Make things easier for the
  customer, not just how you perceive it would be easier/better
• Look at quality times service
  divided by the cost and time. It's not just what you put in, but what the
  customer gets out of it.
• Service is more than
  providing a service, but also exceeding the customer's expectations.
• Ask customers how you did.
  Did we meet your expectations? What could have been better?
• Keep statistics, use
  benchmarking.
• Get narratives, ask managers
  for quotes about how valuable you are.

• Have
  effective presentation skills: practice. It gets better.
• Know your audience and what
  they are expecting. And tailor your presentation to the group –
  small=interactive, etc.
• Define the purpose of your
  presentation and the message.
• Know your national
  presentation style – formal, informal. Don't force humor if it's not your
  style.
• Practice and get feedback on
  body language, how fast you're speaking, tone of your voice.
• Check out meeting room in
  advance. Plan backup – have handouts ready or screenshots. Can you
  verbally reiterate your message if the projector isn't working?
• Don't fill slides top to
  bottom – use as few words and pictures as possible. You can give handouts afterward. It's hard to listen and read at the same time. Give them time
  to read or put it in your own words.

Let me know if you attended this webinar or watched the replay and please leave a comment to tell me what you thought.

Ha…now that I have your attention (398 views last month…Awesome!)

Many great leaders have noted, “…change generally does not happen without some struggle…”

Now that voting is underway and members have the right to make a decision on whether they are for or against the name change, I just hope we can all get along…LOL

But seriously, whether the name Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals is selected or not, we will still need to move forward with change.  Reflecting on the next steps of the association and the changes to come, I really would like us to change the way we state our business.  Here are some of the things I would like to see the association improve…

· Using the website, brochures, and other collateral do a better job of explaining what the association represents.  For example, on the main page of the website provide a concise statement that says,

“The Association represents librarians and information professionals who work in large and small corporations, information centers, knowledge management services, professional online information services, consultants’ services, government Institutions, law firms, specialist agencies, organizations, departments, and much more.”

· If SLA remains the name or not, provide a definition of “Special”.  For example, accompanied with imagery we could say…

· Concisely and with imagery, state who we serve.  For example, we could say we serve…

o   Members

o   Businesses that employee librarians and information professionals

· Clearly state what we offer to our members:

o   Knowledge Sharing

o   Continued Education through course work, e.g. UClick

o   Information Standards & Certifications regarding:

§  Collecting, gathering, administrating, managing, marketing, referring, researching, analyzing, collaborating, web designing/development, implementation, and/or testing.

o   A conducive atmosphere for networking

o   Job Referrals (Full time and Temporary Projects)

o   Annual Salary Survey; Publications (i.e. Information Outlook, E-Newsletters)

· Finally, clearly state what we offer to businesses we serve:

o   Venues for…

§   Lead generating

§  Advertising

§  Business and Product promotions

o   Referral Services

o   Employment Advertising

The article "Lost in Transition" in Entrepreneur (Nov. 2006) talked about how business owners should plan for s smooth transition of their business before the need arises.  In other words,  before you need to sell the business, you need to do some homework and planning well in advance. 

What I found interesting is that most business owners don't have transition plans and that is very true for information consultants.  According to the article, 52% of survey respondents had nonexistent transition plans.  Only 9.8% had transition plans that were 90+% complete.  And if you were going to transition a business, what might you transition it to?

• Continue to own, but not run it day-to-day
• Sell for top dollar to an outside buyer
• Sell out the the partner
• Sell out to a family member
• Sell to an employee
• Take the company public and continue to run it
• Take the company public and cash out
• Do nothing

If you own a consulting business (as many in the Consulting Section do), then you may immediately see options that don't apply to you.  Many of us run one-person companies, so selling to an employee or partner is out of the question, for example.  And while we might want to sell for top dollar, we are likely unsure of what is of value in our businesses.

With that all in mind, here are the tips from the article:

1. Write down your wishes
2. Start documenting (policies, procedures, etc.)
3. Select and groom successors, if that is your intent
4. Get a valuation – According to the article, 61%" were uncertain how companies in their industry were valued."
5. Work out the finances
6. Plan for change

A business broker (someone who helps an owner sell their business) could provide information on how to value your business and what strategies to take if you wanted to sell it.  (Yes, selling a consulting business can be done.)  If you are in the U.S., you might also talk to people at SCORE, Small Business Development Center, and Women Business Center in your community who may have information available on this for free.

It is a well known adage that prior anxiety about change is worse than the change itself or its consequences, and we seem to share the experience: I have seen many nods of recognition when I describe the positive effects of developments I considered untoward or daunting before they occurred.  Only … doesn't it seem we have to call on our change-coping mechanism more and more often these days?

Jamal Cromity and Joni Savage stress important aspects to keep in mind: Change is not incompatible with what's good, and change is not incompatible with what was.  Our task is to identify in each change we encounter (or cause!) the elements that will build on existing values and facilitate smooth transition and minimize stress.  Leveraging the familiar is one approach (it's just like how we used to … only here, we …); pointing to benefits is another (this way, we achieve the … we have been discussing).

As our profession evolves, I see a new value proposition emerging:  We information professionals are in a position – because we manage change ourselves – to help our clients manage the changes they face in their work as a result of all the forces impacting their businesses and professional pursuits.  Interestingly, we can deliver this type of support by using, as a start, our tried and true, unchanging basic skills:  Assembling, asssessing, and synthesizing the relevant information associated with those changes.  

I wonder if LMD "really" is about Leadership and Change Management? 

At the Southern
California SLA luncheon last month, we discussed a possible name change
for SLA: to eliminate the word "libraries" and use a more inclusive
term for information professionals. A few weeks ago, students learned
that the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State
University was going "all virtual" starting in the Fall.  The students
met this news with a whole range of emotions: fear, frustration and
excitement.  How would they learn without face-to-face guidance?  How
would our degree be perceived when we set foot into the working world? 
Similarly, technology that makes virtual libraries and workplaces
possible are met with both excitement and unease. How do you lead
people you cannot see? It takes an enormous amount of trust and
confidence: leaders have to trust the employees/students and
employees/students have to trust their own abilities.

As current and
would-be information professionals, we realize that change is
inevitable and that we are the first to confront it.  But there seem to
be some opposing views on how to handle change. Should we embrace it?
Should we stick with our old, proven methods?   

A librarian remarked
to me that libraries are too reactive.  They are quick to jump on
Second Life/Twitter/Facebook or any new technology that comes out.
"They are teaching children in the UK how to 'tweet!'" she exclaimed.
"Books are reliable. Archives are reliable."  

What are your thoughts? How do you handle change?

While working on any project that requires completion by a set date and time, changing direction can be a challenge. Sometimes, just knowing when to change in the decision making process can be the most difficult part. The best of us try to avoid making drastic changes mid-stream on any project. Yet, as it is in life anything that involves change is not always in our control.  The fact is, changing direction is not always a bad thing; especially when the change of direction brings clarity to the new path we must go.

In your place of work, have you ever made a change or needed to change direction and found it was the best thing that ever happened?

Jamal Cromity is a Product Developer for Dialog LLC.  He can be reached at jamal.cromity@dialog.com

Paul Holdengraber was one of the keynote speakers at Computers in Libraries last week.  He is the Director of Public Programs at New York Public Library, which means — among other things — he produces the speaker series Live from the NYPL.  Holdengraber was recruited to come to NYPL in order to oxygenate the library.  He sees his role as nourishing people who are hungry for substance.  Through his programs, he wants to start conversations as well as connect people to the books in the library.

Holdengraber's talk — which was done by as an interview conducted by Erik Boekesteijn — was full of quotable ideas, including the idea that the most important thing is to begin.  I'm sure he would agree that planning is important, but that once planned, you must begin or all is for naught.  We also tend to take too long to plan and thus delay beginning.  I can imagine that drives Holdengraber nuts!

So…remember…BEGIN.

I hope that SLA will have Paul Holdrengraber someday as a speaker.  For now, you can hear a 2007 interview he did here (first 22 min.).  By the way, Holdengraber jokes his accent is "affected", but it is actually the accent of someone who was born in Texas and then spent his childhood in Mexico, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and France. 

I recently had the opportunity to read Geoff Colvin's, Talent is Overrated. With
an attempt to better understand what contributes to excellent performance, Colvin asks the
reader to reconsider their assumptions. According to him, excellent performance
is more than what most people assume is a product of innate ability. Several of the contributing factors Colvin cites are hard work, deliberate practice, goal setting, and the ability to develop intricate mental models of the domain in which one wishes to excel in.

Within an organizational setting, Colvin points out that it is important for both the employee and the supervisor to believe that sucess is attainable.  Without this belief, the supervisor may be reluctant to provide the kind of support an employee needs to be successful because they automatically assume failure.  Management can choose to improve the odds of success by providing those that they supervise with the optimum learning opportunities that they need to improve their skillset. 

I would recommend this book because it challenges the reader to rethink their assumptions about exceptional performance.