What “Phenomenal Results” Look Like 

This presentation by Mary Ellen Bates at SLA 2011 Annual Conference was sponsored by the Solo Division, Legal & Management Division, and the KM Division 

Client loyalty is established when expectations are managed upfront and deliverables consistently meet and exceed those expectations. If you missed Mary Ellen Bates’ presentation, she has posted it on her website along with many of her other excellent presentations. Here are the main points she covered:

•  A value-added deliverable starts at the beginning of your transaction with the client. During the interview process, get to the “why” of the research question. Ask the client “What’s the ultimate purpose of this project?” and “What can I do to help you get there?”
• Then after you do the research, make sure you leave time for analysis and packaging your results. Look for patterns, trends, gaps, outliers, and make judgments based on your findings. Distill the information down into the core data and play around with various formats to organize it.
• Summarize results in as visual a way as the client wants. For instance, use presentation slides, spreadsheets, graphs, charts, and executive summaries on a branded template that you’ve created for your library. The Future Ready Toolkit on the SLA website has examples and templates in the Tools section.
• Other structured output formats that you can use are the SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats, or try using the Five Forces Analysis to determine the attractiveness of a particular market.
• Include a cover letter with a description of the project and the next steps.
• Stretch yourself in creating a bank of samples and templates that you have branded and stored for creating the WOW-factor that keeps your clients coming back for more.

I was challenged to re-evaluate my services to clients and to restructure my time to allow for the type of presentation that will create loyalty.

By Mary Odom, MLS
Heart of America Chapter President

SLA Annual Conference Presentation by Mary Ellen Bates

Link to presentation slides:  http://www.batesinfo.com/extras/assets/omg.pdf

Actually, the Millennials are already here.  Mary Ellen Bates led this session about working with what she calls “digital natives”.  Here is a collection of snippets from her presentation. 

She describes their expectations of life experiences as “augmented reality” where there are enhancements to the real experience.  Her example was the moveable yellow line on the football field during televised games.

Having been online their entire lives, Millennials not only prefer to be in constant contact with people, they believe this activity establishes and validates their credibility.  Social capital matters.  Millennials believe:

1. Distance doesn’t matter. They don’t have to leave their homes to get the information they need.
2. Sharing is the default. They don’t understand the concept of hoarding information because sharing is the norm.  This might be why privacy concerns may be less valued, and why the issue of copyright and intellectual property might be challenging concepts to grasp.
3. Information is ubiquitous.  If all you’re offering is information, they may not be impressed.  Sharing knowledge- not just information- equals power. 

Personal branding is second nature. They are voracious consumers of information, but rely on their personal networks for filtering.  These networks include Facebook friends, Twitter groups, and other electronic collections of people to which they choose to belong. When you reach out to them, you will be tapping into their networks, one way or another. (She added that we should find opportunities to show them what they might be missing by allowing the information that reaches them to be filtered by their groups or friends.)

Millennials like to engage in “media snacking” which simply means they want to multitask all day (work, Facebook, Twitter, ipod, etc) in order to feel connected.  Otherwise, they may feel distracted.  Some even sleep with their phones in their hands (something I have seen in my own house for years!)

Mary Ellen advises those who are not Millennials to respect their culture and understand that they not only bring new perspectives to the workplace, but they also create new perspectives.  They also have updated technology skills that force others to adapt and evolve.

And finally, Millennials consider the library a service and not a location, online news is accepted as an adequate source for current information, and anything on the Internet is considered “fair game”.

By Valerie Vogt, Shook, Hardy & Bacon Reference Librarian
Heart of American Chapter Program Planning Committee Member

(c) The Photo Group 2011- All Rights Reserved

 Thomas Friedman is the author of The World Is Flat and the foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times.

According to a very reliable source, Thomas Friedman turns down 93% of speaking invitations. He’s been called “the country’s best newspaper columnist” and named one of “America’s Best Leaders”, besides the 3 Pulitzer Prizes he has received. It’s no coincidence that he spoke to the SLA Annual Conference just a few months for his new book is due to be released, That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back.

Friedman began by describing inventions that were not even in existence a decade ago such as Facebook, 3G, the Cloud and Skype. Several decades ago when the internet browser was born, no one had an inkling of the convergence of technologies that was about to happen. From the laying of fiber optic cables in just 5 short years to the advent of “uploading” and self-publishing electronically, an explosion in the global economy has made Detroit and Dubai next-door neighbors. This inflection point in history is making yesterday’s “average” unacceptable. Routine work is being eliminated in our economy and replaced by technology. College graduates today face the prospect of not getting hired, but rather having to invent their own jobs.

Anything that can be done, will be done. If you don’t do it, someone else will. The only question is, will it be done BY you or TO you? There are now 4.8 billion cell phones on the planet, and connectivity is reaching every corner of the globe. There is no such thing as a local story anymore. Just one tweet by a U.S. Congressman illustrates this point conveniently. Friedman argues that behavior still matters and that our society will come back full circle to old-fashioned values like strong family relationships, honesty, integrity, trust, etc. once the technology smoke has cleared.

My favorite quote of the presentation was “The Internet is an open sewer of untreated and unfiltered information, full of gold nuggets.” Friedman confirmed his appreciation of librarians by saying that after writing 5 books, he knows our value as information professionals and researchers from personal experience.

Mary Odom, HOA President

The City of Brotherly Love welcomed SLA members with open arms. There were about a half a dozen members from our chapter that attended who will be sharing about some of the exceptional sessions on this blog in the coming weeks.

Keynote Speaker James Kane spoke on Loyalty

(c) The Photo Group 2011-All Rights Reserved 

James Kane began with a long series of slides about himself called “This Is Me” with minutia that had little to do with his professional self. He showed slides of where he grew up, his food preferences, social security number, astrological sign, favorite sports teams, etc. This demonstrated to the audience that these details create chemical connections in the brain based on your own familiarity with his characteristics. Relationships are born from commonalities, and we are constantly looking for these connections with other people.

Our brains are hard-wired to look for patterns and shortcuts so that we learn quickly and easily remember new information. Humans develop emotions from birth as we learn who can be trusted and who cannot. The emotion of loyalty develops because someone or something makes my life easier or better.

Three things help to build loyalty in client relationships:

1. Trust in my competency, character, consistency, capacity
   • At first, we expect to trust people, and then we learn that someone is or isn’t trustworthy. Our clients expect to trust us already.
   • Understand and manage client’s expectations, especially when they are unreasonable in order to protect trust.
2. Belonging: recognition (do you know who I am personally?), insight (about the details that people share with you), proactivity (in solving a problem before they ask you), inclusion (avoid us vs. them and create solutions together), identity (be transparent about yourself to find common ground with your clients).
   • Record details about people’s preferences and honor them whenever possible.
3. Purpose: vision, fellowship with each other, and commitment to your cause.

 SLA is piloting a Loyalty Project led by James Kane in 7 SLA chapters for one year from June 2011 through June 2012. They will report the results at the Chicago conference in July 2012. The chapters that were chosen to participate include: DC, Maryland, Florida/Caribbean, Minnesota, Rocky Mountain, Southern California, and Australia/New Zealand. Here in the Heart of America chapter, we will rely on the chapters most similar to ours for guidance on developing a loyalty project of our own. Since Maryland is the smallest chapter in the pilot, we’ll track their progress, along with the two rural chapters: Minnesota and Rocky Mountain (Denver, Utah, Wyoming & South Dakota). We have quite few HOA members who have been loyal for many years. I’d like to hear their thoughts on this Loyalty Project. 

By Mary Odom, HOA Chapter President

It is the beginning of a new year and SLA Heart of America is having its first planning meeting with the board this afternoon. The holidays are finally past us and we can get back to SLA HOA business.  I am excited to get to know the new leadership and hear what they are planning for 2011. 

SLA HOA ended 2010 with a fabulous Annual Meeting that got rave reviews from attendees.  It was also a year of great programs which offered many professional growth opportunities. As always, anyone interested in getting more active in the organization or that have suggestions for programs contact Mary Odom or myself.

Looking forward, SLA has put out a new feature, Future Ready 365, which is an opportunity for membership to publish short posts on relevant topics regarding changes in the information/library world.  I have been looking through the posts and they are extremely insightful.  This is just one more way that SLA is providing value to its membership.  Take a look and let us know your thoughts.

I I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to work with wonderful peers in the information industry.  Iam looking forward to another year with SLA HOA and think it is going to be another fantastic year. 

I just got an email from Kate Rogge who thought there might be some interest in the KCAA Fall Symposium.  I have attached the information below:

Kansas City Area Archivists' 2010 Fall Symposium —
Grant Funding for Archives, Museums, and Special Collection Libraries

October 14, 2010 from 1:00pm to 5:00pm
Nazarene Archives, 17001 Prairie Star Parkway (at W. 95th Street and Renner Boulevard), Lenexa, Kansas 66220

Do you need more money to help process your collections? Are you daunted by the time and process of applying for grants? Come to our Fall Symposium to learn more about getting the grant funding you need.

Guest speakers will discuss how to identify grant-worthy projects in your collections, how to identify appropriate grant-making resources, how to package your grant application, and how to manage your grant-funded project. A panel discussion of our grant experts, at the end of the presentations, will help with your questions about the grant-seeking process.

The Symposium is FREE to all KCAA members, and is open to the public (so please pass this announcement on to all interested parties). There is a $15.00 admission charge for non-members ($10.00 for students with a student ID), and their admission will include a one year membership to KCAA. You can pay at the door.

Reservations are requested, but last minute drop-ins are welcome. Please RSVP to Cat Riggs at ccriggs28@ku.edu

http://www.kcarchivists.org

For those of you that missed the Saturday event on Cracking the Library Job Market, I have attached the powerpoint that Eric Petersen,Librarian at the H&R Block Business & Career Center, presented to the group.  A big thank you to Eric for the great presentation. He really hit some important parts of the process of job searching and provided some good resources for job hunters.

I would encourage anyone who is looking for a job change or actively looking for a new position to review these slides. In addition, the H&R Block Business & Career Center offers some great resources to all members of the community.  The Center's website is www.kclibrary.org/business-career.

Download Presentation to HOASLA 9-25-10 final

I received my invitation to the SLA Annual Meeting today (thank you to Mary Odom), so everyone should be receiving their invitations as well.  Put this on your calendar because this will be a great meeting and Marydee Ojala is expected to be a wonderful guest speaker for the event.

If you don't receive an invitation in the next several days, please let either myself or Mary Odom know and we will make sure you get the invitation. Details are located on the SLA HOA website: http://units.sla.org/chapter/choa/programs.htm

Don't forget to put the other great programs on your calendar that are coming up in September and October. These can be viewed on the website as well.

I know not everyone will love this site as much as me, but I had to share it because of my own inner geek. I know everyone gets the Information Today magazine, but it has turned out to be great resource for me. Each month several websites are featured and one of these justified my membership for the year.

Policypointers.org was featured a couple months ago and I had torn the page out with the site highlighted and stacked on my desk. A recent re-organization made me sort through everything to move and I ran across this sheet of paper. I wish I had looked at it earlier because it has turned out to be not only a great resource, but unfortunately, a little bit of a distraction due to all the great content.

The site describes itself as:

Policypointers is an online facility created to enable those involved in government, academe and the media to gain rapid access to the research and conclusions of think tanks, institutes and government departments around the world.

We believe that policymakers and those who influence the policymaking function can frequently learn from the research done and the results achieved in countries other than their own. This belief is the rationale for creating this website.

This is a great site to get a global perspective on most issues and it aggregates content for a ton of think tanks. Think tank publications can be difficult to track if doing it on a site-by-site basis – trust me…I have tried.

Happy searching!!! 

We are working on a program for the HOA chapter and are looking for members that have a new tool/technology they would like to share with other SLA members.  This is your opportunity share ideas and lessons learned from deploying new systems.  I hope everyone has something they want to share and will look forward to hearing from you. 

If you are interested, please email me personally at berndthm@bv.com. 

The Library Journal has published an article that provides a great update on the state of the Google Book Search Settlement based on the Department of Justice (DOJ) Statement of Interest.  This is a great summary for those of you that are tracking this settlement.

Department of Justice Criticizes Amended Google Settlement Over Copyright, Antitrust Issues

Good morning SLA HOA members!  I ran across this compilation of libraries that are currently using twitter – notice Kansas City made the list – and thought it might be good to bring to everyone's attention.  Not only is it useful for those of us that are twitter addicts, but gives you a good idea of how big this 140 character communication tool is becoming in the social media world.

Thanks to Lindy Brown who is keeping this list updated on her blog: http://lindybrown.com/blog/2009/01/libraries-on-twitter-updated-list/