de Stricker

Infovores and Selectovores

In keeping clients aware of relevant new developments, be that through lists of new articles or summaries of news, a special challenge is tuning the periodic alerts and heads-ups not just to the topic at hand but also to the recipient's "appetite".  Years ago, I wrote an article for SEARCHER magazine entitled "Keep Me Posted - But Not Too Much" commenting on the dilemma clients see between wanting to be comprehensively abreast of their fields and avoiding overload.  When we instigate a flow of current awareness information for clients, it is essential that we gauge their preferred style of consumption ... are they "infovores" who prefer to glance at 50 items to select the 3 they care about because they do not want to lose out on serendipity, or are they "selectovores" who are content with a more limited number of items to look through, relying perhaps on supplementary means of being made aware of key new developments?  It is important to ask up front:  "If it's between getting too many hits so you have to scan through many items yourself, or getting too few so you might miss a potentially relevant item ... where do you lean? Do you want a daily email, or should I batch the news?"

Time will tell if the client begins to lean differently from the original answer.  One helpful value-added service is to categorize the hits in a set of alert results:  Of the 15 items on the global market for product category X, these 5 focus on consumer research, these 7 point to trade statistics, and these 3 discuss tariffs.  Such groupings walk the line between wholesale forwarding of hits and stepping in to judge on the client's behalf what should be deleted, and help clients formulate their modification requests ("the trade statistics items are the most useful for me while tariff items can be placed at the end"). As always, appropriate ongoing follow up with clients is paramount.

Hip - Hirable - both?

HIP: We all know the information profession needs modern-day entrants and practitioners.  So it was good to see the article in The New York Times' Fashion & Style Section on 8 July 2007 entitled "A hipper crowd of shushers" extolling just how hip today's librarians are.  It is encouraging that the life style article appeals to new professionals. We need them, and the article's focus on how the profession of librarianship has gone from "shh" to "cool" painted an encouraging picture.

HIRABLE: Ideally, I would like for any CEO reading the article to think, "I'd better hire some of those!". That angle was not the article's focus, but I was reminded that we always need to answer the question:  Sure we can be hip, but can we also be in business demand because we deliver business value?

The trick, of course, is to be hip and hirable. Perhaps that could be restated as "know the impact you want to make".

 

It's never too soon to add a librarian

Recently, a colleague gave me an opportunity to reply to a favorite question: "How should I advise the owner of a startup company about information support?" Here's a synopsis of the typical scenario I shared with her, having encountered variations on the theme over many years: 

Among individuals in a small team working closely together, communication is immediate and corporate memory is fresh and readily available, just as physical information objects are but a door knock away from anyone else ("sure, I have that report right here").  As the team grows and the volume of accumulated documentation does too, signs begin to appear that information objects - physical or virtual - present a challenge. ("Who has a copy of ... ?  Where is the market study we purchased last month?  Which of these versions of the project report is the official one?") People discover they are spending unjustifiable amounts of time hunting for documents and presentations; the volume of material held in shared drives or intranet collections proliferates past the point of utility; and "we can't find things" becomes a common complaint.  It gets worse when work is repeated or unnecessary work is done because the memory and evidence of previous relevant efforts can't be found.  When management begins looking for a solution, it is often discovered how complex a task it is to address the accumulated backlog of information and at the same time put in place appropriate information related practices for the future.

It's never too soon to plan for the safeguarding and permanent future accessibility of the knowledge invested and developed as the organization grows.  And there's a bonus: In addition to their expertise in information and knowledge management, information professionals offer a wide range of skills highly relevant for any entrepreneurial venture.