On July 9, Pam Casey (www.informationnow.ca) and I had the pleasure of delivering the first rendition of a course on information entrepreneurship through the Professional Learning Centre at Univerity of Toronto's Faculty of Information (http://plc.fis.utoronto.ca/). A repeat date has been set for November 20, and work is under way to deliver it in Edmonton this Fall. We were blown away by the interest in the topic and by the positive feedback along the lines of "although I may not set up my own business, I learned so much that is relevant for my work". Our thanks to Eva Piorkowski (Kupidura) at PLC for including the course among the program's offerings to allow us to share our experience as independents with those taking a look at the career option we chose.
We take the positive reaction to arise from the fact that - whether we think of it that way or not - all information professionals are "in business", selling their services and deliverables to clients who "pay" if not with money then with their time and attention. Success depends on "making the sale" - convincing clients it is worthwhile investing in our services as opposed to making a different choice among many possibilities open to today's knowledge workers.
One of the key messages in the course focuses on the priceless role of reputation and visibility in reducing the (for some) cringe-inducing need to promote one's business. The good news is that reputation and visibility may be achieved through activities that aren't scary at all - writing, serving on committees, and speaking - for example, to groups of students or recent graduates. Regardless whether there is an independent business in anyone's future, it cannot hurt a career to be well thought of in the relevant professional circles. We got the impression the course participants fully understood the need to practice salesmanship ... every day.
As the economy evolves along with demographics, we may see an increase in the - still relatively small - number of independent information entrepreneurs. We believe there is plenty of demand and invite anyone curious to give us a call - and take the course, of course! For those considering consulting, there's always the book to read: http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=401.
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