In through the outfield

Our new business information wiki – Business Essentials on the Web

As part of our continuing experimination with all things Web 2.0 (Social Media) we have created a wiki for essential business information. Still currently in beta, this wiki is a designed to allow any of my British Library business information colleagues to add useful links.

 

But more revolutionary (for the British Library) is that we are also opening up the wiki to anyone who has useful information to add. In particular our partners, who have expertise in a wide range of business support activities.

 

The wiki will be of help to people who are not able to come and visit our St Pancras building, and who find that Google does not provide all the answers.

 

Obviously we ony want useful content on the wiki, and will be taking any spam off straight away, much like you see on Wikipedia. Our wiki guidelines explain in more detail.

 

Please join our little community and add your comments and submit links of your own.

http://bl-business-essentials.wikispaces.com

 

The current hot topics are, Business planning, Grants and finance, Industry specific, Intellectual property, Marketing and PR.

If you have any ideas or comments on the wiki, you can email bipc@bl.uk

Free vs Fee – the Future of News – SLA Europe meeting 3 November

Another successful SLA Europe event this evening, this time at the swanky venue of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, five minutes away from Blackfriars station.

The hot topic was Free vs Fee – the Future of News. And stemmed from the fact that most newspapers have offered their content via the Internet for free with the expectation that display advertising would create enough revenue to cover the cost of creating and distributing their content. However, with the continuing decline in physical newspaper sales and the softening of the display advertising market, news organisations are exploring new ways to charge for their digital content.

On the panel were Jeremy  Lawson  VP Sales, EMEA, Dow Jones & Company, Andrew Hughes – Commercial Director for the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA), Laurence C. Rafsky Ph.D. – CEO of Acquire Media and Laurence Kaye – Principal at Laurence Kay Solicitors. The panel was excellently moderated by Donald Roll – Managing Director, Europe for Alacra.

Here are my notes from the evening:

Don Roll introduced the evening by talking about the steep decline in newspaper circulation, the recent arrival of the first free quality newspaper in the form of the London Evening Standard, and how the NLA wants to ensure newspaper publishers receive payment for web content.

Andrew Hughes – NLA initiatives

NLA are moving towards creating a set of licences for commercial use of newspaper websites.

UK newspapers spend £1b a year in creating this content, which is quite different from paper published information. For example 31% of newspaper websites has never appeared in print.

The plan is that for those who charge for access to newspaper content will be charged by the NLA, who will also charge end user clients for access to content.

Existing licences will be extended and new ones created where necessary

e-Clips Web – Working to improve access to content by using newspaper CMS systems.

Laurence Kay – The legal view – 10 key points

1. Professional journalism, ‘trusted content’ and UGC (user generated content)

2. Change takes time! Business models and culture takes time to change.

3. Global Media / local copyright?

4. If content is going to be free, why does copyright matter? Provides the framework for access and usage rights.

5. B2B versus consumer copyrights

6. ‘Effects-based’ approach to copyright. Helps to work out how to apply rules to the real world. Look at the commercial impact of activities.

7. ‘Legal’ versus ‘Illegal’ content. When to take action or technical measures over infringements.

8. Who are the ‘intermediaries’ in the value chain? E.g. Where does Google fit in? Searched for or ‘scraped’ conent?

9. ‘Fair Use’. Big variations across Europe. United States has a broad definition. If the use is commercial is that no longer fair use?

10. We are still lacking 21^st century infrastructure to cope with licensing and payments for use.

Laurence C. Rafsky – What do we mean by free?

Once freedom has been tasted there is no going back.

Value chain –

1. professionally produced but given away selectively – e.g. advertiser supported
2. Non-professional content
3. Gifted professional content. E.g. Stephen King novel
4. Free to some but not others
5. Content that should not be free.

Two enemy camps

1. Information wants to be free – the hippies
2. Corporate suits who want to charge for everything

The solution will need to be  a compromise.

A question for the NLA to consider:

Do you use copyrighted material for commercial gain without payment to content owners?

Do you use copyrighted material for commercial gain without permission from the content owners as we understand it?

The crux of the debate is between these two viewpoints.

Can we separate business use from personal use? Google don’t distinguish between the two.

Jeremy  Lawson – Supporting publishers and their right to monetise their content.

Questions from the audience:

Did the newspaper industry start digging its own grave by giving away content?

New York Times started with some free and mainly fee access. They ended it because when compared pay per click ads versus pay for access would give ten times the revenue. But as ad revenues fall they may go back to first model.

Should be driven by economics.

Do you think news aggregators are a serious threat to publishers?

Links are fine, but extracts complicate the issue as readers may not link through to content. But as web content grows and newspaper content becomes a smaller fraction, increasing hits to newspaper sites lose their economic value to the publishers.

85% of newspaper traffic comes via Google. So should Google pay the majority share?

Is the Kindle from Amazon a potential future model for subscription access to newspaper content?

Disagreement – ability to break news up into selected streams for readers counts against Kindle model.

When will paper newspapers die?

Laurence C. Rafsky predicted that by 2030 newspapers would cease to exist in paper form as a  mainstream product.

He compares their future to candles today – they will become a decorative only production.

As he pointed out, if you had a choice, why would you use paper for something that only has a value for a few hours, and then you need to scan it to create a digital version which can be archived.

B2B vs B2C

Issues about consumers within a business environment – now that the genie is out of the bottle, how do you get individuals in a corporate environment to accept paying for information.

The event was kindly sponsored by Dow Jones.

What is a CRM, and when are they best used by small business? Lucidica workshop Tuesday 3 November

This morning I managed to find the time to attend a workshop by one of our partners. Lucidica are a relatively new partner for the Business & IP Centre and currently provide six workshops related to IT and business.

This particular half day workshop on what is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and when are they best used by small business, was presented by immensely knowledgeable founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Thomas Jeffs.

He got straight down to business by explaining that a successful CRM implementation requires both staff discipline and management buy-in. With out both of these you will be wasting both your time and and your money.

Here are my notes from the morning:

What can a CRM system do?

1. Contact Management

• the most basic function of a CRM
• who they are
• what they are doing
• central point for all staff

Shared office address book – suppliers – customers – for many business this is just a piece of paper stuck onto a computer terminal

if people don’t use it and keep it up to date it become worthless

2.  Sales Force Automation – now the most popular aspect of CRM – making sure you make the best use of your sales force

• What to do and when, with regards to sales and follow ups
• Helps make sure you chase opportunities when you need to
• Allows you to forecast your predicted sales and leads – only tends to work on larger scale of operation
• Allows you to see how your sales agents are doing
• Essentially automating your sales force and sales force reporting
• Benefits not so clear to staff due to reluctance to fill in details of customer interactions

3.  Marketing Campaign Management – linked to previous activity

• How much did £100 in marketing spend raise in sales?
• How many leads did a marketing campaign generate?
• How many internal resources were required as a result of a marketing campaign? E.g. Did it attract the wrong kind of customer who were ‘high maintenance’?

4. Customer Service Management – support tickets – complaints – consistency across the Business & IP Centre

• A centralised place for tracking – breaks dependency on one member of staff
• Can provide automated responses to issues. E.g. generated ticket number and expected response from the company
• Can monitor and escalate issues if still outstanding
• Result in – consistency  and efficiency of service
• Benefits clearly visible to staff and customers

It is important to establish which of the above are the most relevant to your business, as this will have an impact the the most suitable package for you.

How do CRM systems help your business?

1. How do they do it? – Automation

Health warning

-       Automation to internal users is good

• Creation of follow-up tasks/ reminders
• Workflow tools
• Creation of templates, timelines and standards

-       Automation to external users is mixed

• Acknowledgement of complaints/issues/feedback work well
• Automated quarterly sales email – don’t work so well – de-personalises the business.

2. How do they do it? – Tracking / Recording

-       Change of address for existing clients

-       Client moves to a new company

-       Recording emails and phone contacts with sales leads

-       Recording information that client is under contract with competitor for next three months

-       Has your entire team access to this information

3. How do they do it? – Reporting

-       Reporting is the purpose for a CRM for management

-       Some things a CRM can tell you:

• Predicted sales for next three months
• Which clients haven’t been in contact for a while
• Which sales agents are getting the most leads
• Which sales agents are making the most sales
• Which contracts are up for renewal
• What total sales have you achieved from each marketing campaign
• Which clients have service level issues
• Which people work for which clients

Thomas reviewed several case studies based on real experiences at Lucidica.

Which CRM is right for you?

1. Which CRM? – Questions to ask

1. What is the function of the CRM?
2. What will it need to integrate with?
3. Who will need to use it, and from where?
4. What is the potential benefit for my business in £’s?

2. Which CRM? – Quick and dirty recommendations

-       Excel – 1st choice for people thinking about what they need to track

-       SharePoint – 1st choice for precision applications and power users

-       Sage ACT! – 1st choice for integrating into Outloook and Sage, below 10 users, primary use for contact management and sales force automation

-       SugarCRM – 1st choice for Linux users

-       SalesForce.com – 1st choice for users with little infrastructure and who rely on internet traffic for business

-       Goldmine – 1st choice for businesses with over 10 users but can’t afford Microsoft CRM

-       Microsoft CRM – 1st choice for businesses with high volume of sales and contracts

Summary

-       Make sure your CRM does not have superfluous functions

-       Make sure it can scale both up and down

-       Make sure you can get your data out of the system

-       start small and evaluate after six months

Lucidica Technology Seminars

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

- how to improve your website so search engines, like Google, lists or ranks it better/higher.

Email Marketing

- how to use professional looking emails, in bulk, to market effectively, and/or keep your clients informed (e.g. newsletters).

Technology “Must-Have’s” For Small Businesses

- from the best computers and laptops, virus-protection and back-up software we know of; to “what is a server and when does my business need one” and many free software and technology tips to reduce technology risk and increase value in your business.

An Intranet and more with Microsoft Sharepoint

- touted as a big thing in the 1990s, Intranets are finally adding value to business – especially small business now they are affordable with products like Microsoft Sharepoint. In this seminar we explain what an Intranet is, how you can use Sharepoint and how to get this powerful solution from Microsoft for FREE. We’ll talk and show you how you can use Sharepoint for your own CRM, wiki, time sheeting forms and reporting, expense summary forms, other procedures and forms with built-in workflow and much, much more.

What is a CRM, when are they best used by small business and which one to select

- Client Relationship Management (CRM) software can bolster your relationship with existing clients as well as help you work on your prospective client contacts better and more frequently with ease. We’ll outline what a CRM, how it should be used for small business and profile the top 4 or 5 CRMs affordable to small business.

Designing, developing and maintaining an effective website

- every small business should have a website. Here we dispel many myths about designing, developing and maintaining a website – it’s really not that hard! For most websites we design and build for our clients we recommend they buy some great Adobe software which allows them to maintain their website like they edit Word documents. We provide plenty of advice and tips on what is a good design, and what your developers should be including in the code when they build it.

Book review – From Inventor to Entrepreneur by Celia Gates

Having met the Celia a couple of times in the Business & IP Centre  I am aware of the both the passion she has for turning inventions into business, as well as the tremendous challenges she has faced on her journey.

So I was fascinated to see how she would express these in her new book. As with all entrepreneurial ideas this book came about because it wasn’t there when Celia needed it. In other words there was a gap in the market which meant both an opportunity to help other people in the same situation.

I’ve met quite a few inventors since joining The British Library and I now recognise Celia’s description of the inventor’s mindset after having had a light-bulb moment.

‘One of those burning ideas that bores deep into your head, gives you a rush of excitement and keeps you awake at night. You simply can’t stop thinking about it and the more your do, the better it gets. You know you’re on to a ‘winner’ but, the question is:

What on earth are you supposed to do with this idea next.

It’s with this question in mind that I have written this book. It’s the book I wanted to read when I first had my idea. I searched for it, but it didn’t exist – now I hope to put the knowledge and experience I have gained to use by helping you. The advice and guidance offered herein is cheap at the price. It has cost me at least £94,000 in expensive mistakes to acquire. The intention is to save the you the same peril but, you must be warned in advance; this book is not for the feint hearted.’

Celia is more of a creative designer than traditional inventor so I was fascinated to see that one of her earliest influences was a visit to the Alessi factory in Milan. As a fan of their products for nearly thirty years I can relate to this inspiration.

Almost everyone I meet has had a light-bulb moment at some point in their life (many have claimed to have been the first to come up with the idea of wheels on suitcases). However, the key is what they do next. According to Celia, out of 33,000 ideas, only 3,000 ever get written down, out of those only 300 are developed further, 3 of those are filed for official ownership (e.g. a Patent application), and only 1 idea goes on to become a reality in the market place.

For Celia the idea is secondary in the route to market, the primary factor is the inventor.

‘You are totally and utterly responsible for the success of your idea. Turning and idea into reality has everything to do with you. You and the belief and action you are prepared to take in order to turn your idea into a phenomenal success.’

As Celia correctly points out, the very first thing you should do with your brilliant idea is to value it. Far too many inventors devote time and money developing and protecting their idea, only to find out it will never be commercially viable.

1. You need to work out who (and calculate how many) will benefit from your idea.

‘Avoid sweeping statements such as ‘everybody in the entire world is going to benefit’

Concentrate on who is going to benefit the most, and so who are likely to be your first customers.’

2. Find out how accessible you target market is. How are you going to get to meet them to talk about your idea and get their reaction?

3. Work out who you are going to be competing against. Many inventors say they are creating a new market with their idea, but even where this is true existing businesses with either feel threatened or, see a new opportunity and will respond.

4. Clearly identify your competitive edge. Why is you idea so much better than anything else on the market?

5. How sure are you of being the original creator of your idea? Similar ideas often occur simultaneously, so keep watching out for your idea in patent searches and trade magazines.

Celia has adapted the famous Edward De Bono Six Thinking Hats Principles into what she terms The Whether? Forecast. This is to help view the idea from a range of perspectives:

Sun – think sunny positive thoughts about your idea.
Rain – concentrate on all the negative aspects, and what could go wrong.
Snow – clean sheet thinking. Imagine the landscape is covered by snow and start again.
Blue Sky – think creatively, don’t be constrained to the known.
Environment – look around you and consider the physical environment in which your idea will function.
Whether Report – review the evidence and your research. Look for gaps in your knowledge and try to fill these. Examine past trends and historical patterns to help predict the future.

The importance of building prototypes is covered;
‘They say that a picture speaks a thousand words: in this case a prototype speaks a thousand pictures.’
Apparently James Dyson built 5,127 prototypes when developing his dual-cyclone vacuum cleaner.

The book gradually moves towards more entrepreneurial activities, such as the need to develop an elevator pitch. This is something inventors are particularly bad at in my experience. Too often they go into far much technical detail, forgetting to emphasise the benefits of their invention to the consumer.

In chapter eight Celia attacks the tricky issue of selling intellectual property. Many inventors really struggle with this concept as they don’t trust anyone else to take proper care of their ‘baby’. The chapter starts with the following:

‘How to get rich from your invention

So, let’s start by overcoming a barrier: are you an inventor or an entrepreneur? With a little luck you are an Inventive Entrepreneur and in this case you are in line to make some BIG MONEY…

… but before we proceed, how do you feel about this?

Are you in the invention game to make BIG MONEY or are you inventing because it is your hobby or because it rewards you in other ways?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing something because you enjoy doing it. The world needs more social entrepreneurs and if you are in this business solely because you believe you are capable of adding infinite value to the lives of many other through your ideas then you have my utmost respect.

Her in the UK we seemingly ‘hate the concept of making BIG MONEY and yet, if we open up and are honest with ourselves, the concept of infinite riches is what stimulates and motivates many of us every day.’

I have to take issue with Celia on this point, as in my experience most inventors are more motivated by wanting to see their invention come to life, rather than making millions of pounds from it.

The rest of the book covers how to get your product into the market place, including starting production, getting attention, testing and optimising, brands and assets and return on investment.

Celia’s own experiences (and those of many other inventors) lead to the inclusion of a lengthy chapter on what to do if someone has stolen your idea.

In summary, I would say that although this book is quite quirky in places, it sees the world through an inventor’s eyes. It strongly emphasises the point that – yes – the innovative idea is essential, but unless the inventor can morph themselves into an entrepreneur then their idea is likely to remain just that, an idea, rather than a product consumers can benefit from.

From Inventor to Entrepreneur by Celia Gates

• Helping you acquire essential knowledge & skills by learning how to save time & costly mistakes.
• How to generate innovative & original thoughts.
• How to develop ideas as valuable assets.
• How to secure & register official ownership.
• How to commercialise an innovation & turn the value of you intellectual property in to riches & wealth.
• How to stop your ideas being stolen & optimise your return on your investment.

The Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals

I had a feeling my last post (Would a librarian by any other name smell just as sweet) might not be my final word on the subject.

What I hadn’t anticipated was just how much heat the name change vote would generate. It is quite rare to see information professionals in ‘passionate mode’, but this issue has brought plenty out of the woodwork on discussion lists, blogs, facebook and twitter. Here are links to a selection; Am I a Strategic Knowledge Professional, ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy

As I mentioned before, the membership of SLA contains 2,000 different job titles, what I wasn’t aware of was the fact that only 25% of members use the title librarian. So already the term is a minority within the organisation.

Amongst the passionate comments attacking the new name have been a few calmer rational ones which I include below:

• If we were not called the Special Libraries Association I believe many more people who are in the information profession would find a professional home with us.  The new name is meant to be broadening and inclusive.
• But I want to be fair: it’s easy to criticise and far harder to take a leadership role and come up with alternative ideas which pedantic old cynics like me might take a shine to and approve!
• SLA leadership has been between a rock and a hard place on this issue for some time and it’s to their credit that they have been trying to do something, even if I don’t hugely like the result.
• I think the old name is life-expired and something new is indeed needed.
  
• Imagine trying to find one name to cover everyone who works in the medical profession. Doctors, consultants, surgeons, nurses, secretaries, hospital managers. All quite different jobs all supporting patients either directly or indirectly.

Hopefully the excitement will calm down as we move towards the name change vote in November, and we can start planning for the next 100 years of the association confident in the knowledge that knowledge (sorry couldn’t resist) will still have resonance and meaning in 2109.

Micro Men and the birth and death of the personal computer – 1980 to 1985

Last night I watched Micro Men, another in the recent BBC series of dramatised portrayals of historical events from the 1970’s and 80’s, such as Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley.

This was the story of the battle for dominance in the newly emerging personal computer market from in the early 1980’s. It was also a personal clash between eccentric inventor of the pocket calculator Sir Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry (formerly his right hand man).

The film cleverly interwove news footage from the period and actors, effectively reawakening memories of my involvement in that era as a callow youth.

In particular I remember the excitement young people felt at the rapid development of the technology, and how we thought they would change the world. One scene from the seminal BBC Computer Programme talked about how personal computers would replace manual typewriters and much of the associated office paperwork. (here are some snippets). It was also something of a shock to remember how Britain led the world for that brief period, with by far the highest rate of ownership of personal computers. There was an optimism that this lead would give us an immense advantage in this newly emerging industry.

As with so many cutting edge technologies of course expectations far outstripped reality. As a ‘programming expert’ with 98 per cent in my Computer Science ‘O’ level, my father presented me with a brand new £99 Sinclair ZX81 and asked me to show him what it could do. My memory is a bit hazy on the details, but I seem to remember that its state of the art 1k of memory (compared to 2 gigabytes in today’s computers), allowed me to create a spreadsheet about 5 rows high and 16 columns wide. Unfortunately that didn’t leave any room for calculations or content.

However this did not dim my nerdish enthusiasm and I went on to study Computer Science at ‘A’ level using a Commodore Pet, and then to university on Apple II computers. It was only when I came to leave university and was pondering which model of personal PC to buy, that reality dawned. I remember my cousin asking me what I would use it for. Programming of course was the main purpose, but outside the learning environment that was not a practical application. Games were next, but the basic ones available did not appeal to me. The applications we take for granted today such as word processing and spreadsheets were not established at that time. I decided to save my £600 and wait for the technology to develop.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. Today we are surrounded by personal computers which have profoundly affected how we live our lives. Whether it is the constant bombardment of emails via Blackberries, shopping over the Internet, sharing our lives through social networking, watching or listening to films, television or radio on our iPods and personal media players, meeting new life partners through internet dating (7.8 million in the UK alone), spending time in virtual realities like Second Life, or just computing on the move (I am writing this on the train sitting next to another laptop owner – who appears be writing a gripping novel – from my furtive glances)

So although the personal PC went from boom to bust in just five short years between 1980 and 1985, apparently taking its future promise with it, the long term impact of computers on our lives has been truly revolutionary.

The footnote at the end of the show reminded me of how the two companies at the centre of the story subsequently went in very different directions. Clive Sinclair returned to his obsession with creating the world’s first mass produced affordable electric car. And produced the legendary Sinclair C5, perhaps the single most spectacular failure in the history of personal transport with sales of less than 12,000.

However, the chip that powered Chris Curry’s Acorn computer went on to be developed into the ARM processor, which has gone on to become the most successful computer chip ever, with over 10 billion shipped to power the majority of mobile phones manufactured across the world.

Would a librarian by any other name smell just as sweet

Many apologies for taking extreme liberties with Bard again (To Blog or not to Blog? That is the question). This is all part of my attempt to come up with magnetic headlines to bring in readers.

Anyway on to the meat of this topic. The SLA (formerly The Special Library Association) has just (10 minutes ago) proposed a name change for the one hundred year old association.

I should immediately declare my hand and say that I was involved in (perhaps scarred by would be a more appropriate description) a previous re-branding task force which ultimately led to a name change vote at the Annual Conference in New York in 2003. Needless to say the name did not get changed on that day, although it was a close run thing, falling short of the two-thirds majority required by just a few votes.

Since then the information world has become even more fragmented with all kinds of information roles that don’t have the ‘L’ word in their title. Knowledge Manager, Intranet Manager, Competitive Intelligence Manager, Information Resources Manager are just some examples of the 2,000 different job titles held by SLA members. This new breed of information professionals need to feel that the SLA is a suitable home for them as well, of course, librarians working in specialised organisations.

Even more import are the research findings of a two year project lead by Fleishman Hillard (a leader in international marketing and communications). They tested a range of information profession related concepts and words and showed conclusively that anything with the ‘L’ word such as librarian or library were not perceived as valuable by senior managers. To quote Janice Lachance from her recent Sticks and Stones article in the latest issue of Information Outlook ;
Like detergent, the word ‘librarian’ is an accurate description of function, but not a value proposition. It says what you do for living, but it does not say what you can do for your organisation. Moreover, the research shows that ‘librarian’ is perceived as being dusty and antiquated-two words that should not be connected with either a profession or a professional association that prides itself on being ahead of the curve.

Working as I do at the British Library, which under the leadership of Lynne Brindley has established itself not only as a forward looking organisation engaging with cutting edge technology such as the award winning Turning the Pages, but has also proved itself to be of significant cultural and economic importance for Britain. To which the Business & IP Centre by supporting new businesses has contributed in its own small way.

However, from my previous sixteen years managing a specialist information service in a corporate environment, I recognise the problem of using the ‘L’ word in a commercial and business context. In my experience senior managers and directors are far more impressed with colleagues who are providing insights and identify trends, creating competitive advantage, anticipating industry changes, facilitating good decision making, providing value-added intelligence, sharing knowledge and using innovative technologies. Needless to say these were all terms which tested positively in the Fleishman Hillard research. And although in many many cases this is exactly what specialised librarians are actually doing, unfortunately their senior colleagues are likely to be judging them on their job title instead.

Below is the full text of the email anouncing the proposed name change:

Dear Neil:

John Cotton Dana, who founded SLA a century ago, wrote, “The name Special Libraries was chosen with some hesitation, or rather in default of a better…”  We, as special librarians and information professionals you have elected to SLA’s Board of Directors, believe that validated research has identified a better name, one that will help all of us communicate our value in the workplace.

We are excited to propose that SLA change its name to the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals, or ASKPro.  We encourage all SLA members to voice their opinion on this proposal by casting an electronic vote in a special referendum that will begin on 16 November and end 9 December. The result will be announced on 10 December.

The choice of this proposed name began when the board concluded in June that the alignment research conducted over the past three years revealed a clear challenge posed by SLA’s name:  executives who make hiring decisions and allocate budget dollars do not understand what it means.  Furthermore, they do not recognize or appreciate the contributions that special librarians and information professionals are making now or the potential they hold for building more successful organizations in the future.  This disconnect endangers the jobs of our members, and we are determined to act.

The proposed name is the result of the same rigorous process used in the Alignment Project research .  We began by compiling words, terms and critical concepts that both information professionals and executives agree best articulate the value and potential of the information profession and the association.  We also received and considered input from members around the globe via Twitter, blogs, e-mail, FaceBook and listservs after the annual conference.  The result was a long list of potential names. We then began eliminating names if they caused confusion, were too close to names already in use, posed legal difficulties, or could have different meanings in various countries. We also eliminated names that did not have good acronyms or shortened versions associated with them.

We feel that the name that emerged, the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals, strongly ties special librarians and information professionals to the strategic goals of their organizations, increases the perceived value of their services, and stresses their professionalism.  We also want to emphasize that by changing our organization’s name, we will not change the name of our profession.  It is important to note, that in fact, SLA members have more than 2,000 different job titles.

Before settling on our proposed name, we subjected it to a survey of U.S. and U.K. information professionals and executives in  human resources, marketing, information technology and strategic planning in the corporate, academic, healthcare and government sectors.  The results prove that the proposed name will help us accomplish some important objectives:

• It was well liked, fit well with a description of the association, and was judged relevant and credible.
  
• Executives felt it promotes our members as invaluable assets to their organizations; information professionals said it made them more likely to join the association.
  
• The abbreviated form, ASKPro, was very well received and also fulfilled the desire frequently stated in member discussions for a name with a meaningful acronym or shortened form.

The topic of changing SLA’s name has been much discussed in recent months in a variety of SLA chapter and division listservs and other forums, and board members have heard individually from many members.  We have compiled a list of some of the most frequently stated questions and opinions and responses to them.  In some cases, we have borrowed heavily from the words of members, and we thank all of you for your input.  We hope you will take the time to read this document before continuing the conversation.

You will receive notification on 16 November that the e-vote system is open and have until 9 December to cast your vote.  Please note especially that when and if the new name is approved, it will be a matter of months before the association can put it into use because of various legal requirements, the need for a new “look,” and other technicalities.

As your representatives, we are dedicated to your success, and we firmly believe that adopting a new name for SLA will further that goal.  Ultimately, however, it is up to you to vote on a new name for SLA– the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals (ASKPro)–and launch us into our second century.

Sincerely,

Gloria Zamora, President, and the SLA Board of Directors

Starting a business is like playing at Pooh Sticks

During a recent training event I was fortunate to hear Bryan Mills speak. Bryan has had a long and successful career creating and managing IT related businesses (although without an IT background himself). His particular claim to fame is building CMG from a two person business, operating from the founder’s homes in 1965, into a multinational FTSE1oo business.

During his fascinating talk recounting lessons learnt from a lifetime as an entrepreneur he used the analogy of playing Pooh Sticks for business start-up.

As both a fan of the game from early childhood, and having grown up very near to the home of Winnie-the-Pooh the inventor of the game in Hartfield, West Sussex, Bryan caught my attention.

When you are planning to start a business you look down into the swirling river below (the market place for you product or service), you try as hard as you can to see where the current is flowing strongest and is least turbulent (assessing the market opportunity with published and field market research). You drop your stick in as carefully and accurately as you can (detailed business plan preparation). And once it is in, you follow it with Eagle eyes, watching every bob and weave (you track every activity minutely in your newly founded business).

However once the stick goes under the bridge it moves both out of your control and out of sight, and there is nothing you can do to influence its route down the river, across into a bank of reeds, or dropping down to the bottom of the river bed. This is very much the situation once your business is up and running. All kinds of unpredictable events can knock you off course, or sink the business altogether.

My blog reaches 30,000 visits

I don’t rate this as a ‘real’ story, but I can’t resist recording the fact that according to my free Sitemeter

account the number of visitors to this blog has now reached the 30,000 mark.

I am aware that many of my visitors are coming via Google, so are accidental tourists rather than regular readers, however I am still somewhat proud of this achievement for a British Library based blog.

Looking at the chart below reinforces the advice I have heard about blogging, that patience is required to build visitors.

Karan Bilimoria and the story of Cobra Beer

Another late night for me last Thursday night. This time to attend the Chartered Management Institute 2009 Sir Kenneth Cork lecture. It was organised by my friend Chris Seow from the University of East London who is the current chair of the City of London Branch of the CMI.

I have to admit I was reluctant to spend another evening in London and went along to support Chris. However, I am glad I made the effort as the talk by Karan Billimoria was absolutely fascinating.

Even while waiting for Lord Bilimoria to start I heard an amazing story from Darren Way the founder of Streets of Growth.

Streets of Growth is a dynamic community leadership organisation founded in 2001 and led by local people in Bromley by Bow East London. Committed community adult and young people work together to offer real solutions and practical approaches to tackling the issues that people face in their local community and so develop sustainable and healthier communities in the East End.

Although I had not been following the Cobra beer story closely, I was aware (along with everyone else in the audience) that they had gone bust in May of this year and had been rescued by the giant Canadian brewery firm Molson Coors.

I was wondering if Lord Bilimoria would mention what seemed to be an unfortunate end to what had been an amazing success story up till that time. His first slide gave an indication that he would not be skirting around the painful aspects of his fascinating twenty year story to bring a new beer brand into mass consumption. The title of the slide was ‘Adapt or Die’. He immediately began to explain how quickly the
credit crunch had impacted high growth business such as his, who were dependent on external finance for expansion. As he pointed out, prior to the crash, cash had been king, but then it became an emperor.

Fortunately, he then went back to the beginning of his story, and spent an hour giving an absolutely riveting speech which concluded with the painful details of the collapse and eventual revival of the business.

As with so many entrepreneurs Lord Bilimoria went against his parents wishes with his plans to start his own business. Although his father as head of the 350,000 strong Indian Army did not want Karan to follow him into the military, he felt a career in the City of London would be a more appropriate use of his Cambridge University education. He was told ‘you should get a real job like a banker’.

But, he had developed a love for beer and recognised there was a significant gap in the market between traditional British bitter beer, and the sharp and gassy lager beers available at that time. There was nothing that was a suitable accompaniment to curry meals in Indian restaurants.

The second slide of the talk consisted of just three words, ‘Aspiration, Inspiration, Perspiration’. He reinforced my experience of dealings with entrepreneurs that the business idea is the easy part. Bringing it to production and then to the market is the hard bit, and may take many years.

Lord Bilimoria went to give many instances when his business nearly died. Often from causes which could never have been predicted. For example, a one year boycott of his product by Indian restaurants (his primary customers), after an article criticising the professionalism of the restaurant owners in a trade magazine which Karan had founded, but no longer had links to. In each of these ‘near-death’ experiences it was always flexibility and a creative approach that led to a solution.

It was good to hear his quite confidence about the new opportunities the partnership with Molson Coors would lead to. He said they were moving from a David vs Goliath situation to one where David and Goliath were working together. He had been impressed by the family culture that was still present despite the global size of the company, and how they had been true to their initial agreement despite the financial turmoil of the period when Cobra was forced into a Company Voluntary Arrangement.

He concluded by listing the Molson Coors definition of what makes a remarkable brand:
1.    A compelling story
2.    Refusing to compromise
3.    An instantly recognisable look
4.    A unique, relevant and consistent product
5.    To inspire brand champions from customers
6.    To deliver enduring profits