tfpl blog

‘All Change!! All Change??’

Last Tuesday night I attended SLA Europe’s ‘All Change!! All Change??’ event held in Minster court, Aldgate. With recent discussions, social and academic, on the increase around organizational change and what its effects can be for the library and information service, the event aimed at bringing perspectives together which would show fresh view to the debate. 

Introductions on the evening were made by current SLA Europe president, and TFPL’s managing director, Darron Chapman and chaired by Lesley Robinson, interim Head of Knowledge at Baker and Mackenzie. With the mention of change guru’s John Kotter’s theory that only 30% of change programmes actually succeed, the forthcoming discussion looked daunting however each speaker brought conflicting debate away from this perspective.

Opening panel speaker of the evening was TFPL associate, and director of IDW consultancy, Ian Wooler. Using the theoretical framework of Edward de Bono’s six thinking hats, Ian addressed through his own experience how positives can be took from a managerial understanding of team reaction and their personal evolvements within a change process.  Light at the end of the change tunnel was addressed from each colour coded symbol to show how individual members of a library and information team, and their responsibilities, through understanding of their outlook can be successfully maintained and preserved until the process end.

Next speaking was John Coll, Head of Access at the National Library of Scotland who provided a wholly public sector viewpoint. Echoing Ian, John’s view was to manage successful change you have to become an advocate within it, taking full charge in its lead and keeping positivity throughout potentially disruptive situations through accommodating to the each team member’s individual needs at all times. From own experience, John presented five questions, ‘why, where, what, how and when’, as the key to preserving positivity and achieving stability in change.

Veronica Kennard, a Director at Rothschild spoke about the importance of winning around individuals as well as the organisation to really get a change culture accepted, stating it can sometimes take a change of leadership to kick start change. I found the reference to the Business Information Review of 2012 gave the presentation an interesting set of statistics.

Last on for the night was the Head of Information Service Development at The Kings Fund, Ray Phillips, he presented from a personal perspective drawing on the work he had done with The Kings Fund, he had to deal with the issues of relocation and a downsized restructuring whilst at the same time being told he needs to deliver “more bang for the companies buck”. I felt that the way Ray referred back to previous panelist’s comments and sharing was an insightful way of tying both his and their change experiences together.

An interesting and thought provoking evening finished with a networking opportunity with many staying until the end.

Open Source Intelligence – Gaining market intelligence from the internet

We recently ran our very first webinar and it was truly an international affair.   Our speakers, Sean Campbell and Scott Swigart of Cascade Insights joined us for a very early session (it was 7am their time in the US) and delegates joined us from both Eastern and Western Europe and India.   The topic of the presentation and discussion was best practice on gaining intelligence from the vast amount of free data there is out there on the internet.

Sean took us through an insightful look at how, when companies close down certain sources of information such as their job postings, it is possible to use different social media tools and other free internet sources that are available to gather the same intelligence in a different way.  The key to being effective with this is to have a goal in mind, a specific reason for the research before you start.  Sean was keen to point out that these sources should be used in conjunction with more traditional sources of information to provide a fuller and richer picture.

This valuable information could be used not only as insight into your market and competitors but enable you to act in the most appropriate way at the best time to engage with your client base better.    Of course this raises the question around how you utilise these tools to engage with clients whilst not letting your competitors know too much about what you are doing, something that remains a challenge to most organisations.

Key tips included:

Keeping a collection of #tags from conferences that run annually can help keep up to date even if you do not have the time or the budget to attend in future years.

Using Slideshare to help you see more succinctly what competitors and partners in your market are doing.  You can subscribe to know when new presentations in a particular subject or area is posted.

The webinar was so popular that we are running a second session that is available free of charge with Cascade Insights on 23^rd May, further details can be found here http://www.tfpl.com/resources/webinar0512.cfm

Business intelligence market poised to evolve

via www.qas.com

Interesting to read about changes in Business Intelligence practice due to the cloud. How is this affecting your BI operations?

Better Information: Sharepoint for Intelligence

by Matthew Woods, Information and Knowledge Management Recruiter, TFPL

As part of the Training and Events programme, yesterday TFPL brought together Sharepoint users and vendors from the public and private sectors for “Better Information Management to Create Better Business Intelligence”

The conference heard from Microsoft on some of the exciting ways their clients have been using Sharepoint, as well as from users on how they have used the platform in their organisations and about the issues they’ve faced with its introduction and use.  Brendan Clarke of Microsoft gave the delegates some real world demonstrations of the capabilities of Sharepoint, with some particularly interesting ideas on creating dashboards using linked data and use of the Business Intelligence tool.  Throughout his discussions with delegates and the panel (during the Sharepoint Surgery), Brendan was keen to stress that Sharepoint’s capabilities are dependent on how it is used, and that Sharepoint is the Platform and not the end product.

One of the recurring themes at the conference, and at other gatherings, has been the question of to what extend Sharepoint is a technical or an information system, with some delegates ruefully admitting that their projects were “controlled” by the IT departments.  From the recruiter’s perspective, it was interesting to hear many of the delegates talk of how they value staff that not only have the technical expertise in Sharepoint, but also the appreciation of Information Management principles and metadata that underpin its successful deployment.  The theme of how implementation is viewed by end-users was enthusiastically taken up by Alexis Castillo-Soto of the Department of Education and Janine Weightman of Wellstream.  Both seemed to take an approach that tried to distance the end user from the very phrase “Sharepoint” by branding new systems with their own in-house names, as if to impress upon people the capabilities rather than the technicalities of the new system.  Both Alexis and Janine relayed their own success stories in improving end-user take-up.

Further capabilities were demonstrated by Paul Billingham of conceptSearching in his closing address, where he applied principles of Metadata, Insight and governance to the practical use of the Smart Content Framework in a Sharepoint environment.

LIKE - authoring in the Digital Age

Denise Harmer, recruitment Consultant attended a very interesting LIKE event last week where Anne Welsh, lecturer in Library and Information Studies at UCL spoke about  her experience of writing her first book and raised interesting points about the book in the new digital age.

Do people prefer e-readers, how do authors feel about their work being held on a kindle or a Kobo and not in a book?

Having spent 3 years writing and getting her book published –the question remains are academics now being measured by articles instead of books? The one key thing that came out was that the new digital age meant that information is often more current when it is blogged or tweeted about whereas the publishing process can take up to a year making certain information immediately out of date.

According to latest research there has been an upsurge of – readers and 72% of 89 students preferred e books to hard copy so the facts speak for themselves. I think the message is clear  that the digital age is altering the way we view material but in the end the book will always remain!

Ham Life: TFPL Connect: KIM for social responsibility

Matthew Rees tell us what he enjoyed about our most recent TFPL Connect Event...

TFPL Connect: KIM for social responsibility

TFPL Connect is one of those events that I am always quick to book. It may be more uneven in quality than LIKE but it is never poor, there are only a few each year, they are always oversubscribed and I always enjoy them.

One of the things that I like about TFPL Connect is that the sessions usually look at business issues and how Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) can help to address those, i.e. they are looking for solutions to problems, whereas a lot of the KIM debate is based on techniques and technologies, i.e. solutions looking for a problem to solve.

And that was the case this time where we looked at the needs of companies that want to take a social perspective of what they do.

via hamlife.blogspot.com

TFPL places new Executive Director at Book Industry Communication

by David Thew, Director, Publisher & Content Provider Recruitment, TFPL

TFPL has placed the new Executive Director at Book Industry Communication, the UK standards body for the book industry supply chain.

BIC is an independent organisation set up and sponsored by the Publishers Association, Booksellers Association, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and the British Library to promote supply chain efficiency in all sectors of the book world through e-commerce and the application of standard processes and procedures.

The new Director will be responsible for developing standards in print and digital supply chain, EDI, e-commerce and the discoverability and supply of digital information, and will coordinate and oversee the activities of a wide range of working parties and committees focusing on specific aspects of BIC's remit. The Director will also look to build strong relationships with the wider book industry to encourage greater engagement with BIC and to address how standards can be adapted to a rapidly changing marketplace.

TFPL were retained consultants for this assignment, working directly with the BIC Executive Board.

If you would like to know more about TFPL's Executive Search services in publishing and content provider recruitment, please contact David Thew, Director of Publisher & Content Provider Recruitment, at david.thew@tfpl.com or call David on +44 (0) 20 7332 6076

TFPL places Head of Language Technology with Dictionaries division of global reference publisher

by David Thew, Director, Publisher & Content Provider Recruitment at TFPL

TFPL has placed the new Head of Language Technology with the Dictionaries division of a leading global reference publisher. The role focuses on leading and directing online and digital development and language technology for lexical products across the division.

TFPL were retained consultants for this role, which requires strong expertise in computational linguistics and natural language processing in a dictionary and major reference works environment, together with the commercial acumen to make informed business and development decisions which would deliver a return on investment.

For further information on TFPL's Executive Search services, contact David Thew at david.thew@tfpl.com or call David on +44 (0) 20 7332 6076

TFPL & Intelligence - CI community building: UKCIF Survey

by Julia Hordle, Director of Recruitment

UKCIF: Participate in the Inaugural Salary Survey,  and obtain a copy of the briefing and enter the draw for a 2 Day SCIP Dublin Conference Ticket, 6th-8th November 2012  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UKCIF_Salary_Survey

UKCIF, volunteers and volunteer sponsors, including TFPL are committed to building a vibrant community interested in the development of skills and best practice in strategic and competitive intelligence. Please help our market making by completing this survey, if intelligence is a part of your work.

TFPL is also developing some bite-size, affordable training courses, designed to bring you the techniques and methodologies you need.

If you are interested in our services for the Intelligence communities, please contact Julia Hordle, julia.hordle@tfpl.com or Claire Valentine, claire.valentine@tfpl.com

 

Elsevier withdraws support for the Research Works Act

by David Thew, Director, Publisher & Content Provider Recruitment at TFPL (david.thew@tfpl.com; +44 (0) 20 7332 6076)

Elsevier, the world’s largest scientific publisher, has recently been the subject of a boycott by a group of senior academics refusing to submit research articles to journals, participate in peer review of research prior to publication or participate in editorial boards which help define the editorial strategy of the publications. The Cost of Knowledge petition (http://thecostofknowledge.com) , which as of today has over 7000 signatures, calls for a boycott of Elsevier on the grounds that:

-  the publisher charges ‘exorbitantly’ high prices for journal subscriptions 

-  libraries are forced to opt for ‘bundled’ deals (the so-called Big Deal) to benefit from discounting, which often means they buy journals they would not otherwise subscribe to

-  Elsevier supports legislative moves to ‘restrict the free exchange of information’, including the US Research Works Act, which contains provisions restricting open access mandates for publicly-funded research.

The fact is that the Big Deal has been in existence for a long time and is not exclusive to Elsevier by any means. Certainly it has been the subject of ongoing debate as libraries across the globe have seen their budgets slashed, and the model may be under threat, but as yet most of the major scholarly publishers seem to suggest their larger deals have held up pretty well. As a single cause of dissent, therefore, it is perhaps something of a red herring. The major catalyst for the recent boycott is more likely to be Elsevier’s overt support for legislation restricting Open Access.

Open Access, the model by which access to published scholarly research is effectively free at the point of use, is a complex issue and one which has many shades of opinion within both the academic research and publishing communities. At a very basic level, the core argument for the academics is that scientific research which is publicly funded should be accessible free of charge. For the publishers, the counter argument is that they add value to the research through peer review and other editorial processes, production, dissemination in print and online to an often global audience and linking to other relevant research. All of this costs money and the publisher rightly seeks a return. Various models have been proposed, and some adopted, which seek a middle ground, and most of the major scholarly publishers, including Elsevier, have introduced Open Access models or hybrid mixed models within their portfolios. The challenge is to find a model which gives an acceptable level of free access to researchers whilst generating a sufficient return for the publisher without compromising the quality, relevance and ‘impact factor’ of the research.

By openly embracing and endorsing legislative moves to restrict Open Access, Elsevier appears to the dissenters to suggest it opposes any moves to create a more mixed model or even to engage in the debate. The boycott could be seen as a fruitless gesture, but it has really gathered pace and does have potential implications for any publisher which needs to engage with this community as its source, reviewer, editor and purchaser of content.

So Elsevier’s announcement earlier this week that it has now withdrawn its support for the Research Work Act is a significant gesture and one that suggests it does recognise the level of anger amongst its core audience. It will be interesting to see whether this is followed by similar withdrawals of support for other legislation and whether the boycott will fizzle out, or whether the viral power of social media has given it a momentum which can only gather pace.

David Thew is Director, Publisher & Content Provider Recruitment at TFPL (david.thew@tfpl.com; +44 (0) 20m 7332 6076)