tfpl blog

Happy Birthday SLA!

TFPL was well represented at the SLA Summer Soiree last night, where Alacra's generous sponsorship ensured the event was a great success.  There was a good mix of new and regular attendees both from the user and provider side of the industry.  The relaxed and informal atmosphere ensured everyone mixed and networked and there was a wonderful and positive buzz in the air.   The venue was fortunate enough to have an outside roof terrace which was a welcome relief in the muggy weather we are having.

President Geraldine Clement-Stoneham introduced this years winners of the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Award which TFPL has sponsored for the second year running.  The individuals were all exceptional new entrants to the profession and the award provided them with an all expenses paid trip to the Centennial SLA conference which took place 14-18 June in Washington DC.  So if you are in the first five years within the profession and fancy a trip to New Orleans for SLA 2010 then take a look at how you can apply for one of these awards.

It was also fabulous to have Janice Lachance, CEO SLA over from the USA at this special occasion.  Janice is doing a fabulous job at making  SLA much more international and so I challenge you all to double the SLA Europe membership by this time next year!   The support you receive from a networked organisation is more important now than ever. 

Darron Chapman

Managing Director TFPL

The City Information Group

We are all sad to hear that the City Information Group has had to cease trading

http://cecollect.com/ve/ZZmi69HL71duwcj0

I was particularly sorry because TFPL have always been very active supporters of CIG and I was one of the founding committee (at that time I worked at KPMG).  The information world is indeed a small one - Nigel Oxbrow, the founder and managing director of TFPL, actually suggested the creation of the City Information Group and brought together a committee to set up the group (I’m fairly certain the first committee included Charles Oppenheim, Pamela Clark and David Rigglesford among others).  . 

Nigel was the first Chair of the Group which was set up as a special interest group of the former Institute of Information Scientists.  CIG grew very rapidly and we had a mix of ‘serious’ meetings and very popular socials - we were fortunate in gaining sponsorship and support from the vendor community and summer and winter social events attracted very large numbers. 

TFPL provided administrative and secretarial support and members of the committee spent quite a lot of time stuffing envelopes for mailings in the days before web and email communications were the norm.  At one point the group had around 1,000 members, and many of today’s senior information managers have served as committee members over the years.

The CIG Christmas party - which was always held the night before the Online Conference & Exhibition - was always popular with visitors to London who were over for the conference and exhibition but was a real challenge for those who had to be up early for the opening of the exhibition.

CIG was an amazing network for many years - so lots of fond memories and regret at its passing.

 

Melanie Goody - Director of Consultancy, TFPL

TFPL Training Discussion Corner for June

June has been a busy month and we have covered quite a number of subject areas in both introductory level and advanced strategic level courses.  Below is some food for thought from a selection of the courses.

Internet Tools for the Advanced Searcher - A number of new search engines have been released recently and Phil Bradley's course incorporated both Microsoft Bing and Wolfram Alpha into the course looking at the pro's and con's for each as a tool for information researchers.  New technology and an analysis of its benefits was the key point of discussion here.

Building the Brand: Marketing and Customer Collaboration - What’s the difference between Branding and Marketing – and does it really matter?  Following on from Ruth's very interesting post giving us an insight into how marketing is used by each and everyone of us every day, her course gave attendees a more practical insight into how an information service can be marketed internally within an organisation.  Key topics of discussion covered amongst others was the way to impact on users and key stakeholders how important an information service is.

Digital Copyright - Key discussion points were numerous as the law changes and develops all of the time.  Most notable ones were the Digital Britan report and its impact on copyright related issues and the problem posed by "orphan works" and the CIBER report whose study notes that over 6 million UK citizens are infringing on copyright through downloading material via peer to peer and other file sharing sites which is having a massive effect on intellectual property.

SharePoint for Records Management - From our trainer Marc Stephenson - The attendees were (as expected) rather surprised to hear that records management in SharePoint is not quite the mature product that they have been lead to believe. There was even some anger towards Microsoft that they could even use the term “records management”. Some practical ways of ameliorating the records management functionality however was thankfully explained. It was also a very useful course in giving the trainees a good foundation as to what SharePoint is good and not so good at, so that IT could be challenged (the delegates were records managers or other information professionals). I was struck yet again by the number of concepts that must be understood in order to address any training within SharePoint, in particular the often misused and misunderstood SharePoint content type.

Still Seeded first for Training

For tennis fans, Wimbledon is a much anticipated annual event; for me, the first day of tennis it is a sharp reminder of how quickly the year flies by! I can’t believe that six months have gone past since I joined TFPL and now here we are half way through the year already.  It has been an exciting but challenging time, both in regards to the market conditions and some of the changes that have had an impact on our training service.

 

With that in mind, I wanted to share with you an insight into TFPL training and some of the changes we have made.  Ogden Hodge moved on from TFPL in April and Claire Valentine is now my partner in crime! Claire’s background from Learning Tree has proved invaluable and she is currently working on some interesting ideas including course accreditation, so watch this space for further news on that.   

 

Since January, I have been delighted to see an 80% increase in our course run rate.  In this current climate, course numbers may be lower but rather than cancelling we are working with our trainers to offer delegates cost-effective training alternatives, such as tailored coaching sessions.

TFPL has always prided itself on providing excellent training facilities and we have had great feedback over the years on the TFPL lunch! So, finding the right venue for courses has been really important to us. In the spring, I was was introduced to the facilities and the extremely helpful team at the London Chamber of Commerce.  For those of you who have trained with TFPL over the years it very much mirrors our old training suite in Farringdon and offers a great learning space in a very friendly environment.   So, I am delighted to announce that as of April the majority of our courses will take place at the LCC.  With the venue being a 10 minute walk away from our office, it means that Claire and I will still be very accessible and will be popping in and out during the day.

On the subject of courses, we have exciting new topics in the course calendar including information literacy, valuing your information unit, and digital preservation. We’re bringing on board some excellent new trainers and continue to enjoy the ideas and support from our established network of trainers.

I am always keen to hear about ideas and suggestions for training, so that we can continue to meet the learning needs of our community. Please do drop me a line with any suggestions and in the meantime here’s hoping the sun stays with us for the summer and Andy Murray wins Wimbledon!

Lucy Frost
Head of Training and Events TFPL

What’s the difference between Branding and Marketing – and does it really matter?

Some thoughts from our trainer Ruth Sanderson in a time when it is more and more important to publicise the benefits and value of your information service.

Branding – Taking the time to really understand the identity, philosophy and personality of the ‘thing’.  I use the term ‘thing’ because you are a brand, Amazon is a brand and Snickers is a brand.  If you’re in it for the long game then taking time to understand your brand so you can communicate this (Marketing) is crucial.  If on the other hand you’re more like Del Boy, trading the next big thing because this time next year you’re going to be a millionaire, then you can skip this stage.

Marketing – The conversation between you and your market.  Now there are many ways you can have this conversation and of course you need to be clear what you want to say.  Equally it’s important that the conversations you get in to are fruitful, meaningful and therefore with the right people.  If you don’t know what you’re really about, or who your market really is, then this conversation is going to be messy, frustrating (possible for both you and them) and expensive.

Budgets are every tighter and with no end to the myth that you can get everything you need off Google, should Library’s and Information Departments be taking their brand and marketing actions more seriously?

Companies like Unilever and Proctor & Gamble don’t advertise Persil and Ariel on a regular basis because they fancy.  They know that it’s important to keep front of mind in the consumers’ eyes.  And these are products that we use on a weekly if not daily basis – depending on your household size and just how messy you like to be.  What if your product or service is something that is required less often, what then?  When your client base is faced with a challenge are you front of mind, or do they go to Google, their friends or just give up and make the best of it?

One of the most regular statements I get is “but I’ve never done any marketing before”.  That is a lie. Although what I usually say is “so tell me how you got your current job?”  CV and interview are 2 words frequently mentioned in their reply.  Both of which are examples of marketing.

Here’s the scary or liberating thought – in every conversation you have with your client or customer you are marketing your brand.  Now the scary part of this is are you marketing what you want to market and being remembered how you want to be remembered?

Lastly the companies, departments, and people who are increasingly successful are the ones who are authentic.  Who you are and what you stand for is every bit as important as the product/service you provide.

Ruth runs a training course for us in this area, those who recently attended the course thought that the course gave them some valuable ideas and strategy to implement in their own information service departments.

TFPL Training Discussion Corner

Key Training Points and Thoughts in May

Our training in May has covered Introductory areas in Information Architecture and Microsoft SharePoint for the those outside the IT department

Information Architecture Foundation Programme - The big issues raised and covered were:
 
The difficulty of using "sensible" URLs with some of the content management systems that are being used.
Handling archiving of web material which might need to be accessible (at the same URL) for record purposes
The lack of librarianship skills in internet/intranet teams and how to deal with this

Introduction to SharePoint 2007 - Real world practicalities of architecting and managing SharePoint on an ongoing basis were of particular interest for the attendees. As is often the case, many of SharePoint’s  idiosyncrasies of terminology and concept, were made concrete by some live demonstrations. SharePoint is particularly good in this “on-the-fly” mode, as once learnt (which takes time!) it’s administration and configuration interface is quick and powerful. Working through an example information architecture with one of the attendees proved a good way to re-emphasise some of the SharePoint strengths and weaknesses already mentioned.

As always we are keen to hear from you, are you having similar experiences and issues?  Are these topic areas currently important to you?

Challenges for Libraries in Government from NGLIS

I attended the NGLIS conference recently and have to say it was definitely worthwhile.  The speakers were interesting coming from a variety of backgrounds with working history in government corporate and academic sectors.  David Smith CKO of Department of Communications and Local Government opened the conference with a very interesting but daunting picture for the coming months in central government library and information services.  He ended though by pointing out that there were opportunities to be taken advantage of even in such times.

Key areas covered included the fear of the information service as becoming an easy target for budget cuts and the importance to educate users in information literacy and the value added service the information department can provide. David went on to discuss the impact of Web2.0 technologies and the challenges presented by information department mergers and management of electronic resources.

David ended though by pointing out that there were opportunities to be taken advantage of even in such times, which can be seen in KIM compliance and the development of skills and capabilities in this area for individuals.

Other speakers were Paul Whiffen Head of KM at HMRC talking about KM theory and practice, Sheila Corrall Professor of Librarianship & Information Management and Head of Dept of Information Studies at Sheffield University who you may know from her work with CILIP who did an interesting talk on information literacy, illustrating what they have done at Sheffield and how it can be applied in Government and John Wright Head of Open Source Change and Delivery at FCO delivered a case study of the changes seen in FCO through its re-structure one year on. 

After an excellent lunch with delicious chocolate torte for dessert enjoyed by everyone it was on to the workshops which covered key themes of Web2.0 uses for business, Information Literacy and Competency Based Interviewing

Claire Fry one of our recruitment consultants who attended the competency based interviewing session had the following comments to make:

The competency-based interviewing workshop got off the ground with an introduction to ‘competencies’, what they are and how valuable they can be in recruiting the best person for any role.

The use of competencies (in an ideal world) creates a level-playing field so that regardless of anyone’s background, they can be considered for positions purely on the basis of their experience, abilities and skill-set.

In the current climate of evolution and change, it would seem that more and more employers are leaning towards competency based selection. This is to ensure that the recruitment process is both fair and that only the most talented people are chosen to fulfill these newly emerging positions in today’s market.

This ties in nicely with David Smith’s comment in his Keynote talk that:
’ the Information professional is going to have to look outside their immediate arena if they are to evolve and survive the changes going on……….you might have a degree in History, but you don’t necessarily have to be a Historian;   you’ve got to look at the broader application of a skill-set’

I attended the Web2.0 session which was very interactive and got us all thinking about the different technologies available through Web2.0 and how they could be applied to different business scenarios.  The group was split into 3 and each asked to come up with a business problem that they had come up against.  The speaker for each team was then moved on to another team to act as the customer and that team as consultants to deal with the problem.  The consultants were given a budget to work with and cards with allocated costs and explanations of each of the web2.0 technologies available.  It really got the brains working after lunch which can sometimes be a bit of a slump period and was an excellent way to actively learn about the different options available.

All in all the day was very informative will plenty of time given over to networking and discussions around speaker subjects.  I think everyone went away with new ideas and thoughts to tackle when they returned to work.

The changing face of information research departments

A recent article in Library Information Update (April 2009) caught my eye.  The article centres around the outsourcing of information departments in particular a deal worth £50million to outsource a UK law firm’s knowledge and information service to  Integreon.  Interestingly though, whilst there are clearly cost advantages to be made from an outsourced model, Chris Bull European COO of Integreon sees this as part of a blended solution and not a way to take over from the traditional in house libraries and information services.  This to me sounds like a sensible way to look at things, economies of scale for the purchase of information licences for researchers can be achieved through outsourced services.  In addition though there are specialist skills, knowledge and relationships that have been built up over the years between in house departments and their internal clients around specific company business.

Interestingly however, when I attended the NGLIS conference last week there was a consistent theme running through the day around the justification of library and information services, the education of end users on the value of the service and how to use it in times when budgets are being cut left right and centre.  There is deep concern around the fact that the library information service is seen as an easy resource to cut as apparently most end users can find what they want through Google - or at least they think they can....

TFPL have seen that generally in the market place information departments are facing budget cuts as much as any other business department.  Perhaps the savings achieved through outsourcing may be one way to deal with these cuts whilst still maintaining the quality of research needed but is it a cost of lost of key business knowledge as a result?

 

I was talking with Sylvia James, one of our experienced trainers who was working for us through the last recession.  She saw these issues come up then too and wrote a training course around this to help people working in the information service put a financial value on a service that is quite often not very tangible.  Sylvia has updated this course for us and we plan to run this very soon.  She also wrote an article for the Business Information Review back at the end of 2004 around this subject entitled Valuing Business Information Services.

We are also complementing this training with other courses run by a new trainer Elisabeth Goodman looking at how to educate your end users in information literacy and optimise the skills within your existing team for those who are having to look at budget cuts and organisational re-structure as a result of the cuts.  As always we are keen to hear as to how useful these subject areas are for you, all comments and queries are welcome.

Secondary Private Equity - What is important now?

Crises in the financial markets has led to an influx of sellers of private equity assets into the market,  understanding this market, how it works and the deals involved I believe has become more important in recent times  as deals take longer to go through and in some cases buyers walk away from deals they were happy to agree to only weeks earlier. 

According to peHub the market is busy but this is not reflected in the amount of closed deals.   Neuberger Berman, recently formed from an MBO from its failing parent - Lehmans invested only 15% of its pool in the  secondary private equity market last year - 
http://www.pehub.com/40502/neuberger-berman-secondary-deal-flow-at-an-all-time-high-only-called-15-of-fund-last-year/

Caution is clearly rife and good information is more vital than ever so in addition to understanding the Private Equity market one must have an excellent research information department to provide key information on companies and  deals. However, as previously noted many jobs and so skills are being cut in the market place.  So what is the solution to ensure that deals can be made effectively and to change the balance between the amount of sellers and buyers?

Sylvia James, our trainer in this area with a wealth of experience and expertise in the Corporate LIS marketplace says that "even though the large LBOs have dried up, there is still activity in the MBO market and good research is needed more than ever to back all deal decisions. There may also be opportunities for LIS professionals to offer services to PE firms, who have previously not had formal information and research in-house"  What are your thoughts?

TFPL Training Discussion Corner

Key Training Discussion Points and Thoughts in April

We have run a number of training courses over April in subjects ranging from the Web to Taxonomies and Project  Management.  We are always interested in reviewing and keeping our course material relevant to your training needs now and value your thoughts and comments in these areas.  Have you had similar experiences to those covered below or are other topics more important to you? 

Writing for the Web - How relevant are writing samples and how does this translate into what senior management  expectations are for it? A lot of the time web writing is reviewed by colleagues who have as much or even slightly less knowledge about writing in this medium - Would an online editorial peer to peer review place be of value?  Would there be problems using such a service if what is written is sensitive to the company in question?  Or would your company be interested in engaging in a service that would provided confidential peer to peer reviews of your material with respect to any business sensitivity over confidentiality?

Introduction to Project Management - In these times it is not only budgets that are stretched people are too, time management is a key skill.  The course also discovered current pressing issues around being able to value your work  in financial terms and managing of communication flows and expectations in a multi cultural global environment with  teams that are spread across time zones around the world.  As a direct result of feedback the project plan example is to be developed further into a more detailed on line version.

Introduction to Taxonomies - Facet analysis was key for these course attendees with a recognised need for a number of people to perhaps consider a more detailed look at this area in the follow on Faceted Taxonomies course.  How important is it in an information rich world to consider the role different people's perspectives play in their searches for information?  Individual facets are becoming as important if not more so than browse taxonomies that use hierarchical structures.

Building a Fileplan for Electronic Records - Key topic here was application of records management methodology and practice in a changing technological environment.  Organisations still need good records management but the changing face of technology notably in the form of SharePoint which has not been developed specifically to support the methodology is proving challenging.  Key questions around the pros and cons of tagging on an EDRM system behind SharePoint was also explored and has motivated our trainer James Lappin to write further about these issues - for further information see 
http://thinkingrecords.co.uk/2009/05/10/the-different-approaches-to-getting-moreq-2-compatible-edrm-systems-to-work-with-sharepoint-2007/