Librarian of Fortune

Berlin Holocaust memorial

I'm in Berlin to give an all-day workshop on "When Librarians Rule the World" (and for you non-librarians, be afraid.... be very afraid). Today, I re-visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. An utterly amazing memorial - I've never seen a place that says so much without words. The photos on their web site don't do it justice, and I haven't yet figured out how to upload photos to my blog, alas.

taxi cab woes

It seems that I've had more than my share of taxi rip-offs over the years, the most memorable one being a ride from the Philadelphia Amtrak station to a hotel. The ride took about 20 minutes and involved several freeways. Whatever. I paid the fare, the cab driver drove off, and then I turned around and looked down the street from the hotel. I could see the Amtrak station about 10 blocks away. Another time, I gave an address and was driven all over town, to wind up 2 blocks from the train station. (And yes, wherever I am, I always ask the dispatcher what the fare will be; the dispatchers in Philly have consistently refused to give me an estimate. I think they're all in on the scam...)

Philly needs the system that the Newark Airport has -- you go to the taxi stand, tell the dispatcher where you're going, and he tells you the price and lets you pre-pay the fare with your credit card, giving you a voucher that you give to the driver at the end of the trip, along with whatever tip you want.

driving in Mexico

While in Mexico a few weeks ago, we were driving down a fairly recent highway (formerly a 2-lane road). The government is obviously trying to teach folks the rules of the road; signs every 500 yards along the road repeatedly reminded drivers:
* An accident changes your life forever
* Do not drive on the shoulder
* Seat belts save lives
* Do not speed
* Go slow, save your life
* Obey the speed limit
* Don't throw trash on the side of the road
* Pay attention to the road

Despite all the reminders, it seemed that the only thing that slowed drivers down were the killer speed bumps as we passed through towns -- they required drivers to slow from 75 mph to about 15 mph.  Otherwise, it's basically "drive fast and pray."

Providing added value

I recently conducted a series of interviews with info pros who work in large organizations, to find out how they conduct online research. One of the most unexpected  findings was that about 40% of the info pros provide little or no massaging of the material they retrieve; they either forward search results directly to the client or they simply package the results in a Word or PDF file and then send it on to the client. Another 40% of info pros provide a moderate amount of added value to their deliverables, including creating a table of contents, removing irrelevant results and prioritizing articles, writing an executive summary of results, and so on. Only 20% of the info pros write full-blown reports based on the research they conducted, with market share analysis, SWOT analysis and so on.

I was very surprised -- I had assumed that virtually all info pros offered at least some degree of post-processing, which IMHO is one of the best ways to inoculate clients against outsourcing to the cheapest vendor around the world.

Many of the info pros said that they simply didn't have the time or skills to offer any added value. To self-promote for just a moment, I'll note that I am offering a half-day CE workshop in conjunction with the Special Libraries Association conference in Seattle this June on post-processing. Here's the description of the workshop:

"What Do I Do AFTER I Log Off? Being a Value-Adding Info Pro"
This lively half-day workshop will look at that part of research which takes place after you finish your searching. What are the most cost-effective and efficient ways to add value to your research results? How can you create deliverables that make it clear to your clients the value you add? How do you make yourself invulnerable to the "It's All On The Web For Free" syndrome?  This workshop will provide you with the tools, resources and techniques to enable you to clearly demonstrate the additional value that information professionals bring to their organization.

Carl Malamud strikes again

Carl Malamud is best known by many info pros as the man behind the EDGAR project to make SEC filings accessible to the public. He is now taking on, among other things, the US Supreme Court -- see United States Reports to read the full text of Supreme Court cases from 1754 to the present. Note that these files are quite incomplete right now, but he's working on it. The user interface is, um, minimalist, but I assume that we'll have developers adding some basic finding tools soon. More on Malamud's work at public.resource.org

Richard Koman of ZDnet has a good article on this project.

an ah-ha about marketing

One of the services I provide is business coaching for info-entrepreneurs. I was chatting with a colleague the other day about marketing plans, and I had an epiphany:

To achieve your goal, plan backward instead of forward

Sounds non-intuitive, doesn't it? But think for a minute. The most effective way to complete a project or solve a problem is to identify what your goal is (or the issue is that needs to be resolved), and then figure out how to get from here to there. Note that you establish the end point, and then look from that point of view to determine what needs to be done in order to get to that end point.

So, in the case of your professional life, you start with your measurable, tangible goals for what your business (or your career) will look like at the end of the year, and then you identify the specific marketing actions that will get you to that goal by the end of the year. Each of your marketing activities is tied directly to one or more of your specific goals.

FUMSI site

Yes, FUMSI is not the most felicitous acronym, but check it out anyway. This is the new site from the folks who brought you FreePint, and it stands for Finding, Using, Managing and Sharing Information... like, what lots of info pros do. The FUMSI site offers free articles on each of those four aspects of the profession. They also sell subscriptions to a monthly magazine; the subscription also includes other reports and a discount on other FreePint products.

Factiva Search 2.0 improves

Just got an announcement that Factiva Search 2.0 (the end-user-oriented search interface) has improved. Until now, it has only supported a 90-day archive, a little-known limitation that has kept me from using it much. Now, you can set your preferences to search a year's worth of content. Search 2.0 is a cool interface, with a "Discovery Pane" that offers some data-mining not offered by its competitors. If you have have put off using 2.0 because of its end-user feel and lack of functionality, try it out again.