Librarian of Fortune

Getting Your 10th Client

I just wrote a newsletter article for info-entrepreneurs on the importance of focusing on getting your 10th client, and not just your first one. The whole article's at BatesInfo.com/ie-tips.

Who judges what "good" search results are?

I had a great conversation with Chris Sherman at Web Search University about search results, which brought up to me an enormous disconnect between SEO and info pro communities. (Gee, what a surprise!)

He and I were comparing Google results for a particular search technique. Of the first 10 results, the second and sixth hits were spot on. Since it was a somewhat amorphous topic, I expected to have to wade through a lot of stuff to find what I was looking for. Two good hits from the first 10 was pretty good for me. Chris labelled those results as a #fail, since 80% of the results weren't useful.

My response: It's a question of precision vs. recall. Search engine marketers consider results with less than 90% relevance to be a failed search, because the precision wasn't high enough. Info pros, on the other hand, are often more concerned about recall; we want to make sure that we find as many useful resources as possible. For a difficult search, 10% or 20% relevance is just fine.

And this comes back to my ongoing theme that we info pros are far more data-tolerant than most people. Wading through page after page of search results is just fine with us, as long as we find something useful. And we often forget that our clients are far less data-tolerant than we are. One of the biggest challenges of info pros is limiting our results to the depth and breadth that our clients need. We want to keep digging deeper, and to send our clients all the fascinating information that we found, forgetting that this may be doing the client a disservice.

For more on distillation and making information more user-friendly, see my talk on adding value at BatesInfo.com/extras

 

 

Show people WHY before you tell 'em HOW

Last week, I heard a great presentation at Computers in Libraries by Tasha Bergson-Michelson, a Search  Education Curriculum Fellow at Google. One of the first things she asked the audience was whether anyone remembered the specific search techniques they had learned the day before. Very few hands were raised.

That got me thinking about the disconnect between presentations that are intended to transmit skills and those that are intended to provide insight. The latter, if done well, are always memorable; one of the reasons I love Twitter is that I can tweet insights from a presentation so that I find them later. A presentation that teaches skills – search techniques, for example – can often devolve into a recitation of features. “Google does this. Google does this other thing. Bing does this thing...”

The challenge for speakers is to make the information in practical presentations sticky. Tasha and I both use stories to engage audiences. When Tasha is teaching children search skills, for example, she challenges them to find information on D.B. Cooper, or the curse of King Tut’s tomb using Google. Give them something fun to search and they’ll learn how.

Summary: show people why and then they’ll pay attention to how

Dancing with Digital Natives

This is a great summary of Michelle Manafy's keynote presentation at Computers in Libraries (#CIL11). She's the author of the forthcoming book, Dancing With Digital Natives (which I have already pre-ordered).

Michelle is a great speaker - lively, forward-thinking, accessible, engaging.

Building your impact

I just realized that, while people often live-tweet my presentations, I don't often provide them with my Twitter handle (@mebs) so that they can include my handle in their tweets. I'm now going to include that in my slide decks...

When you are speaking to an audience, either f2f or virtual, remember to make yourself easily Tweetible. Remind people of the event's hashtag (make one up if the organizers haven't already) and your handle. Anything else you might want to include?

Best hits of MEB...

I recently added a few evergreen topics to my Info-Entrepreneur Tip of the Month archive:

The Imposter Syndrome

The Informational Interview

How to Get the Most From a Conference

Comments?

10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started My Business

I'm often asked by my coaching clients what I wish I had known when I launched my business. Of the numerous lessons I learned the hard way, these are the 10 that I see as key:

• Make all your decisions with the assumption that you will still be in business in five years. Knowing that you'll live with the long-term results of your choices ensures that you will make wise decisions.
  
  
• It's always about the client's needs; it is never about your qualifications. Never pitch a service until you know why your client would want it.
  
  
• Create what Alan Weiss calls "marketing gravity" -- you want to attract clients, not chase after them.
  
  
• Your clients are paying for insights, not information. Focus on what differentiates your from the $15/hour "research" services on the web.
  
  
• You have to initiate discussions about money and payment with your clients; remember that it's business, not personal.
  
  
• Volunteering is a tremendously effective way to market yourself, provided you are member-facing and you highlight your professionalism.
  
  
• Until a prospective client is willing to commit to a project, you're not talking to a client.
  
  
• Your clients will be the source of your ideas for new products or services. Listen to them when they say, "I don't know if you do this, but could you...?"
  
  
• Time management is critical. Can you stay focused and productive without an office structure or looming deadline?
  
  
• You will find this an even more rewarding job than you expected!