 |
SLA Georgia Chapter |
First, may I say that it is wonderful to really be in Atlanta . . . not just at Hartsfield, but truly in Atlanta! And it is wonderful to be in the company of fellow SLA members--surely some of the brightest, most interesting people I know.
For the sake of those of you who are on your lunch hour, I will try to keep my comments somewhat brief. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers after lunch.
I want to talk to you today about perspective, and about how important it is for you as information and knowledge professionals to strive to see yourself through the eyes of the people you serve.
I have heard it said that to get a true perspective of your own importance, you should get both a dog and a cat. The dog will worship you. And the cat will ignore you.
I assure you that my cat Sidney has a real talent for looking right through me!
Some of your clients view you a little like a dog would. To them, you are the source of all knowledge, and they are as loyal as the day is long. Bless them! But other clients . . . well, in their eyes, you are simply someone nice to have around. When they want you to be.
Your co-workers, your family members, your neighbors and your friends all have their own perspectives. To them, you are the great cook, or the one who is good with computers, or even the one who is very bad about being on time. All of these may be correct, but no one perspective captures all of your skills and knowledge, much less the values that are behind them.
It probably does not matter to you whether your neighbor views you as a whiz at wikis or the king of cataloguers. Who cares whether your uncle knows the difference between taxonomy and taxidermy? Their perspectives of you are based on other factors . . . the factors that matter to them, which may not square with the way you view yourself.
But if, from your client's perspective, you are simply a person who stacks books, you do have a problem. In fact, we all have a problem.
As Anaïs Nin wrote, "We don't see things as they are . . . we see them as we are."
And we clearly see that too many information professionals are underpaid, underappreciated and underutilized. We see too many jobs for info pros being cut from organizations, and too few being created. We see an economy that has suffered badly, at least in part because of bad decisions that were made on the basis of bad information. That is certainly the way it looks to us.
However, things may look quite different from your client's perspective. Efforts to educate the public about the value of information and knowledge professionals will have little effect if we cannot define the factors that really matter to the people who really matter.
We are the ones who must change. We must find a way to change our own perspectives . . . to see ourselves the way others see us.
And if we want our clients to adore us, like dogs . . . not ignore us, like cats . . . we must learn to adopt a new perspective.
Believe it or not, that is at the heart of the Alignment Research. It is not about changing our name--as helpful as that would have been on the association level. It is about changing the way you are perceived . . . changing it in a positive way that will leave no doubt about your value to your organization.
Back to dogs . . . How many of you are familiar with Cesar Millan? He is called the Dog Whisperer, and he is making millions with TV shows and books that teach people how to communicate with their dogs.
People have been trying to train dogs since the beginning of time, so why is Cesar Millan's technique so successful? The key is at the beginning of every show, when Cesar states the difference in his method: "I rehabilitate dogs. I train humans." To oversimplify, his goal is not so much to train dogs--but to teach people how to make themselves understood by dogs.
Dogs are willing to do what you want them to do only if you can learn how to make them understand certain things.
First, dogs must understand what you want, in a way that is meaningful to them. For example, dogs apparently do not understand much human language, so saying, "Spot, would you please have a seat?" will likely not work. But a simple word--Sit--accompanied by a hand command will usually get the idea across.
Don't laugh ? but you can use the same technique to effectively communicate with your clients and even your management . . . you know, the ones who you want to behave at budget time. How? By expressing yourself in terms that are meaningful to them.
The Alignment research provides a wealth of information on the language and concepts that your clients understand and better yet, respond to positively. Here is an example. If you talk about your effectiveness in management and dissemination of information, for example, do not be surprised if they ignore you. On the other hand, if you discuss your ability to get them the latest information quickly--information that you have analyzed and thereby transformed into timely, actionable knowledge--they may start drooling!
Notice that I used the word knowledge. To your client, knowledge is a term that is valued. It helps differentiate what you do from what the IT folks do. And it captures the added value that you bring to information--because you can validate it and analyze it, making it meaningful to your users.
One of SLA's major priorities this year is developing tools you can use to more effectively communicate your value to your organization. We have already begun posting on the SLA Blog a series of "Actions You Can Take Right Now" to make the Alignment research work for you. Let me read you the first action item:
1. Seek and Destroy Jargon
Dissemination, taxonomy, digitization, interlibrary loan, e-journal, information behavior . . . all of these words and terms are library shorthand immediately understood by most librarians. They can be very useful when you are communicating with one another.
However, like most shorthand, these examples of librarian jargon can be difficult for the rest of the world to understand. And that is a big problem, because the rest of the world generally includes the people who control your organization's budget.
Using language that people important to your career will understand is not "dumbing down." It is smartening up to the reality that we become our own worst enemies when we put barriers between ourselves and the people we serve.
Look at your Web site, job description, and any materials used to market or inform people about your services. Find every word that would not be immediately understood by a person outside of the library profession. Replace it or explain it.
It goes on to provide a link to a Web site that gives advice on library terms that people do understand. Remember, you are in command of your message. Put yourself in your client's shoes and state your business in terms that are meaningful to him or her. Don't be like the writer who said on opening night, "My play was a complete success. The audience was a failure." Or like the dog trainer who blames the dog for not understanding a command.
The second trick used by successful dog trainers is helping dogs understand how they will be rewarded for listening. In other words, they anticipate the universal question: "What is in it for me?"
The trick here is ascertaining what the dog--or the client--truly values. Some dogs want a treat. Other dogs will do anything for a favorite toy. It is the dog's values, not yours, that determines whether something is motivating or not.
So what do your clients value? One hint: just as you may not enjoy eating dog treats, your clients may not value the same things that you do.
If you work in a traditional bricks-and-mortar library, for example, your ability to manage the physical library and print collection may be a critical part of your job. If you are good at it, other information professionals no doubt admire you.
But that is not a role that motivates your clients nearly as much. What do they value? Again, the answers are in the alignment research.
Your clients appreciate your ability to provide competitive intelligence and the way you manage internal content. They value the way you create a culture of knowledge by training others in the best ways to find and use information.
And they appreciate the values you represent even more than the tasks that you perform. Specifically:
- They value your leadership and your role in ensuring that your organization has access to the information, insights and trends that facilitate good decision-making and create competitive advantage.
- They want accountability and results, so they are interested in hearing about the ways you save your organization time and money by providing value-added intelligence that is accurate, reliable and relevant.
- They put a high value on service, so they appreciate your efforts to find new and better ways to provide expert information to your organizations in a timely, accessible and convenient manner.
Does any of this mean that the more traditional skills practiced every day by information and knowledge professionals everywhere are without value? Of course not. Your skills are incredibly valuable, and it is incredibly important that you keep them up to date. You work in a rapidly changing sector. That means that you must keep up with technology--from the software and databases that keep your collection humming to the social networks your clients use to share ideas and incubate innovation.
Your management may not think that you are spending your time productively by attending a seminar on social networking. However, you know that social networking provides great opportunities to increase user knowledge about everything from the training you offer to the e-book collection you have invested in. By emphasizing the values of leadership, accountability and results rather than the specific task of social networking, that seminar looks better and better to management.
SLA has an incredible array of things to help you keep your skills sharp--from our free Click University Webinars to the Innovation Lab. Are you taking advantage of these valuable tools?
And have you registered for the 2010 SLA Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO? It's just down the road in New Orleans this year. Year after year, attendees tell us that the SLA annual conference is the best possible way to connect with the top thinkers in knowledge and information.
There will be more than 250 sessions and panels. Hundreds of vendors will be there to speak to you one-on-one about their latest offerings. And best of all, thousands of special librarians and knowledge and information professionals will be together in New Orleans!!! We are going to laissez les bon temps rouler, mes amis! And it just won't be the same without you.
Let's face it--it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. As the economy begins its slow recovery, every organization--from the smallest college to the largest corporation--will be challenged with new decisions about the best way to move forward.
You can play an important role in that process. You can be the go-to person for the information and knowledge that shapes those decisions. That is what alignment is all about.
Thank you! Enjoy your lunch, and if you are able to stay for a while afterwards, I look forward to addressing any questions you may have. And I hope to see you all again in New Orleans in June!
RSS
Feedback form
