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Rebecca Jones posted this in Organizations on March 17th, 2010 I spend most of my professional life facilitating decision-making in all kinds of libraries & organizations. I’m fascinated with how people make choices, how they decide, what influences these decisions – and what doesn’t.
I haven’t finished the book yet, so there will be more postings on this, but The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar is a fascinating study of how people – and publics – make choices. Why do I care about this? And why should all those in the library & information world care about this? Because every day, every minute, decisions are being made about your services, your libraries & their place in the community, the university, the organization. Look at the choices being made right now for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Libraries or New Jersey Public Libraries or the Community Access Program in Canada?
Some initial highlights:
- in North America, the more choices people have the less likely they are to choose one; many very successful companies (like P&G) have scaled back the # of products they offer — and the result is higher sales, higher revenues, higher profits. Iyengar’s work in this area started with her famous study of the “Jam selection” — when people were offered samples of 24 jams, few ppl choice to purchase 1. But when they were offered samples of 6 jams, they were 6 TIMES more likely to purchase 1. I identify with this; I hate huge malls with lots of stores. I’m MUCH more likely to purchase items in
Continue reading Choices: choose to read The Art of Choosing
The Economist’s Feb 25, 2010 issue has a special report on managing information targetting business but to be leveraged by all those in the information industry. Information management, which is all about understanding & applying information, is growing in businesses — so why are libraries being cut? We need to ask ourselves this.
Excerpts from the article: “Alex Szalay, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, notes that the proliferation of data is making them increasingly inaccessible. “How to make sense of all these data? People should be worried about how we train the next generation, not just of scientists, but people in government and industry,” he says.
Chief information officers (CIOs) have become somewhat more prominent in the executive suite, and a new kind of professional has emerged, the data scientist, who combines the skills of software programmer, statistician and storyteller/artist to extract the nuggets of gold hidden under mountains of data. Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, predicts that the job of statistician will become the “sexiest” around. Data, he explains, are widely available; what is scarce is the ability to extract wisdom from them.”
I hope I get this quote correct “If not now, when? If not us, who?”
Rebecca Jones posted this in Leadership on March 17th, 2010 Margaret Heffernan is a woman who knows her way around information Internet environment organizations. She’s not a noted author, particularly for women entrepreneurs, and is Executive in Residence at Babson College.
Continue reading Stop Whining, please – I can’t hear the people who are trying to move things forward over you
Jane Dysart posted this in Leadership, Lib, IM, KM on March 15th, 2010 Library Journal M & S 2010
Congratulations to all Library Journals Movers & Shakers! If you would like to meet and see some of them in action, join us at Information Today’s Computers in Libraries 2010, Apr 12-14 in the DC area. As speakers we have Gretchen Caserotti, Matt Hamilton, Jason Puckett, Maurice Coleman, Lisa Carlucci Thomas. Apologies to others I may have missed but I’m sure there will be lots of other Movers & Shakers from the class of 2010 at Computers in Libraries and I know there will be many from previous years! So come and network with them.
Bobbi Newman’s post pointed me to all these wonderful people this morning and provides links to more info about them. I also love the post from one of last year’s Movers & Shakers, Lori Reed, on how to be prepared for this award. Lori and Bobbi will also be at CIL2010. Join us!
Rebecca Jones posted this in Planning on March 9th, 2010 I just finished doing one of SirsiDynix’ free webinars — what a great experience! Focus Groups: Perceptions for Planning is really about when to consider using focus groups – when not to – and how. I liken focus groups to organizational leadership. To be an effective leader, you need to journey within yourself. The same is true for organizations. To be a leader, organizations have to know who they are, what they stand for, and where their leadership comes from — or doesn’t come at all. Leadership, for individuals and for organizations, involves discipline, integrity, focus and hard work.
Focus groups are a fabulous – and fun way – for an organization to better understand itself or one or more of its services and how it is perceived within its market or constituency.
To gather that “gold” afforded by groups, focus groups need to be approached as guided discovery into the perceptions & opinions of representatives of your community or your university or your corporation. The facilitator is really the guide leading the group as they explore a specific topic or section of their environment. It’s not a beef session or a forum for complaints or suggestions — it is a group’s opportunity to focus on a concept.
What’s most often forgotten by those putting focus groups together is that the there needs to be something in this for participants. The WIIFM (what’s in it for me) syndrome goes beyond the $5.00 gift certificate you may give them to get a coffee,
Continue reading Focus Groups: Gathering group gold
admin posted this in Featured on March 8th, 2010 So wonderful to see the creativity & fun in public libraries. Ontario Library Association challenged libraries to “pimp their booktrucks” – and they did! Ontario Library Service – North in Sudbury and Springwater Library (in between Collingwood and Barrie — hopefully that doesn’t offend anyone!) took the Gold & Silver medals. Way to go! We’ve been so privileged to work with both of these organizations — fabulous staff & hotbeds of humour.
We need more of this!
Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences on March 4th, 2010 It’s so exciting how Information Today is using its content management system to build a community for their conference events that I’m using Google’s doodle to celebrate with some fiddling! Yes today is the 332nd birthday of Antonio Vivaldi, an Italian composer. But I digress, something unusual for me, right?
Continue reading Computers in Libraries goes Social!
Jane Dysart posted this in Uncategorized on March 3rd, 2010 Google's Olympic Hockey Doodle
I have been fascinated by Google doodles for years and often include them in posts. Now here is an interesting article from Interbrand’s blog that all sites can learn from:
“Well, aside from being fun, inspiring, and surprising as a recent CNN interview with Google Doodle web designer Michael Lopez suggests, its also a fresh way to update Google’s extremely simple homepage—something that is harder than it might seem at first glance.”
With an extremely minimal and simple design, Google’s site is made up of three elements: “a colorful, iconic logo (the design of which, good and/or bad, is topic for another discussion), a search bar, and a massive amount of white space. This allows Google to be a calm, but positive breather before you dive into the bottomless whirlpool of information. ”
“And yet, while this approach is quite successful, these three elements can also be a little limiting when it comes to accurately representing a brand personality and staying fresh and relevant in the climate of an ever changing Internet. Google needed something else to visually carry the brand. Something that could speak to who they are, yet also be organic enough to mold to anything the world throws their way. Enter the Google Doodle.”
“What was initially a quirky holiday illustration is now becoming a vital tool in communicating Google’s brand personality. Visually, it gives Google endless possibilities in a technology market that has just that–endless possibilities. It enables Google to keep
Continue reading Google Doodles: Enhancing Brand & User Experience
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