Purpose:              What is the goal of your blog?  What do you want to communicate or promote?  Be clear about this.

Description:       What do you want your site to look like?  Plan the physical description of the blog.  Sketch out your vision so you can “see” it before you build it.

Schedule:            How often will you be updating your blog?  Set a publication frequency that’s reasonable.

Audience:           Who are they?  What’s the target market?

Cost:                      How much?  Even electronic publications have a cost,  including  - and especially – the “cost” of your time!

Distribution:      How are you going to ensure that you reach your audience?  Where is the “Place” (another marketing “P”)?

 Person(s):          Where does the responsibility lie?  During set-up, you may want to create a project plan to identify milestones – especially if you are relying upon outside expertise to deliver certain aspects of your site.  After you are up and running, there are still ongoing responsibilities – even if it’s only for content (not an inconsiderable responsibility) – and even if that person is you!

Answered all the questions?  Got your plan in place?  You are set to succeed at Promotion.

The above elements were drawn from a lecture I gave to my Library Promotion class at Seneca College.  We were discussing the process for creating promotional tools – whether those tools were printed or electronic – and one of our points of discussion was the advantages / disadvantages of printed promotional material vs. electronic “publications”.  What do you think? Comments? Suggestions?

So have you made your plans for supporting the even greater tsunami of ebook seekers following holiday gift giving of electronic goodies?  If you thought it was ebook crazy last year, this year will be even multiplied at least ten fold.  Suggestion: make it really clear on the front page of your website how to deal with ebooks — how to download to particular devices (step by step), how to find ebooks in your collection, tips, FAQs, etc.  Be prepared so your customers don’t get frustrated and bypass your library.

Retailers have Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  I think libraries should have a catchy name for the ebook extravaganza following electronic holiday giving  – Ebook Xday, or maybe just Ebookday.  Got some other suggestions?

1. Don’t underestimate the power of Tribes.

2. If you have customers, social media matters.

3. People love a cause.

This is great news for libraries who have a fabulous cause/s — literacy (of words, technology, life and more), who have lots of customers (but could use more champions and supporters), and who certainly know lots about social media. Here is a great story about the impact of social media.  Let’s learn from it and get some great impact stories for libraries!

I’m regularly in meetings with information professionals discussing their positioning within a community, the university or organization.  Inevitably the conversation turns to ways & means of taking the information centre or library message to those who are new — the orientation of what the library can do for them. In the same way that the elevator encounter shouldn’t be our chance to speak but rather to ask and listen, orientation sessions are our chance to meet & listen to the newbies.  Especially if you are meeting one-on-one with a new faculty member or employee, welcome them — take them a coffee, or better yet, take them a voucher for a coffee to use for your next conversation — & find out where they’ve come from, what their new role is, etc. and set up the next quick conversation for that coffee.  At the next conversation, you can start to align the library’s services with their role, their experiences, etc.  Position the information services with their work in a meaningful way — a way that has meaning for them because it fits with what they are doing.

Listening isn’t about waiting to speak. Listening is taking in what people are saying and not saying. The next time you have a chance to chat with an influencer, use the  ”elevator listen” technique; curiousity has initiated many longer conversations and led to many  service innovations.  And that service excellence we are always aiming for? Well, since excellence is in determined by the individuals’ experiences, listen to how they’ll determine that excellence, be curious as to who they are & what they are doing, & they’ll be much more open to listening to you.

What keeps conference organizers awake at night? The nightmare that a keynote speaker may not arrive on time to address several hundred attendees. Although this happened this morning, Jane, Tom Hogan and other Information Today organizers handled the situation gracefully quickly creating a panel with Roy Tennant, Stephen Abram, Marshall Breeding and Dick Kaiser who discussed the issue of e-books-publishers-lending-libraries. My takeaways from this session:

• Although many in the library sector have been challenging Harper-Collins, the sector should focusing on Simon and Schuster who won’t license e-books to libraries at all
• Overdrive has been doing their best with e-books in the library environment
• Google’s agreement for every library to have “one Google terminal” for Google-digitized content does not include downloading or printing rights.

Madeline Barratt, Strategy & Performance Manager for Enfield Libraries in the UK spoke of London’s Libraries Consortium. Growing from 3 members to 15 in a couple of short years, the Consortium is yielding real benefits for all the boroughs. Madeline’s articulate, humourous delivery was engaging. My takeaways:

• “Challenges grow like weeds” even for those who fiercely believe in public libraries, collaboration & consortia
• One challenge is to maintain a collaborative model as membership grows; they are developing their governance model and considering options from a charitable trust to a legal entity
• as they grapple with bringing members to consensus on issues they remind members that “acceptance IS an option”
• Despite initial staff resistance, the benefits have helped ease staff concerns
• This is a consortia model to watch — and I will.

Cindy Hart of Virgina Beach Public Library brought positive passion to how they are “Measuring the Soft Stuff” of showing the ROI of social media marketing. Key points:

• the public thinks our brand is books, so don’t fight it, embrace it & build on it
• put measures in context; without context measures are meaningless
• “if what you’re doing doesn’t bring results, why are you doing it?”
• to measure the soft stuff – or, in their case, measure the value of social media including Facebook and Twitter:

1. establish goals; the library should have strategies, so establish goals towards these strategies; their goals are to build awareness, increase customer satisfaction  &  lower costs
2. Create a listening post; use Google alerts and other ways to find and listen to what people are saying about the library
3. Decide what segment or market you want to reach; look at those who mention the library, comment or just look at the library
4. Identify possible influencers — those who are key influencers, social influencers (they like to comment) andknown peer influencers (this is the most powerful group for their library as their opinions are important to others)
5. Recognize sentiment; what do people like/not like? ignore the dislikers & complainers and always take the high road when/if you respond to them
6. Trigger actions; when people hit a button to access you the “button” you’ve provided is the trigger; what you are aiming for is “Recommends” – you want people to “recommend” Library tweets and Facebook comments/items
   

   Cindy Hart Trigger Actions

Mike Crandall and Samantha Becker from the University of Washington Information School reported on the results of the IMPACT Survey, the first large-scale study of who uses public computers and internet access in US public libraries and how this access benefits their lives and communities.  This is a survey that needs to be replicated in all communities, countries and post-secondary environments.  Public libraries are encouraged to participate, using the tools (including powerpoints & reports automatically generated for them using their data).  I talked with Mike briefly after their presentation about the possibility of leveraging this survey in the post-secondary environment. Highlights:

• 40 percent of library computer users (an estimated 30 million people) received help with career needs. Among these users, 75 percent reported they searched for a job online. Half of these users filled out an online application or submitted a resume.a
• 37 percent focused on health issues. The vast majority of these users (82 percent) logged on to learn about a disease, illness, or medical condition. One-third of these users sought out doctors or health care providers. Of these, about half followed up by making appointments for care.
• 42 percent received help with educational needs. Among these users, 37 percent (an estimated 12 million students) used their local library computer to do homework for a class.
• Library computers linked patrons to their government, communities, and civic organizations. Sixty-percent of users – 43.3 million people – used a library’s computer resources to connect with others.

And then it was my turn (gulp).  In Performance Measures: Illustrating Value for Your Community I reinforced Cindy Hart’s points:

• value is in the eyes of your influencers, decision-makers or stakeholders (those who can put a stake of support under the library or a stake through its heart)
• statistics without stories that paint context and meaning are numbers; stories eat statistics for breakfast
• in many cases libraries aren’t at the decision-making table because they didn’t enter the restaurant — they didn’t have lunch with influencers to understand the influencers’ context and what they are trying to accomplish — they didn’t build relationships with decision-makers to understand what measures those decision-makers WILL value; there’s no sense in managing measures that decision-makers won’t believe
• OCLC’s finding that “Libraries that are seen as transformational, instead of informational, are more likely to be funded” is so true; use stories with a few, very few validating statistics, to demonstrate how the library is transforming or impact students’ achievement, people’s ability to find jobs, seniors’ ability to use e-government, etc.
• we have long asked “what library is doing, how much is it doing, how well is it doing it, and who is using it? We should be asking “What difference did the library make?”
• determining what is of value to your community, and illustrating that value begins with conversations and ends with conversations

The steps in an effective performance measurement system are:

1. understand the context of your decision-makers
2. align your strategies and goals
3. identify programs and services that support those strategies and goals
4. define the measures
5. manage the collection of those measures
6. interpret the data (in fact, get others outside the library to help interpret the data -  those who don’t have “the library lens”)
7. communicate the value

Patricia’s latest book is called Tipping the Culture: How Engaging Millenials will Change Everything. It is an ebook and is available for free download.  We are going to be talking about  this book and how we can learn from, live with, and influence millenials next week in the Conversations with Leaders series from the Education Institute.  To join us, sign up and listen in from your desk or a conference room with your colleagues.  It will be fun and interesting!

We’ll be tweeting @ #SC2011.

Check out the Poster Sessions Thursday, February 3, 2011 and Friday, February 4, 2011, 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Each day a set of 16 displays will be set up for viewing for the full 2 hours. Individual presenters will be given a 45-minute presentation time within the 2-hour period.

We are also talking….and talking….and I don’t just mean talking in that restaurant at the Intercontinental (although we WILL be talking & laughing in there too!), but at sessions. These sessions!

Thursday February 3 @ 9:05 a.m. Visioning: More Than Words or Plaques! Stay tuned for those slides.

Later that same day…..@ 3:45 p.m. Thinking Strategically & Critically: Seeing Possibilities. Here’s the slides, but do come & test your critical thinking approaches.

Friday February 4 @ 2:10 p.m. Innovative Approaches in Library Service Delivery. We’ll present with Deane Zeeman of Library & Archives Canada about research regarding innovative information services underway in corporate & government organizations.

And, later THAT day @ 3:45, Jane will present Change Management: A View with Our Colleagues with Ryerson University Library as well as John Pullinger, the UK’s House of Commons Librarian. Stay tuned for those slides too.

I’ll be across the hall with Moe Hosseini-Ara, Director Service Excellence at Markham Public Library exploring Secret Shopping: Lessons for Library Services – also at 3:45 p.m.

Look forward to seeing many friends at the conference & to hearing many insightful presentations!

These are just a sampling of these ads, with Arnold Hirshon, Associate Provost and University Librarian, as “Executive Producer” and other staff in various starring and creative roles. Brilliant.

Then there’s the Samuel B. & Marian K. Freedman Digital Library, Language Learning & Multimedia Services Center within KSL, buzzing with students using the state-of-the-art equipment to “to utilize both analog and hardcopy information sources in digital works, presentations, and research” and basically create whatever they imagine.

KSL is, like many academic libraries, rethinking its physical spaces and places. To fully engage students, they are holding a contest, awarding $2500 to the winning proposal – not just a design concept, but an architectural design in support of strategic programming. Wow.  This is a happening place – with happening staff who are forward looking, collaborative and wonderful to work with. Wow.

I had a great conversation this morning with Pat Martin of Litlamp Communications and author of Renaissance Generation: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer & What it Means to Your Business. Pat is an expert marketer, strategist, and a wonderful speaker.  She is the opening keynote speaker at Internet Librarian 2010 next month, Monday October 25th, in Monterey CA.  She will talking about adding value to your community and I know has great examples, suggestions, and tactics.  She is very creative when it comes to partnerships and has worked with ALA in the past so understands the information community and respects its strategic position for dealing with the cultural consumer of today.    Hope you can join us for this Pat’s talk.