Sometimes You Just Have to Work: And Marketing Just Has to Wait

January 26, 2010

As an IIP (Independent Information Professional) one of the first things you hear from your mentor is: “Don’t forget to market.”  Marketing is the easiest thing, besides bookkeeping to let slide when you work alone.

This blog is one of my marketing methods and boy has it slid lately.  I’ve been thinking about lots of things but once the work is done, the brain is too tired to make sense of my muddled thoughts about information access, content management and next-generation corporate libraries.

My first book.

So today I’m going to set work aside for a few moments and market.  Since October of 2008 I have published a book (Next Generation Corporate Libraries and Information Services), started a new contract position and landed a big project as well as taken on some steady research work for a handful of clients.

This is all good news for those of you who may have a need for a person capable of taking a special collection library and make strategic decisions about access to information either analog or digital.  It’s also good news for those who want to know how to position yourselves into a stronger role within your organization in today’s knowledge economy.  And let’s not forget those of you who just need to know how to organize your content, improve your processes and establish some protocols so that the critical data is easily found and the irrelevant or outdated stuff is swept away.

During the process of working on the projects I have undertaken I’ve increased my knowledge and the clients that come after will benefit from my ever continuing education.  A few central themes in the content management and product delivery process, no matter the industry remain constant.

  • Management is always  a problem.
  • Communication is always an issue.
  • Fast and careful execution is a key to success.

So if you have an information or content problem, need to understand what is causing delays in executing your much needed business process and product improvements, or just need a bit of research done you can bet that the Answer Maven will work first and market later to help you.

by Constance Ard 1/26/2010

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Fundamental Business Relations Lost in Translation

January 6, 2010

I was shocked this morning to read about the alleged cutting of half of Westlaw’s Library Relations Staff in the Geek Law Blog.  During a conversation last night a friend and I discussed the fact that often businesses don’t plan well for “What if?”  That’s human nature but as a business it is a necessity.

Too Comfortable

Comfort is a great thing but getting too comfortable when you are running a business leads to lots of problems.  A few of those problems include lack of attention to what allowed you to grow in the first place: marketing, relationship building and attention to base operations.

As Westlaw is rumored to cut half of the Library Relations positions, they seem to be forgetting the relationship part of business.  With more competition from Open Sources or affordable alternatives to legal research sources, frustration with increasing prices or poor performance or whatever else might be endangering the retention of business with a client, Thomson Reuters is self-inflicting further pain.  The Library Relations teams for both Westlaw and LexisNexis were fundamental to happy customer service when I was in the firm and I’m pretty sure it still is for my fellow law-library colleagues.

If any business begins to damage the key relationships with their customers, retention is endangered.  Bottom-lines often need to be viewed in the long-term not the quarterly or annual cycle.  Of course this is only the opinion of a very small business owner with very small client base where each client relationship is critical to my own success.  My clients are very important to me and I will meet their needs to the best of my ability every time.  Big or small businesses who adhere to that philosophy will profit.

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