Positioning The Information Profession and SLA For Success
In An Evolving World of Technology
Nancy SansaloneCOO/CFO
Special Libraries Association
Pharmaceutical And Health Technology Spring Meeting
April 6 - 8, 2008St. Petersburg, FL
“Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.”
Sir Francis Bacon
Planning For Change
Source: InternetWorldStats.com
Principles of Alignment
“Companies that enjoy enduring success have core values and a core purpose that remain fixed while their business strategies and practices endlessly adapt to a changing world.” – Collins & Porras
Alignment
Landscape
Key Objectives
Define: Strategic Issues
Define: Strategic Issues
• Formal mechanisms are needed to ensure all extensions of SLA are thinking, communicating and behaving as one enterprise
Key Findings
Define: Knowledge Gaps
Feedback is required from the following target audiences for future growth:
• CEOs and senior executives of global IP employer organizations
• Younger audiences already in the profession
• Professionals in adjacent career tracks where information
management plays a key role (i.e. medical research, analysts,
mergers and acquisitions)
• Students and faculty in library science programs
Define: Knowledge Gaps
Closing the Gaps
Define: Primary Research
Interactive Editor
•Respondents can rate the
appeal of key words and phrases
•Provides a truly interactive
concept testing experience
•Quantifies how compelling
your language is before you
go to market
Translate Message Exploration
Translate: Message Testing
What is Instant Response?
•Combines the most important components of quantitative, qualitative and in-depth public opinion research to test message delivery, understanding, believability and impact.
•A computer-based system,the IR dial displays second-to-second measurement of participant reaction to any verbal communication.
Translate: Message Testing
Instant Response Sessions
• Data from the InstantResponse dial sessions are displayed as computergenerated, continuouslines superimposed on thescreen.
• The video will illustrate the messages that work – and those that do not.
Translate Platform and Positioning
Celebrating The Past Anticipating The Future
SLA Centennial
SLA Centennial: Key Milestone
• Opportunity to establish a shared vision of the future for information professionals and SLA
• Opportunity to establish clarity and unity around SLA’s and the profession’s core purpose, ethos and value, including defining an institutional positioning that is relevant, differentiated and deliverable
The SLA Centennial in 2009 provides unique opportunities:
• Created Centennial Commission• Special Activities during 2009
– SLA Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO in Washington DC
– Traveling Exhibit– Contest– Oral History Project– History of SLA by Guy St. Clair
Centennial Activities
• Enhancing career development opportunities through SLA’s Click University– Increased Course
Offerings– Added Management and
Leadership Library from ebrary®
– New Certification Programs
• Development of Online Innovation Laboratory– Ability to Learn and Use
the Latest Emerging Technologies
– Populated with SLA-licensed Software and Open-source applications
– Offer Library of Members’ Innovations and Creations
Career Development and Technology
SLA Global Expansion
Questions