- Bell’s Presentation – steal this ..
 

• Made Video of Question to start off presentation
• Hand drawn pictures and text

Name a Librarian who is an Entrepreneur? .. don’t now
Name any Entrepreneur? Gates, Trump .. don’t know

Confusion with “resourceful” “innovative”

7 Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneur

1. Opportunistic: Israel and waste water
2. Creative Genius (or Team) Intermittent Windshield wiper (Pixar)
3. Customer Focus (Zappos)
4. Persistence (Berners-Lee)
5. Connect the Dots (spotting trends, see same things differently)
6. Passion (Blended Librarian Online Community)
7. Risk Taking

“Sessions” – Library chat platform – North Carolina

Social Entrepreneurship: Creating Future Libraries (Aaron Schmidt – notebook)

“Design Thinking”  IDEO “Deep Dive” (Nightline episode)

The Design Approach:

• empathic thinking (experience it live .. not by survey)
• identify problem before the solution
• brainstorming process
• prototyping process
• formative summative evaluation (let people try it)

10 Tips for Aspiring Librarian Entrepreneurs

1. Listen/Observe
2. Accept Hard Work
3. Something is better than nothing
4. Break a Few Rules (not so policy driven)
5. Ask Open-Ended Questions
6. Balance Risk & Evolution (use incremental change)
7. Develop Sticky Ideas – (Made to Stick – Dan Heath Book) – elevator pitch, succinct, emotional
8. Time For Ideas : 20% time for thought and reflection (watch for Google Waves)
9. Keeping Up  (Bell’s Keeping Up Blog) – trends, next big thing, disruptive technology
10. Use the Zoom Out Lens (JCollins … when things get tough)
11. Know your Core Values

Next Steps

• Talk to Users in their Natural Habitat
• Talk About Core Values with Stakeholders
• Talk about Design Thinking
• Talk about Risk Tolerance Level

Blog: Designing Better Libraries

In Video: Jim Neal (Columbia)

• Unbundle Heirarchy
• Create New Units
• Create Maverick Unit

Comments from Audeince

.. ways around flat hierarchy .. (ie. cross functional groups)
.. too flat makes a lot of work (need some .. hmm makes me think of Monkey)

*** Bell Also Mentioned Reference desks going away ***

Conference Summary Ideas: Wake Forest Dir.

Risk Management over Risk Taking
Paying faculty to work on better library assignments
AU Libraries Professional Development Blog
NJ Inst. Tech .. Doing interesting things

• Not only provider
• May not be best
• Not First provider (14th in OCLC Survey)
• We compete with each other (libraries)
• Staffing: poaching & book publishing

Competitors: (Options)

• Bookstores (Physical and online)
• Mom & Pop
• LSSI – outsourcing lib services (public, small academic, special libraries and they do it well)
• E-Books
• Social Networking: .. is this replacing “library as place”
• Google: 99 cent chapters on horizon – idea maps – time maps (check out) .. also repackage existing services for new markets
• (Slide: Visual Of Hundreds of 2.0 icons)
• iTablet
• Espresso Machine: Books on Demand (500,000, Million by 2010 books on it)
• Redbox VD rental .. total automation
• Flexible flex screens

There are competitors we cant see …

• Day Care
• Lack of time to go to the library
• Entertainment
• SEE .. “The Hidden” chart in ppt

Potentials:

• Walmart sells more books than Amazon, B&N and BooksaMillion combined
• Kiosks – that print out paperbacks and provide e-copies

Competitive Responses:

• Respond like a business
• Expand performance assessment
• Include competitive scanning /and intelligence
• now service environment
• innovate
• increases access, alignment and accountability
• value assessment!

“A Flat World Library” -  Biblioteca de Santiago (Chile)
See YouTube on Biblioteca

Never had a library .. had clear set of needs .. built strictly according to need

• Everything On wheels
• Don’t Shelve – RFID Tags,
• Wireless
• Power system portal
• Customer delivery
• Art Museum
• Customized Seated
• Open 120hrs week
• 270,000 Sq Foot Bldgs
• Audio/Voice and Touch Screen Workstations
• 4000 Volunteer

Anthropologist in the Library to watch

Georgia State University (Learning Commons) .. Outreach Efforts

Assignment Calculator (widget)

Webheat (Univ Minnesota)

Campus Collaborations: (Idea .. meet with Student Activities)

• Office of New Students
• At Risk Students Program
• McNair Scholars (Honors students) .. paired with faculty on research .. designed for them – sessions and breakout with liaison librarian
• Black Sorority Project
• Freshman Friday: Fri. before school starts. – Passport stamps (redeemable) .. food and games, movies, chill out stations.. just get them in the library .. tee shirts, coffee tickets, frisbee magnets.
• Family Weekend – leftovers from Freshman Friday
• Chillax .. during finals week .. Episodes of Family Guy and Pizza .. (announced chat service and room reservations)

Ideas:

• Facebook Page
• Learning Commons Theatre (On YouTube) .. “Ghost Book” .. “Rude Computer”
• iTunesU

Failed Attempts

• Student Advisory Group
• Mystery Shopper (for evaluation of services) work With Marketing Class
• One Six Right Screening
• “old skool gaing”
• Online Drop-in Classes

Scan ISBN .. populates record and instant website listing.  Name Price.
Incl. Subject Listing. (50 bks/hr)
Pricing tool
Generates Packing Slip
Mailing included (figure in pricing)

Mentioned “Long Tail”
Google Books .. reeducated self

2 kinds of Entrepreneurship
Lifestyle (small, personal) vs High Growth (corporate)

NOTES:

• Identify a VERY Large problem tht needs to be solved
• Not necessarily something nobody is doing… some competition good.. just identify weakness and make it better
• Libraries Ideal for “Ubiquitous Entrepreneurship”
• Growth the idea to be self sustaining beyond your tenure (Exit)
• People Dont like to Adopt New Things

6 Steps

Problem -> Solution -> Product
Team -> Funding -> Exit

1) Problem ..

Spend Lots of Time (most) identifying a PROBLEM

• data + Research
• articulate it succinctly
• cite credible sources

2) Solution

• Benefits?
• Why is it unique?
• Why worth investigating?

3) Product

• Tech Specs
• Scales and Scope
• Design for Future (years out) … where is the product going

4) Team

• Functional Expertise
• Domain Expertise
• Initiative Person (worker bee)
• Political Person
• Succession .. who will take over
• Then do “Gap Analysis” – who is missing
• Then .. get them on advisory board or as a vendor

5) Funding

• Entrepreneurs Embrace Risk
• Investors Reduce Risk
• Mock up Pro-forma Budget (3-5 years)
• OK to Lose $

6) Exit

• Know logical conclusion (ie. solved problem, failure, can carry on without you)
• Exits can build credibility

See Six Step Template (Business Plan on One Page) – also develop “elevator pitch” version (clear, concise, sharable)

Look into “Venture Philanthropy” – “Entrepreneurial Philanthropy”

• Find Partners – spreads risk
• Build Teams
• Use other areas of organizations – i.e. Business school for business plan.
• Opportunity focused
• Should be small, simple and practical.. one idea at a time

Drucker: Links Entrep and Innovations

———————
Risk

• Some may chastise Libraries for taking risk (risk adverse) .. Libs have been rewarded for being conservative
• Risk Taking vs Risk Management – go for Risk Management
• Parallel to Investing
• Balancing risk, diversifying, reserves and using time

———————
Leadership

• Create culture of innovation .. hire ‘em and let ‘em go
• Some guidelines – don’t micromanage
• Instill principles and values
• Provide resources, rewards & incentives
• No perfect decisions – Take Leaps of Faith
• Resist order and completeness
• Don’t Manage for for Exceptions: Too much planning for for exceptions (policies)
• Design for typical occurances (98%) not Exceptions
• Empower people to make decisions on exceptions
• More risky when 1 person makes decisions
• Fear of Failure
• Fear of Success

———————
Organizational work (slide)

• Normal work -> R&D -> Innovation -> Transformative work
• Only funded to do “Normal work”

———————
Knowledge Management

• Open and collaborative – of interest BEYOND the institution
• Collect Institutional mission-based assets
• Proposes new discipline – “KIAS (Knowledge Information Arts & Sciences)” .. Knowledge Technology
• She says “open knowledge” will surpass published content

Re-Imagine:

• Curate .. notebooks, data, software, users are creating their own “personal knowledge systems”

———————
Opportunities:

• Open Movement  – resist control
• Social Networks: services (OCLC)
• Teaching new literacies and digitally challenged
• Leverage advantages of location and service
• Mini/Innovation Grants (Enrichment Grants) – up to $5000

Ideas:

• POD squared – Print on Demand / Purchase on Demand
• “Espresso Machine” Prints Books on Demand
• Utah – Western Soundscape Archive – cool – Funded by library & ILMS (westernsoundscape.org)

———————
Strategies:

• Fast track decision
• Be ready for opportunities
• Reinvent
• Experiment, shift, adapt
• Assume more risk
• Partner
• Plan in shorter time frames

———————
Summary Points (there is more … find .ppt)

• Stop dwelling on risk – risk is unavoidable .. live with and manage
• Small focused steps
• Not about information ..we’re about knowledge
• Spend resources to create transformative work
• Good ideas should be shared
• .. *** find .ppt for more ..

———————

• “Nothing breeds success like failure” – Kiplingers
• Just Do It!