Librarian Entrepreneurs: Demystifying a Professional Oxymoron: Steven J. Bell

- 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

Competition for Library Services  – Dr. Larry Nash White

• 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

Meeting an Unmet Need: Extending the Learning Commons Concept Through On­  Campus Partnerships and Branding – La Loria Konata; GSU Learning Commons

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

Alibris .. Sell Books

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

Jon Obermeyer: Lunch Speaker – Stacking the Odds for Success: A Six­ Stage Process to Articulate and Promote Your  Entrepreneurial Idea.

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”

Entrepreneurs

• 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!