Elisabeth Leonard on Libraries

Innovation: Hype and Heresy

I think about innovation. A lot. It is an admitted obsession. I think it started because I grew up afraid of my own shadow, but once I gained confidence, I wanted to make up for lost time! Yes, it has taken me years to figure out who I am and what I want from my life. And so, yes, I can’t then be surprised that libraries are taking as long as I have taken (if you think about the life of the library in Elisabeth years…). HOWEVER….
I am ready to see libraries and librarians take an active stance. I am tired of hearing us debate our future and not act on it. It feels like we are marching in place, rather than moving forward. And this is happening as new professionals leave the field because their ideas are not heard, as existing librarians have their salaries frozen and their job duties increased as positions are frozen or eliminated.
I want us to admit to our successes. I often hear “fail cheaply” given as innovation advice at library conferences. Look, if there is one thing librarians do not need to hear it is advice on frugality! We are innately good at that. So, I exhort you instead to think about succeeding extravagantly. Shout your success from the rooftops! It may seem immodest, but really, if we can’t brag about ourselves, who else wIll?

Organizational innovation
Organizations have personalities. You can tell when you visit libraries and talk to the staff how different one library can be from another. So what makes for a library strategically innovative?
• An explicit definition for innovation
• An organizational recognition that innovation is both a culture and a goal
• A shared mission and strategic direction
• Willingness to spend resources on innovation
• Training and support for existing staff
• Hiring new employees who want to be part of an innovative culture and who have talent to contribute

Let me talk about why and how these organizational documents are important. When I have interviewed librarians and middle managers about their organizational documents, many are unsure if innovation is mentioned anywhere. More telling is that many are unsure if their library has a mission statement or a strategic plan. If an organization wants to be clear about its direction and wants to have everyone work toward the strategic direction the leader has set, then that must be clearly and regularly communicated.
What does innovation mean at your organization? I have seen it mean anything “new” to anything that uses technology. For me, innovation is something new to your organization, including products, services, and processes, that adds value for your patron. The value piece is key. I have seen too many times when something is introduced in a library simply because another library has done it…and that idea maybe didn’t add in value locally, but it starts to spread because some library directors seem desperate to illustrate they too can change.

The strategic planning process itself illustrates a library’s personality and employees instinctively take away clues. A hierarchical and autocratic management structure is much less inclusive than a flat structure. If library management wants to believe that everyone in the library will be innovative and thinks that the managers will write and present a plan that says that…and then believe that they have created a culture of innovation, think again! Innovation in such an organization can exist, but it is much more likely to exist as pockets of innovation than as a library-wide pervasive culture of innovation.
Budget
Ideally, the organization’s administration is willing to put its money where its mouth is by allocating funding for new ideas that support the strategic plan. Here’s an idea for managers to try: let go of some control. Let everyone in the library present a plan for an idea and ask for funding for it. This is kind of like the business plan competitions you may see elsewhere on campus!

My tips:
• Reinforce positive behavior, even if the outcome is exactly what you personally wanted. Changing behavior takes time, so recognize the small steps that get us all there.
• Create opportunities. Find ways to give people a voice and ways to act on their ideas.
• Be intrepid.
• Look outside libraries for ideas. We can be too incestuous with ideas.
• Recognize when your idea is not the best and be willing to work to see someone else’s vision come to fruition.
• No one wants to lead…but no one wants to follow. We must do both.
• Be willing to have tough conversations, so create a safe environment where everyone can be heretical.
• Innovating can be threatening. Be kind to each other.
• In my innovation utopia, managers check when and how they say no….and employees do the same.
• Find your joy. This one comes from my grandfather who told me this when I was a teenager. Joy doesn’t come to you and chasing it is frustrating. Make finding joy a regular activity in your life.
• Breathe.

Why this long list? Because each part when added together creates a healthy whole, both organizationally and individually. We all are responsible for fertile soil, regardless of position in the library, age, gender, or years of experience. All ideas should be welcomed. Every library should be able to avoid the hype of innovation and instead find their way into a strategically placed future that demonstrates the real value of their library.

Want some research I have done that illustrates this?  Here are some figures from findings presented at the Conference for Entrepreneurial Librarians with my co-author Betsy Clementson, and which will soon be published in New Review of Information Networking.

Librarians' innovative characteristics

 

Comparing our sample to other results

 

The Rabina paper is very interesting!  If you haven't read it, take a look.  Rogers Diffusion of Innovations is a classic read and one of the most highly cited work in all the social sciences.  However, both these works look at consumers, while our research looked at organizational innovation. 

 

“Living and Learning With New Media.”

In a new report, “Living and Learning With New Media”, how social media fit into the lives of teens is explored.  Interesting findings include:

• Most youth use social networks to extend their existing friendships, not to create new relationships.
• "A smaller number of youth also use the online world to explore interests and find information that goes beyond what they have access to at school or in their local community.  Online groups enable youth to connect to peers who share specialized and niche interests of various kinds, whether that is online gaming, creative writing, video editing, or other artistic endeavors."
• "Through trial and error, youth add new media skills to their repertoire, such as how to create a video or game, or customize their MySpace page. Teens then share their creations and receive feedback from others online. By its immediacy and breadth of information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning."
• In a term new to me, "some youth “geek out” and dive into a topic or talent...with the goal of improving their craft and gaining reputation among expert peers."

Extrinsic motivation

If Kent State Beats Goals, Professors Will Profit - Chronicle.com.

When I was growing up, my mom used to pay me to clean.  It really was the only method that worked!  I would rather be spanked than clean for free!  (Sadly, still true).  And I have heard that some schools are paying students for good grades.  But now, one university is "paying cash bonuses to faculty members if the university exceeds its goals in those areas."  I honestly can't decide if I think this is a good idea or not.  Corporations pay bonuses this way and sometimes it seems to work to motivate staff...right?!  So is the reason that this bothers me that I have the misguided notion that we should want to serve?  That said, exactly what goals are we talking about here?  There's a lot of mention about fundraising goals (which brought forth memories of mandatory pledges to United Way that I lived through at one work place)...and I can see how some of those goals are areas faculty might have been resistant to being involved in ...The best examples given for what this will mean:

Here's how the system works: Faculty members share a bonus of 10 percent of the growth in research dollars over the year before, as long as the increase is at least $2-million. For the 2008 fiscal year, Kent State brought in $32-million. So if research grants reach, say, $35-million next year, the faculty would split 10 percent of the total increase of $300,000, or about $350 for each of the 864 faculty members.

For fund raising, the faculty would receive 2 percent of the increase above the year before, as long as that increase was at least $2.8-million. Last year Kent State's foundation raised $28.5-million. For the bonuses to kick in, the university must raise at least $31.3-million next year. If Kent State hit that minimum, faculty members would then split 2 percent of the increase, which would be $56,000, or about $65 a person. If a big gift showed up, of course, the bonuses would increase accordingly.

For student retention, faculty members would receive 40 percent of the additional revenue when retention goes up at least 0.5 percent on the main campus.

From Awareness to Funding: A study of library support in America

http://www.oclc.org/reports/funding/
From Awareness to Funding: A study of library support in America [OCLC]

It's now published! Over 200 pages of detail, breaking down the results by type of voter, the report looks to be a treasure trove of insight into how voters perceive of the library and what goes into their voting preferences.
As soon as I can read it, I'll write my response(s).

Business librarians and advanced degrees

I was invited to speak at SLA last month to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of an advanced subject degree for business librarians (like an MBA).  While there is some controversy about the need for any subject librarian to have any degree in their subject, I must say that I found it to be very useful when I was a business librarian!  Not only did I understand the subject in a way that helped my patrons, I also understood their experience, which I believe helped me relate to them AND helped them feel comfortable with me. 

Before you look at the presentation, let me be clear, I am not advocating that every librarian gets an advanced degree in their subject.  I was lucky -- I have an enduring interest in business and my MBA was free (well, I didn't pay tuition anyway). 

So, with that caveat, you can either download the pdf or below is the slideshow.

| View | Upload your own

Twitter rules!

According to MediaWeek, DellOutlet's Twitter account has generated  more than $500,000 from leads and provides a way for the company to communicate with its customers.   Additionally, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has amassed more than 6,000 followers to his Twitter feed, using the platform to give away shoes and send happy hour invites. AND, H&R Block uses Twitter to monitor "tax" mentions, and responds to users' questions.

I reported several weeks ago that some libraries now have space on Twitter, although they seem more experimental than what MediaWeek is reporting.  Let this be a call to Twitter action!  Maybe we can't give away shoes (and believe me, I'll be looking for that feed!), but we do have services that we can "give away" and I like the idea of answering users' questions via Twitter.

marketing universities

An article in the Chronicle highlighted a couple interesting points.  The article was an interview with AVP for External Relations at the University of Cincinnati, Mary Stagaman.  Of particular interest:

1. Involve all stakeholders.  Stagaman mentions talking to faculty, students, and campus leaders (no real mention of staff unfortunately!).  When talking about reaching faculty, she states: When we launched our first big ad campaign, we sent out a mailer to all employees and got some immediate negative feedback from some faculty about what we might be spending. But when we explained that the goal was to build a better reputation for UC and showcase the great work that our faculty and students were doing, they became our proponents.
2. My favorite quote is: Start with research to determine how your institution is perceived in
   key audiences you want to attract. Then you can build your plan based
   on what you learn. The tactical elements have to come out of that
   process and a realistic appraisal of what your budget can support. One
   caution: Make sure your leadership understands that they must make an
   investment. Too little money will not provide benefits. We have been
   successful in getting more funds by demonstrating the potential return
   on the investment.  It gets to knowing your market AS WELL as how to secure funding!
3. And even on the University-wide level, market research isn't expensive.  When asked how she fosters student input, she stated that she consults students frequently (and she includes high school students in the discussion -- after all, she is trying to recruit, so talking to potential students is important!).  Her favorite method is an informal focus group -- over lunch.  She conducts the focus groups herself and lunch itself isn't particularly costly. 

Link: Good Research and Faculty Buy-In: 2 Keys to Effective Marketing - Chronicle.com.

Maine, libraries, lobster traps, and innovation!

Well, what can I say...I've become a news hound when it comes to innovation, and yet, this story passed me by until today!  See below for a snippet of the article in the Chronicle, describing how an archivist found inspiration in his surroundings....
From the Chronicle:

Around the world, librarians and archivists are always on the lookout for new ways to protect old documents. Bowdoin's archivist, Richard Lindemann, needed a rack for old rolled-up maps and blueprints of the college. It couldn't be too acidic for the maps or too alkaline for the blueprints, meaning it couldn't be made out of wood. It had to be simple, have smooth edges, and allow air to pass through it.

Enter a carpenter and onetime professional lobsterman, Mark S. Donovan, who works at the college....

Mr. Donovan drove to Pono's Trap Company, in nearby West Bath, and picked up a few sheets of lobster-trap mesh. The polyvinyl-coated wire is perfect for allowing air flow without attracting moisture. Mr. Lindemann had it chemically analyzed and was thrilled to find that the material is also inert. He plans to write about the innovation in library preservation newsletters.

Libraries and blogs about them

I recently had a student tell me they did a search on their library and found some blogs about that library!  And I jsut finished reading an article from Business Week that advises organizations search Google for blog entries about the organization, from unhappy customers.  Now, I don't know that a search for (insert name of library) sucks would necessarily work, but I do agree that searching for blogs that mention your library (whether the patrons are happy or not) can be a great way to do market research!  After all, these are candid thoughts, not self-censored the way I occasionally feel they are in focus groups that the library sponsored sometimes are.

from BW:

It's O.K. to ignore the people who hate you for sport or seem to be operating out of a need for attention. But don't make the mistake of dismissing the rest. Learn from them and you'll earn many dividends. You'll satisfy dissatisfied customers. These customers may turn around and tell their online friends that you don't suck after all. That's free PR that can save you lost sales or even earn you new ones. You will learn about your products and their problems and how to make them better—without the expense of focus groups.

Social networking and impact on music sales

NYU profs Chang and Dhar studied blog posts and number of MySpace friends and how these impacted album sales.  They found a positive correlation between the two!  There isn't a lot of research showing that social networking really does impact behavior, so this really caught my eye.  Especially since I have been blogging and encouraging librarians to market their services in Twitter and Facebook.  Take a look at the report and see for yourself: social networking does matter.

Link: Archive@NYU: Does Chatter Matter? The Impact of User-Generated Content on Music Sales.

Our findings are as follows: (a) the volume of blog posts about an album is positively correlated with future sales, (b) greater increases in an artist’s Myspace friends week over week have a weaker correlation to higher future sales, (c) traditional factors are still relevant – albums released by major labels and albums with a number of reviews from mainstream sources like Rolling Stone also tended to have higher future sales. More generally, the study provides some preliminary answers for marketing managers interested in assessing the relative importance of the burgeoning number of “Web 2.0” information metrics that are becoming available on the Internet, and how looking at interactions among them could provide predictive value beyond viewing them in isolation. The study also provides a framework for thinking about when user-generated content influences decision making.