3. Potential Strategic Opportunities
for Libraries
Organizational Resources (staff, financial, facilities)
• Consider potential reallocation of current resources
• Advocate for new library programs and projects
• Engage in external development of funds
• Consider the implications of potential library facility changes and
whether there should be virtual or physical library outposts on
campus outside of the library
Service
• Develop new service models
• Embed the library into faculty and student
research processes
Content
• Advocate for open access
• Expand access to primary source material through
digitization
• Effectively transition and balance print & electronic
collections
• Move from a collection to service orientation: from
asset management to advocates for action
Leadership
• Achieve an appropriate and acceptable rate of
organizational change
• Determine the appropriate level of presence
regionally and nationally
Technology
• Upgrade available technologies
• Fully integrate technology applications within the
curriculum and research services
5. From Planning to Assessment
assess
inform
investigate
instruct
innovate
integrate
Content
Access
Operations
Systems
Space
6. Before We Begin Sinning
• What is the process?
• Facilitate or assess?
• Who owns the process?
7. The Seven Deadly Sins
of Strategic Planning
1. Failure to plan effectively: no plans or taking too long
2. Failure to investigate environmental changes
3. Failure of vision: too little innovation/stretch, too many
sacred cows, or too much blue sky
4. Failure to focus and execute plans: too little attention
to implementation or reallocation resources
5. Failure to be agile and respond to unanticipated
changes
• Too much hierarchy & bureaucracy, too little
empowerment
6. Failure to establish accountability (group & individual)
7. Failure to assess against meaningful success metricsbut
9. Preventing Failure, Ensuring Success
Sin Solution
Sloth Fail to plan Implement a planning
process
Listen and explore
Develop scenarios and
encourage innovation
Develop effective
implementation strategies,
structures, and reallocations
Foster a learning
organization
Designate individuals or
positions within the plan
Diligence
Embed accountability and
metrics in plan, & assess
performance
Fail to understand the
environment
KindnessEnvy
Lust
Greed
Pride
Wrath
Fail to demonstrate vision Chastity
Fail to focus Temperance
Fail to demonstrate agility Humility
Fail to establish
accountability
Patience
Gluttony Fail to assess level of
success
Abstinence
10. Critical Step: The Environmental Scan
• Launches the process
– Stimulates thinking, introduces
possibilities, and brings a new sense of
mission, vision, and goals
• Go beyond the SWOT
• Go beyond library literature and
practices
[Shakespeare] had a kind of assimilative intelligence,
which allowed him to pull together lots of disparate
fragments of knowledge, but there is almost nothing that
speaks of hard intellectual application in his plays …
-- Bill Bryson
11. The Environmental Scan
• Process: investigate potential
changes in:
– Society (economy, demographics,
politics, etc.)
– Technology
– Education and learning
– Library practices (internal operations)
• Caveats
– 100% prediction accuracy is impossible
– Do not need to master the concept or
technology, but grasp the transformative
nature of the change
– Change may occur but in a different
form or timeframe
12. Environmental Scan:
Examples of Issues
Society
• Privacy and data security
• Collaboration
Education and Learning
• Generation Y: raised from birth with IT, they are
highly effective information scanners and
grazers, but their skills not well honed as critical
thinkers or information analysts
• Adoption of gaming technologies
Content and Service
• Intellectual property changes
• Workflow efficiency
Technology
• Massive high density storage
• E-service becomes m-service
• Gaming everywhere, and web (not separate
apps) becomes the platform
• Cloud computing
• Beyond the Next Gen Web
13. How to Read the Environment:
Paul Saffo’s Rules for Effective Forecasting
1. Define the cone of uncertainty
• The shape of the future is a cone: easier to visualize the near term,
harder over longer periods of time
2. Look for the S curve
• Things take longer to arrive than you expect
• The form of the change is different than expected
3. Embrace the things that do not fit
• Ask “why does this bother me?”
4. Hold strong opinions weakly
• Reach a strong conclusion quickly and then try to dismantle it
5. Look back twice as far as you look forward
• Perceive underlying patterns and the constants
• There is a deep unchanging structure
• Do not use history selectively to support your conclusions
6. Know when not to make a forecast
• When uncertainty is great, wait for things to settle down before making a
forecast
• It is not the pace, but the simultaneity and cross-impact of curves
• Keep broad peripheral vision, be comfortable with uncertainty, and do
not prematurely try to narrow the cone of uncertainty
The things
that do not
change
are vastly
greater
than the
things that
do
change.
15. Societal Changes Affecting Libraries:
Generation Y
• Unique social attributes shape their
perception of interactions
• More apt to like style, fun, and technology
– consume all types of digital media
– heavily use wireless services on mobile phones
• Measure task, not time*
– Apply different measures of accountability
– Seek compensation for what they produce
• Design approaches to reach Gen Y
– Immediacy
– Gen Y literacy
– Individualism
– social interactivity
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,43977,00.html
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,43647,00.html
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,43150,00.html
* Tamara J. Erickson. “Task, Not Time: HBR Breakthrough Ideas for 2008. Feb. 2008: 19
16. Societal Changes: Libraries and
the Google Generation
C:filestempjisc-report-google-generation.pdf
Librarians need a much better understanding of how people actually search
virtual libraries and use content. … There is a real danger that the
library professional will swept aside by history.
• Horizontal information seeking
– ~60% of e-journal users view no more than three pages & 65% never return
• Navigation
– Spend as much time searching as they do viewing actual content
• Viewers
– Spend little time on sites for e-books (4 minutes) and e-journals (8 minutes)
– Browse titles, contents pages, abstracts, not reading in the traditional sense
• Squirreling
– Academic users squirrel away content in free downloads
– No evidence that downloads are actually read
• One size does not fit all
– User behavior diverse by geography, gender, type of university, status
• Seek authoritative information
– Users assess authority and trust within seconds
– Dip and cross-check sites and by rely on favored brands
17. Societal Changes Affecting Libraries:
The Gamer Disposition – Key Attributes
(John Seely Brown & Douglas Thomas)
Bottom-line and results oriented meritocracy
• Improvement, not rewards
• Embedded assessment through points and
rankings
Belief in the power of a diverse team
Thrive on change
• Want to transform the world they inhabit
Perceive learning as fun
• Overcome obstacles
• Convert new knowledge into action
“The Gamer Disposition.” Harvard Business Review, Feb 2008: 28
20. Potential Technologies
Affecting Libraries: Overview
• Meta-level increases in computer storage
and computing power
– Grid computing
– Cloud computing
• Human aided computing
• Application of alternate reality games
• Growth of mobile computing
• Next Generation Web
21. Massive Storage:
IBM Petrabyte Storage
• A current hard drive today maximum
today is about one terabyte (TB) =
1,000 GB
• Petrabyte (PB)
– 1 PB = 1,000 TB
– Cf: the “Wayback Machine” that
currently archives the entire history of
the Web requires only 2 petrabytes of
storage
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2243161,00.asp
Source: eWeek
22. Potential Technologies Affecting Libraries
Human Aided-Computing
(Microsoft Think System)
• Control computers by thought to make the
computer understand you and what you are
doing
• Use the brain’s ability to parallel process and
work on multiple tasks while the computer
feeds in other information
• Could loan your “unused brain cycles” for
distributed computing
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2243164,00.asp
Source: eWeek
23. Potential Technologies Affecting Libraries
Alternate Reality Games
Provide training in hard-to-master skills *
– Create clear structure for collaboration
– Open authorship
– Protovation (prototype & test experimental solutions)
to augment knowledge and talent
– Experience multiple cycles for success
– Service users participate to invent new products and
services and test market assumptions
• Avatars becoming more life-like **
– Show natural gestures and emotions
through facial expressions and movements
* Jane MacGonigal. “Making Alternate Reality the New Business Reality.” HBR Feb. 2008: 29
** Judith Donath. “Giving Avatars Emote Control.” HBR Feb. 2008: 31
24. Potential Technologies Affecting Libraries
Metaverse: The Next Web
• Example: Second Life
• Dominant web interface within five
years
• Replace websites that have limited
abilities for mass interactivity
– IBM developing ways to move avatars
from one metaverse to another
• Employ interactive multiple-player
gaming technology and avatars
• Potentially important channel for
education
• Future issues: standards, security,
network reliability, privacy, and
intellectual property
Milos Sarvary. “The Metaverse: TV of the Future?” Harvard Business Review (Feb 2008): 30
“It took decades for TV
networks to learn how to
efficiently address audiences
with appropriate content and
advertising. …
[C]ompanies had better start
to experiment with the
technology while it is a slide
show.”
– Milos Sarvary
26. Potential Technologies Affecting Libraries
m=ec2
mobile = electronic computing2
• E-services becoming M-services
– M-service will soon generate 25% of all retail sales
– Some airlines now use m-boarding passes
• 42% want to use it as a boarding pass
– Airlines will use m-messaging for on-board services,
rebooking, baggage pickup, and ticket purchases
• Mobile technology is rapidly advancing
– iPhone software development kit
– Google Android
– Windows Mobile
27. Should Google Buy Apple?
Google + Apple = Gapple
Microsoft + Yahoo = Microhoo
Pros
• iPhone + Google Apps
– the hottest consumer device +
customized Google apps
– Enables collaborative
enterprise m-computing
• Gapple vs. Microhoo
– Gapple gains desktop & mobile
market share
– Enables mobile advertising
– iPhones increases use of
Google Spreadsheets,
YouTube, etc.
– Forces Microhoo to forgo cloud
computing aspirations
Cons
• Too costly and risky
– Apple valuation = $108 billion
• Too much product overlap, too
many incompatible systems
– Google = open source
Apple = proprietary systems
• Google’s Android: D.O.A.
– Google believes iPhone has
limited market growth potential
compared to Android
– But Google not successful
bidder for mobile airwaves
Source: eWeek http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Top-5-Reasons-Google-ShouldShouldnt-Buy-Apple/2/
28. Social Networking and
Mobile Computing
• There are far more mobile subscribers (3.3 billion) mobile
phone subscribers than Internet users
• ~50 million people currently use mobile phones for social
networking
• Will grow to ~270 million within five years
• Mobile social networks use GPS location capabilities
–GyPSii’s SpaceMe: shows European user location
information in real time on a map with photos, etc.
–Bliin users update and show location every 15 seconds
–BuzzCity’s MyGamma: 2.5M users from developing
countries with low Internet and PC penetration
–Itsmy.com exists only in the mobile world and gained
>1M users from March 1 through March 5, 2008
–AOL, Yahoo, and Nokia have initiatives to create
discrete communities out of mobile phone users
Victoria Shannon. “Social Networking Moves to the Cellphone.” New York Times (March 6, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/technology/06wireless.html?ref=technology
“]T]he U.S. venture
capital community
… [is] myopic.
They can’t see the
global significance
of what is
happening.
[GyPSii] could
have more users in
one year than
Facebook had in
three.”
29. Mobile Computing:
E-Book Status
Scott Morrison. “Amazon Hopes to Resolve 'Kindle' Backlog Within Weeks. (Wall Street Journal: 3/21/2008)
• Kindle sold out within the
5.5 hours
• Amazon won’t reveal how
many were sold
• Are there are production
issues or is Amazon
creating the perception of
high demand?
• Anecdotal publisher
reports: Kindle may be
selling briskly
30. Emerging Portable Devices
• Designed by Nokia, RISD, MIT, &
Helsinki University of Technology
• Provides travel, mapping, GPS,
and location-aware features
• Doubles as a watch when not in
use
• Has a multi-touch, removable
screen
• Provides access to travel guides,
local businesses, Wi-Fi, public
transportation info, and more
• RFID provides location-based
content
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2243147,00.asp
Flex & Fold Displays
• Larger-format electronic
paper expected soon
The R66 Mobile Device
Polymer Vision Readius
PARC Pocket Display
Source: eWeek
31. Potential Technologies Affecting Libraries
The Next Generation Web
• Open development environment
– Rapid deployment of open source software,
including to replace standard software (Linux,
Open Office, IBM Lotus Symphony, Koha,
Evergreen)
• Mobile device broadband, e.g., Femtocell
– broadband coverage via mobile computing
• Widespread deployment of commercial
products via cloud computing
– MS Silverlight
– Google Gears
– Google Sites
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.solegy.com/blog/eric/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/ubiquisys%2520diagram.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.solegy.com/blog/eric/%3Fp%3D59&h=411&w=410&sz=50&hl=en&start=3&tbnid=hjcMTtkxGQRLTM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfemtocell%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
Femtocell:
a cost effective means
for mobile operators to
make new 3G services
available to customers
at home without
making those services
available over the
Internet through WiFi *
32. Chris Anderson:
The Future of Everything is Free
• The price of bandwidth and storage is
dropping even faster than the price of
processing power
• The cost of doing business online points to
zero
– Web scale = attract the most users for
centralized resources to spread costs
over larger audiences
• Google model expands from cheap to free
– The Gift Economy: Wikipedia (no ads,
no cross-subsidy)
– Open source, social networking, user-
generated content lead to free labor
created and consumed with no
expectation of payment
A decade and a
half into the
great online
experiment, the
last debates over
free versus pay
online are
ending.
Every industry
that becomes
digital
eventually
becomes free.
A decade and a
half into the
great online
experiment, the
last debates over
free versus pay
online are
ending.
Every industry
that becomes
digital
eventually
becomes free.
http://www.wired.com/print/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free
33. Chris Anderson:
Is the Future of Everything Really Free?
… but Free is not always Free
• Low-cost digital distribution will make the
summer blockbuster free
– Theaters will make money from concessions
and sale of premium movie-going experience
– Airfares low or zero, replaced by many fees
for baggage handling, food, etc.
34. The end of the print encyclopedia
• Encyclopaedia Britannica print sales dropped 60%
from 1990-1996
• Encyclopedia Americana: 2008 probably last print
version
• February 2008: all Brockhaus (German
encyclopedia) content free and online by April
– No more print editions
• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy was
never been in print and never will be
– ~1,000 entries vetted >100 scholars
Noam Cohen. “Start Writing the Eulogies for Print Encyclopedias.” New York Times (March 16, 2008)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/weekinreview/16ncohen.html?_r=2&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
“… the classic multivolume encyclopedia is well on its way to
becoming the first casualty [of the Internet] in the end of print”
“… the classic multivolume encyclopedia is well on its way to
becoming the first casualty [of the Internet] in the end of print”
35. Free Archives on the Web
• Sports Illustrated (53 year backfile)
• New York Times (backfile to mid-
19th century)
• Newsweek (backfile to 1990)
Richard Pérez-Peña. “Dusting off the Archive for the Web.” New York Times (March 17, 2008)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/business/media/17mags.html?ref=technology
“Publications are rediscovering their archives, like a person
learning that a hand-me-down coffee table is a valuable
antique. For magazines and newspapers with long histories
… old material can be reborn on the Web as an inexpensive
way to attract readers, advertisers and money.”
“Publications are rediscovering their archives, like a person
learning that a hand-me-down coffee table is a valuable
antique. For magazines and newspapers with long histories
… old material can be reborn on the Web as an inexpensive
way to attract readers, advertisers and money.”
36. Google Tools Integrate Digitized
Books Into Library Catalog
• Google now has >1M books scanned
• Most users don’t know if there is a copy on
Google of the book the want
• Google wants get libraries to integrate Google
book search into library online catalog using set
of software protocols that merge the Google
collection into the catalog
• If a user searches the catalog and finds an item
in Google there is a link to a “Limited Preview
at Google Book Search”
• For books still under copyright, Google displays
only short passages
Jeffrey R. Young. Google Unveils Tools to Integrate Its Digitized Books Into Campus Library Catalogs. Chronicle of Higher Education (March 14, 2008).
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2819/google-unveils-tools-to-integrate-its-digitized-books-into-campus-library-catalogs?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
37. eWeek –What to Watch in 2008
Search and Collaboration
• Increased collaboration through Google phones with
Android (Google Apps), which will outsell the iPhone
• Open social networks enable import / export data
across social networking platforms
• Security headaches caused by unparalleled openness
creates big security headaches as data leaks from social
networking sites
• Social networking startups purchased by major
companies to create platforms focused on businesses
and enable in-house employee connections
• Corporate mashup sites leads to mass consolidation of
Web 2.0 technology providers, social networking
vendors, and wiki and mashup makers
Source: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/What-to-Watch-in-2008-Search-and-Collaboration/
38. Environmental Scan:
Library Implications
• Develop library metaverse approaches that are fully
interactive and less text-based
• Balance the dual challenges of “competitive advantage”
and “collaboration through social networking”
– when to lead?
– when to collaborate?
– when to hold back?
• Experiment
– Life is not binary
– Do not have to choose “all experimentation” versus “all tradition”
– Balance the two in terms of time, staffing, and resources
39. Library 2.0: Issues
• Adoption
– how quickly can and will libraries adopt the new
technologies?
• Convergence
– Will convergent mobile technologies make
libraries more robust – or obsolete?
• Abundance
– how do users cope with too much information?
• Preservation
– how do users cope with information that should be
ephemeral? Information that should not be
ephemeral?
• Standards
– how will libraries move content between platforms
and applications if there are no (or insufficient)
standards?
• Discontinuity
– will social tagging and networking become too
time consuming, boring, or no longer be fun?
– will people no longer be willing to share their
personal information online?
People have
incentives to tag
their resources in
Flickr or
Librarything
[because they are]
tagging their own
resources.
Scale matters in the
context of the social
value created in
these services. You
cannot simply add
social networking to
a site and expect it
to work well. Think
of all those empty
forums.
– Lorcan Dempsey
http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001556.html
People have
incentives to tag
their resources in
Flickr or
Librarything
[because they are]
tagging their own
resources.
Scale matters in the
context of the social
value created in
these services. You
cannot simply add
social networking to
a site and expect it
to work well. Think
of all those empty
forums.
– Lorcan Dempsey
http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001556.html
40. From Scan to Action: Scenario Planning
CollaborativeResearch&Learning
IndividualResearch&Learning
Restricted Access Environment
Open Access Environment
Traditional:
Individual
Research and
Closed Access
Starting to Change:
Collaborative
Environment and
Restricted Access
Embracing Change:
Individual Research
in an Open
Environment
Library 2.0:
Highly Collaborative in a
Fully Open Physical and
Virtual Access
Environment
41. Final Planning Step:
The Reality Check!
After choosing the strategic directions, consider:
what potential changes in the external or
internal environment could prevent us from
achieving our desired goals or outcomes?
43. Preventing Failure, Ensuring Success
Sin Solution
Sloth Fail to plan Implement a planning
process
Listen and explore
Develop scenarios and
encourage innovation
Develop effective
implementation strategies,
structures, and reallocations
Foster a learning
organization
Designate individuals or
positions within the plan
Diligence
Embed accountability and
metrics in plan, & assess
performance
Fail to understand the
environment
KindnessEnvy
Lust
Greed
Pride
Wrath
Fail to demonstrate vision Chastity
Fail to focus Temperance
Fail to demonstrate agility Humility
Fail to establish
accountability
Patience
Gluttony Fail to assess level of
success
Abstinence
44. Where Do We Go From Here?
Arnold Hirshon
hirshon@nelinet.net
508-597-1934