of natural selection

I've been slacking off, in the blogging department, lately. Big money worries here and everywhere. It's so tough to face cuts, how ever small they are. Then, when they are large and potentially larger, as we face here at MPOW , it down right ruins everything. Well, nearly. It sure ruins the ambiance, though. It seems like it always ends up creating a paranoid climate of sorts. "Don't even look at my services!" and then the terrible sequel: "Why don't you look over there?". Of course, we have been evaluating processes for a long time, on a continuous basis, what should we keep doing, stop doing, start doing, right? We know SWOT and all that...
So how do you squeeze blood for a turnip? What is left for us to sacrifice?

I was asked recently how does innovation survive in this kind of climate? Seems some feel we cant be expanding our horizons, adding new services and working on new projects if we also have to cut/delete/discontinue some others.
It dawned on me that this may not be the best question. What I want to know is, how do we survive in this kind of climate without innovation? The only way we can manage the crisis instead of the crisis managing us it to be REALLY INNOVATIVE. It's so corny to state but only the one that adapt will survive. Some of the choices should be really (listen to me?!) easy. Instead of (Believe me, I hear it often..) trying to impose limits the popular service, let's look at what does not support our most popular services 1st. We don't want to take our best, most appealing to the community offerings, and render them cumbersome and inconvenient, so we can continue to dedicate time and effort to sustain options that not many users even wish for.

John Blyberg smartly reminded us in a recent post:

I’m afraid to say that delayed gratification is not something we can sell.

Let's not work so hard at self preservation and think more globally about satisfying the needs of current customers. We need to go forward with new and exciting things that will meet their expectations, not ask them to measure up to ours. After all if they were perfect, they might not need a library.

I don't want to spend my time preserving the great library we had last year, I want to work at creating the great one we'll have next year.

SERENDIPITY
I have been muling this over in my pea brain fro a good while now, then finally commited to spread it on the screen... Look what Steven Abram published today.




technorati tags:library-20, library2.0, library2.0, libraries, policies, customers

Parlons d'EPS

Continuing this belated superconference blogging, it is high time I talk about EPS, Sirsidynix's Entreprise Portal Solution. It was definitely the most talked about product, with many many sessions, by sales staff, libraries and software development alike. It was also the product that conjured the most passion, both on the "excited to have all these features" side and the "this is not what I want" side.
Je m'explique:
Great dissatisfaction was expressed from many academic (and other) sites that this portal solution was clearly the next generationopac and came with so much "other duties assigned" add-on features. Many customer, academics in particular, complained about the out of the box, cookie cutter, seemingly public library focus. On the other hand, EPS customers seemed very pleased with their experience implementing the product, excited about the 2.2 version that should deliver both most fixes to theoriginal implementation bugs AND add the features that were not delivered in the 1st version. SD SD (sirsidynix software development ;) staff sounded very roud of the product and its great improvements for 2.2. (note some of these may not impress you but were long time wished of a number of sirsi customers...)
RSS feeds, CGI forms, spellcheck, the use of Central Search for federated searching and of Fast Search for faceted searching were at the top of the bragging lists. Especially exciting to me was the ability to "assume the quotes" to facilitate keyword search (eliminate the use of Boolean in quick search.) and the ability for users to a-view their accounts and renew their materials in the same page (!) and b-to modify their own holds pick up branch. I will post more about this product as we will implement at MPOW as soon as 2.2 has been in the real world for a little while. (hey, we had webcat 1st, we were the 1st unix install of iBistro, I'd like to give someone else a chance at pioneering this time...)

THIS JUST IN (unrelated to EPS) :
from a SD press release: "...Peter Gethin, SirsiDynix managing director for Europe, Middle East & Africa, has decided to retire..." I guess Peter wouldn't mind me referring to him as part of the old guard (the good old guard). Hoping everyone will know he was not only famous for the traditional joke and the Gethin report at superconference, he was a force, a smart, original, free thinker. I hope to hear from him again.


technorati tags:sirsidynix, EPS, opac,library-20, library2.0, library 2.0, libraries, customers

finally back...

Sirsidynix Superconference blogging, take II.

There has been a lot of talk about the latest announcement from Sirsidynix. I promise I will update and comment a little later, after getting caught up on the session blogging . Note the certain irony of any the "coming in GL3.2" announcements, keep in mind they all are very likely to still materialize, but that these days, I wouldn't swear to anything.

Superconference, day 1:

Opening night, Steven Abram boldly "flies without slides" which is pretty damn brave in a big dark conference room full of people whispering about the surprise announcement of SD's CEO leaving the company. Stephen continues to rightfully preach "Go where your users are!" and to point us all in the right direction to discover where that is. He saved a few minutes in the end to mention Pat Sommers and how much good he did at Sirsi. How much he would be missed and to point out that "He never told me not to say something." It was a heartfelt moment, touching.

The whole conference felt a little awkward to me, everyone was very positive, looking forward etc. etc. but you could tell most SD personnel was somewhat tired and tense. I got offended when some customer would ask SD staff it WE should be nervous about the change of ownership. It is obviously so much for them to deal with, and all the while they were all very focused on us as customers and how were doing and what we needed. I have known some of the Sirsi staff for many many years, they are a smart, classy, dedicated bunch.



technorati
tags:sirsidynix,library-20, library2.0, library2.0, libraries, policies, customers

I'm on!

Well, turns out it's a lot harder to blog what I learn than to blog what I think. (duh!)


I will end up reviewing my notes when I get home and posting what I hope will be a much more intelligent summary next week. Today my main concern is leading the circulation sharing session this morning, which always make me a little nervous. I really look forward to it though.
I hope the turn out is good.
While you patiently wait for educational content, here is a picture of Mack,














who really was working the registration desk.





Technorati tags:library-20, library2.0, library 2.0, libraries, policies, customers

superconference day 1 (updated)

Love it here. It was actually warmer in CO(46F) when I arrived, than it was in Orlando (37F) when I left. Now I know what the F stands for...

Got to talk to Mack about linking to respective blogs. Read his posts on Swem Review.

The federated searching session from today was most excellent. It was the best idea to have both sirsidynix present their products and efforts and 2 different users explain their selection and implementation process of 2 different products.
main 2 points in short:
XML matters most, and more and more everyday.
It's not about the searching, it's about the FINDING!

more to come.
mood: festive, smart, anticipatory.
cold

UPDATE:
Since Mack really puts me to shame with his coverage of the Federated search session, I will refer you back to his post and add a few more comments from the "how will/would this work at MPOW?" stand point.
Biggest discovery point ('reality bites'): I will have to implement (read: find time, funds and acquire expertise) proxy authentication for our users to our databases before fedsearch can be done. There s a way to use the sirsidynix portal login to attempt it but not all db vendors are apt to accept it as secure. Plus, fedsearch is not going to replace native search so authentication will best be managed with one solution instead of trying to make it work separately in each.

Biggest remaining pondering point: The fed search product can be used as an entry point to all your resources, including your own catalog, so IT could be the portal also... hummmm...

Most valuable "freebie": once you set up fedsearch, you can, should, will, have the ability to add resources that are available for free. Think image seach including flickr, yahoo and google images and picassa etc...

BACK TO: It's about the finding. Think DELIVERY OF THE RESOURCES DISCOVERED, always.

Blogging conference content is hard! see you soon.





technorati tags:library-20, library2.0, library 2.0, libraries, policies, customers