Quantum² Highlights
A newsletter of the Dialog leadership development program for information professionals

Dear Quantum² Member...
It is now the time of year when the information industry puts out messages calling for contributions. It might be a call for conference papers, for volunteers to work in professional associations, or even for nominations to industry awards. With that in mind, Dialog is asking for your help in seeking nominations for our Quantum² InfoStar awards. For more about this process, read on.

InfoStar Award Nominations

Quantum² InfoStars are inspiring examples of creativity and innovation, whose stories provide insight into their professional achievements and leadership qualities. These InfoStars are enthusiastic and positive about the value of information services within their organizations, regardless of their level, which enables them to serve as role models for others. Their key characteristics are:

• Strategic involvement in organization
• Proactive relationship building
• Innovative information services
• Continuous change and development

Specific examples of InfoStar characteristics include:

Strategic involvement in organization

• Work with cross organizational team(s) to implement corporate information policy
• Implement effective marketing and communications programs for the information center
• Recognized by organization with awards, etc.

Proactive relationship building

• Serve as mentor to someone else in the profession or organization
• Build strong relationships with senior management
• Build mutually beneficial cross organizational relationships

Innovative information services

• Differentiate tiers of services (e.g. self serve, consultative, value-add) for different client segments
• Work collaboratively with IT to ensure the Intranet delivers maximum value
• Offer various components of a virtual library
• Build brand identity into service offerings

Continuous change and development

• Consistently seek to improve personal and professionals skills
• Seek new ways to define and structure the information center
• Work to improve staff skills for their career development
• Active participant in SLA or other professional organizations

While the specific examples and activities will vary, Infostars demonstrate some aspect of all four of these key characteristics

Each year, Dialog welcomes and receives nominations based on the above criteria and announces the new InfoStars at the SLA Annual Conference in June and at the London Online Information Show in late November.

Read about the latest awardees announced November 2005 in London. If you know anyone who meets the criteria for being an InfoStar, and you would like to send in a nomination, please submit using the InfoStar nomination form.

Gathering Metrics for Cost Justification

Justifying the cost of an information center is an ongoing exercise simply because, if nothing else, the message seems never to be “heard” and “retained” by senior management. Part of the reason is that a message is only “heard” at a time when it is relevant. Therefore, one goal of any cost-justification exercise is to put money spent “in context”. This requires gathering and using cost metrics to create a relation between the information center budget and the revenue it helps to generate for the organization.

Although gathering appropriate metrics is notoriously difficult, an appropriate time for this can be whenever information services are consumed, thereby helping bring home the relevance to the “consumer” or user:

• Measure transactional services at point of use
• Allocate subscriptions and other fixed costs to project codes or departments
• Collect portal or Web site metrics
• Track your researcher’s time by project
• Show savings or best value through evaluating, selecting and licensing of external content products
• Compare the cost efficiency of the information center managing external content vs. individual user departments
• Estimate increased productivity through training for effective user searching

Project coding or research time tracking to allocate costs for impact links information center work to specific recipients and business outcomes. Showing how the evaluation, comparison and selection of external content products for best purchasing decisions brings maximum impact and value to the organization is a powerful mechanism in cost justification. In other words, assess the value consequence of users not finding or accessing information without information center mediation. This casts a strong light on what the information center is doing to create sustainable and explainable business value for your organization.

Other tips for cost justification include benchmarking your information budget against competitors’ information budgets. Most organizations prefer not to measure up unfavorably against their nearest competitor on any benchmark. And constant marketing is required to communicate the value of the information center. This can be achieved through evidence-based value or recommendation statements from direct users of the service, showing tangible or quantifiable benefits or contributions to organizational projects or revenue, and connecting the information center work to the compelling business events or environmental factors that drive the organization’s goals or mission. The bottom line is that the information center should be showing the increased efficiency or productivity of the organization, as a result of the presence and utilization of the information center’s services.

For more on practical leadership tips, and details of full workshops included in the Quantum² programme, visit the Web site.