quantum.dialog.com                                                                     July/August 2009

Quantum² Feature:
On Information and Innovation
by Libby Trudell

This summer, Dialog had the opportunity to sponsor the closing keynote session at SLA's centennial conference in Washington, DC. The format of the session was a panel where thought leaders from the fields of journalism, network engineering and science shared their insights on the future for their fields and for society. They reflected on the opportunities they see for information professionals to enable innovation in those fields through access to information.

The panel moderator, Judy Woodruff, has covered politics and other news as a broadcast journalist for more than three decades, and is currently a senior correspondent for PBS' News Hour with Jim Lehrer. For those backstage, including Dialog General Manager Suzanne BeDell who introduced the session, the program got off to an exciting start: Judy Woodruff was at the PBS office working on a hot news story (threats from North Korea about nuclear weapons) and did not arrive when expected. SLA staff was rewriting the introductory remarks to carry on without a moderator when she arrived backstage only minutes before the start time. But, she stepped on the stage unruffled, and the audience never knew, although Woodruff did make a passing reference regarding the difficulties of controlling schedules when working in a live news environment.

The panelists were an impressive group: Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and himself a PBS personality for science programming; John Patrick, formerly IBM's chief Internet technology officer and now an Internet visionary and blogger; and Robyn Meredith, covering Asia for Forbes Magazine, and author of The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What it Means for All of Us. With such a diverse group, the discussion was wide ranging, but there were a few key themes related to the future of information in our society and the role of information professionals.

The panelists displayed a real appreciation for the value offered by librarians and information specialists. Early on, Woodruff talked about her reliance on librarians within the PBS organization to locate key information to validate and provide context as news stories are being developed. At another point, deGrasse-Tyson commented on having had the experience as a child of discovering the world of knowledge through the influence of a librarian. All the panelists agreed that, as internet search engines change the world by bringing information to a wide audience, librarians are even more important in the role of educating others on the selection and quality of information sources and aiding in interpretation.

One theme that surfaced in several ways was the perception of privacy and the risks/benefits of making personal information widely available. For example, the ability for any health care provider to access your medical records wherever you may be also carries the risk that you may not be able to control who has access. However, while some may be uncomfortable with making personal information openly available on social networking communities, these services do enable users to exert as much control as they want on who can view their content. In an open environment, each individual has to take a lot more responsibility for safeguarding their own information and managing their level of privacy.

Another recurring theme was our "flat" world, with information available almost instantly across geographic boundaries, spurring global economic competition. On the one hand, this creates the potential for people anywhere to share best practices and have access to quality education. But, it also is one of the factors in changing the role of the United States, and may erode the ability for the US to attract or keep the most talented and creative people. In order to reach new levels of scientific development, it was suggested that we need a unifying vision, similar to the Apollo program of the 1960's, to attract students to the sciences and inspire the best minds from around the world to create innovation.

The key note panel discussion provided a great frame of reference for the SLA business meeting which followed, where President Gloria Zamora and CEO Janice LaChance reviewed the results of the research done for SLA's strategic alignment project. This project, initiated more than two years ago, is grounded in solid research about what kind of information services are valued by organizational leaders in corporate, government and academic settings. That research has resulted in clear findings about the best way to communicate the value of the information services to stakeholders. The results of the alignment project help us "refine our current positioning in the marketplace, and provide a framework for discussing the inherent value in the profession and the Association in a clear, compelling and cohesive voice." This work has progressed to the stage where there are tools and materials that are being made available to SLA members to understand and use the research results. More details about the research are available on http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/alignment/index.cfm

Overall, this was an exciting session focusing on the interplay between information and innovation. It was a great match with Dialog's mission to be central to innovation around the world, by enabling organizations to use information to discover new ideas, validate feasibility, and bring new products to market

Note:
a version of this article also appeared in b/ITe, the Bulletin of the Information Technology Division of SLA.