originally: http://www.oclc.org/programs/publications/newsletters/abovethefold/2008-10-07.htm
In this issue:
Harvard Business Review • October 2008
What's the shape of your future? Disruptive innovation is making all the headlines, but a shaping strategy can accomplish just as much by mobilizing other players through incentives. And in the public service world, capitalizing on strategic relationships can go a long way toward building a better future with rewards for everyone.
Thinking about whether your organization has a 'shaping strategy'—and whether our domain of research libraries, archives or museums has one—crystallizes a challenge: we need one both at the local level and at the industry level. (Michalko)
Knowledge@W.P. Carey • September 24, 2008
Lessons from successful startups apply to everyone: "Never, ever lose sight of what your customers want. Pay attention to their needs at all times. Keep a close watch on feedback and respond, respond, respond."
A book review that might substitute for reading the book—relevant to all those projects we launch hoping that one will be attractive enough to gain currency among our peers. (Michalko)
American Journalism Review • August/September 2008
How do you keep users close to home in a Web 3.0 world? The promise of the Semantic Web is to provide context-rich search automatically, without human intervention, but how do you lure your readers back after they've left your site? One way is to turn your site into an information hub, connecting readers to interesting information while keeping them close to home.
Another take on the Semantic Web with some good mentions of technology that labels and connects—that's what we call data working harder. (Michalko)
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge • September 22, 2008
Bridging the information silo gap. Whether your organization is small or large, the tendency is for people to communicate within their work units and at their own hierarchical level. How do you encourage better knowledge-sharing across the enterprise? (One clue: Hire more women.)
An informative interview that makes me think about the silos internal to our own organizations—think about all those reorganizations designed to get rid of the technical vs. public service silos or the curation vs. collecting silos. (That clue can't possibly refer to LAM institutions, can it?) (Michalko)
The CEO Refresher • 2008
Vision is a lot more than a T-shirt slogan. In many organizations, coming up with a vision statement is mistaken for "vision." How do you make that vision come alive within your workforce? How do you inspire the passion that makes each worker's life meaningful?
This is worth it just for the anecdote that ends the brief article. "We work to create and maintain an environment that inspires greatness." Guess who said that? (Michalko)
ReadWriteWeb • September 26, 2008
Still on the fence about social networking? This survey shows a surprisingly large portion of the U.S. population is ready to seek out interactive services on a social media site, with more than half believing an organization is providing better service when it makes that possible.
This is really an article about desires customers have for support. This doesn't mean it needs to be built into the institutional portal, but it's worth considering where and how we should try to respond to this desire. (Michalko)