Amazon and Apple have completely changed how we consume music. In less than a decade, we have gone from CDs, to downloads, to streaming. The online content industry is about to face its own tsunami of change.

Earlier this year, we presented a “KM Conversation” with knowledge management evangelist and expert Stan Garfield. “Gamification Accelerates KM Adoption” focused on using gamification techniques to crack the challenging problem of building user engagement and ensuring that your KM platform is vibrant and widely leveraged within your organization.

Earlier this year, we presented a second “KM Conversation” with experienced library and information industry leader Stephen Abram, titled “Using Metrics and Stories: What Does Success Really Look Like?” During the session Stephen shared the real purpose of storytelling in a professional context.

Earlier this year, we presented a second "KM Conversation" with experienced library and information industry leader Stephen Abram, titled "Using Metrics and Stories: What Does Success Really Look Like?" During the session Stephen and Phil Green, Lucidea’s COO, shared their thoughts on the most powerful presentation of measurements.

Earlier this year, we presented a second “KM Conversation” with experienced library and information industry leader Stephen Abram. “Using Metrics and Stories: What Does Success Really Look Like?” was a lively discussion between Mr. Abram and Phil Green, Lucidea’s COO, focused on best practices in collecting and using metrics to build stories that demonstrate what success looks like for your special library or information center.

This is the third post in a series in which I share experiences from decades as an Information Services Director, including my best tips, my worst mistakes, and lessons learned. Please read on for some thoughts about the importance of speaking the language of your senior management and of your organization as a whole.

With our focus on understanding our clients’ needs and staying up to date on their implementations and successes, we at Lucidea enjoy a unique opportunity to learn about the major challenges special librarians and knowledge managers are facing. As well as underpinning our R&D efforts, this allows us to share current best practices and fruitful strategies with information professionals around the world.

Earlier this year, we presented a “KM Conversation” with well-known enterprise social network expert, author and consultant Euan Semple. During our session “The New Knowledge Ecosystem: Content and Connection,” Euan shared his thoughts on what it takes to build advocacy, engagement and adoption of enterprise social networks, and why it’s important.

This is the second post in a series in which I’ll share experiences from my decades as an Information Services Director. Many special librarians, researchers or knowledge managers get promoted through the ranks into senior management roles without the benefit of formal training in administrative and operational areas. That was the case with me, and in this series I’ll share my best tips, my worst mistakes, and lessons learned. Please read on for some thoughts about developing your most productive departmental strategy.

Special librarians achieve sustainability by understanding that evolving end user requirements demand new services, innovative solutions, information discovery on-the-go and the most effective channels for knowledge exchange—even (perhaps especially) in these days of diminishing resources.

A theory proposed by S.R. Ranganathan before the advent of the digital age detailed the five principles of operating a library system. Since its publication in 1931, a number of variants have been suggested—but rather than rewriting the principles, let’s examine how “The Original 5” still apply today.

This is the first post in an occasional series in which I’ll share experiences from my decades as an Information Services Director. Many librarians, researchers or knowledge managers get promoted through the ranks into senior management roles without the benefit of formal training in administrative and operational areas—me included. That can make things …interesting! In this series I’ll share my best tips, my worst mistakes, and lessons learned. Please read on for the most illuminating interview question you can ask when you’re hiring.

Originally Posted 1/12/2016

Benjamin Franklin, the founder of America’s first lending library, wrote: “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.” We think Mr. Franklin would likely agree that discount ILS platforms often don’t provide the long term quality (i.e. value) that financially savvy and strategic library leaders must require.

Originally Posted: 2/19/2016

A HiPPO is the “Highest Paid Person's Opinion.” Often HiPPOs are very wrong. Just ask BlackBerry and Nokia, two big name TELCOs with leaders who completely misread the smartphone market. Allowing the HiPPOs in your organization to have complete control of your KM strategy could result in similar consequences.

This is the second of a two-part blog post describing how the right archiving software can address H. Thomas Hickerson’s Ten Challenges for the Archival Profession. In Part 1, we covered the first five challenges, on topics such as accommodating documents generated in electronic form, supporting global access, and making holdings more accessible while expanding the audience. Read on for more archiving challenges and technological solutions.

H. Thomas Hickerson, in his turn of the 21st century address to the Society of American Archivists, described “Ten Challenges for the Archival Profession”. Since his presentation, information technology has achieved significant advancements that empower archivists seeking to address these goals.

This is the third in a series of posts on IT and the information Professional. When I chat with information professionals and IT managers about open source software, they often talk about two key concepts:

• It’s free
• Bug fixes and enhancements come from the community

While both of these statements are true, they fail to paint the whole picture and hide some pretty ugly truths.

In my last post, I discussed the unfortunate fact that many information professionals find themselves at the bottom of the IT totem pole, and thus they receive underwhelming IT support as they attempt to build and manage world class knowledge/library systems, or special collections.

So what’s an information professional to do? Knowledge and library systems are complex pieces of technology that require IT involvement at some level. Over my career, I have observed that in departments having the best relationship with IT, the information professionals practice what I call "IT Jujutsu."