Sticky 'Brary

Hey WLAers! Thanks for being such a rocking, inquisitive audience.  Here's the link to the Prezi portion of the presentation: http://prezi.com/ks65tb54zgrb/wla-presentation/ Stay in touch and let me know how your business outreach efforts go!

At the WLA conference .  Gonna be preachin' it to the choir tomorrow. 

Here's a word of warning about doing library outreach to the business community.  Well, not so much a warning but rather a tip.  Something to be aware of. Here it is: After a certain period of doing outreach to the business community (about five years in my case), you might start wondering why, if the library's business resources are met with such universal appeal and acclaim, why are there still large swaths of the business community that don't know about the power and versatility of our resources?  I think I have an answer, or at least a partial answer.  Competition. If I show the commercial lenders at one bank in town our market research database, allowing them to save time and money when it comes time to performing due diligence in making a business loan, that information spreads like wildfire... right up to the doors of that particular bank.  Once the news makes its rounds within an single institution, there is no incentive for Bank ABC to share their n...

At the risk of coming across as a Seth Godin lackey, I do have to share a recent video of his.  He's not specifically talking about libraries but the connections are too strong to be ignored.

In library land (as well as many other lands, most likely) we tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the one big thing that will blow things wide open.  We'll make that perfect presentation to just the right person and adequate library funding will be secured indefinitely.  We'll roll out the perfect service or resource and the City Council and Mayor will be lining up outside our doors to offer us additional revenue. And when we aren't thinking these grand thoughts, we're thinking just the opposite: the sky is going to fall.  The apocalypse is nigh.  We're cutting the budget to the point where we just won't be a viable organization.  We're underfunded.  We're overworked.  We aren't appreciated. But here's the thing: neither of those two scenarios are likely.  Instead, it is one small step at a time.  If we satisfy one library member with one interaction then we are one step closer to remaining and/or becoming a valued asset in our com...

When I give a presentation to a group of business folks I usually have about 30 - 45 minutes for my spiel. Here are the points/resources I try to cover: Local human librarians vs. Google ReferenceUSA DemographicsNow General OneFile Often the presentation is at some sort of a networking event so try to pay attention to the make up of the audience before your presentation.  I just spoke today to a group that included a man who is at the beginning stages of putting together a business plan for an indoor shooting range.  Interesting.  When it was my turn with the microphone I used ReferenceUSA and showed the group how he could pull together a list of all the shooting ranges in Washington State so he can instantly know who his competition -- and potential collaborators -- might be.  That's a good thing to know when it comes to guns.  Using DemographicsNow I then showed how to round up the demographics around other successful shooting rangers and compare the...

Those of us who inhabit the library world on a day-to-day basis sometimes need to look at what we do in a fresh light. When we run a search on ReferenceUSA and within 30 seconds pull up a list of the 46 Spokane County female-owned manufacturing businesses without websites, well, that's all in a day's work for us. No biggie. But to the public that is straight up, hardcore magic. That's the equivalent of pulling four doves out of a handkerchief and having them explode into $100 bills. The moral? Don't let our complacency with what we do color how the public views what we do.