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Dealing with mission impossible – a publishing case study

By on March 1, 2013 in Content, Corporate Environments, Digital Publishing, Management, Professional Development, Search, STM Publishing, Web Technology & The Cloud

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) disseminates scientific information in the interdisciplinary fields of geophysics.  With over 60,000 members worldwide, the AGU publishes books, research journals, newspapers and other scientific periodicals.

In 2012 the AGU announced a publishing partnership with Wiley.  And in September 2012 Freddie Quek, Director of Engineering for Wiley, was given four months to integrate the AGU content onto a single Wiley platform.  He shared his story of coping with this ‘mission impossible’ with delegates at the Association of Subscription Agents conference in London.

Targets

By 2nd January 2013

  • Start revenue earning
  • Ensure systems ready to support entire content chain
  • Ensure system works in a familiar way for all AGU customers
  • Give AGU customers access to all licensed content

Challenges

  • 17 systems to check
  • Non-standard content formats (one publication had no page numbers; one journal had seven parts – three of which had sub-parts)
  • Over 700 special sections of content
  • What to do about unique identifiers; new ISSNs required
  • Unknown unknowns!
  • Ensuring discoverability
  • Development to start before all requirement were clear

What worked

  • Creation of a 60 day plan
  • Number one priority across the organisation – 52 people on the team
  • Sense of commitment, urgency and importance of the project
  • Rapid decision making at all levels
  • Team effort by everyone and a can-do attitude
  • Strong business lead and close cooperation

Lessons learned

  • Focus on people over process
  • Embrace the challenge
  • Break some rules
  • Be brave
  • Use your best people

Many of us will be asked to take on ‘impossible missions’ at work.  Freddie’s best advice?  Deal with it!

Entrepreneurship in Europe and beyond

By on January 16, 2013 in Europe, Management, Post

The European Commission (EC) believes that entrepreneurship is a key enabler in improving Europe’s performance in economic reform, social cohesion and employment.  The promotion of entrepreneurship and self-employment in included in the EC’s 2020 strategy.

The Commission is focusing on encouraging unemployed people to start their own businesses and supporting social entrepreneurs.  It has been studying the development of entrepreneurship in Europe for over ten years and the results of the latest survey reveal the current situation in the EU and beyond – including 13 non-EU countries including Brazil, India and Russia.

Key findings

Attitudes to self-employment

  • 58% of EU residents would prefer to be an employee
  • 37% favour self-employment (down from 45% in 2009)
  • Self-employment is generally more popular with non-EU respondents.  In particular, there are high levels of people in favour of self-employment in Brazil (63%) and Turkey (82%)
  • Reasons for stating self-employment is not feasible include
    • The current economic climate
    • Lack of capital
    • Lack of skills
    • Risk of failure
    • Family commitments
    • 23% of EU respondents have started a business or are thinking about doing so

Why be self-employed?

  • Self-fulfillment, personal independence and freedom to choose the time and place of work are all popular reasons for EU respondents to consider self-employment.

Factors in choosing self-employment

  • Having an appropriate business idea (87%)
  • Having access to financial resources
  • Contact with an appropriate business partner (68%) and having a role model (62%)
  • Dissatisfaction with previous work situation (55%)
  • Fewer respondents are concerned about bankruptcy (43% down 6% since 2009) and irregular income (33% down from 39% in 2009)

Attitudes to entrepreneurs

  • 87% of EU respondents believe entrepreneurs are job creators
  • 79% believe they create beneficial products and services
  • 57% believe they take advantage of other people’s work
  • 52% would rather work for a family business, with 48% citing a stronger commitment to the community

The full report is available here.

Improving employee engagement

By on November 13, 2012 in Management

The quality and level of employee engagement can have a direct impact on the financial and operational performance of organisations.  In an open letter (reported in the Financial Times) leaders of some of the UK’s largest companies are calling on business leaders to ‘engage for success’.

Meanwhile, in an extensive global survey of 32,000 people working in 29 countries around the world, Towers Watson sets out to uncover the current status of employee engagement and to give organisational leaders important insights into the key elements of the work environment that can help shape employee behaviour and performance in positive ways.  The report calls for a revised definition of employee engagement – sustainable engagement – which answers the complexities facing 21st century organisations.

Sustainable employee engagement

Employee engagement matters.  Highly engaged employees have lower levels of absenteeism, are more productive at work and are less likely to leave their employers.

The report recommends that leaders focus on developing their own competencies, particularly ones which will help strengthen the connections between themselves and their employees.  Leadership competencies to develop include: global and cultural acumen; rapid decision making; risk leveraging and technological competence and high level, agile interpersonal skills.

A shared view of goals

Stress levels and a sense of alienation are inevitable if employees feel confused about what they should be doing.  Leaders should attempt to identify the cause of this gap in understanding.  Remedies include:

  • Ensuring managers can understand the link between business strategy and individual/departmental objectives – and are able to communicate these
  • Ensuring information is cascaded appropriately
  • Ensuring goals and performance are communicated clearly
  • Ensuring performance management processes are robust

Organisational policies must enable employees to live more balanced lives, manage their own workload and benefit from increased autonomy about how, where and when they work.

The report, Global Workforce Study 2012 – Engagement at Risk: driving strong performance in a volatile global environment is available free of charge here.

The only way is ethics

By on January 12, 2012 in Management, Post

The Ethics Research Center (ERC) based in Arlington, Virginia, has just published its latest National Business Ethics Survey® (NBES) – the ‘barometer of workplace ethics’.  (You can download the full report, free of charge, here).

The current findings have taken the ERC by surprise – all the metrics have diverged from the patterns of previous years and some interesting mixed messages have emerged.  In particular, the ERC notes that two key influences stand out in the unusual shift in trends highlighted in the report:

The economy

The survey’s findings show that companies behave differently in economic hard times and that these behavioural changes are perceived by employees as ‘a heightened commitment to ethics’. More than four in 10 employees (42 percent) say their company has increased efforts to raise awareness about ethics.  Employees respond by adopting a higher standard of personal conduct.  While misconduct witnessed by US workers is at an historic low, reporting is at a near high.

Active social networkers in the workplace

Active social networkers are defined by the ERC as those who spend 30%+ of the working day engaged in social networking activity.  Key findings suggest members of this group have a distinctly different view of ‘ethics’ to those of ‘non-active’ colleagues.  They are more likely to report negative experiences in the workplace, and are more likely to experience pressure to compromise ethical standards.  At the same time, they are more tolerant of what others may consider ‘questionable’ activities.  For example, 42% of them stated it was acceptable to blog or tweet negatively about their employers, compared to just 6% of non-active social networkers.  46% felt it was acceptable to take company software home to use on a home computer (compared to just 7% of ‘others’).

Employers beware!

The report, which is sponsored by large businesses including BP and Walmart, suggests that employers may need to find new ways to work with new types of employees – those who may ignore social media policy but who are equally willing to whistleblow when they are unhappy with the organisation’s own ethical behaviour.  As ‘work’ and ‘life’ merge, it seems that some employees at least are setting their own ethical frameworks in the workplace – organisations ignore this group at their peril.

 

McKinsey’s ‘most read’ of 2011

By on January 3, 2012 in Management

The lull between Christmas and New Year is an excellent time to carry out some work-focused housekeeping duties.  I took the opportunity to spend a few hours reviewing my RSS feeds as well as many additional subscriptions to e-newsletters, daily updates, and press releases.  I took the time to consider which resources had provided real insight and impact in 2011.

One subscription that really did ‘keep on giving’ in 2011 was McKinsey Quarterly.  The latest quarterly update features links to the most popular articles of 2011.  Appearing in the top 10 list, and first published in January 2011, this article on recovering from information overload was discussed in this blog in February.  The popularity of the article suggests that there are many opportunities for information professionals to provide guidance to colleagues on managing information flows.

Some other key themes emerge in the top ten articles, pointing the way to what is exercising those leading teams and organisations.

Creativity – information overload is identified as something that can stifle creativity – but what can spark it?  In Sparking creativity in teams the authors review the latest research and present four techniques to improve creativity, including the use of analogies and creating constraints.  In Seven steps to better brainstorming the authors recommend the asking of better questions, as well as ensuring that the right people are ecouraged to to participate in the process.

Strategy – in Remapping your strategic mindset, the author describes how executives can benefit from better mental (‘rooted’) maps to help them identify opportunities and threats.  In The perils of bad strategy UCLA’s Richard Rumelt summarises the differences between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ strategies and helps readers identify examples of both, while Have you tested your strategy lately provides 10 tests to help executives ensure their strategies are ‘roadworthy’.

All of the top ten articles are well worth reading and McKinsey Quarterly remains on my ‘must read’ list for 2012.  Other subscriptions were not so lucky, but that’s another story!

Making better decisions – in search of the seven ‘x’ factors

By on November 15, 2011 in Management

What are the best models for good decision making processes at the top levels of business and government?  A research report aims to provide practical guidance on how both business and government can increase their chances of making better business decisions.

The report is a result of a collaborative project between Ashridge Business School’s Public Leadership Centre and the Whitehall Industry Group.  The researchers interviewed about 60 senior level decision makers in both sectors to explore key decision making processes. They also conducted extensive literature reviews.  The final report, overseen by a high-powered editorial panel, includes some interesting mini-case studies and identifies the critical success (or ‘x’) factors for successful decision making.

These seven ‘x’ factors are:

  • clarity of objectives and goals combined with a well articulated communication strategy
  • early interaction and good communication with trusted stakeholders
  • relentless focus on priority issues
  • good team working with the right mix of expertise, experience and trust
  • providing opportunities for exploration of risks and frank challenge
  • clear, practical implementation with accountability
  • effective evaluation and review

Terminal 5 at Heathrow

One of the case studies included in the report looks decisions made that led to the well publicised problems that befell the 2008 opening of Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5.  The opening experienced a combination of ‘decision-making traps’ including over optimism about IT; a reduction in staff training time and insufficiently expressed dissent.

A further case study looks at changes made in the training of junior hospital doctors (again ‘over optimism’ emerges as a key factor).

The report is fascinating reading and is free to download here.

Word of mouth really matters

By on November 9, 2011 in Management, Post

When it comes to ‘mission critical marketing’, there are a number of tools and techniques that libraries can use to retain and gain customers.  Beatrice Pulliam and Jenifer Bond wrote about strategic marketing for us last month and shared their experiences and ideas for ‘spreading the word’ at ILI2011.

Meanwhile, some interesting research was released this week by Keller Fay – a consultancy and research company that focuses on the power of ‘word of mouth’ marketing.

They have been conducting tracking studies in the UK and have just announced some of their latest findings at a conference in London, along with a list of the ‘most talked about brands’.

The study suggests that ‘the average UK adult’ talks about brands 78 times per week, and that 94% of these ‘mentions’ happen in face-to-face situations.

Positive word of mouth is extremely powerful.  Recipients attribute credibility to personal recommendations.  According to Keller Fay, organisations and marketers must learn what actually triggers the conversations (advertising/social media campaigns for example).

Happy consumers of your products and services really are a wonderful asset!

Challenges faced by marketing sound familiar

By on October 13, 2011 in Information and Knowledge Management, Management, Post

IBM has just published its 2011 Global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) 2011 report (called From Stretched to Strengthened).  Over 1700 senior marketing staff in 64 countries were interviewed about the transformations and challenges they and their businesses are currently facing.

The CMOs identified four big ‘game changers’

  • data explosion
  • social media
  • proliferation of devices and channels
  • consumer demographics

They also identified key areas for focus and development, including understanding customers and delivering value to them; creating lasting relationships; and the necessity for measuring ROI.  This focus on ROI reflects a move from marketing being seen as a ‘cost centre’ to focusing on customer centric initiatives.   In fact, it’s all sounding rather familiar.

The report synthesises the wisdom of the respondents to suggest nine strategic imperatives.  These too are relevant to information professionals.  These include:

  • focus on creating value to customers as individuals
  • capitalise on new digital channels to stimulate customer conversations
  • use advanced analytics and compelling metrics to improve decision making and demonstrate accountability

It seems there are opportunities for information professionals to help senior marketing colleagues understand the potential impact and deliver the benefits of social media and to support them as they attempt to meet the challenges of data explosion and analysis.

 

 

 

 

Nurturing creativity

By on March 1, 2011 in Management

Creativity is seen as vital to organisational success.  In a recent IBM survey of 1500 CEOs ‘creativity’ was named as the single most important attribute for success in leading large corporations in the future.  The challenge however is not in acknowledging creativity’s importance but in actually fostering creativity.

Jennifer Mueller (a Wharton management professor) along with colleagues conducted some research into creative leadership and came up with some worrying findings.  The full findings, to be published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, suggest that individuals who express more creative ideas may be viewed as having less leadership potential.  Separate studies, conducted in India and the US, suggested that creative people were actually ‘penalised’ when others appraised their leadership potential.

This could be changed however if participants were specifically asked to focus on ‘charismatic’ leadership potential.  Mueller believes that organisations should look at their performance appraisal systems and review the attributes that are being considered when it comes to identifying potential leaders.  Some people may feel uneasy when they actually encounter ‘creativity’ because they are less comfortable with uncertainty and organisations should acknowledge this and adjust their thinking accordingly.

The full story is published here.

There’s no ‘I’ in innovation – or is there?

By on February 16, 2011 in Management

Are group dynamics the enemy of innovation?  Writing in the Financial Post, Mitchell Osak refers to a research study that suggests this is the case.

The researchers undertook experiments that compared two innovation processes:

  • A team centred model, in which  peers were encouraged to collaborate to produce new ideas
  • A hybrid individual team approach, in which individuals were encouraged to brainstorm and refine new ideas alone and then present them to groups for development

Despite the fact that current innovation ‘good practice’ recommends team based processes, the experiments concluded that the hybrid approach generated significantly ‘better quality’ ideas – and more of them. 

Professors Terwiesch and Ulrich (Wharton College), who write about their research here, believe that a hybrid approach encourages more ‘out of the box’ thinking, whereas group dynamics can be harmful to innovation.  Peer groups can fall victim to self censorship and or to overpowering individuals.

However…  the answer is, it seems, not to dismiss the collaborative approach altogether but simply to devise tools and processes that can help minimise the potential negative elements of collaboration by bringing more objectivity to the innovation process.  Suggested techniques include ‘online suggestion boxes’ or ‘innovation tournaments’ where ideas compete for resources.

It’s quite game of Osak to write about this, especially as he happily admits he himself has advocated the collaborative approach to creativity on his own blog.  He quite charmingly refers to himself as an ‘un consultant’!